The Room

There are a fair number of people who complain about what they perceive as flaws in the Harry Potter series, many of which revolve around J.K.’s missed chances to wrap the plot up with a nice little bow on top.  To those readers I feel obligated to ask, “Did you completely miss the point of it all?”  The thing that sets HP apart from most other books is that, despite being part of the fantasy genre, they are often uncomfortably realistic.  The thing that sets Rowling apart from most other authors is her willingness to write an imperfect tale if doing so will contribute to its truth.  Sure, she could have had all loose ends tied up – and I admit that upon my first reading of HP7, I was deeply frustrated by her refusal to do so.  But with further reflection, I’ve realized how much a “perfect” plot would have damaged what she was trying to say with the series.  War is not fair.  Life is not fair.  Love is not fair.  All of it, the good and bad, is a messy, complicated, convoluted affair that rarely ends up the way you would expect it to along the way.  Perhaps more importantly, just because the books came to a conclusion, the story did not end.  There are no neatly packaged endings in life either, no truly clean breaks.  Rowling’s readiness to tell the truth about the way things are – about how imperfect they are – is what results in perfection by the end of the series.

One of the biggest, “NOOO SHE DID NOT WHYYYYY?!” moments in the series came when Fred was killed.  Fred, everyone’s favorite character, one half of an inseparable pair, the comic relief – if anyone was supposed to be immune to the horrors of war, it should have been Fred and George.  I doubt anyone wanted the Weasley family to have to deal with the death of one of their members, especially Fred.  Fred and George were the unexpected success stories of the series, as readers watched them grow from immature pranksters to rebels with a cause to thriving businessmen to unrestrained warriors – and then to see one of the pair senselessly killed (by a wall collapsing, not even in the midst of an intense bout of combat) was painful and confusing.  Everyone knows that Hermione, Ron, and Harry could not be separated, but if there was one other set of characters who were more indivisible than the Trio, it was Fred and George.  It wasn’t fair for Fred to die, nor was it fair that George should never be able to rebound from his death in the future.  After the Battle of Hogwarts, George was incapable of producing a Protonus forevermore, because every one of his happy memories was inextricably tied to Fred.  I would have sacrificed nearly any other character in place of Fred, but war doesn’t let you pick and choose who it’s going to steal away, and neither did J.K.

Bellatrix Lestrange tortured Neville’s parents into insanity, effectively orphaning him, and when the opportunity arose, she taunted him about it.  A significant portion of HP fans insist that it should not have been Molly who killed Bellatrix, as she had no intimate connection to Voldemort’s right-hand woman; most say that Neville is the one who should have slaughtered his parents’ destroyer.  In an ideal world, Neville would have come face-to-face with his past and conquered it.  But war doesn’t follow the rules of “should.”  And when I think about it more, I realize that Molly was the perfect person to take down Bellatrix, in her own way: Molly is the ultimate mother-figure in the books, and Bellatrix is, well, the opposite of that.  Bellatrix mocks Molly over the death of Fred, she was ready and willing to surrender the life of Draco – her own nephew – just to further the ambitions of Voldemort, and she was, of course, never a mother herself.  In the face-off between Bellatrix and her antithesis, perhaps it would have been more satisfying for Neville to get direct revenge in his parents’ honor, but for the purposes of greater themes (rather than gut-level instincts crying for vengeance), Molly was the better choice.  It’s also worth looking at that Molly, who is considered “good” through and through, out-and-out murdered another character.  She may be a heroine, but that does not make her unsusceptible to rage and the desire to kill when she deems it necessary.  The “good” people are not utterly untainted – war does not allow them to remain so.

Another note about Neville: he doesn’t end up with Luna.  I’ve already stated that I happen to think they would have been utterly ideal together, and I’m always disappointed when I reach the epilogue and realize that love affair never happens.  BUT.  Sometimes it’s the girl in the background that the hero winds up with, not the one who has fought by his side.  If Rowling had conveniently matched up all of the main characters into happy sweet relationships, any sense of realism that she had achieved in writing their romances would fly out the window (and not on the handle of a Firebolt into the moonlight…)  The truth is this: nobody can help who they fall in love with, or who they do not.  That in and of itself is a fact of life that most people – including me – find endlessly difficult to accept.

