Well, it’s finally done. I’ve finished reading the seventh and final book of the Harry Potter series. Though this post is not by any means a review, I would strongly recommend Deathly Hallows to anybody. Also, it goes without saying that plot details abound! If you haven’t read it yet, come back when you have. I’ll wait.

I recently read a superb article over at hogwartsprofessor.com about some of the Christian content in Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows, and it inspired me to put down some of my own thoughts about the seventh and final novel of the series, how it relates to my idea of faith, religious and otherwise, and why I liked what JKR had to say so much. Please forgive the lengthiness of the post… I’ve never been that good at brevity.

“like Graham Greene, my faith is sometimes about if my faith will return. It’s important to me.” - J.K. Rowling, in an interview with Tatler Magazine, Jan 10, 2006

I can completely relate. Throughout my own life there have been many times where my faith has wavered, cracked, and even broken completely. Attacks came on all sides: my faith in God, in the world, in institutions, in other people, and most especially, in myself. One of the reasons I liked the Potter books so much is that Harry shares my crisis. For him, nothing is certain, though he knows that everything depends on him making the right decision with what little information he has.

The crisis begins with the death of Dumbledore, whom Harry had always assumed would be there forever, at the end of Half-Blood Prince. He leaves what seems an impossible mission for Harry to complete, but Harry is “Dumbledore’s man, through and through.” (HBP,649) Though the loss of his hero is tough, Harry trusts his mentor completely. He believes that the very fact that Dumbledore gave him the mission means he will be able to complete it.

A short time later, however, the final chapter of Harry’s journey begins, and the first seeds of doubt are planted. Harry reads an article by tabloid journalist Rita Skeeter which paints Dumbledore as a complete fraud. Though Harry would have good reason (as Hermoine points out later in book 7) to disregard everything Skeeter says, things aren’t nearly that easy for Harry.

In general, Harry wants to know the truth, no matter what that might be. But beyond that, Harry needs to know the truth because he’s about to embark on an extremely dangerous mission, and knowing whether or not he can trust Dumbledore’s judgment is quite literally a matter of life and death. The answers, however, won’t come easily.

After inheriting three items of questionable utility from the late Albus Dumbledore, Harry, Ron, and Hermoine set out to find and destroy the remaining four Horcruxes. They find and retrieve the first, but lack a means of destroying it and none of them have the foggiest clue what or where the two as-yet unidentified Horcruxes could be. It seems to all three of them as if Dumbledore has left them holding the bag.

It is at this point that Harry’s crisis of faith shifts into high gear. Ron leaves the trio, and his parting words articulate what all three of them have begun to feel:

“We thought you knew what you were doing![…] We thought Dumbledore had told you what to do, we thought you had a real plan.” (DH,307)

Harry sinks deeper into despair as he reflects on the fact that they cannot go back, though they have no idea how to go about completing their mission. They decide to follow the only lead they have, by going back to where it all began: Godric’s Hollow. It is there that they hope to obtain Godric’s sword to destroy the horcrux they had already obtained, there that Harry sees his parents’ grave for the first time, there that he believes he can dig up some information about Dumbledore, and there where he and Hermoine are hoping against hope that they might find a clue as to what to do next.

Harry and Hermoine travel to a church graveyard on Christmas Eve, and sure enough, they do come across some information that sheds considerable light on Albus’ past, in the form of the epitaph he chose for his mother and sister.

“Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” (DH,326)

Some of you may recognize this passage from another source: it’s Matthew 6:21. I had noticed that JKR had carefully sidestepped any mention of real-world spirituality previously in the series, so it came as a complete shock to me that Dumbledore would choose such a curious epitaph for his mother and sister. But boy, does it ever fit. Later we will find out why Dumbledore chose this verse, and why everything depends on where Harry’s treasure is.

Still thinking that the choice of epitaph must’ve been a fluke, I kept on reading. And two pages later, it happened again! Harry moved into another part of the graveyard, and saw his parents’ grave for the first time. Inscribed upon it is 1 Corinthians 15:26.

“The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” (DH,328)

This is a powerful moment for Harry, and a powerful moment for me as I read it, because I knew what it meant. Harry was one of the previously unidentified horcruxes, and he was going to have to freely offer his own life to complete his mission.

The detour to Godric’s Hollow ended up being a complete failure. Harry and Hermoine didn’t find the sword, they were ambushed by Voldemort’s pet snake, Nagini, and though they escaped with their lives, Harry’s wand was broken in the process. It was the last piece of hope they had, the last thing that they possessed that gave them an advantage over Voldemort in any way.

Harry’s response was exactly what mine would have been in the situation:

“His fury at Dumbledore broke over him now like lava, scorching him inside, wiping out every other feeling. Out of sheer desperation they had talked themselves into believing that Godric’s Hollow held answers, convinced themselves that they were supposed to go back, that it was all part of some secret path laid out for them by Dumbledore; but there was no map, no plan. Dumbledore had left them to grope in the darkness, to wrestle with unknown and undreamed-of terrors, alone and unaided: Nothing was explained, nothing was given freely, they had no sword, and now, Harry had no wand.” (DH,351)

It is at this point, when Harry thinks his faith in Dumbledore couldn’t be any more broken, that the greatest temptations come. Hermoine tells Harry that she has acquired a copy of the book that Rita Skeeter has written about Dumbledore, and Harry reads a chapter within it dealing with Dumbledore’s previous ideas about wizard superiority, and his friendship with a famous dark wizard named Grindelwald. This proved to be the final straw: as Hermoine attempts to convince Harry that Dumbledore loved him, Harry dismisses her coldly. “He closed his eyes at her touch, and hated himself for wishing that what she said was true: that Dumbledore had really cared.” (DH,362)

Twice in my own life I’ve been there, where the thing you thought to be completely unshakable lies in ruins, and to look upon them is to take in the awful finality of it all. Beyond that point, there is no going back, no choosing to believe it isn’t so, no way to limit the damage. Your faith is irrevocably removed from the object of its focus. But twice in my life I’ve also noticed that it is at precisely this juncture that a miracle is most likely to occur.

