Deathly Hallows

"The Elder Wand," he said, and he drew a straight vertical line on the parchment. "The Resurrection Stone," he said, and he added a circle on top of the line. "The Cloak of Invisibility," he finished, enclosing both line and circle in a triangle, to make the symbol that so intriqued Hermione. "Together," he said, "the Deathly Hallows."

- Xenophilius Lovegood

The Deathly Hallows are three highly powerful magical objects supposedly created by Death and given to three brothers in the Peverell family. They consisted of the Elder Wand, an immensely powerful wand coveted by generations of ambitious wizards, the Resurrection Stone, a stone which could summon the spirits of the dead, and the Cloak of Invisibility, which, as its name suggests, renders the wearer completely invisible. According to legend, he who possessed these three artifacts would become the Master of Death. Dumbledore told Harry that he and Gellert Grindelwald took this to mean that the uniter of the Deathly Hallows was invincible. The story of the Deathly Hallows was originally told by Beedle the Bard and subsequently passed from family to family as a wizards' fairy tale; the legend gives the names of the three brothers as Antioch, Cadmus, and Ignotus, respective bearers of the Wand, Stone, and Cloak. Harry Potter is the only known person to have owned all three Hallows at the same time. so ya think ya can kill me ah' well we'll see about that!HA HA HA

Origins of the Hallows
Hundreds of years ago, the three Peverell brothers were travelling at midnight, and reached a river too dangerous to traverse. The three brothers, being very powerful wizards, simply created a bridge across the river. They were then stopped by Death himself, who was displeased that they had got across the river. Death then congratulated them on being clever enough to evade him, and gave each of them a powerful magical item. To the first brother, Antioch, he gave the Elder Wand, a wand more powerful than any other in existance. To the second brother, Cadmus, he gave the Resurrection Stone, a stone capable of bringing the dead back to the living world. To the third brother, Ignotus, who did not trust him, he gave the Cloak of Invisibility, an invisibly cloak that never lost its power through curses or age. The three objects, the cloak, the wand and the stone, made up the Deathly Hallows.

In reality however, the Deathly Hallows were part of a cunning plan by Death to kill off the Peverells so he could take them for his own.

However Dumdbledore felt that it was more likely that the Hallows were actually created by the extremely talented and powerful brothers, and that the story of their origins as objects fashioned by Death sprang up around them as result of the powers they possessed.

Movement of the Hallows
In time, the brothers went their seperate ways. Antioch travelled to a wizarding village where he boasted of the Elder Wand in his posession. He was subsequently murdered in his sleep by a wizard hoping to take the wand for himself.

Cadmus travelled back home and used the Resurrection Stone to bring back the woman he loved, but was dismayed to find that it was only a pale imitation of her: the dead did not truly belong in the living world. In the end, Cadmus killed himself so he could truly join her.

Ignotus used the cloak to remain hidden from Death for a long time. When he was an old man, he passed the cloak onto his son, and went willingly with Death to the next world.

The cloak continued to be passed down through the descendants of the Peverells. The wand passed from wizard to wizard, nearly always by the murder of its previous owner. The stone was also passed down through the Peverells' descendents. It eventually ended up in the posession of the Gaunt family, and was later stolen by Tom Marvolo Riddle.

Dumbledore's search for the Hallows
The Hallows played an important part in the lives of Albus Dumbledore, Gellert Grindelwald, and Harry Potter. In his youth, Dumbledore, along with soon-to-become Dark wizard Grindelwald, entertained dreams of finding and appropriating the Hallows for himself. This quest for power also manifested itself in his vision of a future where wizards would rule over and control Muggles "for the greater good". Dumbledore rejected this philosophy soon after he met Grindelwald, when a family argument caused him to revise and reconsider his beliefs after the death of his sister. Up until his death, he never trusted himself with power, refusing the post of Minister for Magic three times - yet his yearning to find the Hallows never left him. After his sister Ariana died, Dumbledore sought out the Resurrection Stone in the hopes that finding it would somehow revive his dead sister and parents. Thus when he chanced upon it sometime in 1996, when it had already been turned into a Horcrux by Voldemort, the temptation proved too much to handle and he put on the ring, invoking a terrible curse Voldemort had placed which caused his right hand to wither and die. Only when the curse was broken by Gryffindor's sword did the stone revert back to its normal state.

Dumbledore also came into possession of the Cloak of Invisibility when he borrowed it from its owner, James Potter, a descendant of Ignotus Peverell. It was he who passed the Cloak on to James' son, Harry Potter, to whom it proved to be a useful tool in defeating Voldemort and his allies. He also gave to Harry the Resurrection Stone, by means of the Snitch Harry had caught in his first ever Quidditch match.

History of the Elder Wand
Of the Elder Wand, only its recent history is available. Celebrated Bulgarian wandmaker Gregorovitch had obtained and kept the wand for some time to study and eventually copy its magical powers in his own wands. Sometime in the middle of the 20th century, a young Grindelwald stole and took the wand for his own. The wand switched hands yet again when, in one of the most famous duels of the wizarding world, Dumbledore fought and defeated Grindelwald. Dumbledore used the wand wisely, never for his own gain but for the betterment of the wizarding and Muggle communities, and so managed to avoid incurring the misfortune the Elder Wand was supposed to bring.

In 1996, Dumbledore was overpowered by Draco Malfoy, and subsequently killed by Severus Snape. Though neither of them took the wand (it was laid to rest with the Headmaster's body), the magic in it caused it to recognize one of them as its new master. Therefore when Voldemort stole the wand from the tomb, it did not work its legendary wonders for him as it was supposed to. Supposing that Snape was the new master of the wand, having killed Dumbledore, Voldemort executed him in order to let the ownership pass to himself. Yet again he made a fatal oversight: he had no way of knowing that, as that boy had been the one to overpower Dumbledore, Draco Malfoy was the next master of the wand, and that, having defeated Draco in turn some months later, Harry Potter was its current owner. Having failed to consider these factors, Voldemort attempted to kill Potter using the wand but failed - the wand would never harm or kill its owner. In the climactic duel that concluded the Battle of Hogwarts, the Elder Wand recognized its rightful master and, instead of killing him, backfired upon Voldemort, killing him and making Potter the only person to have survived the Killing Curse - thrice over, having survived it for the second time earlier that day.

Current whereabouts
As Harry Potter had no intention of using the Elder Wand for his own purposes (having achieved his goal of defeating Voldemort), he only used it to restore his own broken wand and then returned the Elder Wand to the grave of Dumbledore, supposing that, when he died, its power would finally be broken, and its bloody history along with it. The Resurrection Stone was lost somewhere in the Forbidden Forest near Aragog's lair, where Harry intended it to remain. Rowling later revealed that a centaur pressed it into the ground by stomping on it as the herd charged to help in the fight against Voldemort. As for the Invisibility Cloak, he remarked to Dumbledore's portrait that he would be keeping it for himself and his family; it probably still is with him to this day.