Rowling is giving answers! Highlights:
- Harry and Ron are aurors and have revolutionized the department
- Hermione works in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement
- Neville/Luna is a possibility
- The Ministry is a much better place
- She meant to write a vague, non-descript Epilogue, because the detailed one she had written was too cluttered – “it didn’t work well as a piece of writing.”
Red Rocker on 
SPT on 
Derek D on 
Travis Prinzi on 
Arabella Figg on 
Loading ...
{ 33 comments… read them below or add one }
Thansk for that Travis… I can’t say that the new one is amazing either BUT it has kept the speculation up so much and will continue to do so for a long time. Well until the Encyclopedia comes out. Her gift to us was handing the series over to us. For the time being, allowing us to play with her magical world ourselves. The epilogue to book seven was almost a teaser for the next part of our journey… that being the back story, future story that we’ll be getting from here on out. Typical Jo, such a tease.
And I was right in saying that she did have a longer one out there, she just held off putting it in the book.
I just watched the first part of her Today Show Interview this morning and she still is very hesitant to categorize Snape as a hero. She admits he’s extremely brave but she doesn’t consider him a hero. A fan asked her if she thought he would have helped Harry or cared about him in any way if it weren’t for Lily, and she said (flat-out) no. I’m not surprised with that last one but I still think his heroism, however murky, is there, if only as a mere shadow of Harry’s heroism. Snape is admittedly a very flawed character and his love was limited. Even so, I’d like to guess he had begun to care for Dumbledore at one point…he was distinctly furious at Dumbledore’s order to kill him.
I can’t help but wonder if Snape’s reservations about killing Dumbledore encouraged Dumbledore to finally tell Snape that Harry was a horcrux. The idea that Dumbledore had “used him” and had helped him to protect Lily’s son only to have Harry killed in the end was probably what gave Snape the right amount of hatred to perform the killing curse on the tower.
“Poor Severus…”
I’ve watched that interview, too, and oh dear. “Not remotely interested in what would have happened to the boy†he’d practically sentenced to death when telling Voldemort about the prophesy… Tear my heart out, Jo. I never thought of Snape as a saint or a hero, but I hoped that he was at least remotely interested in the destiny of the child.
I guess his love for Lily was the best that he had and he made the most of it…
The interview was well done, though I would have loved to have heard all the questions and answers. The article that is online was much more detailed and I can only assume carries some details from the second part that airs tomorrow.
I was very happy with the epilogue, but am grateful for the additional details. Before I read the book, I had thought that the epilogue would almost be a listing of each character and where they are now, but I’m so glad that I was wrong and that she left it more vague and misty. I love what she has written and it gave me exactly what I needed the knowledge that Harry is finally happy and has a wonderful family.
I too was a little surprised by her dismissal of Snape being a hero, but I do understand her reluctance to call him one. In many ways though he was courageous, if it wasn’t for Lily than he would have felt nothing toward Harry. This could have meant that the Potters wouldn’t have gone into hiding since he was the one that warned Dumbledore that Voldemort was targeting them. So, in some regard he was a hero, but looking at the whole picture he wouldn’t have been one without Lily. Overall Snape is a very flawed and brillantly written character. Even at the end we think we know him, but he is still a mystery.
I think I’m probably in a small minority, but I love the epilogue the way it is. I’m glad to hear her describe it as poetic and “misty” because that’s what it felt like. There was a beauty to its brevity (which is not to say I’m not curious to know more!) which gave it a feeling of a snapshot or a brief home video. Just a moment captured in time, but what a moment — and how many volumes of things can be read into that moment about the way the world has changed/remained the same. I also love ending at platform 9 3/4 on a first day of school. Life goes on, and that’s so beautiful to know!
Beth, I’m in the same minority. I actually liked the Epilogue.
Mark me down as an Epilogue-liker, too. I think Rowling’s assessment about “cluttering” the epilogue with details was right on the money, and I’m glad she went with the shorter one.
Rowling doesn’t want us to admire Snape, I think. She believes we should definitely commend him for his bravery and enduring love for Lily, but that we should not look to him as an example. I think she defines a hero as someone to look up to, someone like Harry. I think that’s the crux of the matter. Harry is a hero, Snape is not, but not because Snape is a bad person. I only wish she would explain that more clearly. Snape isn’t necessarily “bad”, he’s just not nearly a paragon and isn’t someone you’d want to hear a child wish to be.
In other words, seriously_black wasn’t exactly wrong. He was wrong on plot details, but he was quite correct to think Rowling doesn’t want us to consider a sadist a hero.
