Harry Potter's Invitation to the World
by Vickie Ewell
Chapter 73 – Neville Stands Up to His Friends (HP Chapter 16)
Hermione quickly lied. “No, no, no. No, we’re not.” That was her fear of getting caught talking, plus her vow to do everything in her power to not let that happen. She suggested that Neville go to bed.
Harry glanced at the grandfather clock and realized they didn’t have a single minute to waste. The idea here is that time was short. Professor Snape could already be putting Fluffy to sleep. What Harry feared was that he would be too late to save the Stone, but a “grandfather” clock infers that we’re being presented with something that’s very old, yet timely.
Neville tried to protest. They would be caught again. They would get Gryffindore in even more trouble.
Harry didn’t try to lie to him. He just insisted that what they were about to do was very important. Because Neville didn’t understand, he felt he had to do something desperate in order to stop them, so he jumped in front of the porthole. He wasn’t going to let them do it. “I’ll – I’ll fight you!” he screamed.
Although this was the moment Ron, Hermione, and Harry had been waiting for, Ron’s gut reaction to Neville standing up was to explode. He thought Neville was being a complete idiot and told him so. Ron didn’t understand that Neville’s reaction was moving him forward. He only saw Neville standing in their way. “I don’t think you should be breaking any more rules!” Neville said. Even when we move from the physical to the spiritual plane, we still believe in Spiritual Law. “And you were the one who told me to stand up to people!”
Ron had wanted Neville to stand up to Draco, but he had never dreamed that Neville would stand up against them. Obviously, Neville didn’t understand what they were doing. His perception was for the good of Gryffindore. While he saw more than the average person who only perceives the world in terms of himself, he still couldn’t see the larger picture that Harry could. Harry was acting for the good of the entire school.
Part of the problem was that Harry had kept what he knew to himself. Although Neville was with the trio when they discovered Fluffy, the kids hadn’t filled him in on their latest theories or enlightenment. I’m assuming that was because they didn’t want to hurt him again.
“Neville, you don’t know what you’re doing.” That was how Ron felt because he knew that Neville was short of the facts. Neville was a good example of someone who was being held back due to his lack of information. He had just as much courage and love as Harry had, as much faith and works, but didn’t know what he was supposed to do with any of it.
If Ron, Hermione, and Harry had reached out to him and pulled him into their inner circle, allowing him to share in their Initiation experience, Neville would have progressed much faster. As it was, he will stumble through much of the series alone, making his progression slower than it otherwise could have been.
When Ron took a step toward him, Neville suddenly dropped his toad. That was a clear signal that all four kids were about to move forward, especially when the toad quickly leaped out of sight, and Neville didn’t chase after him. Despite the toad scampering away, Neville wasn’t letting the kids out the door.
Instead of crying for his toad, Neville put up his fists, ready to fight. “Go on then, try and hit me!” Neville screamed at Ron. He had become a rock. There was no way Ron was going to make him move out of the way! We are introduced to Neville’s real strength, his strong determination to do what he felt was right, but it conflicted with what Harry was trying to accomplish.
Harry pleaded with Hermione to do something. Of the three of them, she was the best at coming up with creative spells. Harry quickly deferred to her judgment. Hermione stepped forward, apologized to Neville for what she was about to do, and then cast a full Body-Bind spell on him. The spell instantly paralyzed Neville, which caused him to fall face down onto the floor.
The idea Jo presented here, was that the physical body is just a shell, a castle or a temple for the real parts of ourselves. When Hermione rolled Neville over, he could still move his eyes. He was fully conscious of what was happening around him, even though he couldn’t move or speak. The motion of turning Neville over also symbolized that just as Neville has turned around, we need to reverse the direction we are traveling.
Many spiritual traditions speak of the divine part of ourselves as walking behind us (rather than living inside our hearts), and that the distance between us and our “higher” self (not our Voldemort) depends on the difference in our vibration levels. The closer in vibration we become to each other, the closer the Divine self can walk with us until it actually merges with us. Before that happens, however, we have to turn around and come face-to-face with that Divine part of ourselves. At that point, real spiritual communication begins.
The basis for that belief comes from the fact that the physical plane is so low in vibration compared to where we came from that our Divine self would find us painful until we pull ourselves up to his/her level. However, this concept comes from the idea that our Divine Self was fully formed and perfected from day one and all we have to do is remember who we are: Gods playing a game or entertaining ourselves here in Hell.
While remembering why we’re here, turning around, and coming face-to-face with the Divine portion of ourselves is the goal, Harry Potter disagrees with the idea that we are simply caught up in some type of nightmare that we need to wake up from. The Path of Liberation is far more complex than that. Believing we are already God, rather than gods in embryo, only serves to feed our vanity and pride. To enter the Path, we have to turn, but turn inwardly.
Hermione apologized a second time to Neville. “We had to Neville,” Harry said, but there was no time to explain further. As Ron stepped over him, he assured Neville that he would understand later on, but leaving their friend in that condition seemed like a bad way to start the evening