fromtiime - Tumblr blog

fromtiime · 4 years ago

Text

The Resurrection Stone Scene: Culmination Of Harry's Emotional Arc

The series biggest themes surround death and Harry coming to terms with his parents' death is arguably his biggest emotional arc. I have argued in my meta about Harry before that he has passive death wish and morbid fascination with the dead. This is obvious in his desire for the Resurrection stone while Ron and Hermione choose other Hallows, his obsession with Mirror of Erised (to the point he feels feverish) until Dumbledore intervenes, him almost wanting to fail to learn a Patronus because he wants to hear his parents voices,the scene at the grave where he almost wishes he was "lying under the snow" with his parents and that possession scene in OOTP, where he wishes to die so he can be with Sirius. Harry has, in many moments, shown a raw desire for death - in ways that actually scares Hermione and makes Ron uncomfortable as evidenced by their reaction when he tells them why he wants the Resurrection stone.

Harry's fascination with the dead isn't surprising - this abused and neglected boy learned in PS that his parents fought to protect him. Essentially they loved him so much, they died for him and Harry feels robbed of that life, a life with parents who loved him dearly (reference his narration in HBP, where he wonders what life would have been like if Neville was the Chosen One).

So accepting his parents and parental figures' deaths and choosing to return to life - a life of sorrow, pain, and trauma when he could have just gone "on" (or had "an out" as he screamed in OOTP) - is one of Harry's bigger heroic decisions. To come to a point that Harry can ask his parents' murderer to feel "remorse" in an attempt to save his soul, Harry needed to see and hear things he always wanted to hear from the people he loved.

So, the scene starts:

"You've been so brave"/ "Stay close to me"

LILY: While in life, Harry knows a lot more about James than Lily, it is interesting whenever she appears in any form, Harry is looking at her the most ("I will be back" Harry says, tearing his eyes from his mother's face in PS/ and once again in DH, he couldn't stop looking at her: "his eyes feasted on her"). She is his mother, the one who loved him so much, it magically manifested as a protection that gave him 17 years of life. Her love is always there as safety blanket - so even when his father disappointed him in OOTP, he is comforted by the idea that his "mother had been decent". She is his ultimate protector and this is why he asks her : "stay close to me" while she is gently affirms, "you've been so brave". And unsurprisingly, it is this sacrifice that lives on in Voldemort that gives Harry a choice - a choice to return to the living. After spending much of the series trying to be like his father, Harry embodies his mother by invoking sacrificial magic for Hogwarts fighters. But his embodiment of his mother is not an impulsive brave decision, his walk to his death is far more intentional than hers - as the book narration says, "it's a cold blooded walk to his destruction".

"You are nearly there, very close, we are so proud of you" / "Until the very end"

JAMES - his father, the man he looks like, flies like, and tries to root his identity in. Harry spends most of the books trying to live up to the ideal of his father. His Patronus is an embodiment of his father ("Prongs rode again last night"), and it is James' bravery that gives Harry comfort at the traumatic night in the graveyard and makes him want to stand up and fight Voldemort: "He was not going to crouch like a child, he was going to die upright like his father" (as Voldemort taunts him: "now you face me like a man..like your father, straight backed and proud").

James is catalyst to lot of Harry's growth. Harry making an active choice after being horrified by his father's behaviour in SWM, wondering "did he want to be like his father anymore?" is an important character moment for him. He reconciles his view of James, humanises him and thinks of him with "a rush of pride" in HBP as the man who walked into an arena to fight with head held high. So, Harry hears from the father he tried for so long to embody and then surpass in moral character - that he is proud of him and that he will be there to protect him "until the very end".

Here is a meta by u/metametatron4 that tracks Harry's feelings about his father and Snape in detail. Read it here.

"Dying? Not at all - quicker and easier than falling asleep" / "We are a part of you - invisible to everyone else"

SIRIUS - While Lily and James affirm how far Harry has come, Sirius as the parental figure Harry had in life offers him words of comfort when Harry asks if dying hurts.

This comfort has an added layer, knowing Harry's often violent response to Sirius's death. His reaction to his death has been attempting Crucio on Bellatrix, trashing Dumbledore's office in OOTP, along with other stages of grief. At the end of OOTP, Harry is a mess of unfocused grief and rage - one that he will actively repress in HBP. He avoids talking about Sirius until he thinks the person he is talking to is as invested in Sirius - he brings up Sirius with Buckbeak/Witherwings or Tonks, who he mistakenly assumes is depressed about his death. The biggest indication of how much Harry is really repressing his feelings about Sirius's death is his reaction to Mundungus stealing from Grimmauld place. He lifts Mundungus with one hand, chokes him until he turns blue while threatening him with a wand. He had to be magicked off Mundungus because he, terrifyingly, showed no inclination of stopping despite Hermione screaming at him to do so.

The other time he reacts badly is Lupin's scene in DH. The first person he thinks of when he says "Parents shouldn't leave their kids" is Sirius. He sees image of Sirius falling through the veil, followed by Dumbledore. His reaction to Lupin abandoning his child is powered by the unprocessed grief and rage of the deaths he has witnessed, of parental figures robbed from him. And then, of course, his violent impulse to break Bellatrix's wand with the sword of Gryffindor once Hermione points out that the wand killed Sirius. His violent reaction to his death is due to lack of closure.

This is why it is important that Sirius tells him that dying doesn't hurt, because it would have eased Harry to know that Sirius isn't in pain. And he assures "we are a part of you" - so even though there was no body to mourn and Sirius just effectively disappeared - Sirius is still part of him.

"He'll want to be quick, he wants it over"/ "I am sorry too. I am sorry that I will never know him...but he will know why I died and I hope he will understand. I was trying to make the world in which he could live a happier life"

LUPIN - Lupin, like Sirius, also offers comfort by telling him that death will be quick because Voldemort wants to finish it too. It's interesting to me that Lupin is the character that says something that arms him for the future - should he choose to have it ("I'll tell him to follow his instincts which are good and nearly always right" Lupin says earlier in the book).

Lupin is a mentor, a bridge and by DH, a warm friend - he was the one who taught Harry the Patronus charm (a gateway to connection with his father + something that protects him) and it's Harry's trust in Lupin that makes him willing to hear Sirius out at the end of POA, thereby connecting him to a very important relationship. He gives Harry tools to equip him to best live out his life. And once again, Lupin acts as a bridge to Harry's life - he tries to take away Harry's guilt from his own death and leaving behind Teddy. Knowing that Harry survives, this is important for Harry to know so he can live with himself as he takes on godfather role to Teddy.

At the end of this scene, Harry drops the stone, ready for his death. And the fact that he chooses not to go back to it without much inner struggle after the Battle of Hogwarts is a marked shift and beginning for him.

493 notes · View notes