Now I have to rethink Snape altogether. I’m beginning to think that, even though the character got away from her in Fandom, she knew exactly what she was doing with the character in canon all along.
shadowquill, I think you are right. Still, Harry named one of his children Severus and called him one of the bravest men he’d ever known. He even regarded him as a legitimate headmaster of Hogwarts. So I take it, he wanted his son to be proud of that name and to look up to him, even though he was a flawed character.
No, Snape wasn’t exactly what you call a hero. He had an all too human reason for choosing the right side, but somehow I like that. People with stronger moral principles and values can become quite Pharisaic and self righteous. Snape was a sinner, he totally messed up, but he loved someone and tried to do make amends. I sympathize with that, though it’s not an excuse for everything he did wrong.
First post here, but I’ve been lurking for months.
The key to Snape, I propose, is that regardless of who he is loyal to at any given moment, he wraps himself in a “I’m just following orders” approach to existence.
Snape in the end is a follower, not a leader. Now, we need followers, but we need followers who also engage with the cause to which they are devoted, who bring their own love and creativity and intuition to the situations they face. When did Snape ever show an ounce of initiative?
He blindly follows Voldemort; he blindly follows Dumbledore; he even blindly (in a sense) follows Harry when Harry asks him in Umbridge’s office to warn the Order about Sirius. He certainly blindly follows Lilly – at least the idea of Lilly that exists in his own mind – his entire life.
I’d venture to say that Dumbledore is trying, throughout his entire relationship with Snape, to provoke him to have an original thought, an original inclination towards love. I think it is very close to Dumbledore’s hands-off approach to the Dursleys, as captured in HBP. He never tries to force the Dursleys to show Harry affection, because he knows that can’t be forced. But he certainly chides them over never finding the intiative in their own hearts to do so.
I think there is a strong connection between this theme and the two forms of magic in which Snape excels – occlumency and potions. Potions requires a rigorous following of instructions in the mixing of ingredients. Even though Snape is to a certain degree right in calling it an art, there’s no doubt that it’s the least intuitive of the forms of magic we see. And occlumency, for both good and ill, is all about isolation. It is about shutting your mind and heart to others. It is in the end about mastering the ability to break communion, to break off an organic, living relationship with others. We see this in how Harry is unable to master the kind of occlumency Snape teaches, the “closing of the mind.” Harry instead learns a different kind of occlumency, one based on letting love and joy and grief and determination overwhelm attempts to intrude on the mind.
Bless,
Doug
How about that theory of the fathers. Snape’s father neglected him as a child, and he was looking for a father in Voldemort, and later Dumbledore, this explains why he was so ticked off at having to kill Dumbledore, the closest thing (or man!) to a father he had ever had.
There is a word for someone who does heroic acts, but doesn’t quite meet the other requirements of a hero: noble thoughts and feelings, noble goals. That word is antihero.
It has quite a respectable history in literature: Manfred, Sydney Carton, Heathcliff, Lord Jim. the Whisky Priest – to name the ones that spring quickly to mind.
As for whether JKR knew what she was doing, a lot depends on how she sees Dumbledore. If he is the “flawed but forgiven, repentant and restored man” Travis has suggested he is, then Snape is her unloved child. If she sees Dumbledore as a seriously flawed and not that repentant nor that restored either man, then Snape becomes a more tragic figure, no more loved perhaps, but more sinned against and more noble in comparison.
Harry’s story was a hero’s story. Snape’s story was that of a sinner who finds redemption. At least, that’s how I read it. I think Rowling meant that if we see Snape as a hero we miss the point that character is meant to convey.
I, too, preferred this epilogue to a more detailed one. The other kind would be more like the ending of a bad police procedural: “So-and-so was convicted and sentenced to life in Azkaban. Percy Weasley continued at the Ministry and is still a humorless prat. . .” Etc.
I remember how Dumbledore said in the fourth movie “Personally I’ve never had much time for heroesâ€. That line wasn’t in the book, but I greatly liked it.
Trish, in Deathly Hallows, Percy told the Minister, Thicknesse, that he resigned. And he was joking around, he isn’t a humorless prat anymore.
Oh, I know that. But in the epilogue, they were all avoiding him because he was pontificating about Ministry stuff.
Anyway, that was just an example of why a longer epilogue wouldn’t have worked.
Hi, I am brand new here. Great site. Was referred by LaShawn Barber. I too loved the Epilogue.
With Harry naming the one boy after Severus, I think he realized the extent of Snape’s sacrafice for him — although it was for Lily. Even though Snape was acting for his own reasons, he had a huge task to perform. I don’t know if he ever cared for Harry, you certainly couldn’t tell, but he also could never treat Harry any differently than he treated him.
If anyone had an inkling of what he was doing, by treating Harry fairly, not treating Draco well, word would have gotten back to Riddle and all would have been lost.
