“Seize him! SEIZE HIM!” shrieked Voldemort again, and Quirrell
lunged, knocking Harry clean off his feet landing on top of him, both
hands around Harry’s neck — Harry’s scar was almost blinding him with
pain, yet he could see Quirrell howling in agony.
“Master, I
cannot hold him — my hands — my hands!”
And Quirrell, though
pinning Harry to the ground with his knees, let go of his neck and
stared, bewildered, at his own palms — Harry could see they looked
burned, raw, red, and shiny.
“Then kill him, fool, and be
done!” screeched Voldemort.
Quirrell raised his hand to
perform a deadly curse, but Harry, by instinct, reached up and grabbed
Quirrell’s face —
“AAAARGH!”
(Harry Potter and the
Sorcerer's Stone)
‘Be done’ seems to mean ‘Kill the boy’. But I can’t understand the structure of ‘be + adjective’, which seems not take object. What does the phrase mean, and how do I understand the structure?
Best Answer
“Be” is an imperative. You've probably encountered that construction with other adjectives such as “be quiet” (act in such a manner as not to make noise), “be still” (act in such a manner as not to move), “be on time” (act in such a manner as not to be late), …
The adjective “done” means finished with a particular action. “Be done” is an idiom. If you take it literally, it means either “arrange to have finished now”, which cannot be done, or “arrange to have finished in the future”, which would mean “do it”. What “be done” actually means is “finish this soon”: it's a command to complete a task quickly.
In this passage, Voldemort is unhappy that Quirrell is taking too much time killing Harry, and instructing him to finish the task so that they can move on to do other things.