In Deathly Hallows, that miracle comes in the form of a silvery doe, the patronus of Severus Snape. Snape uses the doe to lure Harry to where the sword is hidden, and to lure Ron to Harry. Harry soon has his shattered faith in Dumbledore tested, when he learns of the existence of the Deathly Hallows, the possession of which will supposedly allow him to conquer death.

The trio ends up being captured and sent to Malfoy Manor, where they are rescued by the extremely unlikely appearance of Dobby, and the inexplicable appearance of an eye that looks strangely like Dumbledore’s in Harry’s shard of mirror. Dobby is killed during the rescue, and Harry’s final test arrives. With limited time, he is forced to choose between sticking to the mission that Dumbledore gave him, or setting out to find the Hallows in an attempt to cheat death.

Shattered though his faith in Dumbledore was, Harry chooses to continue the mission to find and destroy the horcruxes. He realizes that Dumbledore may have had a reason for withholding so much important information, and decides to trust first and ask questions later.

“The Dumbledore in Harry’s head smiled, surveying Harry over the tips of his fingers, pressed together as if in prayer.

You gave Ron the Deluminator. You understood him…. You gave him a way back….

And you understood Wormtail, too…You knew there was a bit of regret there, somewhere….

And if you knew them… What did you know about me, Dumbledore?

Am I meant to know, but not to seek? Did you know how hard I’d find that? Is that why you made it this difficult? So I’d have time to work that out?” (DH,483, emphasis original)

Harry’s decision proves that his treasure lies where Voldemort can’t touch it. There are things that Harry values above his own life, and though he doesn’t know it yet, treasure will make his victory not only possible, but certain.

A few chapters later, we are introduced to Albus’ brother, Aberforth, and the story of what really happened to their sister. At the death of their mother, Albus should have taken responsibility for his sister, who never learned to control her own magic, but finding that burden a little much to bear at the time Albus instead embarked on a quest to recover the three Hallows. At least in that instance, Albus’ treasure was earthly, and therefore destined for ruin. Albus later points this out to Harry:

“I crave your pardon, Harry. I have known, for some time now, that you are the better man.” (DH,713)

Aberforth’s conclusion is that Harry’s trust in Albus is misguided and dangerous. Dangerous though it certainly was, this trust was far from unearned.

“Harry kept quiet. He did not want to express the doubts and uncertainties about Dumbledore that had riddled him for months now. He had made his choice while he dug Dobby’s grave, he had decided to continue along the winding, dangerous path indicated for him by Albus Dumbledore, to accept that he had not been told everything that he wanted to know, but simply to trust. He had no desire to doubt again; he did not want to hear anything that would deflect him from his purpose.”(DH,563)

At this point, Harry had completed the journey from blind faith (Dumbledore’s funeral) to doubt (Godric’s Hollow) to full-fledged trust (Dobby’s grave). And it was this aspect, this journey, that made me love Deathly Hallows so much. J.K. Rowling understands what so many others fail to understand about faith.

Today the notion is common that all beliefs should be based on reason and reason alone, and all other belief is foolish and deserving of ridicule. And I think the reason the notion is so common is because it is so very nearly the truth. Blind faith is indeed dangerous, and though it is often more comforting, it is far less useful than doubt.

But few people realise that doubt isn’t the end of the journey. It is rarely pleasant, and if left unchecked it can lead to paralyzing fear, but so many choose it because they refuse to accept a simple fact: you don’t have, nor will you ever have, all the information. Once that fact is accepted, trust becomes possible. And though it isn’t airtight, trust is the natural successor to doubt, higher than it and preferable to anyone who can relinquish control.

But in what I’m sure is some kind of sick joke, nobody’s sure of anything except that they don’t want to trust. The blind faith people claim that the trusters are going through far too much effort, and should just choose something to believe in without any regard for the truth, and the doubters claim that the trusters are just blind faith people in sheep’s clothing.

It soon becomes obvious who the fools are, though. There stand the blind faith people, who never began the journey with their fingers in their ears and their eyes shut tight, cutting themselves off from the only place which might provide some real answers. And there stand the doubters, who ended their journey too early, stubbornly demanding a complete explanation for everything from a world that simply isn’t going to give one to them. Finally, there stand the trusters, who have a truer form of faith because they earned it. They have payed a heavy price for their hard-won trust, and in return they have received a treasure which cannot be destroyed.

J.K. Rowling understands this, and I can’t thank her enough for saying so much about faith in the Deathly Hallows, because it’s restored a bit of my own.

Oh, and I’d also like to thank you, for sticking with me through this ridiculously long rant of a post. If you have any thoughts about this topic, please feel free to leave comments. I’d love to hear from you! Goodbye for now, and God bless.