We in middle-class, muggle America can learn something from Harry Potter.
My daughter got me reading the J.K. Rowling’s fantasy series years ago. I eagerly followed the growth of an 11-year-old to a young man of 18. This “boy who lived” was orphaned as a baby when He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the evil, dark Lord Voldemort killed Harry’s parents. For seven books, Voldemort tries to kill Harry. For seven books, Rowling imparts some important lessons.
At the end of the second book, the wise headmaster Dumbledore, tells Harry, “It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” The fourth outing even made the case for term limits. “You are blinded,” Dumbledore tells a selfish government minister, “by the love of the office you hold.”
So, when the final movie, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2, was released last Friday, I was one of those buying tickets … at a cheapskate Sunday showing with two of my kids.
Once again, the movie climaxes with a cogent moral.