The Quest for Deathly Hallows at the UHC: How many connections do we find in The Running Grave?

 This is my master list of thematic echoes and connections between Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and The Running Grave.  Spoilers below. 

1. Robin's infiltration of the UHC has similarities both to the Trio's infiltration of the Ministry, and to the Trio's camping trip fot their Horcrux hunt. 
1. She must disguise herself in a new identity, enter a dangerous place to collect the information she needs, and get out again.  
1. The agency team carefully maps out the area, making multiple trips under disguise, to figure out where the camera blind spot is. This is like the planning the trip did prior to the ministry infiltration. 
2. Robin is moving from the familiar place she has been for six books (Denmark St. office in London) to an extended stay in an unfamiliar, rural environment where she will be missing most of the comforts of home and will be particularly short on food. She will be largely out of contact with her family and friends and isolated from news of what is happening in the outside world. 
1. Unlike the Trio, Robin is alone in her mission.
2. Though Robin does not need to pack lots of things the way Hermione does, but she must prepare her Rowena persona extensively to convince Strike she can do this job. Like Harry and Ron, he is impressed:  "You have thought this out."
1. Hermione packs a small bag that is magically full; Robin's holdall is half-empty. 
2. The principal enemy is an organization led by a single charismatic leader and his loyal followers, who expect him to usher in a new age where they will hold all the power. 
1. The followers address him by a special title, Papa J.
2. Mind-control techniques used are like the Imperious Curse.
1. At the end, many throw off the mind control and turn against cult and are willing to testify against them, just as many Imperioused wizards "come back to themselves" after Voldemort is defeated. 
3. The immortal aspect of Voldemort is portrayed in Daiyu, the Drowned Prophet who the UHC claims did not really die but entered a realm from which she can return. 
1. Daiyu (and other prophets) are not typically called by their names, which followers seem afraid to say. Will snaps at Robin that saying "Daiyu" is disrespectful.
1. He even refers to the Drowned Prophet as "you know who" once.
4. DH opens with an Aeschylus epigraph; Strike quotes Aeschylus to Charlotte and closes the book completing the same line. 
5. Daiyu is said to have the power of invisibility, and all the prophets are said to have the power to return from the dead. These cover two of the three "special powers" of the Deathly Hallows. 
1. The closest thing to an Elder Wand equivalent is the rifle Robin and Mazu grapple over in the temple. Like Harry, Robin wins it in the end. 
6. Daiyu was supposed to be sucked into the sea and her body never recovered. This death is like that of Regulus Black. 
1. As with Regulus. learning the truth about Daiyu's death is an important step to destroying the cult leader's power. 
7. In the opening letters. Will Edensor's parents cannot stop him from leaving school and joining the UHC or giving them his trust fund. Harry turns 17 at the beginning of DH and is no longer subject to the Trace or other restrictions on underage magic. 
1. Molly does not want the Trio to leave Hogwarts, but again, cannot stop them because they are of age. 
8. In the opening scene of DH, Nagini the snake eats Charity Burbage. At the christening reception, Belinda Watkins, aka Bijou but whose given name means "bright snake" shows up in a bright pink dress. She is clearly a "maneater" with a hungry eye on Strike. 
1. Ilsa calls her a "man-hungry pain in the arse."
9. Over dinner, Wardle gossips about Murphy like Muriel gossips about Dumbledore at the wedding, both trying to discredit their targets. 
10. April Wardle has left her husband. just as Lupin left Tonks and Teddy. 
11. Harry and Strike both visit an old lady with memory/language issues to gain information (Shelia, Bathilda).
12. The story opens with a party with food and drink in a big backyard marquee, celebrating a religious ceremony. 
1. Strike feels jealous seeing Robin with Ryan, like Ron felt jealous of Krum and Harry tried to warn people away from Ginny. 
13. The ceiling of the Rupert Court temple is similar to Luna's bedroom, with the Five Prophets (three male, two female)  surrounded by hand-holding figures. Luna's mural had five students: Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Neville, surrounded by the repeated word "friends."
14. Jordan Reaney's name is explicitly connected to the river Jordan, just as Lee Jordan's Potterwatch code name is River. 
15. Graves are an important site: Harry visits the Godric's Hallow cemetery to honor his parents and sees the statue erected to them.  The graves of the Five Prophets are a central site in the UHC and a statue of their most important has been erected.
16. Robin finds an important clue/weapon to use against the church in the barn full of discarded items, while Harry finds a Horcrux in the Hall of Lost Things. 
1. The diadem horcrux was destroyed by FiendFyre; the significance of the photos is revealed in a firehouse and used to trap firefighter Abigail Wace as the killer.
17. Naimh Doherty's dog Basil is a pointer to the basilisk; as the plant basil is supposed to be an antidote to basilisk venom. Basil is demanding attention when Naimh goes to get her mother Deidre's picture to show our heroes, an indicator of an important clue (see Tigger and Rattenbury for other examples). 
