Judy makes it to the Hogwarts Express platform in King's Cross Station, September 2009
What is it about Harry Potter? All those best selling books and then this blockbuster movie taking the whole world by storm. Little kids reading a 700-page book for fun? Amazing.
Well, haven’t we all, at some time in our childhood, imagined we were in the wrong family? That it was some cruel trick of fate that landed us here with these unfeeling ones and sometime our real parents might come and find us—or the only explanation they don’t is because they must be dead.
And if it were only possible to find our way to someplace like King’s Cross Station, track 9 ¾ and board a train for a place where we not only found people more understanding, but who actually thought we were the very special one, the one with magical powers better than any other.
When I was about five or six I ran away from home. My wise mother helped me pack a little lunch and this was in the early 50s when a little child was safe wandering around for a few blocks. I walked around to the back of the school that was across the street from our house and sat down, feeling very sorry for myself, and ate my little lunch. I can’t for the life of me remember what made me so miserable but whatever it was running away seemed like the best alternative.
I wish I had known Harry Potter then. He would have given me hope.
It’s not only children who are drawn to this boy, forced to live in a closet in the Dursley’s house, Neanderthals that they are. Life often hands us the worst possible situations with no conceivable way out. Sometimes we adults feel this despair keenly—children think it will be better when they grow up. Harry didn’t think growing up would make things better. Things got better for him because some extremely unexpected things happened that were working in the background all along. So it goes for many of us.
And then there’s the fact that good and evil are clearly drawn in J.K. Rowling’s books. Harry’s goodness overcomes the wickedest evil, but not until there have been several close calls and a huge effort from Harry that he didn’t know was in him.
We all identify with Harry—unassuming, good, and unrecognized. And how we cheer when someone really sees him, Professor Dumbledore or good friend, Ron Weasley. How we all long for the perfect mentor and a forever loyal friend.
The world needs a little of this magic now. Not to escape, but to show us our best selves, and also to help us remember that things are frequently not what they seem. There may be hidden good in some strange places and what looks good, in the end, may not be.
Harry Potter with the lightning mark on his forehead, wearing studious eyeglasses, has become an archetypal icon for the beginning of the new millenium, and in so doing has shown us what we are missing—what we need and long for. It is not a simpler, easier time; we are all too jaded for that. It is magic and art mixed in with a little kindness and goodness.
Nov. 17, 2001