The Lessons of Harry Potter

"The Lessons of Harry Potter"
As told by Lisa Peake

Laugh if you must, but the latest classic to be added to the bookshelf of history, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, held deeply meaningful lessons for me. At the time of this writing the book has only been published a grand total of four days, therefore I will refrain from giving away any of the essential plot details. What you read now is a glimpse of the proverbs and emotions still swimming in my heart after closing the flame colored hardcover.

Life is precious. I feel it keenly in this moment. Harry Potter is a mythology in which both old and young lives are exposed, risked, and ultimately taken. It is only through the experience of death that we discover how deeply we love life. While Rowling paints memories and precious moments with warm summer days and golden lighting, she captures much more than the picture perfect fantasies of a seventeen year-old. The ups and downs, the triumphs and failures are all there. We see these characters as we see ourselves, and through seeing them, we know our humanity more fully. In moments of extreme danger, courage and truth are revealed.

We cannot have everything we wish for. I have often overheard parents telling their four year-olds, "Life isn’t fair," with great conviction in their tone. Indeed, it is hard to understand life as being "fair" when we have far too little information to comprehend what fair would even taste like. One thing we know: we do not get everything we demand, no matter how deeply we long for it. The stories of Harry and his faithful friends reveal the realities of disappointment. But more importantly, we discover through Harry’s personal journey that the only way out of despair is through.

The process of grief is miraculous and mysterious. Over the past decade of reading these stories I have watched Harry pass through an adolescence riddled with grief, and in that time there have been profound losses in my own life. From small disappointments to dreams wrenched away from my loved ones and myself, these losses have taught me to love my grief as natural and unstoppable. There is something pure and untainted about grief, a swirl of emotions that penetrates everything like the rise and fall of Fawkes’ voice over the lake. I am grateful for grief because it is largely irrepressible, and we would all do well to spend more time in our hearts than heads.

I would like to think that Jo Rowling knew all this and much more. Just as Harry spent much of his youth wishing he could decipher the mind of his great teacher, I too have wondered precisely what Rowling knew that enriched her stories with this unmistakably personal wisdom. In the final pages of the final book, she nourishes us with simple truths:

What is meant to be will be. Whether we like it or not, what is eternal cannot be damaged by any form of magic. Our lives, our stories, our friendships, and most of all, our love continues on beyond the bounds of worldly bodies. Things that we see in our minds, our dreams, and the eyes of our worst enemies, all of these things, live inside of us as real. Take in a breath of fresh air with gratitude. We may not have broomsticks or wands, but here on heavenly earth, we have every opportunity to come of age.