I also don’t know if I believe he was just a follower. In HBP he did change the potions around to make them better. There was also the other spells that were written in the book. Granted, they weren’t nice spells, but it did show initiative.
One thing that is bothering me and I don’t know if this was addressed somewhere else so forgive me it was, but the lack of Snape’s picture in the Headmaster’s office. I was hoping for a picture-to-face Snape/Potter discussion, but that never happened.
I don’t think there’s a majority of people who dislike the epilogue. I think the majorite of popular fandom sites are teenagers, and they are disappointed. Domesticity is boring. I believe the majority of adults, especially parents, were quite satisfied with the peace the epilogue represents.
In defense of the epilogue, I thought the following things were perfect:
Harry’s little girl Lily complaining that she wants to go to Hogwarts, but can’t, a la Ginny in SS.
Rose already had her school robes on, proving she was Hermione’s little clone.
Ron asking Harry if he parked OK, and then the subsequent jokes about his driving ability, in reference to the enchanted car disaster in CoS.
Albus Severus: cheesy, but shows Harry’s forgiveness and respect for both men. And that he also has Lily’s eyes.
Harry telling Al that it will be OK if he’s in Slytherin.
The fact that the trio’s children are siblings/cousins, and the trio themselves are brothers/sisters-in law.
Draco’s acknowledgement of Harry. Any more that a curt nod would have made me roll my eyes.
Ginny scolding her son for interrupting Victoire and Teddy, referring to Ron’s interrupting of Ginny’s snogging in HBP.
The fact that everyone still stares at Harry, 19 years later, but his kids don’t even know the story.
We know Hagrid is still happy at Hogwarts and plans on having tea with the trio’s kids.
Harry knows his son will be alright, because his scar no longer hurts. He has saved his children’s generation with his sacrifices.
The epilogue shows maturity, domesticity, peace, hope, forgiveness, the circle of life, healing between the houses (Harry saying it would be proud if Al were in Slytherin), and all Harry ever ached for, a normal life and a happy family – with his best friends literally being a part of that. No words can explain how perfectly satisfying that is for me! Maybe it’s because I’m a parent, maybe it’s because I am overly sappy. But the resounding feeling among adults that I know seems to be that it was perfect.
We will have the encyclopedia to answer the other questions. Why does anyone care who Draco’s wife was?
Jennifer
Jennifer,
You couldnt have said it any better, I absolutely agree with you.
Jennifer, I’ll say that while I’m not concerned over who Draco’s wife is in a “fandom” sense, I really would have liked to learn a bit more about the resolution of the Malfoy family in particular, and the Gryffindor/Slytherin divide in general. (Lest we forget, Dark Wizards still exist, post-Riddle, and there will still be adherents to the notion of pureblood superiority.) Do Draco and his dad still regard Harry and “his lot” as enemies and traitors? Or are they now just acquaintances and fellow wizards?
If Draco’s wife were a Gryffindor, wouldn’t that say lots. (Hey Draco, those Patil sisters are real lookers!) But c’mon, what kid wants to be named Scorpius?
Nicholas
Albus Severus Potter. How could a kid with the initials ASP not be in Slytherin?!
Nicholas–
well, for that matter, what kid would want to be named Draco? Or Regulus. . .
I must have missed something in the interview, because I didn’t notice a reference to Luna and Neville. I thought, from reading the book, that it was Luna and Dean.
But I’m confused about something. Aren’t the Aurors part of (most of, the primary element of) the Department of Magical Law Enforcement? Or am I wrong?
One of my favorite quotes from the book, when Scrimgeour asks Hermione if she is considering a career in Magical Law and she says no, she wants to do something good in the world.
I liked the Epilogue. I was glad it was a narrative and not a list of who was doing what, though I wouldn’t have minded a list after the epilogue (sort of a — well, like end notes or something).
I was hoping to learn a lot more in the epilogue. But on further reflection, I can see JKR’s point, that it didn’t work well. It would have turned the epilogue into a kind of encyclopedia instead of a mini-story. Good for us obsessive fans, but not anyone else. Hopefully, she will write that encyclopedia in the future, and in the meantime give us answers to the most common questions.
JKR has made it clear over the years that Snape is in many ways not a good person. He is based on a sadistic teacher she knew. Snape did not have to be mean to Harry to maintain his cover. He could have told VM that he had to treat Harry decently to maintain his cover within Hogwarts. And Snape treated most of his students in a cruel way, not just Harry, Harry just got the worst of it.
The way that Snape responded to Dumbledore’s injuries does seem to indicate that he had a lot of respect for Dumbledore, and maybe even some affection.
