I came to this realization talking to my three children, each of them an avid Harry Potter fan, in the wake of the terrorist attacks. It was difficult for them to comprehend the events that suddenly had brought them home from school and thrust them into a terrifying new world. As we groped for ways to discuss the enormity of the tragedy, the series came unexpectedly to mind.
The heart of the Harry Potter novels is the raw, unadulterated evil and bone-chilling terror evoked by the shadowy villain, Lord Voldemort, and his secret society of determined followers. He is “the one who cannot be named” by all but a few because of the fear he inspires, and he bears more than a passing moral resemblance to Osama bin Laden. Harry Potter himself, in turn, is the most unlikely of heroes–a bespectacled, mop-headed, ordinary, unassuming boy who somehow finds the courage and might to be Voldemort’s most implacable enemy, all while maintaining his innocence and sense of fun.
The series is filled with parallels to the continuing crisis. First, it is believed in the books that Voldemort has been vanquished. Those in the magical world of wizardry live happily with the notion that the direct threat he represented is a past nightmare, not a present reality. There are also the perils of complacency. Just as in the world before Sept. 11, nobody wants the kind of sustained vigilance that such a threat would require, and everybody gladly squabbles over far less consequential matters.
The books also illuminate the problems caused by denial and obstinacy. Like all too many of us until recent days, Cornelius Fudge, the government’s minister of magic and the individual most responsible for vigilance against renewed threats, simply refuses to believe, against all evidence, that Voldemort has risen again. It is unthinkable. Worst of all, recognizing the imminence of evil would disrupt comfortable routines and distract Fudge from his hugely enjoyable round of ceremonies and celebrations.
And most notably, there are the hazards lurking in the most ordinary and public of circumstances. A riveting world-championship Quidditch match presents the occasion for Voldemort’s hooded followers to terrorize muggles (ordinary people) and wizards alike. Near the end of the most recent book, a school sports championship, the Triwizard Tournament, suddenly becomes the venue for Voldemort’s deadly re-emergence.
But Harry Potter’s world also provides valuable lessons. There are the links to other periods of history. Just as President George W. Bush inspirationally invoked the successful past struggles against “fascism, Nazism and totalitarianism,” so, too, Albus Dumbledore, the wizened, kindly, brilliant headmaster of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, represents a connection to successful former struggles against Voldemort and his retinue. Indeed, Dumbledore regularly uses his “pensieve”–a device that allows him to isolate memories and consider them with intensity–in order to reflect on Voldemort’s actions and to look for unrecognized patterns that will guide further action. It is precisely the kind of sustained analysis and search for interlocking relationships that will characterize our current efforts.
There is also the need for unlikely allies. Confronting the reality of Voldemort’s re-emergence, Dumbledore sends emissaries to those the wizards have kept at a distance–the giants, long despised and rejected. The wise master recognizes the need for the wizards’ assistance in the simple overriding goal of defeating Voldemort, and, at the same time, understands the paramount importance of preventing Voldemort from making common cause with them. In much the same vein, today we urgently require the assistance of those nations, such as Pakistan and China, with whom we recently differed.
And, most of all, there is, at the core of the saga, the unlikely hero. Harry Potter would like nothing better than to spend his time joking with his friends, engaging in harmless mischief, beginning to worry about girls and obsessing with sports results. But, however unwilling, he cannot avoid his fate and the need to battle Voldemort again and again. In the books, Harry’s scar hurts whenever Voldemort is afoot. He desperately hopes that it is not so, but, when the time comes, he overcomes his fears and responds with courage, loyalty and his essential goodness. He is not unlike those ordinary, unimaginable heroes in police and fire uniforms, and in the office uniforms of the workday, who responded to the evil around them on Sept. 11.
Harry Potter is a natural-born “seeker” on his Quidditch team, a very important position, and, even more importantly, he is a seeker in life–a seeker of truth and simple decency. We are all seekers now, and we must all respond to the re-emergence of Voldemort. Our scar hurts, and, much as we would like to avoid it, there is no alternative to confronting the hideous evil in our midst.
