As I've mentioned before, I do not believe J.K. Rowling to be a greedy person. I am, however, convinced that wealth and gold is very much on her mind, especially when it comes to the last Potter book. But let's start at the beginning.

Her hero sets off on his journey by learning he had more money than he could ever dream sitting in a vault - his first friend is horribly poor - in order to win a Quidditch match, it is up to him to seek and catch the golden ball that constantly eludes his grasp - when Fred and George were tricked with the vanishing Leprechaun gold, Harry gives his winnings away so they can fulfill their dream.

In Book 7, while attempting to defeat Voldemort through the destruction of his Horcruxes, Harry must find a golden goblet in a vault at Gringotts that is covered in Germino and Flagrante curses. Griphook warned him, "Everything you touch will burn and multiply, but the copies are worthless - and if you continue to handle the treasure, you will eventually be crushed to death by the weight of expanding gold!"

And not just the weight, but the pain. "...Harry dived and caught it, and although he could feel it scalding his flesh he did not relinquish it, even while countless Hufflepuff cups burst from his fist, raining down upon him as the entrance of the vault opened up again and he found himself sliding uncontrollably on an expanding avalanche of fiery gold and silver..."

To top off the scene, our hero escapes from the wizard bank on the back of the dragon that was there to guard all the vaults, including his own, opening Gringotts up to the possibility of looting.

Twice JKR called gold, and those who wanted gold, "filthy". Like when Greyback sought his reward for capturing Harry, causing Bellatrix to laugh. "Take your gold, filthy scavenger, what do I want with GOLD?" Or when Hermione needed to visit Gringotts and Travers said, "Gold, filthy gold! We cannot live without it, yet I confess I deplore the necessity of consorting with our long-fingered friends."

And, most importantly, we have this scene with Harry:

The Snitch. His nerveless fingers fumbled for a moment with the pouch at his neck and he pulled it out.

I open at the close.

Breathing fast and hard, he stared down at it. Now that he wanted time to move as slowly as possible, he seemed to have sped up, and understanding was coming so fast it seemed to have bypassed though. This was the close. This was the moment.

He pressed the golden metal to his lips and whispered, "I am about to die."

The metal shell broke open. He lowered his shaking hand, raised Draco's wand beneath the Cloak, and murmured, "Lumos."

The black stone with its jagged crack running down the center sat in the two halves of the Snitch. The Resurrection Stone had cracked down the vertical line representing the Elder Wand. The triangle and circle representing the Cloak and the stone were still discernible.

And again Harry understood without having to think. It did not matter about bringing them back, for he was about to join them. He was not really fetching them: They were fetching him.

Gold, treasure, and the pursuit of riches and wealth is seen as a very negative thing in the Harry Potter books, tied inexorably to death. And yet, with all the magic in the world at her fingertips, JKR still made having money a necessity to life as a wizard. When you take a moment and really think about it, you can see the blueprints of her mind. This amazing story first entered her imagination when she was on a train, a single mother and penniless. When JKR was living hand-to-mouth, she was writing the warning on the inner doors of Gringotts wizard bank:

Enter, stranger, but take heed

Of what awaits the sin of greed,

For those who take but do not earn,

Must pay most dearly in their turn,

So if you seek beneath our floors

A treasure that was never yours,

Thief, you have been warned, beware

Of finding more than treasure there

J.K. Rowling's views on poverty have led her to feel guilty for being so rich, as stated in a 2003 interview with Jeremy Paxman, prior to the publication of HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX.

"When it first happened, I didn't immediately become very rich. The biggest jump for me was the American advance which was enough for me to buy a house, not outright, but you know we'd been renting until then. And I didn't feel guilty. I felt scared at that point. Because I thought I mustn't blow this. I've got some money, I mustn't do anything stupid with it. And then yeah, yeah, I felt guilty. Yeah, I did."

The Tale of the Three Brothers is a beautiful allegory for the lessons to be learned after getting all that you ever wished to be possible. In a recent post, we established that all JKR ever wished for was to be a writer. But here she states that her fear of losing money was also very powerful. Therefore, we can say that "Death" in the mind of J.K. Rowling represents the return to an impoverished life and an inability to ever write again. She's confessed that, despite all her fame, she worries that one day she'll wake up and be right back to where she used to be.

