Major Arcana: XIII Death

Major Arcana XIII Death

This is the first card of the Major Arcana that I drew. It is the 8th out of 22. When I was working to figure out which Harry Potter person or thing that I wanted to represent Death, I came up with four different things that I wanted to use. As I am just beginning this deck and I wanted to get used to drawing in such tiny areas with ultra thin sharpies and not much room for making mistakes (though I do have a few hundred blank cards, so if I do mess up badly, I can easy replace it), I went with the simplest of the four: The Deathly Hallows. (the others are: The Veil, Kings Cross, and Death [from the Deathly Hallows story])

When the card is facing towards you it means: endings, beginnings, change, transformation, transition
When the card is facing away from you it means: resistance to change, inability to move

The Deathly Hallows are made up of three parts: the wand, the resurrection stone, and the invisibility cloak. They can each represent both sides of Death.

The Elder Wand is a wand that was transferred from hand to hand by ending the life that controlled it. It brought many strength and power that lead more often than not to a very bloody end. It is endings because it ended people's lives; it is beginnings because it allowed its new masters the power to do things that they had never done before; it is transformation and transition because the new masters often became arrogant and boastful as well as powerful, they became different versions of themselves; it is the resistance to change or inability to move because for years and years this wand caused bloodshed, wars, hunts, fights, etc. and no one bothered to stop because the idea of a wand that made you the most powerful wizard in the world was too strong.

The Resurrection Stone is a stone that can bring the dead back to life. It created new life for those who had passed. It also brought endings however. When the second brother- the one who asked for this stone from Death- turned it three times in his hands and got his dead wife back, she was hallow and sad and cold and he committed suicide so that he could join her in death rather than see her suffer with the living. It is inability to move and resistance to change because when the second brother uses the stone, it is because he is unable to move on from the death of the woman he loved. Harry uses the stone when he thinks that he has no room to move because he needs to die to save the people he is fighting for. He calls his parents, Remus Lupin, and Sirius Black to accompany on his way to meet his death. They are all people whose death he can't move on from and that haunt him.

The Invisibility Cloak is a cloak that turned the wearer invisible. It was of better quality than any invisibility cloak in the world because it was made by Death himself. It belonged to Harry's dad before he was murdered by Voldemort but it could have had the potential to save him had it not been in Dumbledore's possession at the time. This is how it can represent endings. It can represent beginnings because Harry receives it from Dumbledore in his first year and it gives him the ability to travel around the school at night, when and where he shouldn't but ultimately giving him the power to find a way to defeat Voldemort. It is the beginning of much adventure and discovery for Harry and his friends. It is transformation or transition because well it changes you from being able to be seen to being unable to be seen. It has also been passed down through from generation to generation which is how it ends up being Harry's. It can resist change because even though it is very very very very very old and has been through a lot, it never stopped being useful. Once, in fourth year Harry was using the cloak to get back to the Gryffindor tower and he got stuck in one of the trip stairs. If it hadn't been for the Invisibility Cloak, he would have been in a lot of trouble.