The change in his voice made Ron and Hermione look even more scared.
“You-Know-Who’s after the Elder Wand.”
He turned his back on their strained, incredulous faces. He knew it was the truth. It all made sense, Voldemort was not seeking a new wand; he was seeking an old wand, a very old wand indeed. Harry walked to the entrance of the tent, forgetting about Ron and Hermione as he looked out into the night, thinking…
Voldemort had been raised in a Muggle orphanage. Nobody could have told him The Tales of Beedle the Bard when he was a child, any more than Harry had heard them. Hardly any wizards believed in the Deathly Hallows. Was it likely that Voldemort knew about them?
Harry gazed into the darkness… If Voldemort had known about the Deathly Hallows, surely he would have sought them, done anything to possess them: three objects that made the possessor master of Death? If he had known about the Deathly Hallows, he might not have needed Horcruxes in the first place. Didn’t the simple fact that he had taken a Hallow, and turned it into a Horcrux, demonstrate that he did not know this last great Wizarding secret?
Which meant that Voldemort sought the Elder Wand without realizing its full power, without understanding that it was one of three… for the wand was the Hallow that could not be hidden, whose existence was best known… The bloody trail of the Elder Wand is splattered across the pages of Wizarding history…
Harry watched the cloudy sky, curves of smoke-gray and silver sliding over the face of the white moon. He felt lightheaded with amazement at his discoveries.
He turned back into the tent. It was a shock to see Ron and Hermione standing exactly where he had left them, Hermione still holding Lily’s letter, Ron at her side looking slightly anxious. Didn’t they realize how far they had traveled in the last few minutes?
“This is it,” Harry said, trying to bring them inside the glow of his own astonished certainty, “This explains everything. The Deathly Hallows are real and I’ve got one—maybe two—”