Nightmare Fuel / Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

"Nagini... dinner.''

This is Harry Potter's darkest hour, with Hogwarts no longer safe and his fated showdown with Voldemort draws near. The final chapter in the saga holds no punches in demonstrating the horrors of the second wizarding war.

WARNING: Spoilers are unmarked.

---

• The warning from Kingsley's Patronus, knowing that shit has finally hit the fan.
  "The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming."
• Nagini inhabiting Bathilda Bagshot's corpse and controlling her like a puppet, then shedding her dead body like it was snake skin. The entire scene is extremely creepy, beginning with the gruesomely-detailed descriptions of the horrific condition of Bathilda's house and Bathilda herself, and ending with a battle against Nagini in a pitch-dark room. Complete with a Jump Scare when Harry and Hermione wonder if she's dead and she lunges at them.
  • Nagini in general is Nightmare Fuel, especially if you're ophidiophobic.
  • In the movie, before we even know that Bathilda's being possessed (unless you've read the book, of course), we have Harry upstairs alone with the poor senile old woman, while Hermione looks around downstairs. While the atmosphere is a little unsettling, you don't realise until Hermione stumbles upon a dark room which, when lit, has the walls and ceiling covered in blood spatter.
  • The concept art of Nagini exiting Bathilda's Body◊ is incredibly disturbing. Her body looks like it's melting.
• Neville offhandedly mentions that the Hogwarts's Dark Arts classes post-takeover have involved practicing the Cruciatus Curse on first-years. You know, the curse that inflicts horrible, unimaginable, incomprehensible pain? You know, the curse that drove Neville's parents insane? It's the definition of Fridge Horror.
• Remember how Harry sees Voldemort instructing a freaked-out Malfoy to perform the Cruciatus Curse? It is explicitly stated that you have to really intend to put someone in pain for it to work; also shown when Harry uses it. How much of Malfoy's actions was out of fear for Voldemort, and how much was it out of Malfoy's genuine Jerkass nature?
• Snape's brutal murder. Oh, how beautiful it must be to see his neck chewed on by Nagini, then see him writhing on the floor in pain as blood and memories leak out from him.
  • The movie has this as a Nothing Is Scarier moment; we see it only partially through a dirty window, and only hear the sound of the snake striking at Snape again and again.
    • Even worse, before Snape is killed by Nagini, he has his throat cut open by Voldemort. All with a flick of his wand.
  • In the film, you can see the reaction of the Trio, hiding outside the boathouse, as it happens. Harry hates Snape at this point and even he's horrified as he listens to Nagini attacking him.
  • Also bear in mind that, in the books, it happens in the Shrieking Shack. The place of his humiliation and bitter memories. For Snape being at death's door, it must have been terrifying with triggers to the time when he nearly got eaten by Wolf!Remus in the same place.
• Whilst explaining to the Dursleys why they should evacuate, Harry tells Vernon that if they stay at Privet Drive, they’ll think Harry will come and rescue them. Emphasis on the word ‘think’. Both Harry and Vernon are not sure whether Harry would actually try and save HIS OWN FAMILY after the way they’ve treated him.
• A trio of wayward young men did a certain something to Ariana, an unsupervised 6-year-old, that permanently drove her insane AND turned her into an Obscurial. Given that this is technically a family book, it's all but stated that they raped her. No wonder Percieval Dumbledore went Papa Wolf on the boys and attacked them.
• The fate of Voldemort. He ends up as a shrunken, slimy thing trapped between life and death, and he's stuck there forever and nobody will ever help him. Yeeeesh.◊
  • Little, scarred, blistered, soulless, mewling creature Voldemort, so repugnant-looking that Harry doesn't want to touch it. In the movie, it's covered in blood.
  • Nightmare Retardant of course when you realise he deserved it. Though, as pointed out on other Nightmare Fuel pages, the fact that he does deserve this can make it all the more chilling for some.
  • When Harry sees this, all hatred he has felt for Riddle evaporates, to be replaced with pity.
• The Ministry rounding up Muggle-Borns, even the children. And it's implied that a lot of them (yes, even kids) are given to the Dementors....
• During the trio's imprisonment at Malfoy Manor:
  • Fenrir Greyback's remarks about Hermione are very creepy.
