plot the film opens with lord voldemort stealing the elder wand from albus dumbledore's tomb and shooting a large bolt of lightning into the sky it then cuts to hogwarts which is no longer a colorful castle of magic but a shadowy concentration camp surrounded by dementors with the students being marched through the entrance courtyard severus snape stands in the top of the castle and watches the students with a blank expression at shell cottage harry potter sits in front of dobby's grave gazing into the one way mirror he suspects that there is a horcrux in bellatrix lestrange's vault at gringotts so he ron and hermione strike a deal with griphook he will get them into gringotts wizarding bank to find the horcrux if they give him the sword of gryffindor a bargain to which they reluctantly agree harry then questions ollivander who examines and identifies the stolen wands of bellatrix lestrange and draco malfoy while he confirms that draco's wand is safe to use he cautions harry about bellatrix's wand as it is unyielding and might be dangerous unless its allegiance has changed harry then asks him if he knows about the deathly hallows and ollivander claims he does not think they exist although harry knows he told voldemort about the elder wand and is determined to kill voldemort first with harry and griphook under the invisibility cloak hermione disguised as bellatrix and ron as a foreign wizard with bushy facial hair the trio and griphook apparate to gringotts during the first phase of the mission harry and ron are forced to use the imperius curse on bogrod to cover up hermione's unsuccessful impersonation of bellatrix they manage to get into the vault despite their disguises being removed by the thief's downfall and inside the vault they find helga hufflepuff's cup the horcrux but set off the geminio curse causing everything they touch to multiply exponentially griphook takes the sword from them after they get the cup saying that he never said he would help them get out only in he runs for it and calls security the trio are almost crushed by the gold and captured but hermione gets them to jump on the back of a dragon kept as a security measure setting the dragon free it wreaks havoc killing several goblins including bogrod crashing through the roof and flying off with the trio on its back after jumping off the dragon into a lake harry has a vision of voldemort furiously killing griphook and many other gringotts employees and personnel at malfoy manor for allowing his horcrux to get stolen choosing to keep nagini by his side he summons his followers and orders them to invade hogwarts to ensure the horcrux he hid there is still safe having sensed voldemort thinking of his horcrux and hogwarts through their connection harry tells the other two they have to go there and destroy it before voldemort can get to it and that voldemort seems to be getting more fragile with each horcrux destroyed they apparate to hogsmeade but immediately trigger alarms set up by death eaters waiting for harry the trio are almost captured but aberforth dumbledore gets them safely into his home and berates them for coming to the village harry discovers that it was him who had been watching them through the mirror shard and him who sent dobby to rescue them before after seeing the two way mirror hung up on the wall aberforth provides them with food and tells them to give up on their mission go into hiding and save themselves harry said that he trusts dumbledore's judgement that the task has to be seen through no matter what but aberforth insists that albus had left them a suicide mission and it was hopeless after harry insisted on finishing what he had started aberforth summoned neville longbottom through a secret passage behind ariana's portrait to bring them into hogwarts bruised and beaten by the death eaters of the staff neville and most of the students have been hiding in the room of requirement all year they welcome harry in with tremendous applause and jump at the idea of helping harry finish voldemort but harry still doesn't know what the horcrux looked like or where it was after saying it might be connected to ravenclaw luna suggests that rowena ravenclaw's diadem might be it despite no one alive today having seen it ginny arrives and after gazing at harry for a moment tells everyone that snape was now aware of harry's break in and wanted everyone in the great hall in the hall snape orders anyone who may hold information regarding harry's location to tell him immediately or face punishment harry then reveals himself after hiding within the crowd and rebukes snape for standing where dumbledore once stood as headmaster ordering him to tell the students the truth of how he betrayed and killed dumbledore as order of the phoenix members enter the great hall snape draws his wand in anger bu