Harry Potter's Invitation to the World
by Vickie Ewell
Chapter 3 - Leaving Harry at the Dursleys (HP Chapter 1)
Professor McGonagall’s reaction to Hagrid bringing Harry to Privet Drive questioned Dumbledore’s wisdom. That tells me the two characters are rather close, and that Dumbledore played a deeper role in her life than just a teacher or boss. It also shows how intellectual ability and wisdom are not the same thing. Professor McGonagall is looking at Hagrid from a point of intellectual reason, how he’s behaved in the past is how he will always be, while Dumbledore is looking at Hagrid as if he already were who he will one day become.
The moon offers reflected light and instruction. Of itself, it has no knowledge. The physical Jesus Christ described it as always saying and doing what His Father told him to say and do. A person with moon traits and characteristics loves us as deeply as a mother loves her children: unconditionally. Rather than reacting negatively when Professor McGonagall questioned Dumbledore’s motives, he simply explained, “I would trust Hagrid with my life.”
Professor McGonagall was still in reaction mode. She didn’t understand what Dumbledore was trying to share with her. To her, being sensible was more important than trusting someone with a loving heart, so she began to remind Dumbledore about Hagrid’s faults. Apparently, she has come to the conclusion that Hagrid’s imperfections and past behavior will shadow his current behavior.
At that point, Hagrid fell from the heavens and landed in front of them. This falling insinuates that he is a Master of Compassion who has brought Harry to earth. He was twice as tall as a normal man, and five times as wide. He was a giant in body, spiritual stature and especially wide in heart, but he was also described as wild looking: tangled hair and a beard that covered up most of his face – not what you would expect a person who Dumbledore trusted with his life to look like.
I also think that his covered face symbolized how biblical figures such as Moses had to be covered before they could come face-to-face with God. We do not yet see Hagrid’s true nature. It’s like Mr. Dursley kept saying: he didn’t know if he could bear it.
Hagrid was riding a giant motorcycle, which struck me as being a modern-day depiction of the wheeled, fiery vehicles described in biblical literature – a vehicle that transports translated beings. A translated being is immortal, so we get the first clue that Hagrid may be more than he appears. Only, this vehicle didn’t belong to Hagrid. It belonged to the young Sirius Black. Hagrid had only borrowed it, so he could deliver Harry Potter to Dumbledore safely.
There are spiritual traditions that believe translated beings have immortal bodies of some type that they can use to hide their glory and true self when communicating and interacting with lower vibrational beings.
Like the Dursleys, baby Harry Potter had gone to sleep during the fall and won’t remember where he came from or why Dumbledore placed him here when he wakes up. He had a scar in the shape of a lightning bolt on his forehead.
The symbol for Jupiter is often described as a stylish lightning bolt, but it also looks like a stylistic number 4. If you draw a number 2 with a lengthened horizontal line and then add a vertical line that turns the 2 into a 4, you have the sign for Jupiter. It takes 12 years for Jupiter to completely orbit the sun, the number of lights on Privet Drive that Dumbledore put out. In Native American tradition, the lightning bolt represented salvation, a divine gift to man, which Harry Potter will live to fulfill.
However, it also typically signifies divine intervention, which tucked itself nicely into the story’s narrative. We have a baby whose family was threatened by Voldemort. James, the baby’s father died first , leaving Lily and Harry alive. That made Harry the son of a widow. When Voldemort offered to let Lily live if she sacrificed her son, Lily chose to sacrifice her own life instead.
The story line told us that it was Lily’s love that somehow protected Harry and caused Voldemort’s killing curse to rebound, but we also learn later on in the story that Voldemort’s and Harry’s wands have consciousness. Since the wands are brothers, they refused to destroy the other. When Voldemort attempted to use the wand against Harry, it rebounded against himself. When Hermione will attempt to use Harry’s wand to kill Nagini, it will rebound and destroy itself rather than harm a piece of its brother.
The lightning cut into Harry’s forehead was linked with both fire and water. It’s a sign that he was of both Griffindore (fire) and Slytherin (water). There are both creative (Griffindore) and destructive (Slytherin) forces within his body, with the mark itself a message to wake up…and pay attention to his surroundings. However, the lightning bolt is also the shape that creation traveled down the Tree of Life as life came into physical manifestation.
Dumbledore told Professor McGonagall that scars come in handy. He wouldn’t remove it from Harry even if he could. In explanation, he gave her a physical example she could relate to. He doesn’t even attempt to give her a spiritual or alchemical reason for Harry’s mark.
Since it was a message to wake up, everyone who gazes on Harry’s scar throughout the series (those within the narrative as well as those of us reading it) receive the spiritual call or invitation to wake up and arise to a higher state of being. It comes in handy, but not for the reason Dumbledore gives. Reading Harry Potter can actually trigger the alchemical process in those who are ready and willing to wake up.
At this point, Dumbledore wanted to hurry and complete what he came for, but that caused Hagrid to lose control emotionally. It ripped his heart to have to give Harry to Dumbledore. Hagrid had suffered loss with the deaths of the Potters, and now he suffered loss again. He won’t be able to see Harry and interact with him as he could before. That realization brought pain. He howled as a wounded animal from the pain that loss caused, not caring what anyone else thought. He didn’t care if Muggles could hear him because Muggles were not his concern. He simply reacted out of love for Harry.
Professor McGonagall, on the other hand, was afraid that Hagrid would accidently wake up the Muggles. Once again, her fear of discovery reared its head, and she insisted that Hagrid act more sensible like herself. She wasn’t unfeeling, as she softly patted Hagrid’s arm, blinked back tears, and blew her nose, but she apparently believed the way most wizards and witches believed – that the two worlds should remain separate and secret from each other. She didn’t believe that Muggles should wake up.
Dumbledore returned the light to the street lamps when the three leave the scene. As the moon absorbed the light from the sun, it gives the light it receives to the physical and spiritual worlds. Dumbledore also left his blessing upon Harry in the form of “Good luck, Harry.” He knew the child fit the pattern of the prophecy, but he also knew it would still be a contest between pure and impure forces within, and that contest takes many lifetimes to win. He hoped, however, that the personality known as Harry Potter would be the ONE.