Late to the Wizarding World: Book 6
Thoughts on reading Harry Potter for the first time at age twenty-three
“‘Anyone we know dead?’ asked Ron in a determinedly casual voice he posed the same question every time Hermione opened the paper” (221).
I’ve asked myself the same question, daily, for the last five months scrolling through the news when I wake up in the morning.
The wizarding world gets scary in Book 6. We suddenly inhabit a world where students are pulled out of class to be informed of losses in the family due to seemingly random attacks by Death Eaters. If I learned anything as an English major, it’s that people read what they want into texts, but the climate described at Hogwarts felt undeniably like the one I experienced in Israel this semester.
With the almost daily stabbing attacks by Palestinians in the early fall, main streets in Jerusalem on a weekend night felt like the deserted Diagon Alley, my favorite restaurants that had once been busy closed from the drop in business, Jerusalem busses were empty (except the soldiers who got on at every stop, looked around for a few seconds, and then got off), playgrounds had 10x the adult supervision they usually do (none), and it all felt different than the Israel I knew and loved.
Now that I’m in the airport, leaving the country, maybe it’s easier for me to say this, but, for a long time, leaving the house was scary. Sometimes I stayed inside, but sometimes I didn’t have a choice. Twice a week, for example, I taught English in a somewhat dicey neighborhood in South Tel Aviv. Thanks to daylight savings, it was dark when I got there and it was dark when I left. Until late October, I was scared every single minute of that commute, from when I left the office in Tel Aviv, to the 11pm ride on the empty local bus from the Jerusalem bus station to my apartment.
Family and friends back in the States asked me what it felt like to live in place under constant terror threat. Few got a full or honest answer. Israelis outside of Jerusalem frequently asked if I was scared to live there, if I wouldn’t rather live somewhere else. It’s not so bad, I’d say. I feel pretty safe most of the time. I only confided in one friend back home — and even then, only when he pressed.
Why was that so hard for me to tell people? Partially, I didn’t want to worry people who would worry excessively and not be able to do anything about it. But I think I felt some of Ron’s need to cover up the instinct to run, the nerves, the fear. In a scary world, bravery and silence somehow become equated.
J. K. Rowling captures it all in a way that felt real to me. And she has loads to say about politics (mostly through the voice of Dumbledore). He teaches Harry to understand the humanity of one’s enemy. He allows Harry to confide in his friends even the most secretive aspects of their private lessons because he recognizes how important friends and community are at a time like this. Seriously, it’s like Dumbledore is a political theorist:
“If Voldemort had never murdered your father, would he have imparted in you a furious desire for revenge? Of course not! If he had not forced your mother to die for you, would he have given you a magical protection he could not penetrate? Of course not, Harry! Don’t you see? Voldemort himself created his own worst enemy, just as tyrants everywhere do! Have you any idea how much tyrants fear the people they oppress? All of them realize that, one day, amongst their many victims, there is sure to be one who will rise against them and strikes back! Voldemort is no different! Always he was on the lookout for the one who would challenge him. He heard the prophecy and leapt into action, with the result that he not only handpicked the man likely to finish him, he handed him uniquely deadly weapons!” (510).
Book 6, at times, verges on political treatise/commentary on power and evil. Yet, J. K. Rowling doesn’t lose the characters or the story in political climate. There are still moments of humanity, of personal struggle: the fight to win a sports match, the heartbreak of a love triangle between friends. And beautiful moments too: of Harry with his friends in the secluded Burrow, the moment Dumbledore says in his weakened state that he’s not worried because he is with Harry. In the midst of all the strife and fear, are the quiet human moments that happen independently of the larger political climate. This semester, I learned what J. K. Rowling knows: sometimes you’re acutely aware of how bad the situation is; sometimes, miraculously, you can forget.
Because it’s different than war, my friend pointed out: the violence is daily, visual, and normalized. He called it “casual bravery” to go about daily routine in this situation. Some even joke about the threat (which shocked me at first when I read it in Harry Potter, but then realized that it was also the norm, the coping mechanism for my friends in Israel). That’s why this Harry Potter book is my favorite so far. In this book, just going to classes, just traveling home for winter break, just living is an act of bravery. Dumbledore said, “It is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more.” Maybe so, but the unknown is exhausting.
Despite this fear and the exhaustion, I’m sad to be leaving. I’m going to miss the drive on the empty highway home from Ra’anana with my friend late on Saturday nights; having dinner with friends at Tmol Shilshom, the bookstore café tucked in an alleyway off a quiet street; drinks with my brother at the speakeasy in downtown Jerusalem that can only be entered though a revolving bookcase; stopping in the middle of the traffic-less road at night in front of my house and staring up at the sky, finding Orion and the Minotaur before I go inside. This is what I will remember most clearly: the quiet moments where I could lose myself in peaceful reality. Against all odds in this country, they exist.
