Harry Potter's Invitation to the World
by Vickie Ewell
Chapter 100 – Harry Visits with His Friends (HP Chapter 17
After Dumbledore left, Harry had to plead with Madam Pomfrey for a five-minute visit with Hermione and Ron. At first, she wasn’t going to budge. She insisted that Harry needed rest. I found that a bit amusing, since Harry had been asleep in bed for three days now. Three days was often used to symbolize Death and Rebirth because it was once believed that the physical body of a Master, or someone who was close to the end of the Journey, didn’t begin to decay until after at least three days.
Harry was persistent about visiting with his friends. Madam Pomfrey had let Dumbledore visit him, so why not Ron and Hermione? “I am resting,” he said, “look, lying down and everything. Oh, go on, Madam Pomfrey…” As a nurse, Madam Pomfrey was obviously concerned about physical matters, but she resembled Hermione in that she was a stickler for following the rules of health needed to heal. Harry saw her as an obstacle to his desire to see his friends.
Now that we have faced Quirrell, understand our conditioned nature, and split awareness a little bit better, Jo is going to show us how various selves interact with each other. She has been doing that throughout the entire book, but most of us were probably not paying attention. We might have agreed with the positions of certain characters, recognized our self in others, and set up accounts against those whom Harry mistrusted, or those who said and did things we didn’t agree with. Jo is now going to show us again.
Harry began by insisting that he was resting. What he was doing was sticking up for his perceived rights. It’s a form of complaining because Madam Pomfrey stands in the way of Harry achieving an ideal: seeing Ron and Hermione. When that didn’t work, he coaxed Madam Pomfrey to Look at him. He wanted her to become more aware, but didn’t realize he was attempting to manipulate her. He was just reacting mechanically to the discomfort he feared he might experience if he cannot get Madam Pomfrey to see his point of view, how he believed she ought to be.
On the surface of the story, Harry just wanted to visit with his friends, but he was acting like Ron. He was returning to his old way of behaving. It takes more than Waking Up to regain what we’ve lost. So what does Madam Pomfrey do when Harry sticks up for his rights? She agreed to let Harry’s friends visit with him, but only for five minutes. In her mind, the time limit was compromise, but to Harry, it reinforced his belief that he was justified in pushing for his rights.
Ron and Hermione were overjoyed to see Harry alive. Hermione was so excited, Harry thought she was going to throw her arms around him. He was glad she didn’t. His head was still sore. Jo is calling attention to Harry’s head. Undoubtedly, she’s going to show us more inner conflict. Hermione spoke for both her and Ron. “Oh, Harry, we were sure you were going to – Dumbledore was so worried –“
Hermione was bouncing from thought to thought without finishing them, so Ron stepped in and took over in the middle of her outburst. She wasn’t talking about what he wanted to know. That’s what each side of our awareness does when one side thinks it’s right and the other is wrong. “The whole school’s talking about it,” Ron interrupted. “What really happened?”
Jo tells us that the True Story was stranger and wilder than the rumors. Discovering the Truth for ourselves is like that. Most of the world only perceives what is outside of their self, religion and spiritual traditions included. Almost everything is taken literally. Even among those who believe they are Seekers after Truth, the inner turmoil, confusion, and conflict that come from a fractured awareness continues if the entities, forces, and false beliefs within our self are not deactivated and let go of.
We were not told what the school’s rumors were, but they were probably as wild and varied as modern-day religious traditions are. After Harry shared his side of the story, Ron was still confused. Even though he had sacrificed his self at the end of the Chess Game to save Harry, he couldn’t understand why the Stone had been destroyed. Nicolas Flamel was going to die. That didn’t make sense to him. Harry found himself identifying with Ron’s reaction. “That’s what I said.”
All three of the kids have circled back to Level One. They were not treating the night’s lessons lightly, but they don’t understand what they experienced. That happens to many of us. We ask for Truth, or we begin to question life, but when the answer is presented, we don’t accept it because it isn’t logical. Like Jo said, the Truth is wilder than we ever imagined.
