deathly hallows

[quigonginger]

It finally came to me.  I was wondering why the term "hallowed" 
seemed familiar other than the Lord's Prayer.  Something out 
there...elusive...on the tip of my tongue, but then gone- like the 
ephemeral bag of chocolates that vanish of their own volition from my 
pantry.

Then today I was humming an old tune from my past, and it hit me:  it 
had the word "hallowed" in it.

Back when Hector was a pup, I was a high school student in 
Wisconsin.  Every year, on the night before graduation, we had a 
choir concert which always closed with us singing "The Halls of Ivy".

I'll try to remember as much of it as I can.

Oh, we love the halls of ivy 
That surround us here today,
And we will not forget,
Though we be far, far away.

One day a hush will fall,
The footsteps of us all
Will echo down the hall and disappear.
But as we sadly start 
Our journeys far apart
A part of every heart will linger here.

To the hallowed halls of ivy
Every voice will bid farewell
And (something) off in twilight
Like the old vesper bell.

I'm sure there's more to it, but that's what I remember.  Considering 
we had neither ivy nor a vesper bell anywhere in the school, it was 
an odd song for us to sing, but the director liked it, and we did 
have halls.

After a few years of singing it, you did get misty singing it that 
one last time.  And those ivy-free walls, were kind of hallowed.  Not 
as in consecrated in a religious way, but held full of memories.  The 
friends, the teachers, the pranks in the halls, the waiting in line 
to see what sort of announcement had gone up that had everyone 
buzzing and crowding around.  The posting of scores during test 
week...ok, so not all memories were good, but those halls really did 
get hallowed by the time you had to say good-bye.  Or perhaps because 
you had to say good-bye.

So now I'm wondering if the Deathly Hallows are some place that Harry 
considers sacred in some way, which then, during the course of the 
book, becomes deathly, either by a mass killing or an emptying, as in 
a deathly silence.

Either way, it doesn't really look good for Hoggy Woggy Hogwarts, 
which I think would be the place that Harry would hallow most of all.

Of course, I'm bringing in a whole load of baggage that JKR wouldn't 
have associated with the word, but who knows if this wouldn't be a 
profitable line of inquiry?  On some level... or tangent...maybe.

Ginger, enjoying the company of her new hamster, Henrik Pavel Tomas 
Nicklas Dominik.