Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Pt. 2

Movie: Directed by David Yates.

Inciting Event: Harry and the others go to Bellatrix’s vault at Gringotts bank to discover the next horcrux—the Hufflepuff cup. They barely escape with their lives.

This isn’t, as such, a particularly great Inciting Event. It serves more as a reminder of the main conflict than an initiating of it—which makes sense, as this is actually the second part of the complete episode begun in Pt. 1.

First Plot Point: Harry and the others return to Hogwarts. Even though this isn’t the First Plot Point in the book, it makes a really nice First Plot Point for this final episode in the movies—a final return to the “adventure world” of Hogwarts (a event which has functioned as the First Plot Point in almost all the movies).

First Pinch Point: After Harry and the others kick out Snape and take back Hogwarts, they prepare for battle—and Voldemort brings it to them.

Midpoint: Harry finds the sixth horcrux—Lady Raveclaw’s diadem—destroys it, learns the final horcrux is Voldemort’s snake, and that Voldemort is waiting for him in the boathouse.

Second Pinch Point: After Snape dies, Harry sees Snape’s memories and learns the truth: Snape didn’t murder Dumbledore and, in fact, has been protecting Harry all along. Harry himself is a horcrux and must die if Voldemort is to be rendered mortal.

In most stories, this would be more than enough for a Third Plot Point. But between the threat of death and death itself, the latter is always the better choice for the Third Plot Point, as it is here.

Third Plot Point: Harry allows Voldemort to kill him. After talking with Dumbledore in the dreamspace of the train station, he chooses to allow the Resurrection Stone to return him to life so he can finish the battle. This is a literal representation of the death/rebirth cycle that always happens at least metaphorically in some sense at the Third Plot Point.

Climax: After Voldemort has carried Harry’s body back in triumph to Hogwarts, Harry returns to life and engages in his final duel with Voldemort. “Let us finish this as we started, Tom—together.”

Climactic Moment: Voldemort’s own spell rebounds when the Elder Wand refuses to kill Harry—whom it recognizes as his master—and instead kills Voldemort.

Resolution: Harry breaks the Elder Wand and throws it away. An epilogue shows Harry and the others nineteen years later, sending their own children away to Hogwarts.

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