1. Barely nine chapters later, this photo tells us that the second eyeless image Torment Town's artwork is Deidre Doherty. This eventually allows Robin to piece together a damning bit of evidence against the church, the drowning death of Deidre, in front of witnesses, about which Flora Brewster will eventually agree to testify. Thus, they leave Naimh's (and Basil's) house with a type of "basilisk fang:" a weapon that will prove to be a means of destroying one element of Papa J's power.
18. Cherie Dittens winds up in the cult after running away from her mother, like Helena Ravenclaw. Like Helena, she is a victim of violence as a result. 
1. Cherie provides key information to the agency, but shortly before her death, instead of long afterwards like Helena Ravenclaw.
19. Barry Saxon gives off clear Bloody Baron vibes, with his vengance-laden interview with Strike. The fact that his last name means "dagger" or "short sword" helps support that. 
20. Will Edensor is a reverse Xenophilius Lovegood figure. Like Xeno, he "loves the strange" and believes in supernatural phenomena others dismiss. Xeno initially provided information, but then cowardly betrayed Trio to Death eaters, hoping to save his daughter. Will initially betrayed Robin to UHC leaders (by asking to write to his mother), then bravely sought out her help, hoping to save his daughter (and Lin).
21. Once Robin is living on "borrowed time" at the farm, we get a sense of the same type of "race" we get between Harry and Voldemort at the end of DH, with readers wondering what information Robin can gather before the powers that be catch her out. She even makes a list of priorities, like Harry has a list of Horcruxes to find. 
22. Robin's near-drowning in the baptismal pool is like Harry's near-drowning in the Frozen Pond in the Forest of Dean. 
1. Both step into pond expecting to submerge in the cold water and come right back up. 
2. Both are unexpectedly grabbed by a cord (Harry neck, Robin feet), pulled under, and inhale water. 
3. Both regain consciousness after being pulled out of water.
1. Harry is pulled out by his best friend, Robin by her worst enemy/would-be rapist. 
2. Harry is lying on his stomach, Robin on her back
3. Harry gets to put on sweaters, be reconciled to Ron and then destroy a Horcrux. Robin isn't so lucky. Her best mate is in the woods, waiting for her, but without a Silver Doe or a Deluminator, he has no way of knowing what is happening or how to find her. 
23. After near-drowning, Robin is taken to the farmhouse, akin to Malfoy Manor. 
1. She is locked in a basement room, like Ron and Harry.
2. She is tortured, like Hermione, in the UHC's "box." 
1. Unlike Hermione, she consents to the torture. This is like Harry surrendering to Voldemort in the Forest. 
2. She has no mirror shard with which to summon a house-elf for rescue. She has to be her own Dobby, as befits her last name, which means "Elf-cottage." The only way she can save herself is to wait out the time. 
3. As s result, she experiences a symbolic death, akin to Harry's in the forest, where her own "will" is broken and she has little to no strength left to resist the cult. She fears the prospect of rescue by her agency friends. 
24. The UHC's "Flaw in the Plan:"  After the box, Robin is taken to the attic room of the farmhouse, to spend a day caring for Jacob, who, as we finally learn, is a severely disabled boy, injured and dying, and unable to speak or swallow. This is the equivalent to Harry's visit to the afterlife-Kings Cross. 
1. The description of Jacob is a close match to that of the Voldemort soul-fetus that is hiding under the bench in King's Cross.
1. Jacob is being starved to death because the church Principals have decided he has no soul. 
2. Dumbledore tells Harry the soul-fragment is "beyond help." No one tells Robin that so she does everything she can for him 
2. Robin begins to regain strength in her solitude, just as Harry found the place peaceful when alone. Her concern for Jacob also reawakens her innate compassion. 
3. While Dumbledore shows up at King's Cross to answer all of Harry's questions, Robin seek out her own information, via the newspapers she discovers in the room. She begins to waver between the easier path of submission to the cult and the braver path of completing her mission, which means risking the pain of further punishment to try to escape. Harry, too, leaves King's Cross knowing he is returning to pain.
4. The information that Charlotte is dead is the last item she reads. Immediately after, she "magically" knows that Strike is waiting for her, and this gives her the courage to first demand the information she needs from Emily, then choose the harder path, in hopes of saving Jacob and others. This is like Harry choosing to return to the battle so that "fewer souls will be maimed, fewer families torn apart." 
25. The next trial combines elements of the Trio's escape from Gringotts with elements of Neville and Harry's key actions at the battle of Hogwarts. 
1. The Trio climbs up onto the back of the dragon (using the dragon's hind leg as a step), which forces its way up into the marble hallway and bursts through the door (or in the movie, a glass ceiling window). Robin steps up on a marble-like sink to the high-mounted window, forces it open and climbs through. 
2. At the battle of Hogwarts, Neville threw off the body-bind curse "in one swift fluid motion" at the same time Harry pulled out his Invisibility cloak, "swung" it over himself and disappears. Robin's actions in the bathroom also happen as "one fluid motion, and she "swung" her leg over the sill. 