But what has changed since that time? We have the Cursed Child play. Now that she feels 'Teflon', perhaps her fear of "Death" has diminished? BUT THAT IS WHY I THINK THIS METAPHOR HAS NEVER BEEN MORE FITTING!

First, let's look at the interaction between the trio and Xenophilius Lovegood when it concerned the Tale of the Three Brothers in Book 7.

"But there's no mention of the words 'Deathly Hallows' in the story," said Hermione.

"Well, of course not," said Xenophilius, maddeningly smug. "That is a children's tale, told to amuse rather than to instruct. Those of us who understand these matters, however, recognize that the ancient story refers to three objects, or Hallows, which, if united, will make the possessor master of Death."

At first, I thought JKR was "Death" in the story. With each anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts, she apologizes to us for killing off one of her characters. This serves to remind the reader that she alone was powerful enough to make that decision. For so long, she has been seeking to defeat "Death". But after these many years, with the increase of her public persona and with the introduction of the play, J.K. Rowling has united the Hallows and finally become the true "master of Death". Why? Because she no longer feels the need to flee.

With any good retrospective biography, you want to deliver the biggest bombshell at the end. So, since we are a post away from moving on to the Summary section, here we go. What are the Hallows, and why should JKR be more afraid of her personal view of "Death" than ever?

The Elder Wand is her almighty pen that, when wielded, gets everyone to notice. And to bend at the knee. But in 2016, she loaned this pen to a playwright named Jack Thorne. With it, he struck a deadly blow to her legacy.

The Cloak of Invisibility was her escape from public view, that had long-shrouded her in secrecy and protected her privacy. It added intrigue to Rowling. It gave her mystery and mystique, an aura of magic that kept us pining to hear all she had to say. But JKR has grown confident in that protection and allowed herself to be seen too often. Her interviews boldly contradicted established facts, her pseudonym was mishandled, and she repeatedly lays her controversial opinions bare to the Twitterverse, in many cases eroding her formerly pristine image and fracturing her fanbase.

The Stone of Resurrection was her ability to bring back her own creation after years of pleasant, satisfied rest. It seemed like a good decision with the purest of intentions, but she learned that using the stone did not truly resurrect those with whom we loved so dearly. The Cursed Child was a success on the surface, but it was a false representation. And we, as onlookers, knew that the stone should not have been used. In fact, we would've preferred that she leave it behind on the forest floor.

What has J.K. Rowling taught us about the holder of the Deathly Hallows? Things never turned out so well for them in the end. She didn't just bring back Harry, but also the plot device of time travel that should've stayed dead. McGonagall warned us, didn't she? Awful things have happened when people meddled with time... They end up killing their past selves by mistake.

While JKR may not lose her riches, like the three rogues from the story, the damage may come to the relic of her life's work - Harry Potter. If each of the seven books are Horcruxes to eternal life, to the legacy that will sustain JKR in the minds of readers long after she will have died, what is HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD than a thoughtless swipe of the Sword of Gryffindor, or a puncture from the fang of a Basilisk, or a killing curse?

What are the life and lies of J.K. Rowling? The life is the lasting heritage of her wizarding world. The lie is what she tells herself: that by becoming the true master of Death, it made her wizarding world invulnerable. Little did she know that in allowing the unmanaged plot of Cursed Child to be considered canon, she voluntarily fashioned her own weapons of defeat. She allowed her work to be subjected to the machinations of money-grubbers and the wheel of commercialism, which was bound to bring ruin. JKR is not greedy in the sense that she desires money. But if the definition of greed could be expanded to include endeavoring to increase financial security due to fear, then she has succumbed to the Pardoner's sin. If JKR justified the greed of others in order to financially secure the thing she had most wished for in life, an ability to write full-time, then she is just as vulnerable to its effects.

I'll end this part with a latin phrase from the prologue of The Pardoner's Tale: Radix malorum est cupiditas. Translation: Greed is the root of evil.