However, Harry did remember the wisdom Dumbledore shared with him about death: “To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.” Harry didn’t have a well-organized mind. His awareness had split itself into Hermione and Ron. Since Ron represents the complainer and blamer, he didn’t have the analytical ability that Hermione had. He believed Dumbledore was a bit off his rocker. He didn’t get it.
Harry chose to not respond to Ron’s confusion. “So what happened to you two?” Harry asked, changing the subject. Harry didn’t understand what Dumbledore meant either, but he found Dumbledore’s words valuable enough to file away in his memory. It was a much safer place for them than where Ron would have put them.
Hermione took over again and revealed to Harry what happened. She had retraced her steps quite easily, but it took a long time to bring Ron back to consciousness. He had been completely knocked out. That signaled that Ron may remain caught within his conditioning for most of the series because despite Hermione’s efforts to awaken him, he remained unconscious for a long time.
By the time the two of them reached the owlery, Dumbledore was already in the entrance hall. “Harry’s gone after him, hasn’t he?” Dumbledore didn’t wait for their reply. He raced passed the couple and hustled toward the third floor.
Ron started looking for something or someone to blame for the night’s events. He wondered if Dumbledore had meant for Harry to go after Quirrell since he’d given Harry the invisibility cloak. That idea upset Hermione quite a bit. If it was true, she thought the whole idea was terrible because Harry could have been killed. She’s being far more reasonable than Ron, but Harry didn’t find the idea all that awful. “I think he wanted to give me a chance.”
In Harry’s perspective, Dumbledore knew almost everything that went on at Hogwarts – sort of like magic. He figured Dumbledore knew they were going to try to protect the Stone, and instead of stopping them, taught them enough to help. He didn’t see learning about the Mirror of Erised as a coincidence. “It’s almost like he thought I had the right to face Voldemort if I could…”
That’s coming from Harry’s 11-year-old mindset. Instead of seeing things clearly, he reacted to Ron’s question by inventing a scenario that put his self in a grandiose light. He didn’t have the foggiest idea why Dumbledore gave him the invisibility cloak. All Dumbledore said was that it belonged to his Father, so he thought Harry would like to have it. Obviously, Dumbledore did not know the kids were going to go after the Stone that evening, or he never would have left Hogwarts.
According to the frog cards that Harry read in the beginning of the book, Dumbledore was an Alchemist. His reason for teaching Harry about the mirror was more likely to help him learn that his inner world existed. That’s the first step in our journey. We have to come to know that there is something beyond everything we can see, hear, touch, and taste. We have to learn that we have an inner world. Dumbledore wouldn’t have offered Harry more than he could handle. Nor would he believe that Harry had a right to face Voldemort at this stage in his development.
We have very few “rights,” because a right is something that cannot be taken away from us. If something can be taken away, it’s a privilege not a right. Most of the time, what we define as a right is a privilege, but conditioned man believes he has plenty of rights, and that they are worth defending at all costs. They are worth standing up for.
Ron used Harry’s story to back up his feelings that Dumbledore was off his rocker. That gave Ron someone to blame for the events turning out as they almost did, as well as gave him a sign that he was right about the old man.
Tomorrow was the end-of-the-year feast. According to Ron, the points were counted, and Slythrin had won. That wasn’t much of a surprise to him. Harry had missed the last Quidditch Game, and Ravenclaw had slaughtered them. To Ron, it probably felt like he was stating facts to Harry. Harry was stuck in bed, so they lost, but what Ron was actually doing was blaming Harry’s “condition” for Gryffindore’s loss. It’s an excuse or explanation for the team’s failure that made Ron feel better about the loss. “But the food’ll be good,” Ron insisted.
Ron finds a lot of pleasure in good tasting food, so the food will make everything feel like it’s okay for him again. But before Harry could respond to his comment, Madam Pomfrey kicked the kids out. She wasn’t happy that they had been talking for nearly 15 minutes, instead of the agreed upon 5