(Last post on Harry Potter for a while – promise!)

And so it all came down to this, the final novel in the series, in which J K Rowling was faced with the monumental task of drawing together the threads of the previous six novels, resolving all the puzzles and storylines and giving everyone an ending, of sorts.

The earlier novels adhered to a format structured around the school year – they start during the summer holidays, Harry has an adventure of some sort before returning to Hogwarts, and then his life is dominated by the demands of lessons, homework, sports and meals in the Great Hall. This is the backdrop against which all his adventures have been set, and it became familiar and comforting – no matter what happened, you knew in a few months/chapters Hagrid would be decorating the school with trees from the forest, Christmas jumpers from Mrs Weasley would arrive, and the clock continue to tick down to the denouement with whichever iteration of Voldemort was in play that year.

So it was quite a shock that Rowling abandoned this structure in Deathly Hallows. I didn’t expect it at all, although in hindsight how Harry could have returned to Hogwarts after the end of Half Blood Prince I am not sure. The opening is one of those rare (and therefore all the more striking) non-Harry scenes I mentioned in my review of Half Blood Prince. Set at Malfoy Manor it sees Voldemort revelling in his return to power, surrounded by sycophantic Death Eaters, killing the Hogwarts Muggle Studies Professor, Charity Burbage and feeding her body to Nagini. If Hogwarts professors are unsafe this is obviously a dangerous world – this is reinforced quickly by the deaths of Hedwig and Mad-Eye Moody. A taste of things to come obviously, but I wonder how younger children would have reacted to the unmitigated bleakness of these chapters? There’s no ambiguity about the choices Rowling made here. She could have written seven children’s stories using the template of Philosopher’s Stone, but instead decided to age the novels with her readers. This was a really innovative approach and had the effect of ensuring that her core readership didn’t grow away from the series, even if it did mean a possible loss of readers at the younger end of the scale.

After a brief moment of relaxation at Bill and Fleur’s wedding, the trio are off hunting the four remaining horcruces (or is it horcruxes?) (two, the diary and the ring, already having been destroyed) with only the barest amount of information to go on. As well as the memories and training provided by Dumbledore, they also have three gifts from their headmaster’s will – his deluminator, the first snitch Harry ever caught, and a copy of the Tales of Beadle the Bard. I am sure Rowling will have explained why Dumbledore didn’t give them as much help as possible, but the reader shares the trios frustration at how difficult he made this task. Remus Lupin offers to help, but Harry sends him back to his new family – for Harry, who never really had one, family is everything. With so little to go on the trio spend a long time aimlessly travelling around the country, and it is in these scenes where the novel lags, although all is forgiven and forgotten when the action accelerates at the end of the novel.

Speculation prior to the novel’s publication focussed on discussing the many clues – and of course red herrings – that were scattered through the previous six novels. I can remember being convinced that one of the horcruxes would be found in Borgin and Burkes, where Voldemort worked after leaving Hogwarts. Wrong, of course. The central mystery of the series, the relationship between Voldemort, Harry, and his scar, was workoutable, but everything else including the location of the remaining horcruxes and the identity of the Deathly Hallows was virtually impossible to guess, which was typical of the way Rowling had structured her puzzles throughout the series.

There is an element of ‘greatest hits’ about some of the scenes in Deathly Hallows – a return to several of the key locations (eg the Shrieking Shack, the Chamber of Secrets, Gringotts) and characters (eg Ollivander, Dobby, Griphook) encountered in previous novels. But there are also new locations, notably Godric’s Hollow, new characters (Aberforth finally emerges from the shadows) and Dumbledore’s extensive back story is explored. The novel’s climax, the long-awaited Battle of Hogwarts, is epic and memorable. Rowling is ruthless in despatching much-loved characters from the series, her justification being ‘this is war, people die’. The political themes of the novels finally emerge unambiguously – Voldemort and the Death Eaters are racists, blood-purists, and have to be beaten no matter the cost.

I know some readers were disappointed with the epilogue set nineteen years after the battle, in which Harry and friends are shown seeing their children off on the Hogwarts Express to continue the story. However this scene matters because it gives the author the chance to quell any doubts about the outcome: “The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. All was well.”

The Harry Potter series was a phenomenon, and I suspect we have yet to see the end of it – the Fantastic Beasts films, the stage play The Cursed Child, (which must be turned into a film soon, surely?) and numerous other commercial ventures have all contributed to keeping the revenues rolling in and the franchise alive.

For years now I have been trying to work out why a series that is in many ways so wholly unoriginal had such an impact. It could be that the magic of Harry Potter is actually derived from that lack of originality. I wouldn’t go so far as to say even non-magical Harry is an everyman character, but he is in many ways unexceptional – a point he constantly makes in fact. When he enters the magical world we Muggles go with him, and see the magic with the same renewed sense of wonder, even if we have seen wizards waving wands so many times before. This world is at the same time both extraordinary and everyday, rooted in the things we all have to deal with, combining the fantastical with the ordinary and created something unique. Her decision to make the novels darker and more mature as Harry passes through the school years was also unquestionably a master-stroke. Seven different versions of The Philosopher’s Stone would have been fun eventually quite boring.

Just one last thought – is there a best way to read the Harry Potter novels? As a teenager? As they were published? In audio-book form? Unusually I think there is a right answer to this one, which is: out loud, to a child or children of the right ages. If you are privileged enough to be able to do this you will experience the wonder Rowling weaves through their eyes, as well as being able to appreciate the novels in your own terms.