Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (novel)/Tear Jerker

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Hermione putting a memory charm on her parents to keep them safe.

"Wendell and Monica Wilkins don’t know they have a daughter, see."

  • The Deathly Hallows, has this in bucketloads, including, but not limited to: Dobby's death and funeral, Fred Weasley's death, the Resurrection Stone scene, where Harry's parents, Sirius and Lupin appear to escort Harry to his almost certain death, Colin Creevey, "tiny in death", Dumbledore's past, especially when Dumbledore cries when recalling it to Harry, the scene where Harry visits his parents' graves in Godric's Hollow, "wishing he were sleeping under the snow with them".
    • Ron and Harry's meeting next to the icy lake.
    • When Harry learned that he is Voldemort's Horcrux; "Oh my God, he's really gonna die".
    • When Snape was killed.
      • His last words: "Look... at... me..." Because he wanted to see Lily's eyes one more time before he died.
      • Snape's death in the film. He's lying dying in the boat house from having his throat slashed by Voldemort and the bites from Nagini and he gives Harry the memories. His last words; You have your mother's eyes.... The whole time, Lily's Theme has been playing in the background.
    • There was a new scene added to Snape's memories. As Dumbledore tells Snape that Harry is the last Horcrux and that Harry must die, we see Snape visiting the Potters' home just shortly after Voldemort killed James and Lily. As Snape shows Dumbledore that his Patronus is a doe and Dumbledore asks "after all this time" and Snape replies "Always", we see Snape holding Lily's dead body and crying hysterically. And if that isn't bad enough, we see baby Harry kneeling in the crib behind him, face streaked with tears, clutching the bars and wailing inconsolably.
    • When Lupin says that his only regret in life is that he won't get to watch his son grow up.
    • The scene that shows Tonks's and Lupin's bodies, while Harry remembers that they had a son.
    • Here lies Dobby, a free Elf.
    • Hedwig's death.
    • The scene where Hermione is being tortured, while Harry and Ron listen, trapped in the basement of the Malfoy house.
      • The most tearjerk-y thing about that scene isn't even that Hermione is getting tortured, it's that Ron is absolutely losing it because he can't do anything.
    • Everything about Fred's death. Percy laying over his body to protect it, Ron trying to get Percy to move with tears streaking down his face, Harry and Percy moving the body away from the battle.

The world had ended, so why had the battle not ceased, the castle fallen silent in horror, and every combatant laid down their arms?

    • I am about to die. This troper survived Sirius, Dumbledore, Hedwig, Moody, Fred, Lupin, Tonks, and Dobby without shedding a tear. That scene made her bawl like a baby.
    • During the Battle of Hogwarts, when Harry sees that Lupin and Tonks are dead, he pretty much shatters emotionally, running blindly toward the only place where he feels safe: Dumbledore's office. When the gargoyle guarding the staircase to the office asks for the password, Harry says the first thing that comes to mind: "Dumbledore". The password works. Fridge Brilliance kicks in when you realize that Snape set that password, meaning that despite everything, he was just as dedicated to honoring the man's memory as Harry was.
    • Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and McGonagall's reaction to Harry's Disney Death.
    • This troper didn't cry until she read Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness. It turned all the people who died in the final battle from a Redshirt Army of background characters into people with hopes and dreams, families and best friends, people she'd gotten familiar with, people whose jokes and little quirks she'd laughed at, just all around people.
    • A comparatively minor one, but the habit Harry develops of taking out the Marauder's Map just to look at Ginny's dot because that's the closest he can be to her.
  • When Harry finds a letter his mom wrote to Sirius.
  • Kreacher's Tale. That is all.
  • Godric's Hollow. Everything: The grave scene, seeing his house with all the encouraging notes, and the statue commemorating the Potter family, all together.
  • The Prince's Tale was actually a refreshing happy moment for a young Snape with him excitedly telling Lily about Hogwarts until this happens:

"And will it really come by owl?" Lily whispered.
"Normally," said Snape. "But you're Muggle-born, so someone from the school will have to come and explain to your parents."
"Does it make a difference, being Muggle-born?"
Snape hesitated. His black eyes, eager in the greenish gloom, moved over her pale face, her dark red hair.
"No," he said. "It doesn't make any difference."

    • "The Prince's Tale" as a whole is a massive Crowning Moment of Sadness for Snape. From his childhood to being bullied at school, to pushing Lily away and his reaction to her death, culminating with the fact that he spent the rest of his life trying to make up for causing it... This chapter rivals Dumbledore's funeral as the saddest one in the series.

Dumbledore: After all this time?
Snape: Always.

  • Narcissa asking Harry whether Draco was alive. And then betraying Voldemort himself.
    • Then immediately afterwards, when the fighting breaks out again, her and Lucius running through the battle, not lifting a finger to help Voldemort's side, screaming for Draco. Two of the most devout Death Eaters in the series no longer care about Voldemort's war or blood purity or anything else and are simply reduced to two frantic parents desperately searching for their son. It was a moment that made two of the most unsympathetic characters in the books very human.
  • When Lupin visits the Trio at Grimmauld Place and confesses to leaving his pregnant wife. While it's a painful moment for Lupin, so full of guilt and self-loathing, it's actually even worse for Harry, who has just seen his very last "father figure" knocked off a pedestal.

"Parents shouldn't leave their kids unless -- unless they've got to."

    • The way Harry hesitates during the sentence says all too clearly that he's thinking about his own situation - and possibly Tom Riddle's as well. As a result of their parents not being there (Tom Riddle the elder is implied to have abandoned Merope shortly after finding out she was pregnant), both of them were brought up in home situations where they were misunderstood, persecuted, and feared. What Harry really means to say is that the only good excuse for a parent not to be there for their child is if that parent dies. And considering Lupin's fate at the end of the book...
  • Lupin died with a picture of his son in his pocket.
  • Dobby's death. Fatally wounded, he dies in the arms of Harry - his first true friend, but not before he manages to Face Death with Dignity - which all somehow makes it both heartwarming and tragic.

"Dobby is happy to be with his friend, Harry Potter."

  • The Resurrection Stone scene. All of it.

Harry: "Why are you here? All of you?"
Lily: "We never left."

  • Any moment between Narcissa's betrayal of Voldemort and Voldemort's death. The two that give me the worst case of tears are Slughorn (who has always been shown as a bit of a coward) leading the reinforcements for the Battle of Hogwarts and Molly Weasley fighting with Bellatrix Lestrange.
  • The realisation that Andromeda Tonks lost her husband and her daughter's husband walked out on them. Then, he comes back, her grandson is named after her dead husband, and it seems okay. But then there's the battle at Hogwarts. Lupin leaves, and then so does her daughter, and neither of them come back, leaving her with her grandson, named for her husband, and with the same morphing abilities as her dead daughter. The woman barely appears in the book, but experiences as much loss as so many others. (Also, Sirius had died nearly two years beforehand, and a comment Sirius makes in Book 5 implies that they were closest to each other among their family members.)
    • Not to mention the fact that she's the sister of Voldemort's right-hand woman. You see Harry's reaction to her when he doesn't initially realize who she is (or rather, who she isn't), and wonder if other strangers had given her that same reaction. And then you wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that she and her husband live in a secluded location, away from other wizards and witches.
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