3. In doing so, she throws off the cult's mind control, as Neville threw off the body-bind curse. 
26. After Harry's death and resurrection, Voldemort's spells are not binding. After Robin's escape, the UHC's actions against her, the agency and their allies (false abuse allegations, defamatory Wiki articles) are ineffective, though such means have silenced critics before. 
27. After her final escape from the UHC, an exhausted Robin asks Strike to get her a sandwich, and then sleeps in a four-poster bed. This is the same request Harry makes of Kreacher in his Hogwarts dormitory. 
1. Like Ron and Hermione in Grimmald Place, Robin lies next to Strike to go to sleep (chastely) and holds his hand.
28. Evan Willis argues that Charlottes death is also Dobby-like, in the purifying effect it has on Strike.
29. He also points out that Strike's internal talk with her spectre in the church is like Dumbledore speaking to Harry in King's Cross. 
30. On the Hogwartsprofessor.com site, Evan notes that the church tower visible from the farm and the Lovegood house both resemble chess rooks. 
31. Evan also compares Will mistaking Prudence for  a cult operative because of her office decor to Harry mistaking Andromeda Tonks for her sister Bellatrix. 
32. Finally, Evan makes the very wise description of TRG as "as a book that is less interested in finding out who did a thing, but in gathering evidence by which one can take down the one you know from the beginning is evil." Ivan Khaytman made a similar prediction on the Three Broomsticks Podcast that TRG would, like DH, be less of a whodunit and more of a quest, although it turned out to be both, 
33. Littlejohn is a Pettigrew-type character in that he is a traitor and a spy. 
1. Like Pettigrew/Wormtail, his name could mean "Small Penis." 
2. Though clearly eager to sack Liitlejohn immediately, Strike initially "spares" him, not unlike Harry did for Pettigrew in POA. 
1. This results in Strike getting the tape of Kevin Pirbright, which was useful even though it was of poor quality. 
34. Within the cult, Taio and Jiang also seem to be the Pettigrew combination. Taio is the rat-like guy who faithfully (but resentfully) serves Papa J, while Jiang is even more resentful and of lower status.  Robin manages to befriend Jiang a bit in the hunt for the mother-of-pearl fish pendant, which is enough to win him as an ally against Tiao when she wants to go for a pee after emerging from the attic. That small concession is what allows her to escape. 
35. Emily Pirbright, on the other hand, reminds me of Draco, with the fear and panic overwhelming her and making it impossible for her to escape evoking Draco's sobbing in the bathroom in HBP and the fear he has in Malfoy Manor in DH. Robin's compassion makes an impact, and Emily, "owing" Robin, gives her crucial information in the attic. Draco, "owing" Harry, declines to identify him. 
36. Harry finds a torn letter from his mother to Sirius, that turns out to be an important clue. Strike obtains an incomplete tape of Kevin Pirbright that is also an important clue. 
37. Robin is falsely accused of a child abuse by the UHC, while the Voldemort-controlled ministry labels Harry Undesirable #1. 
38. Desecration of a corpse: Nagini occupies Bathilda's body; Mazu buries Kevin Pirbright in the vegetable patch and makes his family plant carrots on him
39. Harry and Strike must revisit the scene of their childhood traumas: Godric's Hollow for Harry, the site of the Alymerton Community for Strike. 
40. Mazu resembles Bellatrix Lestrange and has all her compassion and charm. 
1. Specializes in torture, a la the Cruciatus curse. 
2. Molly, that archetypal mother,  defeated Bellatrix with the immortal lines, "Not my daughter, you bitch!" and "You will never touch our children again!"  The second line, though not as well known because it isn't in the movie, is more important because she is acting to protect children of all her community, not just her own. 
3. Robin is not a mother but renounced Satan as a godmother at the start of the book,  She defeats Mazu in the presence of a screaming baby that Mazu has taken that which is not rightfully hers. Robin also reminds Mazu that she was neglectful to Daiyu. As a result, the baby Yixin is returned to her rightful mother and the child-trafficking ring exposed . 
41. Mazu is also compared to Grindelwald, in her thirst for domination. 
42. Voldemort claimed, falsely, that Harry was caught and killed trying to sneak out of the Forbidden Forest. In a twist on that, Papa J himself flees to the US, then is arrested trying to sneak over the border into Mexico.
43. Will re-names his daughter after the dead grandmother she never met, just as Harry names his daughter after Lily. 
44. Both books involve a nasty woman wearing a significant necklace (Umbridge with the Horcrux locket, Mazu her mother-of-pearl fish pendant. At one point in the story, the protagonist is searching for this "lost" necklace. At another point, the protagonists grabs it off the woman's neck and breaks it. 

There are many other parallels found on www.hogwartsprofessor.com, some of which were recognized by multiple readers and many of which are unique. 

Please comment with additions, corrections, agreements or disagreements.