What is the best death for Harry? In fanfiction? canonically? How would you kill him?

 

I think a Beowulf-inspired death would be very fitting for Harry. After a long career as a master wizard, he encounters an evil or monster that he dies taking out. Especially if he saves other people in the process or if he alone has to step up to the plate. Since he is past his prime and the dragon is so strong in Beowulf, the hero dies, but he kills the dragon and the rest of the poem praises him for his deeds.

For a Dark Harry fanfic, something Shakespearean would be great a la Macbeth or King Lear. He devolves into darker and darker magic, stepping over that line again and again, and is ruined after initially accomplishing his goal. Or like King Lear, he tries to leave his work/magical world to his successors and is promptly forgotten and put in an abject position he has to crawl out of.

 

Crossover fics - Hit by a truck in the prologue.

 

this. QC’s self-reflection about his actions and the cover of “Take on Me” definitely gave me the feels at the end of last season.

good point on DH too. I think the symbolism of Harry sacrificing himself because that’s what he has to do is heroic and very powerful on an emotional level.

 

I agree with @Zombie in regards to how a protagonist should die.

I think the best way Harry could have died in Canon is if he died protecting someone(preferably Neville) else from Voldemort's curse, just like his Mom. Voldemort would stay dead because he doesn't have his Horcruxes anymore, and it would complete the theme of Harry having a great capacity to love, to the point of sacrificing himself for someone else.

Everything would come full circle. Harry would become the Boy-Who-Died to save someone else.

 

Yeah, imagine if the whole Harry Potter series was told in 1st Person from Harry's POV. Then, Harry chooses to stay dead and next chapter is Neville's POV and we go from there. Ideally, in this scenario, Neville would have been built up a bit more, perhaps being as close a friend to Harry as Ron is. Or Ron was also born as the Seventh month dies.

Just Harry realising that he doesn't always need to be the Hero. That it's okay to let someone else save the day for once and he can finally rest.

 

Hmm, But has Harry actually ever expressed the need to be a hero though?

Maybe I don't fully remember the story that well, but it always seemed that unavoidable circumstances thrust him into the hero role and he wasn't neccesarily seeking it out.

IIRC, Harry had a conversation with Dumbledore about exactly this topic.

 

He and Hermione had a conversation about this on the way to the Department of Mysteries. It was a good trick, but he still fell for it because of his 'saving people thing'.

 

Sidepoint: If Harry had permadied in DH, he would have forever been the Boy-Who-Lived.

 

If we're getting technical, in Wizarding Society, you turn into an adult at 17. Depending on your definition, Harry wasn't a "Boy" at that point.

 

Technically yes, as he would have been about 17-3/4 years old at time of the Battle of Hogwarts. But in my experience, you don't get considered an adult until your early to mid twenties, even if by technical definition you are an adult. You might be called a "young man/woman" during that period, but if you died only a couple months after your age of majority you are more likely to be announced as a teen on the news report of your death.

Take that and the fact that his nickname had been the 'Boy-Who-Lived', and the fact that painting him as a child makes his story more tragic, and you get his tombstone calling him a Boy instead of a Man.

 

wouldn't Harry always be called the "Boy-Who-Lived" though? whether it's his final death in the Forest or not? he earned that name because of his role in surviving Voldemort's curse in 1981 not because he returns from King's Cross in 1998.

this is something that bothers me in fanfics actually where they call an adult Harry the "Man-Who-Lived." it just sounds silly to me. i feel like the name "Chosen One" gets more at his role in the second war and the final days of Voldemort, and this title is unrelated to whether he dies or not.

 

Don't really think any stories call Harry that? Usually it's "The Man-Who-Conquered" or "The Man-Who-Won".

 

oh, i think you're right. my bad. i don't like those either since they are basically just formed off of "Boy-Who-Lived."

 

Something that echoes Kurt Russell's end in 'The Thing'. The last survivor dying alone amidst the burning wreckage after a hard fought victory.

Absolutely no one crouching at his side weeping over the unfairness of it all. To paraphrase 'Highlander'

"He's a Wizard, by Merlin, and the last sound he hears should not be that of a wailing woman!"

 

I like it when Harry dies from Voldemorts AK in '81. Always a unique take when I see it in fics.

 

Heart disease, the leading cause of death in the UK.

 

I prefer my Harry Potter to die, surrounded by his grandchildren and great grandchildren, smiling and in peace and knowing that he leaves the world a better place.