Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Study Guide

They’re in the thick of winter, and snow is falling hard and fast in the forests where Harry and Hermione are hiding. As Harry is on watch one night outside the tent, he sees a silver light in the forest. He looks closer and sees a silver white doe. It is beautiful, and strangely familiar to Harry, although he can’t say why. The Patronus begins to pick her way back into the forest, and Harry starts to follow her. She leads him to a small frozen pond and disappears. When Harry looks into the pond, he sees Gryffindor’s sword deep in the water.

The only way to get it, Harry knows, is to go in physically and pull it out. After all, only a true Gryffindor could obtain and use the sword. The water is ice cold. As his hands close around the hilt, the Horcrux tightens itself on Harry's neck, trying to choke him. Harry is sure he is going to drown, and is saved by Ron. Ron has come back to the quest and he’s the one, Harry knows, who is to take possession of the sword and break open the locket. The locket puts up a fight, however, and when Harry opens it a voice begins speaking to Ron’s deepest fears.

Instead of stabbing it straight away, Ron listens, horrified, to his worst fears, that Hermione really loves Harry and not him; that Ron will always be overshadowed by everyone he knows; that his mother doesn’t really love him. Everything he always secretly thought is voiced aloud through the locket. Finally, in fury, Ron stabs the locket and it’s destroyed.

Hermione is alternately overjoyed and furious to see Ron again. She rages at Ron for abandoning them, and Ron finally tells the story of how he managed to find them again using Dumbledore’s Deluminator.