  • Even worse is Bellatrix torturing Hermione—especially in the movie, in which Bellatrix carves "Mudblood" into Hermione's wrist (with the added scare factor of hearkening back to the tattoos that Jewish prisoners received in concentration camps during The Holocaust). It's as disturbing as it is devastating to watch, with Hermione's horrifying screaming, and Ron and Harry unable to do anything while imprisoned in the cellar. This scene undoubtedly shows Bellatrix at her scariest.
  • Special mention for the choreography of the movie making said scene look disturbingly a lot like a rape.
• Umbridge keeps her government post when Voldemort takes over the country and turns it into a thinly-disguised fascist dystopia, to many readers' lack of surprise.
• The magical eye mounted on Umbridge's door, which used to belong to Mad-Eye Moody.
• Umbridge during the interrogation of Muggle-borns. Just remember that her Patronus-fueling happy thought is sending people to their deaths. She wears a horcrux around her neck, a part of Voldemort's soul, and she has no trouble producing a Patronus in the presence of Dementors. Even scarier is that Umbridge was never a follower of Voldemort. She's always been loyal to the Minister of Magic, whomever that may be; unfortunately, Pius Thicknesse, the current Minister of Magic, is under the effect of an Imperius Curse from Voldemort. Umbridge takes advantage of the situation. She already was an incorrigible sadist before Voldemort took over, after all...
  • It's actually even worse. Her Patronus-fueling happy thought isn't sending people to their deaths. It's sending them to Dementors.
  • It's somehow even worse in the audiobook. Jim Dale acting out a terrified, screaming man being led away from the court and trying to resist the Dementors.
• The "Dumbledore corpse" that appears to anyone who enters 12 Grimmauld Place.
• Voldemort kills the wandmaker Gregorovitch, who is described as having a similar appearance to Father Christmas. So, in a sense, Voldemort murdered Santa Claus.
  • Voldemort arrives at a Muggle house looking for Gregorovitch. The way it's described with the happy mother opening the door, her laughing children in the background, then seeing him and begging for her life and trying to protect her children... he kills an entire family just because he went to the wrong house.
• Ron getting splinched from a botched apparation from the Ministry. A large chunk of flesh is missing from his body.
• Voldemort pursuing the heroes in mid-air without a broom, flying like a bat out of hell.
  • Somewhat diminished as this significantly slows down the time it would take for Voldemort to get somewhere.
  • But restored when you realize he can easily enter places that are safeguarded against apparition, like Hogwarts.
• The scene where the Trio are visiting Luna's house and go into her room... and realise that she hasn't been there for quite some time. It's worse when Harry begins to calmly punch holes through her dad's excuses. Something is terribly wrong here. Later, it's revealed that Luna's okay.
  • That an underaged girl was taken from a train of students and imprisoned in a basement for months in a house regularly populated by the likes of Bellatrix Lestrange and Fenrir Greyback. The same basement shared by Mr Ollivander, who Lord Voldemort himself has tortured more than once for information.
  • For Xenophilius, the whole situation is nightmarish. Short story: the Death Eaters kidnapped his daughter because he publicly supported Harry, and he isn't even sure if Luna is still alive. While Ron is initially angry at him for his betrayal, neither Harry nor Hermione blames him for that, as they understand that it was the actions of a desperate father.
• The "Tale of the Three Brothers" sequence is gorgeously animated with an eerie atmosphere, portraying the three brothers and Death as spindly puppets.
  • Antioch's murderer sneaks up on him as he is sleeping, draws his knife, and a slashing sound is heard along with his bedside candle being snuffed out and blood being splattered on the wall.
  • When Cadmus hangs himself to be with the girl he loves in death, the walls of his home unfold like a dollhouse, followed by a monstrous-sized Death appearing and lifting Cadmus's corpse up by the rope he hung himself with.
• The prologue, when Voldemort murders Charity Burbage, the Muggle Studies teacher. The whole reason he targeted her to begin with: For daring to suggest that Muggles should be tolerated and peacefully coexisted with. Knowing all the poor woman wanted was peace makes watching her die, while tearfully begging for Snape's help, all the more heartrending for the viewer/reader and Snape. But it's what he says afterwards that is the true Nightmare Fuel:
  "Dinner, Nagini," said Voldemort softly, and the great snake swayed and slithered from his shoulders onto the polished wood.
