Harry Potter's Invitation to the World
by Vickie Ewell
Chapter 15 – Harry’s Descent Into Hell (HP Chapter 5)
After pulling several items out of his pocket, including some moldy dog biscuits, Hagrid found the tiny golden key to Harry’s safe. It was not easily assessable for him. Hagrid had to clean out his pockets (clean out himself) to get to it. The moldy dog biscuits made me think of Hagrid’s carnal nature that has been driving me crazy lately. Hagrid’s attitude, belief system, and conditional love doesn’t fit nicely with other symbols that indicate him to be a Master of Compassion.
Here we find mold in his pockets – moldy dog biscuits that he put back into his pocket after presenting the key and the letter from Dumbledore to the goblins. In fact, Jo told us that Hagrid crammed all of those moldy dog biscuits back into his pocket.
In the Tarot, the Fool represents First Matter. In a way, it’s us in our pre-incarnated state. We are just about to step off a cliff that will cause us to fall, and thereby incarnate into this fallen world. We are accompanied by a dog. In Chapter 1, when Hagrid brought Harry and handed him over to Dumbledore, he howled like a dog, as if he were one. A dog represents the domesticated spirit of man, his passiveness, but it can also represent the natural forces working to assist the Alchemist.
Hagrid’s food was moldy. When coupled with his black overcoat, the mold appears to teach that Masters of Compassion don’t always incarnate into their true form of spiritual perfection. They take upon themselves the same conditioning and moldy food that we do: the sins of the world. In Hagrid’s case, he longed for a dragon, so he doesn’t even know that he was a Master. He felt inferior. He behaved like a Muggle, but spiritually, things are not what they appear to be.
Hagrid also presented the goblins with a letter from Dumbdore that informed them of what he wanted done with the item in Vault 713. When you add the individual numbers of 7, 1, and 3 together, you get 11, which then breaks down further into the number two: The Philosopher’s Stone in its physical form. Since the physical stone doesn’t exist in the Muggle World, its physical presence represented the spiritual level, Level 2.
A goblin by the name of Griphook was assigned to take Harry and Hagrid to the two vaults. Although Harry asked Hagrid about Vault 713, Hagrid refused to reveal what he was up too. Dumbledore trusted him to get the Philosopher’s Stone back to Hogwarts safely, and Hagrid intended to live up to that trust. Although Harry himself was that stone, the idea here is that the Masters of Compassion function as stewards under the direction of higher forces who have sent them to earth with particular missions to fulfill.
Hagrid’s mission was to keep Harry safe, as they were now going to descend into the secret depths of hell, reflecting the downward path that Harry and Ron will travel into the Chamber of Secrets in Book 2. This time, they used small carts to make the decent. They took them through twisting passageways, by a fire-breathing dragon, and past an underground lake before they came to a stop at Harry’s vault. When Griphook unlocked the door, a lot of green smoke came billowing out of the vault.
Green represents the raw forces of nature that we are seeking to tame, our subconscious minds. Although Harry had no attachment to the physical world, he still must pass through various tests to make sure the transformation is complete.
When the green smoke cleared, Harry faced a room full of gold coins, silver, and bronze Knuts. It was a mixture of the three major stages of The Great Work. Harry wasn’t new to The Great Work. He just didn’t remember yet. He was a combination of gold, silver, and bronze with the bronze equating to Hagrid’s moldy dog biscuits. Were his inherited treasure to symbolize complete perfection, the vault would have only contained gold.
One’s first thought at viewing treasure is always the most telling about the condition of the heart: Harry didn’t think about himself – things he wanted to have or buy. He thought about how often the Dursleys had complained about the cost of taking care of him. He thought that they probably didn’t know this treasure existed, or they would have taken it away from him. There was no greed or selfishness in his words, just shock accompanied by the voice of past experience and reason.
Hagrid helped Harry gather up enough money for a couple of school terms, and then they headed for the other vault. They had to descend even further into the inner depths in order to acquire the red stone. Harry will have to go deeper within his self than he’s ever gone before.
It was very cold and very dark, but Harry fearlessly leaned over the side of the car, trying to see the bottom of the shaft. It appeared to be a bottomless pit. Hagrid grabbed him and pulled him back into the car. Harry will need divine protection as he makes his inner journey.
Vault 713 had no keyhole. There was no knowledge needed to enter this vault. The goblin opened the door with magic that only a goblin could do. This reflected the magic within the Sword of Griffindore since it was created by a goblin. Griphook proudly told us that if anyone else tried to get into this vault, forces would suck them through the door and trap them inside.
The vault contained only a small package wrapped in brown paper. Hagrid tucked it into the pocket of his overcoat along with the moldy dog biscuits and then asked Harry not to speak to him on the way back up. He knew how hard it was to keep things from Harry, and he didn’t want to say something he shouldn’t. He still didn’t understand that Harry was the real stone.
Now, Harry wasn’t completely indifferent to the amount of money he had. Outside Gringotts when reality finally hit him, he realized he was holding more money than he had ever had in his life – more money than Dudley had ever had in his life. But he didn’t know what to do with it.
As he stood there blinking at the sunlight that was undoubtedly hurting his eyes, still without greed or need of material possessions, Hagrid counseled him to go and buy his uniform while he slipped over to the Leaky Cauldron for a pick-me-up. The ride to the depths of hell always made Hagrid sick, so Harry agreed. Hagrid went to the bar to replenish and repair his energies, and Harry entered Madam Malkin’s shop…alone and nervous.