Struggle for Joy
the story of Harry Potter
WARNING: Contains Spoilers
Few lives have been so marked by sorrow as Harry Potter's. Having witnessed his parents' murder at the age of one, narrowly escaping death himself, Harry is raised by a family that hates and persecutes him.
At the age of 11, Harry's life takes a turn for the better. Some wondrous people swoop down on him and spirit him away from the rotten folk who had so plagued his life until then. They inform him that his parents were wizards and that he, too, is a wizard; that he has been accepted as a student of Hogwarts school for wizards; that he is famous
amongst wizards for having caused the demise of the evil black wizard, Voldemort whose attempts to destroy him had rebounded upon him; and that he even has a small fortune tucked away in a secret wizards' bank. Harry also learns that the people who raised him, the "normal" ones, are known as "muggles" in his new world, people without a shred of magic. Like many a misfit who grew up in a world that treated him as an inferior, Harry learns the joys of acceptance in his new hip culture in which his former tormenters are the "inferior" ones.
Harry's troubles would seem to be over but, unfortunately, this is far from the case. Hogwarts, while basically a good place where Harry finds friends for the first time in his life and where he can learn and grow, also has some very mean people in it. A fellow student, Draco Malfoy, and his two henchmen, seek to undermine and destroy his confidence every step of the way. Professor Snape, head teacher of the Slytherin house, plainly hates him and acts with a completely unprofessional vindictiveness towards him. These forces are like an evil chorus, seeking to darken his life throughout his stay at Hogwarts.
However, Harry now has allies as well as enemies. His best friends, Ron and Hermione, live in the Gryffindor house with him and share all his trials, secrets and tribulations. He discovers an amazing aptitude for flying on his broom and, with it, for playing the most important position of Seeker in the sport of Quidditch. In addition to these friends, Harry has a powerful, benevolent mentor in the person of Albus Dumbledore, the Hogwarts headmaster. Later, he discovers he also has a godfather. Sadly, Harry loses both these father-figures. They are both murdered by followers of the evil Lord Voldemort.
Studies, relationships and sports are not Harry's only challenges while at Hogwarts. Every year, he is faced with serious magical tasks related to Voldemort's attempts at a return to power, which are, sadly, finally successful. While deprived of a body but still not dead, Voldemort still had allies doing his bidding both inside the school and without.
Harry learns that things aren't always what they seem. Those who seem to be his allies are sometimes enemies in disguise and those who are believed to be his bitterest foes are sometimes his closest supporters. Such a surprise supporter is one Sirius Black, a convict who has escaped from Azkaban Prison, where former followers of Voldemort are guarded by dementors, fearsome creatures who have the ability to suck all the joy from people just by being in their vicinity. "Dementors are among the foulest creatures that walk this earth. They infest the darkest, filthiest places, they glory in decay and despair, they drain peace, hope, and happiness out of the air around them. Even Muggles feel their presence, though they can't see them. Get too near a dementor and every good feeling, every happy memory will be sucked out of you. If it can, the dementor will feed on you long enough to reduce you to something like itself ... soul-less and evil. You'll be left with nothing but the worst experiences of your life."
Isn't this what mean people do when they constantly seek to undermine us? Isn't the will to suck out everything joyful and self-affirming from a person the ultimate evil spell? If so, there are many other forms of "dementors" around Harry whether they are in league with Voldemort or not. Dementors guard the prison for evil wizards but they are like evil wizards, themselves. Dumbledore understands the danger of fighting evil with evil as the fourth Harry Potter book, Goblet of Fire, reveals.
Malevolence isn't the only thing that promotes evil. Stupidity and corruption are also it's allies. While Harry, Dumbledore, Ron and Hermione discover the identities of the real good-guys and the real evil-doers, the latter keep getting away and the former keep getting persecuted due to stupidity, corruption and the sheer refusal of supposed allies to recognize the truth. In the third book, The Prisoner of Azkaban, Snape refuses to listen to information that proved Sirius Black was innocent and later foils the attempt on the part of Harry and his friends to clear his name, all because of his bitter grudge against Harry's father. In The Half-Blood Prince, it turns out that there are other reasons. He has been a double-agent all along and the man to kill Dumbledore and deprive Harry (again!) of a father. In Goblet of Fire, Fudge refuses to take effective action against Voldemort because such action would threaten his political security. Such "well-meaning" stupidity is ultimately so self-seeking as to resemble actual malevolence. We see other examples of such stupidity, or should I say preference for mindlessness, in the vicious gossip-mongering of tabloid journalist, Rita Skeeter, and in those who uncritically embrace her lies. You even see it in jealous behavior of such basically good people as Ron and even Harry (in his jealous reaction to Cedrick). In a world where things are often not what they seem, it is doubly important to keep one's wits about one and sort out the truth from the lies.
Magical survival involves the same skills as survival in the mundane world. This is perhaps why the world of wizards has the same problems as the mundane world Harry had been whisked away from. Stupidity, malevolence and despair are our enemies. Intelligence, prudence, benevolence and faith are our friends.
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