Back to School

Reflections on Harry Potter

I’ve been holding out on Harry Potter. Resentful, I suppose, that Hogwarts has trumped Narnia. But Anna insisted I read at least The Sorcerer’s Stone. So I did. I confess, Harry Potter is good and fun. You certainly are the better for such a read.

As you begin another school year, Anna from 8^th grade to High School—a big jump, almost as big as from Privet Drive to Hogwarts; some Harry Potter thoughts might be useful. I’ll suggest a few back to school thoughts:

1.  Magic Isn’t Easy:  It takes a lot of schooling to learn the ins and outs of magic. It doesn’t come easy. But once you learn some, it can be useful.

2.  Magic can be Dangerous:  There’s always the Dark Side. Education of itself does not free us from Dark Magic. We can use knowledge, like the tree in the Garden, for good or evil.

3.  There’s a rhythm to the School Year: Interesting how Hogwarts follows the same school year that you follow: Halloween, Christmas, Easter, and Finals.  If we allow “Halloween” its Christian meaning, “The Eve of All Saints Day,” then we have our Christian Calendar: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week and Easter. With the rhythms of Christmas and Easter in our bones, we are ready for Finals. That’s the last two chapters of The Sorcerer’s Stone when all the gifts of learning and sport come into play.

4.  Sport: It can be argued that our family cares too much about sports. But what would Hogwarts be without Quidditch? What a wild, fun sport!

5.  Music: After singing the school song, professor Dumbledore teary eyed sighs, “Ah, music, a magic beyond all we do here!” 

By surprise, the gifts of learning (books & lectures) and playing (Quidditch, chess & flute) provide what is necessary and useful for confronting evil through the trapdoor. And, each of the three friends bring something from their learning and playing that enable them to confront evil.

1.  Hermione’s attention to books and knowledge enables her, with her knowledge of herbology for example, to get them past the “Devil’s Snare”. Her mind has a way of figuring things. When she figures out the riddle of the four choices she explains “This isn’t magic—it’s logic. A lot of the greatest wizards haven’t got an ounce of logic, they’d be stuck in here forever” (chp. 16). Reminds me of the professor in LWW when he sighs, “Why don’t they teach logic at these schools?” Isn’t it interesting that the school of magic requires logic to deal with the evil that meets them through the trapdoor? I like that. Learning has to do with heart and mind, magic and logic, imagination and reason. In our chest, located between head and heart, magic and mind meet and mingle to form our character and give us courage.   

2. For Ron, it’s that chess game he loves to play, that will come into play as they work their way through the trapdoor to the sorcerers’ stone.  Only this chess game, on the other side of the trapdoor, involves real people. Ron, with his love and understanding of the game, places each one in a position to win: “Harry, you take the place of that bishop, and Hermione, you go there instead of that castle… I’m going to be a knight”.  As the living game below the trapdoor unfolds, Ron, the knight, sacrifices himself freeing Harry to checkmate the king. “‘That’s chess!’ snapped Ron. ‘You’ve got to make some sacrifices!’” (Chp. 16)

3. And, for Harry, two things come into play: 1) His Quidditch skills enabled him to fetch the winged key that unlocks door to the inner chamber; and 2) When he pules out his flute, a gift Hagrid had given him for Christmas, the music from the Harry’s flute puts the three headed monster dog to sleep freeing them to go through the trapdoor. Doesn’t that remind us of something in the LWW?  From the first day of school, professor Dumbledore had told them that music is a magic beyond all one learns at Hogwarts.

Throughout the whole struggle below the trapdoor, there is courage mixed with all that they had learned that frees Harry, Hermione and Ron to deal with the evil that lay below. One gets the feeling they are not done with what lies below. Evil things have a way of reemerging. I suppose it will be so until the last trumpet sound when the devil is cast into the lake of fire (Rv 20). Between now and then, we best pay attention to our studies. And, our playing—music and sport. Who knows when it will all come into play in the great adventure of life that lies before you?

One more thing. It’s the great year end Feast. The high point of the Feast held in the Great Hall comes when professor Dumbledore awards the House Cup. By surprise, Gryffindor ends up edging out Slytherin for the House Cup. Dumbledore clapped his hands and in an instant “the green hanging became scarlet and the silver became gold; the huge Slytherin serpent vanished and a towering Gryffindor lion took it place” (chp.. 17).  “The Lion”, doesn’t that remind you of another great Feast in Cair Paravel? There’s much Narnia in Harry Potter. Anyway, “It was the best evening of Harry’s life”. May you have such feast and such evenings! They tend to come by surprise—when all your learning and adventure comes into play.