Afterlife (Harry Potter)

> After all, to the well-organised mind, death is but the next great adventure.
>
> Albus Dumbledore regarding life after death, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

**Afterlife** (also referred to as **life after death**) was the concept that an essential part of an individual's identity or the stream of consciousness continues to manifest after the death of the physical body. It is unknown if the wizarding afterlife differs from their ***Muggle*** counterparts or if Muggles go to the afterlife at all. It is unknown if Muggles are subject to the same laws governing the soul as Wizardkind. It appears that the afterlife is something that most of the magical community believes in, as there are numerous examples of it.

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## Overview

According to various ideas about the afterlife, the essential aspect of the individual that lives on after death may be some partial element, or the entire soul or spirit, of an individual, which carries with it and may confer personal identity or, on the contrary, may not, as in Indian nirvana. Belief in an afterlife, which may be naturalistic or supernatural, is in contrast to the belief in oblivion after death. In some views, this continued existence often takes place in a spiritual realm.
The afterlife in the wizarding world appeared to be heavily influenced by the state of an individual's soul. If your soul was not whole and damaged this will affect your ability to go on. For example, with the destruction of all of Lord Voldemort's Horcruxes his broken and mangled soul was forced to exist in its stunted form in ***limbo***. He had violated the laws of nature to such a terrible degree that he was forced to pay the consequences. A ghost is someone who chose to remain in the world of the living after death, mostly due to fear of the unknown. A ghost is then forced to stay on the physical plane as imprints left by their souls.
The veil was an enigmatic structure located in the Department of Mysteries. It seemed to be a manifestation of the barrier between the land of the living and the land of the dead. One cannot travel freely between the two worlds, as it is a one-way trip. The living could have the strangest feeling that there was someone standing right behind the Veil, on the other side of the archway. The words of the ones beyond the Veil are inaudible except for "*faint whispering and murmuring noises*" coming from the other side of the Veil. When the living person tries to communicate, the dead try harder and their whispering and murmuring becomes louder.

## History

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When Harry Potter and his friends travelled to the Ministry in 1996, they found themselves in the Death Chamber and strangely drawn to the Veil. Harry, Luna Lovegood, Ginny Weasley, and Neville Longbottom were all entranced by the Veil, most likely because they all believed more or less in some type of afterlife. It is implied that Hermione Granger did not, as she did not hear the voices. Harry and Luna heard the voices of their deceased loved ones from beyond.
After the death of Sirius Black Harry asked Nearly Headless Nick about ghosts and how a wizard becomes one. Nick stated that ghosts are imprints left upon the Earth and that very few wizards would choose such a path. He also stated that Sirius would never choose such a thing and that he would have gone on, implying that ghosts know that there is some form of life after death. Harry Potter and Luna Lovegood briefly discussed death and the afterlife. Luna mentions the death of her mother and informs Harry that she will see her again, as she is just out of sight. She also mentions the voices that she and Harry heard beyond the veil.
On James' and Lily Potter's grave in Godric's Hollow the message carved into the headstone was, "*The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death".* This message meant living on after death and that death is nothing to fear, but something that is inevitable and should be accepted.

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After being hit by Voldemort’s Killing Curse in 1998, Harry awoke to find himself lying naked in a formless mist. After a period of adjustment the mist began to take shape into a copy of ***King's Cross Station***. Harry then saw a stunted whimpering child-like form lying on the ground, for which he felt both pity and revulsion. He also saw the deceased Albus Dumbledore and the two had a long talk in which Dumbledore answered many of Harry's questions and told him that he was not actually dead. As a soul that was whole and complete Harry was given the choice to return to the world of the living to finally stop Voldemort, or to board a train and "go on". Harry choose to live instead of boarding a train to the afterlife.

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When trapped and unarmed in ***Nurmengard***, facing certain death at the hands of the only dark wizard more powerful than himself, Lord Voldemort, ***Grindelwald*** was openly defiant towards him, even mocking, goading Voldemort into killing him by saying that he welcomed death, but that it would not "bring him what [he] sought", saying there is so much he "doesn't understand". Indeed, he seemed to exhibit a grotesque remnant of the "merry, wild" temperament of his youth. Grindelwald's last words consisted of the dressing-down of Voldemort, and a rather enthusiastic outlook on "the next great adventure", all of which seems clear in its connection to his old friend, Albus Dumbledore.

## Forms

Heaven was often described as a "higher place", the holiest place, a Paradise, in contrast to Hell or the Underworld or the "low places", and universally or conditionally accessible by earthly beings according to various standards of divinity, goodness, piety, faith, or other virtues or right beliefs or simply the will of God. Some believe in the possibility of a Heaven on Earth in a World to Come.
Hell, in many religious and folkloric traditions, is a place of torment and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as eternal destinations while religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations. Typically, these traditions locate hell in another dimension or under the Earth's surface and often include entrances to Hell from the land of the living.
Other traditions, which do not conceive of the afterlife as a place of punishment or reward, merely describe Hell as an abode of the dead, the grave, a neutral place located under the surface of Earth.
The wizarding world is aware of the concept of hell, as Neville Longbottom once referred to it. Wizards seem to view hell the same way Muggles do, as Neville also inferred that it was hot. If wizards are aware of the concept of hell they most likely are also aware of the concept of Heaven or nirvana. It is unknown if they believe in those ideals or not.

## Appearances

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## Notes and references

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Template:DH
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Template:OOTP
3. ↑ Template:HBP
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Template:OOTP
5. ↑ Template:DH
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