  • It's even worse as you see Draco Malfoy and some of his cronies/fellow students attending the event in the movie. All of them look terrified, one of them silently breaks down crying after Voldemort kills the teacher, and arguably for good reason; all of them (arguably) knew her or even were students of her class; and [[Tear Jerker they watched one of their own teachers die without being in a position to save her (at least, not at the cost of their own lives).
  • Consider that a human-sized meal would take a long time for a snake to ingest. Also bear in mind that, if Voldemort had other matters to discuss, it would have been well within character for him to just keep talking.
• When Harry and Hermione infiltrate the Ministry of Magic, they see that the Fountain of Magical Brethren statue has been replaced by a statue of a handsome wizard and witch sitting on grand thrones. Thrones are made up of the bodies of hundreds of naked Muggle men, women, and children, all with stupid and ugly faces, and with the inscription "Magic Is Might" at the base of the statue. The possibility exists...are the people being crushed underfoot a depiction or real Muggles Taken for Granite? Or worse, put into an And I Must Scream situation?
  • It doesn't have to be anything subtly horrifying at all; just the statue's presence itself is dreadful. Especially for Muggle-borns like Hermione, who can only stare and is unable to do much (at that moment) in protest of it.
    Harry: [horrified] Are those...?
    Hermione: Muggles. In their... 'rightful place'.
  • At least the old statue represented an ideal worth pursuing, albeit difficult to maintain consistently in even the best of times.
• The scene with the locket Horcrux trying to turn Ron against Harry in a last-ditch effort to defend itself. Harry says "Open" in Parseltongue in order to get the locket open, and Ron is ready to stab it with the Sword of Gryffindor, but ghastly spectres of Harry and Hermione emerge from the locket, only to tell Ron that he's worthless compared to Harry, and that Hermione will never choose him. Then the spectres of Harry and Hermione start kissing, showing Ron his worst fear. In the film, in addition to all that, when the locket opens, a swirling cloud of darkness explodes out of the locket with enough force to knock the boys off their feet. Swirling, talking, constantly having things thrusting out of it, then disappearing before you can see them properly, all while a high-pitched whirling is playing; the thing was freaky as hell. Also scary is Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe's perfect delivery of the lines mocking Ron, and Rupert Grint's pained and horrified face as he looks to the two of them making out half-naked.
• What happens to Lavender: She's mauled by Greyback and he starts to feed upon her from her throat. In the books, her fate is unknown, but she dies in the film. Word of God stated that she later dies of her wounds in the book canon too.
• Voldemort's (movie) death is... very graphic. He starts dissolving into paper-like shreds, with a truly horrifying, despair-filled look on his face until there is literally nothing left of him.
  • Even earlier, if you look at the scenes with Voldemort, every time a Horcrux is destroyed, his skin seems to look... unhealthier, with at least his head starting to gain Tainted Veins, and raised scarification on his nape. Then during the final Beam-O-War battle after Neville destroyed Nagini (leaving no Horcruxes left), as Voldemort struggles, the skin of his entire hand - followed by the arm, right down to the elbow - rapidly turns black.
• Not long before this, when Harry pulls a Taking You with Me on Voldemort, the violent and frightening way the two of them fight through Hogwarts while Apparating is only made more disturbing when the two of them briefly fuse into one image. And the fact they were groaning, grunting, and screaming throughout that whole fight. You could only start breathing again after they separated.
  • This scene draws on the description of the possession scene in Book 5:
    He was gone from the hall, he was locked in the coils of a creature with red eyes, so tightly bound that Harry did not know where his body ended and the creature’s began: they were fused together, bound by pain, and there was no escape—
• In the film, Voldemort's ultimatum to the school is accompanied by a chorus of inhuman shrieks, which is revealed to actually be coming from students. Apparently, whatever spell he was using had a side effect of mind-raping random people.
• The scene where Harry uses the Cruciatus Curse on Amycus Carrow can be very disturbing.
  • Nightmare Retardant: When Harry uses it on Amycus, the curse doesn't behave like we saw Cruciatus cast by dark wizards behave in that instead of screaming or flailing in pain, Amycus is bodily thrown across the room and knocked out, almost as if he was hit by a Stunner.