Harry’s son having the middle name ‘Severus’ was a way of recognizing what was good in Snape. It perhaps showed a way in which Harry was like his mother, seeing the best in people. I think it was a way in which JKR is showing the importance of forgiveness. Psychologists tell us that forgiveness is in many ways more important to the well being of those doing the forgiving than those being forgiven. So maybe it was, in part, a way for Harry to let go of his resentment towards Snape. I just hope that he didn’t hurt his son in the process – there must surely be a lot of people around who have very negative memories of Snape, and little or no understanding that there could have been any good in Snape.
Porf M in regards to Harry injuring his son by naming him Severus, I tend to think that Harry let everyone know of Snape’s sacrifice, and that Harry made sure that Snape was honored with the other good guys who died that day. It would not surprise me in the least if Snape, along with others, were buried alongside DD on the Hogwarts grounds. Of course, Harry did tell Voldy and everyone else in the Great Hall at the time that Snape was DD’s man, and had been a good guy all along. Maybe that sufficed.
And in the end, who would disagree with Harry Potter after all that?
Namewise, the problem with Draco’s clan is really their *last* name, moreso than their first. Courtesy of our good friend John, Granger, “Malfoy” can be translated as “bad faith”, or “faith in evil”. I love John’s comment – “I might move if the family next door was named ‘bad faith’!”
Still, apart from its possible connection to the dragon of Revelation, “Draco” just seems kind of a cool name. “Scorpius”, on the other hand, . . . . . Maybe he’ll get a nickname, like “Dutch” or something else.
Not sure if I missed it but I am suprised JKR was not asked about Teddy. I thought for sure he would have lived with Harry because of what would be similar childhoods and Harry also being his godfather. Harry was very excited to live with Sirius once he discovered he was his godfather (and wasn’t a killer!!) Wonder where Teddy is? Maybe with his Grandmother….
Who did draco malfoy marry?
i found a site that said it was most likley that Pansy Parkinson was malfoys wife but i am not sure i realy wanna know does anyone know?
I for one was a little disappointed in the epilogue. Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t that I didn’t like it, I just found it felt tacked on and didn’t live up to my expectations. Based on the overall length of the series, I was hoping to see the final confrontation come much sooner in the book, and about 1/4 to 1/3 of the book dedicated to the aftermath. That might sound like a lot to some people, but I think the story was deserving of a more complete wrap up. Oh well, I’ll survive. And reread the book countless times in the process.
Personally, I don’t consider Snape a hero, flawed or otherwise. I also see his bravery as being somewhat less than Harry makes it out to be. Snape’s motivations simply cannot be discounted when looking at his actions. Knowingly putting ones life on the line everyday takes bravery yes, but with Snape it struck me as being entirely self serving. After reading Snape’s memories in the Deathly Hallows, I was left with the impression that Snape was only siding with Dumbledore for 1 reason. Snape lost everything he cared about when Lily died and saw Dumbledore as his only chance for revenge. If Harry’s mother had been anyone else, Snape would have cared less and done absolutely nothing. He was never motivated by a desire to defeat evil, he just wanted to get even and was willing to do anything to achieve that end.
Jennifer, please don’t generalize and make the mistake of relagating the majority who would be disappointed in the epilogue to the status of teenagers thinking domesticity is boring. I’m 35 and a parent myself. I have nothing wrong with the domesticity you admired about the ending. What is lacking is the fact that there would have been a long, hard road from Voldemort’s fall before ariving at that domesticity. That hard road leading up to the 19 years later is what I missed.
Rowlings did confirm in an interview that Teddy was raised by his grandmother – Andromeda, I believe. And it sounds like Harry has discharged his duties as a godfather very faithfully with regular contact.
When Snape first comes to Dumbledore, he asks Dumbledore not to reveal why he changed sides – which is probably why Dumbledore was unable to tell Harry the truth. At the time, Dumbledore says to Snape something to the effect, “Why do we want me to hide the best part of you?” – implying that his love for Lilly was the best thing he had going. It does seem to be the only reason he ever had for working against Voldemort, and it doesn’t seem like he ever changed much beyond that.
Snape’s only really good qualities (aside from being a powerful wizard, which is not intrinsically good or evil).
1. His love for Lilly
2. courage
3. likely (in my opinion) respect, and perhaps some degree of affection for Dumbledore
Snape’s negative qualities are legion: fascination with the dark arts, cruel, sadistic, unfriendly, etc. It’s interesting that Umbridge, without being a death eater, could be just as cruel and sadistic as Snape.
However, on further reflection, I think perhaps Harry isn’t really hurting his son by giving him Severus as a middle name. It would have been well known that Snape was working for Dumbledore, and it would have also been well known that Harry suffered more than anyone from Snape’s negative traits. If he can forgive Snape, then maybe others can as well. Maybe ‘forgiveness’ is Rowling’s message in having Harry give a son ‘Severus’ as a middle name. And it’s not like anyone has to use their middle name on a regular basis.