J.K. Rowling - the author of the series - decided to bring to an end the adventures of Harry Potter. Some people say it is the best decision she could have made given the fact it is so long since she has written and released the first volume but most of the fans, most of them “addicted” to Harry’s adventures, are somehow disappointed.

On July 21st, 2007 the store books all around the world started to sell at 00.00 a.m. the book that might become the best seller of the century Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. 72 million copies of the 7th book of the enormously successful series about the young wizard Harry Potter sold worldwide in only 24 hours. This is a new world record that makes “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” the best sold book ever and its author the most successful novelist in history.

Those who are really mad about Harry Potter lined up in front of book stores to get the book and as soon as they got it started reading it while still on the premises. As I have already mentioned Rowling decided to close the series with Book 7. There were some voices that claimed that Book 6 - “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” - lacked real action until the end that the purpose was to fill in relevant details and set the stage for the last book of the series.

This cannot be the case with “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows“. The story picks up where it was left off and the reader is thrown into a fantastic imaginary world that is darker than any other settings previously drawn by J.K. Rowling. Harry and his friends Hermione and Rongo on a quest shortly after the death of Headmaster Albus Dumbledore and it’s high time they left aside all the familiar places and faces and took their lives in their own hands.

Lord Voldemort, Potter’s perpetual enemy, is omnipresent and his dark power reaches into the most remote corners. The three boy must travel a world full of dangers and there is no place is safe. The initiation journey takes Harry and his friends to unexpected places and situations. They meet characters who were merely mentioned in the previous books and some who resemble them of familiar places and situations. Rivals from the previous volumes show up - one of them actually enters into a positive relationship with Harry Potter but the rest of them still play their role.

Harry, Hermione and Ron try to find the horcruxes - the bowls that lord Voldemort has created to hold fragments of his soul, that transformed him into a virtually immortal person as long as they are not broken. The three boys move through the United Kingdom trying to match all the fragments. While the previous 6 books kept some well hidden secrets “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” reveals many of them thus preparing the stage for the ultimate confrontation between Harry and lord Voldemort who repeatedly tried to murder him.

This last book introduces a new Harry Potter. The boy of 11 has become a young man determined to find his own way no matter what difficulties he has to overcome. J.K. Rowling is a real master of writing and expressing feelings and she really captures the hearts of millions of readers. Her talent helped her creating a detailed world. Her books are full of life and all the human feelings - courage, sadness, redemption terror or humour - have their significance. Sometimes all of them appear in the same character. Book seven makes the reader laugh out loud or even cry.

This last book of the series Harry Potter will make most of the fans of the series wonder about Rowling’s true feelings about her characters who are after all her own creations. She had repeatedly mentioned that some characters would die and it seems that she really meant it. The shocking deaths of the characters in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” make the book more interesting and at the same time add a great dose of sadness to the plot and the literary construction of the novel as a whole. The passing away of some characters are not always presented in violent episodes, the reader discovers that someone has died at the very moment Harry does.

Surprises are everywhere as some of the characters you thought you were familiar with evolve into unexpected ways while others have a more puzzling past than Rowling has previously suggested. The author alludes to people. spells, places or objects that were introduces in the previous 6 books. This last volume closes the circle opened in 1997 by the first Harry Potter book - “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone - with the story of a boy who discovered he was a wizard.

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” and all the six books are more than best sellers. It is the novel which brings together imagination and talent, literary techniques and unique imagery just to create one of the best books ever written. It is more than a simple book for children which entertains the youth. It is the perhaps the revelation that the fantasy genre was expecting, it is the book that has changed both literature and cinema for ever pushing the limits of imagination far beyond any previous work.

A few words on the title of Book 7 - “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows“. Remember there is a day on which people - especially in the USA - celebrate the power of magic and think that the dead come to scare the living. The name of this celebration - Halloween - made me look in a dictionary for some more details. I have found in Marriam-Webster online dictionary that Halloween comes from “All Hallows Eve” where “hallow” means holy man or spirit.

Another name that has drwan my attention is “Voldemort”. In French “vol” means “flight” and “mort” means “death”. So we could translate the name of the evil lord as “The Flight of the death”.