Late to the Wizarding World: Book 4

Thoughts on reading Harry Potter for the first time at age twenty-three

The most alone I’ve ever felt was on a busy subway train, riding home from high school, around the age I should have been reading the 4th Harry Potter book. I’d found out during 3rd period that one of my friends had died. My age. Sixteen. I distinctly remember going to the rest of my classes, acting as if nothing had happened. On the subway home, I cried. All-out sobbed, even. No one asked me why I was crying; I probably wouldn’t have told them if they did. But it made everything so much worse: that no one knew what I was going through, and that no one knew they’d just been robbed of the opportunity to ever meet this kid whose mouth was permanently fixed in a toothy smile, who could make you lose your breath laughing.

Sitting on that subway was, for me, like experiencing an earthquake that no one around me could feel.

Earlier this week, a friend of mine told me that the Richter scale for measuring earthquakes extends beyond ten — that immense seismic energy released on other planets could reach a 15. Even more fascinating: the scale also goes below zero — a particle settling on a surface registers an ‘earthquake’ at -15. I was so drawn to this idea because it feels true: an event that seemingly has no implications for the rest of life on the planet is still measurable; it’s still on the scale. It still makes waves.

After reading Book 3, I wrote that Harry Potter isn’t relatable — he’s purely aspirational. That seems to have been misinterpreted, because I meant it only in the best way possible.

Harry isn’t just aspirational for shallow reasons (like competing with the older kids and being asked to the ball by multiple girls), he’s also a moral compass of sorts, and his instinct always points north. Nothing highlights this more than the Triwizard Tournament: from sharing the dragon clue with Cedric in the first task and rescuing all the captives in the second, to sharing the goblet and ultimately ensuring that Cedric’s body was brought back safely. Harry (and Hermione!) even laugh off the teasing that results from the slanderous articles (I wish it was so easy for me to ignore that kind of thing). Having such an exemplary moral character in young adult literature is wonderful.

And, what’s more, the whole series is filled with characters who spew moral wisdom like it’s their job — like when Dumbledore tells Harry that the people who have died return to him in his greatest moments of need, or when Sirius tells Harry to judge a person not by how he treats his equals, but by how he treats his inferiors. Those people rub off on Harry, because Harry always does the brave/kind/smart/right thing.

Except when he doesn’t.

My favorite scene in what was certainly the most exciting book of the series so far is the one moment when Harry realizes he hasn’t done the brave/kind/smart/right thing. In the Pensieve Harry hears the name “Longbottom” mentioned and asks Dumbledore if they are of any relation to his friend, Neville:

“Dumbledore gave Harry a very sharp look. ‘Has Neville never told you why he has been brought up by his grandmother?’ he said.

Harry shook his head, wondering, as he did so, how he could have failed to ask Neville this, in almost four years of knowing him.

‘Yes, they were talking about Neville’s parents,’ said Dumbledore. ‘His father, Frank, was an Auror just like Professor Moody. He and his wife were tortured for information about Voldemort’s whereabouts after he lost his powers, as you heard.’

‘So they’re dead?’ said Harry quietly.

‘No,’ said Dumbledore, his voice full of a bitterness Harry had never heard there before. ‘They are insane. They are both in St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. I believe Neville visits them, with his grandmother, during the holidays. They do not recognize him.’

Harry sat there, horror-struck. He had never known, never, in four years, bothered to find out” (603).

This moment packs a punch because it comes so late. For the initial readers of the series, by Book 4, they’ve known Neville as long as Harry has. Admittedly, I started Book 1 only a few weeks ago, but, still, I’ve spent almost 1,800 pages with these characters, and, all the while, I’d just assumed Neville’s parents were dead.

Over fall break my senior year of college, I had a tumor biopsied. I remember returning to school after that brutal weekend, telling people, when they asked about my fall break, “It was fine. I slept a lot.” Later that week, I spent an entire morning on the phone with people at the hospital trying to get conclusive results, explanations, and next-step recommendations. I was put on hold, transferred from doctor to doctor, until I finally had to give it a rest and go to my organic chemistry lab.

In lab, I went through the procedure. I think I broke a flask or two (nothing unusual), but it was probably the most difficult three hours of my college career. I had the same thought I’d had on the subway, years earlier: I’m with these people and none of them know what I’m going through. It was profoundly isolating.

Except this time, as a college student, that feeling of isolation jolted me into a new perspective: If most of my closest friends — let alone the thirty people in my lab class — have no idea what I’m dealing with, what are they facing that I don’t know about? How many of the people efficiently going about their lab work around me are silently carrying something even worse?

It’s probably the best lesson in empathy I’ve ever received — and it came at the moment I was feeling the most alone and helpless.

I was reminded of this when I read about Harry being jolted out of his own problems upon hearing that someone so close to him had been deeply suffering without his knowing (and not just Neville: the plight of the house-elves is another of many examples of off-stage suffering in this book). Harry’s conversation with Dumbledore reminds us that the people around us are struggling — not always, but often enough — and we should do a better job picking up on those infinitesimal waves, even when they’re nearly impossible to detect.

Then J. K. Rowling reminds us that it’s more complicated than that. Being sensitive and perceptive is important, but it’s not enough. We find out in the next chapter that Harry tells Ron and Hermione everything Dumbledore told him (as usual. Harry tells Ron and Hermione literally everything.). Except there’s a beautiful phrase tucked into that long paragraph: “He had not told Ron and Hermione about Neville’s parents” (607). Harry knows that it’s not his news to tell. He’s not a gossip. He’s not going to spread information that Neville probably doesn’t want to go around. But if Harry is the moral compass that I think he is, this information, along with the realization that others around him are suffering without his knowing, will make him a little more empathetic towards Neville and a little more sensitive in the future. I guess I’ll find out in Book 5.