Late to the Wizarding World: Book 5
Thoughts on reading Harry Potter for the first time at age twenty-three
I feel like we grew up overnight. Harry Potter 4 was on the more sinister side, but in the fifth book the bubble pops. Suddenly, evil takes a human form. Umbridge isn’t a murderous maniac like Voldemort — she’s a deeply misguided educator who worked her way up through the system. And then there’s an even scarier kind of evil: the intangible kind. Harry looses control of his own thoughts to the point where he wants to harm Dumbledore. He gets moody and takes it out on his friends even though, as he’s doing it, he’s not quite sure why. Faceless dementors suck the sadness out of the air he breathes. I can relate.
Learning defense against these evils are my favorite part of book 5, because it’s real. Sure, Voldemort isn’t literally tapping into my thoughts, and I’m not actually being haunted by dementors, but I’d argue that those are just names J. K. Rowling has given to something real and difficult to describe. Dumbledore’s Army may be practicing spells to protect them when they meet Voldemort or dementors, but aren’t the spells a practical strategy?
Take the Patronus for example: If dementors are the invisible (to muggles) shadow of unhappiness, then the patronus is a slightly prettier of saying, “think happy thoughts.”
A friend asked me recently to describe the happiest moment of my life. We weren’t talking about Harry Potter, but he was essentially asking me: if you needed a memory to conjure a patronus, what would it be?
It’s a tough question for a few reasons. First, life highlights (like graduations) are the most readily available examples, but not necessarily my happiest moments. Second, it’s hard to separate activities that make me happy (which, like Harry flying a broomstick, are often recurring: watching one friend dance, hearing another friend sing, walking home from synagogue with my family each year after Yom Kippur, listening to my brothers play piano) with moments of pure, absolute happiness. Third, there are moments of extreme happiness that aren’t so pure. For example: Hiking with my dad in Mianus River Gorge was incredible, but he got a bloody tic that I had to watch my mom try to remove when we got home. Sledding with friends in nine-degree weather on a snow day senior year of college after I’d just had surgery, I was in pain the whole time, even as I was sublimely happy to be surrounded by friends. Would that work for a patronus?
The real happiest moments, I’ve realized, can be hard to conjure, because they’re stored, but not usually readily available until something triggers them. How does one even go about conjuring those memories when they’re most needed?
It’s not so easy. That’s why it’s a post-N.E.W.T.-level spell. Only after much practice can Harry think of his friends, of the moment he found out about Hogwarts, to help procure the spell. I wish we knew more about the memories the other characters use. We learn so much about Harry from the moments he pulls to conjure his patronuses (patroni?).
I consider myself a very happy person, but sometimes dark clouds settle in and it’s hard to put a finger on why. I ward off the bad moments by thinking about my brothers’ weddings; winning the camp-wide singing competition with my bunk after seven years of coming in second or third; drinking white gummy bear shots surrounded by friends on my 22nd birthday; the party my friends threw for me when I finished a draft of my novel; riding a roller coaster with my brother at Tovoli Gardens; going to Gatsby; singing in the car with my brothers on the way home from our grandparents house after the Jewish new year; opening a book of cards and notes from friends and family I haven’t seen since I left the United States four months ago; eating pineapple in the middle of the rainforest hot springs; the drive to go whale watching with my mom in Quebec, trying to find something good on the radio; The One With The Libertarian conversation with my friends late one Friday night; reading the MajorMajorMajor chapter of Catch 22 out loud with my dad on our living room couch one Saturday.
The idea of holding on to good thoughts to ward off negative ones may seem like a simple, unoriginal concept, but I think it’s J. K. Rowling’s best so far — it’s something I’m still working on at age twenty-three, and probably will keep practicing for the rest of my life. It’s not enough to have a wealthy bank of happy memories — though I’m lucky I do — it’s about knowing how to mold them, make them take some form against those inexplicable dementors.
