Death and the nature of experience in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Spoilers below the fold. Go no further if you do not wish to be spoiled!

One of my favorite things about the Harry Potter books is the roll that sacrifice plays. So many people die to protect others–especially to protect Harry–that we never lose sight for even a moment of the cost of the battle with the evil Lord Voldemort. Harry’s parents die to protect him, as do Sirius and Dumbledore, and the seventh book ups that number of deaths significantly.

But it is noteworthy that those beyond the veil cannot communicate with the living. Sirius did not have his mirror, and witches’ pictures have the knowledge of those they reflect, but are not, it seems, the witch or wizard himself. Ghosts are around, but they have never truly died, never passed over to the other side. Death is final, and those who depart can never return to the world of the living to directly communicate with those who live.

All this serves to emphasize the cost of the sacrifice: in a world where Harry knew what awaited him on the other side, one where he could communicate with his parents, the stakes would immediate be lowered: if Harry knows–truly knows–what awaits him on the other side, then the his decisions would be both less weighty and less interesting.

My greatest fear about The Deathly Hallows was that it would cheapen this. I knew we needed to know more from Dumbledore and Snape to make sense of what was to happen, and I suspected Harry might cross over. Once we had seen the other side, it would cast a long, inescapable shadow over all that would happen, all that had happened.

But there comes a moment in the final book when it seemed that we might indeed see what awaits on the other side. Harry is hit with the Killing Curse, and meets Dumbledore at last. But he is told that he is not dead, and that while he may choose to go on, he is not yet in the world beyond. Dumbledore offers two pieces of advice:

Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love. By returning, you may ensure that fewer souls are maimed, fewer families torn apart. If that seems to you a worthy goal, then we say good-bye for the present.”(722)

The echoes of the Buddha tale are unmistakable. Harry is told that death is not something to fear, and knows that life is full of suffering. He could press on, hope to be reunited with his family and friends, but he chooses to return not out of love for life–he has already shown he is willing to give that up–but to help others.

But lest we think that Harry now knows he will be reunited with Dumbledore on the other side, we get one final bit of dialog, as Harry returns to the world of the living:

“Tell me something,” said Harry. “Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?”

Dumbledore beamed at him, and his voice sounded loud and strong in Harry’s ears even though the bright mist was descending again, obscuring his figure.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?” (722-3)

The conversation has truly occurred, but we cannot be sure it is Dumbledore–the dead wizard, crossed back over to meet Harry–that is truly conveying the information. Indeed, we do not know anything about how such a conversation is possible. But we also get an epistemological insight: Harry’s experience has its own reality, and he cannot know whence it arises any more than he can be certain of the world beyond. What he knows is what he can experience, what he can deduce. Does Dumbledore tell Harry what is happening, or does Harry’s insight merely come through the image of the man who has always guided him? We cannot say.

What we know is the advice is wise: Harry returns and, as predicted, defeats the Dark Lord, saving his friends and earning himself so much-needed peace. He has hope for the world beyond, but no knowledge of it. The dead do not return, and once the living cross over, they send no messages back. But Harry can have confidence in the world he has learned to live in. With the help of those he can trust–and with the help of a hero he did not know to trust–Harry triumphs. He has found a means of making sense of the world and thriving in it. Having learned not to fear life, he has also cast aside the fear of death. Having sacrificed himself for others, he has freed himself from the desperate desire to live that caught Voldemort, and has allowed himself peace in this world and perhaps in the world beyond.

One final word: the epigraph from the novel is from William Penn. It reads:

Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still.  For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is omnipresent. In this divine glass they see face to face; and their converse is free, as well as pure.  This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal.

Penn does not say that the dead will be reunite. Instead he says that the connections that bind them in life bind them beyond it. Lily Potter’s final act saves Harry’s life, and Harry saves the life of many. In such a context, to ask whether Harry will see Lily again is to ask the wrong question, like asking, to borrow from the Buddha, whether a fire, when extinguished, goes out to the East or West. Instead, they are already united by the complex ties of love and existence which bind their lives and all the lives they touch. One has only to live well, and there is no reason to fear death.