Grace and I finished reading the first Harry Potter yesterday. I love Harry Potter and always have – I read the first four in the summer of 2000, and since then have bought them when they came out and devoured them enthusiastically. I love the world that J.K. Rowling has created, love the allegories, plays on words, humane and hilarious characters. I love the way the book is very much both a book for children and for adults.
In truth I’ve been waiting for Grace to be old enough for me to read them to her. We started The Sorcerer’s Stone a few weeks ago
and have been reading a chapter most nights before bed. She has been totally seduced by the story, and Hermione Granger is currently battling it out with Miley Cyrus for Next Year’s Halloween Costume.
I thoroughly enjoyed re-reading the book as well, remembering things I’d forgotten, re-experiencing things I had remembered. The Mirror of Erised has always been one of my favorite of all of the Harry Potter tropes. The Mirror of Erised (desire backwards) shows you the thing you desire most passionately. The thing that I find interesting is that often people don’t know what they will see. It is a mirror that sees into your heart and reveals the deepest and most profound longing therein. What a lovely thing. I suspect I know what I’d see, but I’d still like that experience. The mirror of Erised is my favorite of a bunch of magical objects in the series who are marked by their ability to interact with the human consciousness.
The other detail I loved remembering was about Harry’s scar. It is clear early on that Harry’s lightning-shaped scar represents his early and triumphant battle with Voldemort. What I’d forgotten is Dumbledore’s lovely discourse on the power of being loved:
Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. He didn’t realize that love as powerful as your mother’s for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign … to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever. It is in your verys kin. Quirrell, full of hatred, greed, ambition, sharing his soul with Voldemort, could not touch you for this reason. It was agony to touch a person marked by something so good.
Of course I had to stop after reading this to Grace to wipe away tears. This reminds me of the well-known Lao Tzu quote:
Being loved deeply by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.
On this snowy Sunday morning, thinking of those whose love shelters me, and vice versa.
Lindsey! I love these parts of Harry Potter, the little gems hidden in there for us adults that are either reading because we long to be like JK Rowling or because our little ones are not able to read the books on their own yet.
I too discovered Harry during 2000 and I too couldn’t wait to share that magical world with Max once he was born. We read the whole series this year, from March -October, finishing just in time for he and his best friend (who became enthralled as Max did) to be Fred and George for Halloween. It is a wonderful journey to rediscover the books with your child–to find these wonderful little pearls of wisdom. Wishing you both joy joy joy!
I, too, waited until my first-born was old enough to enjoy Harry Potter. We finished the first book together in no time and delighted in the movie on a Friday night, staying up past bedtime and munching on popcorn. The next morning he asked to start the second book on his own–to read it alone. I granted him that wish and watched him fall further into the glorious stories of Potter and Hermione. And for Halloween this year? Yup, you guessed it. A last minute Harry costume.
The Mirror of Erised was such a glorious invention by Rowling. That and perhaps the bigger than life Chess match near the end were our favorite parts.
On love: I am taking that Lao-Tzu quote with me today. I need it. I need to remember that the loving is stronger than the being loved. Courage, yes, but also wisdom and light and freedom. There is freedom in loving. Of giving.