Table of Contents
- “To have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever.” – Albus Dumbledore (Rowling; 216; cha.17)
- “Harry, it’s you that has to go on, I know it. Not me, not Hermione. You!” – Ron (Rowling; 202; cha.16)
- “After all this time?” “Always.”
- Works Cited
After watching the whole series of Harry Potter movies, I finally went back to read this book, Harry Potter and the Philosophy’s Stone.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is the first in J.K.（Joanne Kathleen）Rowling’s Harry Potter series of seven novels that have made her the most successful literary author of all time, selling in excess of 400 million copies world-wide. It has 224 pages and 228,000 words. The book was first published in China in June 23th, 2000 and filmed by Warner Bros in 2001. When it first published in 1997, by the Bloomsbury publisher, it has caused a worldwide “Harry Potter” hurricane.
It talks about the adventures of Harry Potter, an orphan whose parents were murdered by an evil named Lord Voldemort when he was young, after he was invited by Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a magical castle hidden somewhere in the UK. Among Harry’s first-year adventures are making new friends (Hagrid, Ron and Hermione), standing up to the torments of school bully Draco Malfoy, and becoming the star player on his Quidditch team (the favored sport in the magical world) and does battle in a deadly duel. Everyone in the wizard world knows more about Harry’s family and his story than he does, so he begins to explore more and more.
There are seven books in the Harry Potter series, includes Harry Potter and the Philosophy’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and so on. But as the beginning of this series, Harry Potter and the Philosophy’s Stone is definitely significant. When I first read the Philosopher’s stone as a child, I was struck by the mysterious and charming magic world. After about 10 years, when I went back to read Harry Potter again, I’ve not only found the fascinating of Rowling’s language, but also explored more details and foreshadowing which I didn’t noticed before. But which moved me most was the topic of “love” in this book, parent’s love, friend’s love and love from lovers, those are the power even stronger than magic.
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“To have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever.” – Albus Dumbledore (Rowling; 216; cha.17)
Harry’s parents loved him unconditionally, even sacrificially. They died on Christmas day, that day they were just playing with little Harry, both of them didn’t take their wands with them, when Voldemort slide in their house, Harry’s father shouted for Lily to run with Harry and was then killed by Voldemort. Lily also died to protect Harry from this disaster and leave a lighting scar on Harry’s head.
Voldemort told Harry, “I killed your father first, and he put up a courageous fight … but your mother needn’t have died. … She was trying to protect you.”
After Harry’s parents died, he lived in his aunt Petunia’s home until eleven years old. But the Dursleys and even aunt Petunia didn’t give him any love. In Hogwarts school, Harry discovers the mirror of Eris by accident, which shows people nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of their hearts. Stand in front of the mirror, Harry see his parents. He sits alone in front of the mirror every day, hoping to meet his parents again.
The sentence was at that moment Dumbledore had spoken to Harry.
Dumbledore found Harry and told him that, “Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. He didn’t realize that love as powerful as your mother leaves its own mark for you. Not a scar, no visible sign … to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some sort of protection forever.” (Rowling; 216; cha.17)
But professor Dumbledore told him: “The happiest people in the world see themselves as what they really are in the mirror. But mirrors do not provide us with real knowledge or truth. People cannot live in the dream, don’t rely on the dream and give up the real life.” (Rowling;156; cha.12)
Growing up can be messy even scary, for Harry, his childhood is cold and lonely. Fortunately, there are still mother’s magic in every corner, it’s the last legacy that mom can leave to her child. To have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever. Like what the movie Coco said, “Death is not terrible, forgetting is.”
“Harry, it’s you that has to go on, I know it. Not me, not Hermione. You!” – Ron (Rowling; 202; cha.16)
When Harry saw his parents in the Mirror of Erised, Dumbledore had also seen something in the mirror, “he saw that his family was still alive. His father Percival (who died in Azkaban), his mother Kendra (accidentally killed by his sister who lost control of her powers), and his sister Ariana are all returned to him, and Aberforth Dumbledore has reconfirmed him.
When Harry defeated a death eater, Sirius said: Well done James (Harry’s father). It was the last thing Sirius had said to Harry before he died. He was always looking for James in Harry. People always want to get what they have lost, but they know this will never happen. Whether Dumbledore, Voldemort, Snape, Lupin, Sirius, Harry, Ron or Neville, they are all lonely people in the world. Thanks to Hogwarts, who gave those solitary boys a shelter to place their souls. “The scar has not pained Harry for nineteen years, as was well”.
In the middle of this book, to unravel the mystery of Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry, Ron and Hermione find themselves involved in a life-sized chess game, in which they become playing pieces. Harry recognizes that Ron is more gifted than he at chess, so he defers to Ron as the wiser partner. More important, Ron proves himself to be such a good friend to Harry that he is willing to sacrifice his playing piece (and get knocked unconscious in the process) so that Harry can go on to find the stone.
The friendship between Harry, Ron and Hermione blooms beautifully and you cannot help but take the characters straight into your heart. Rowling are not just told readers that how strong friendship these three children have, but through this simple describe of their psychology, we can all easily feel the purest friendship between children. That’s magic.
All the characters, teachers, students and bad guys have truly believable personalities, all with their own eccentricities and flaws which more often than not help to make them the truly loveable and long-standing characters they will become.
These friendships and relationships drive the book forward, providing comical respite and emotional engagement along the way. Without the intense and realistic friendship dynamic between the three key characters the book would not be so charming. We will always make characters alive by giving them emotion, which embodied in the details described character’s action, language and psychological. Surely, Rowling did it, and gave us the fortune to see those lovely muggles and the grand magical world.
“After all this time?” “Always.”
The hook-nosed teacher looked past Quirrell’s turban straight into Harry’s eyes and a sharp, hot pain shot across the scar on Harry’s forehead. From the leaky cauldron to Diagon Alley, to the Hogwarts train, to the school, everyone stared at the lightning scar on his forehead. Only one looked into his eyes. Parsee told Harry it was professor Snape.
When we first read this, we might feel nothing about this, but at last, we will finally find that Rowling had hidden a foreshadowing at begin.
When Snape died, it was revealed that his deep strong love for Lily Evans (Harry’s mother) caused him to redeem himself, joining Dumbledore’s cause for her protection (and, after her death, that of her son) from Lord Voldemort. At his last time, Snape told Harry “look at my eyes. You really have your mother’s eyes.” When we were shocked by the deeply hidden love of Snape’s, look back to the sentence described the first time Harry and Snape met, we finally take a tumble that though Harry’s eyes, he saw his girl, that girl he loved, with the same beautiful green eyes.
And it had finally revealed that Dumbledore has asked Snape after Lily had died for many years, “After all this time?” “Always.” Said Snape.
This kind of reverse usually give readers deep impression and that’s also why readers always so interested in talking about Snape’s love of lily and appreciate over and over again. Rowling is very good at foreshadowing and let readers to find the surprise and connection at last, which I think it’s a good way to use in writing, especially in writing novels.
“Love” is the balance point between the dark and warmth in this book, because of the existence of “love”, no matter how difficult the life is, we still feel hopeful about the world.
Sometimes I can see, on the little island, Hagrid opens the door and walks into Harry’s life: “Harry, you’re a wizard!” It was the best gift Harry had ever received in eleven years. When I was young, I always wondered there was also an owl named Hedwig, who carried the letter that Hogwarts invites me to the magical world and tells me that “Congratulations, you’re a wizard!”. I felt pity that it has been seven years and that owl still hasn’t come. But love is always here, which gives us the strongest power to defeat the darkness.
Works Cited
- Joanne Kathleen Rowling. 1997. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Bloomsbury publisher