    Harry: I see what Bellatrix meant. You need to really mean it.
• This◊ picture of Fenrir Greyback: black sclera, Creepy Blue Eyes, busted teeth, and a menacing glare at the viewer.
• The Grey Lady pulling a Jump Scare when she suddenly screams at Harry during his search for one of the Horcruxes.
  • The Jump Scare is quite disturbing by itself, but then her pupils and irises dilate, creepily resembling Black Eyes of Evil.
  • Perhaps serving also as a dark Call-Back or a parallel to a more funny scene, where the other resident Ravenclaw ghost does the exact same thing to Ron six movies back, while interestingly, Harry and Ron are asking Myrtle about a Horcrux (though not knowing what a Horcrux is at the time, of course). Also more alarming considering her more serene portrayal in earlier films (and book).
• Crabbe using the Fiendfyre curse in the Room of Requirement. The entire room was engulfed in powerful flames that were uncontrollable, transforming itself into large animals spreading across. While the trio, Malfoy and Goyle managed to escape it, Crabbe himself was killed in the fire to the shock of Draco.
  • Fiendfyre itself sounds like something straight out of a nightmare. It actively pursues living things, and it cannot be extinguished by normal or magical means. If someone does not know the countercurse for out-of-control Fiendfyre, their only options are to Run or Die.
• The dragon in the Gringotts underground was taught by the goblins to associate the sound of clanking metal with the pain of being stabbed with a red-hot sword. It flinches AND whimpers whenever it hears the sound. The dragon itself is a pretty shockingly realistic depiction of animal abuse.
• Finding out you're a living Horcrux and have had a part of one of the most foul evildoers of the age attached to you.
• The fact that after so many innocent children were probably subjected to the Dementor's Kiss and will thus cease to exist upon their deaths anyone in the Wizarding World, especially the relatives of those who had that happen to them, could ever be remotely happy again really says something about the sorry state of this secret society itself.
• In the final battle, Aragog's family returns because the Death Eaters have driven them out of the forest. When they arrive while the battle is in full force, they attack anything that happens to be nearby, Death Eater and Hogwarts supporter alike.
• Say what you will about the long stretches of nothing in the seventh film, but the scene where the Trio are travelling across Britain is genuinely unsettling. It almost feels like the world is ending, and the radio messages playing over the scene don't help...
  • Even the radio messages themselves are this, when you really get down to it. While it's one thing to honor those who have fallen, to hear evidence that Death Eaters are going on killing sprees is nothing short of horrifying. And the extent of said sprees? The smaller ones, such as "Today's list is thankfully short", consists of several dozen reported deaths... and that's likely just those who were confirmed. It really drives home that helpless feeling that permeates the entire on-the-run section of the story, both for our heroes who are struggling with the Horcrux journey, and the Wizarding/Muggle worlds in the wake of Voldemort having taken over.
• Wormtail's death. Harry reminds him that he owes Harry for having saved his life in the boy's third year, and the magical silver hand that Voldemort gifted to him begins to strangle him when he hesitates. He literally dies by his own hand as Ron and Harry desperately try to pry it off his throat.
• Voldemort's full-blown Ax-Crazy Villainous Breakdown reaction when he realizes Harry knows about Horcruxes.
• The battle in the sky during "the seven Potters" shown in the film, before Harry realises what it is, it looks like a thunderstorm next thing you know there seems to be dozens of people in the air, firing spells, and remember only 14 are established to be Order members, that means, that the rest are all probably Death Eaters, a huge reminder that, in contrast to the previous films, the wizarding world is in open war.
• Remember in Chamber of Secrets when Ron said "If we hadn’t married Muggles, we'd've died out."? Well, had Voldemort actually succeeded, he would have probably installed anti-miscegenation laws between Muggles and Wizards and this would have most likely doomed the entire Wizarding race to extinction.
  • Alternately, it's also stated that a lot of Pureblood families resort to various levels of incest to keep their lines "clean." So the Wizarding World might not be at immediate risk of extinction, at least for another few generations... But it's still rather horrifying/squicky to think that even more Wizards would've had to resort to incest to survive.

---