HPP: The Greatest of These*

Three is irrefutably a magic number; and there are three revelations at the end of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

The first revelation is the solution to Dumbledore's enchantment protecting the Philosopher's Stone.

Of the 17th and final chapter, Jenna writes, "Dumbledore has set his task up so that no one who actually wants to use the Philosopher's Stone can find it."  It's the perfect catch-22, and an old familiar paradox: that someone who desires the eternal life granted by the Elixir made from the Philosopher's Stone cannot have it; those who cling to their lives shall lose them.

I'm more than a little mystified as to how Dumbledore pulled this off.  Making it so that an inanimate, albeit magical, object senses the intention of the one mirror-gazing and withholds or deposits itself accordingly is impressive.  Although, I suppose, no more impressive than a mirror that looks into a person's soul and shows him back what he most desires.  The Stone would have to have some connection with the Mirror, and it makes most sense, to me, to believe it was hidden inside.  This is no charm to temporarily paralyze a person's nerve-endings or spell to unlock a door.  This is magic that looks into the heart of a man.  To have that kind of ability at lose in the world, whether naturally inherited or gained through secret knowledge, makes me uneasy.  Also, it shows Dumbledore to be on or above the level of Voldemort in skill and eerily similar in nature.

"With great power comes great responsibility."  Could it be that Voldemort and Dumbledore are of the same stuff, with the only difference being how they chose/choose to use their power and regard their responsibility?  Like Voldemort's feeding on the soul of Quirrell, Dumbeldore's task supersedes mere nature and passes into the realm of the spiritual.  Whenever and wherever that happens, questions of morality are sure to follow.

Masha feels the grandiose mirror task renders the previous ones superfluous.  I see her point.  If we're really trying to stop an evil madman from obtaining an object of power, one need only the one impenetrable shield.  Unless we assume that those less wily and wicked than Quirrell-Voldemort, and those less loyal and courageous than Hermione-Ron-Harry, would have had a harder time getting through and met a dead end (no pun inten--oh, what the hey, pun way, way intended!) at an earlier task.  There is also the lingering suspicion that Dumbledore foresaw, to a certain extent, the way in which events would unfold and allowed the tasks and their subsequent dangers for reasons undisclosed--perhaps to strengthen the friends and fortify Harry with their friendship before the greater test; or to weaken Quirrell and distract him, exasperate him, and catch him off guard by making him think his success was a given.

The second big reveal in this chapter is, of course, that Snape wasn't the one working for the cause of Voldemort.  There are little hints of this throughout, and it's hard to say how well it's disguised and how subtle the clues are.  I had long known the plot of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone the first time I read the book and so it didn't come as a surprise to me.  I'm curious about how those first early readers felt about it.

Ponyu, Severus Snape
(Disclaimer: I have no idea and take no responsibility for what he's saying!)

Still, Rowling avoids the elbow-elbow-wink-wink fictional plot-twist: Snape wasn't out to kill Harry, but he doesn't have a hidden heart of gold.

"But Snape always seemed to hate me so much." 

"Oh, he does," said Quirrell casually, "heavens, yes.  He was at Hogwarts with your father, didn't you know?  They loathed each other.  But he never wanted you dead."

So an uneasy truce is struck with the idea of Snape--not enemy . . . not exactly ally, either.

What is there to say about Voldemort being revealed underneath the turban on the back of Quirrell's head?  It speaks for itself.  The fact that the enemy was so near all along, within the very walls of the one place deemed safe--a place for children.  The horror of a man so enslaved by his "master" that he is willing to become an abomination of nature, housing a spiritual parasite.  It's shudder-inducing and hits too close to home.  We may not yet be the ones who have sold our souls, but we feast with, work with, and learn from those who have every day.  The stench is evident.

What follows, then, is surprising only inasmuch as the answer to the Mirror task is surprising: an inversion of the expected, even of the laws of nature, the creed of Darwinism.  The powerful magician cannot bare to lay hands on the helpless boy.  It burns his very skin.  He cannot defeat him.  And while Quirrell's skin burns, Harry's scar sears: clearly, the source of this incompatibility is in the event or act from which the scar was cut.

"But why couldn't Quirrell touch me?" 

"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's for you leaves its own mark.  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 protection forever.  It is in your very skin.  Quirrell, full of hatred, greed, ambition, sharing his soul with Voldemort, could not touch you for this reason.  It was agony to touch a person marked by something so good."  

It seems so simple and obvious, but it's a quite an idea.  In a realm where magic is power, something ordinary and universal like human love is super-magical, and has nothing to do with wizardry.

Or, as Jenna says, "It's interesting here that hatred leaves a scar [. . .] but love leaves an invisible mark with stunning powers."  This is the third significant revelation at the end of The Sorcerer's Stone.

Masha protests Dumbledore's practical use of his pupils, which, despite good intentions and good results, is use nonetheless.  After all, his explanations to Harry leave little doubt as to whether or not he had some shadowy idea of what was going on all along--things which he allowed and even instigated--such as with the cloak and Harry's first encounter with Erised.  We get the idea of a master hand in it all; and this I think is why, with Harry, I fall into a too-easy comfort with Dumbledore.  The concept of an authority figure, of a wise old man who has lived long enough--scrutinized the way of things hard enough--to have arrived at the Right Answers and Know Things.  Especially as a child, we are prone to put full trust into our parents and guardians, never suspecting them of ill, never dreaming of ever one day finding them mistaken.  It's a hard lesson, one that comes with growing pains.  I suspect Harry's going to have to learn it before his time at Hogwarts ends.

"The truth."  Dumbledore signed.  "It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution."

For now, I understand Harry's relief; his resignation to something--someone--greater than he is; who will look after them all, whom they can count on--even if, sometimes, he is called in faith by the one he trusts to do something he does not understand.

The friends from Gryffindor are recognized for their roles in averting disaster--Neville's sacrifice is given special attention by making it the last rewarded, consequently tipping Gryffindor House over the edge for points and out-scoring Slytherin.  It is the happiest moment in Harry's life.  And then the train pulls out, the enchanted realm falls behind, and the journey ends, metaphorically as well as literally, at the return to a train station.  It's a place of repose and nostalgia, and a part which no fairy tale is complete without; the coming home after a long and tiresome journey, the putting up of one's feet; the satisfied feeling of deeds well accomplished and unnamed wonders witnessed; and the trust in hope that this is only The End the way the final page of a good book is; that there are potentialities, shapeless and shimmering, just out of reach; and that the door of Faerie is not locked but only shut, ready to open again in a time and place appointed by the stars.




*  1 Corinthians 13:13
**  Similarly, the plot of JRR Tolkien's masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings, hangs on the gamble that Evil will not, cannot penetrate the vision of the Good.  It lacks imagination because it cannot possibly imagine a motive other than selfishness.  Thus, Frodo and Sam are able to slip through the treacherous borders of Mordor unnoticed, to destroy the One Ring, the object Sauron coveted above all else.  He could never have imagined someone putting the good of others before himself.  He could not have fathomed the love of friendship that carried two small, weak creatures over the waste land to accomplish the impossible.