When it comes to the twist in a series, traditional writing techniques dictate that the author use it as a dramatic gasp-worthy climax, the literary version of a shot of adrenaline rushing through the reader’s veins.  Yet Rowling takes this concept and turns it on its head during “The Prince’s Tale,” which is almost unquestionably that moment in the series.  There is naturally that “a-ha!” sense when the truth about Snape is finally revealed in the Pensieve, yet when Harry withdraws his head from the surface, the reader feels only a sense of confusion and emptiness in the pit of his or her stomach , not a surge of adrenaline and triumph.  Harry’s walk to the Forest makes Rowling’s revelation about Snape – a fact that had been heatedly debated since the very beginning of the series – seem almost meaningless, irrelevant.  Then there is a second point regarding Snape’s life and death that I would like to raise: the atypical hero is nearly always recognized for his contributions prior to his death, if only as a sort of author-initiated amends toward a character who was somewhat unjustifiably reviled throughout the course of an entire story.  But when Snape dies in Harry’s arms, he does so without anyone alive knowing the truth about him, the boy staunching the blood flow from his wounds looking at him not in sudden understanding, but only with horror at the brutality.  Harry did not mourn the loss of Snape while Snape was still alive to see it.  Nobody knew the truth about Snape before he died, and he left the world in the presence of the boy who had hated him since the day they met, fearing that he had failed his promise to protect Lily’s son, staring into eyes that reminded him of the love that he had lost years earlier, in a face that was the splitting image of the man who he believed stole that love from him.  There’s no denying that J.K. knows how to write tragedy.

Another significant character twist came in the form of Malfoy, who many readers expected to befriend Harry upon his own inability to murder Dumbledore.  In the Epilogue, Rowling makes it clear that the two never made amends, much less became friends, which is a significant departure from the classic portrayals of reformed antagonists.  Some people will never like one another, and some history is not so easily smoothed over by a change of heart.  Draco and Harry understand one another better by the end, and although that is not saying much for the relationship whose dynamics formed a consistent pressure and hostility throughout the series, it is the most that could possibly be expected from those two.  Perhaps another writer would have seen the potential to fully reverse Malfoy’s character in another stunning turn-around, or would have used a reconciliation between Malfoy and Harry as proof that people can move beyond prejudices and preconceived notions.  To me, doing so would have been just a bit too convenient, and while a “lesson” could have been spelled out, it would not be indicative of reality.  The peace that comes at the end of a war does not denote the resolution of all friction that began it, it sometimes merely signifies that one or both sides are simply too weak or tired to continue fighting.  Many times the best possible outcome would just be a degree of understanding between the two sides, and this is what occurred between Harry and Draco by the end of the series: not friendship or alliance, but a sense that both young men understood where the other had come from and why they had acted as they did, regardless of what those actions were.

There is a massive movement among the HP fandom that desperately wants J.K. to write a prequel to the series detailing the lives of the Marauders.  I may be one of the few that strongly rejects such an idea.  One of the most basic facts of life is that none of us know our parents fully, as we were not present for their youth before our births, and no amount of storytelling can allow us to feel that we understand their history inside and out.  I know the concept of J.K. writing another book that delves into the dramatic narratives of the Marauders is tantalizing, but should we know more about the past of Harry’s parents than Harry himself did, the connection between us as readers and Harry would no longer be one of equality.  Throughout the series we knew just what Harry did, and while there were a couple of exceptions in which we glimpsed happenings through the eyes of other characters, we never had a sense of knowing some grand truth that Harry did not.  Harry desperately wanted to understand his parents and the lives that they had lived, but he will never be able to, just as we will never be able to with our own parents; while it is an unfortunate fact, it is vital that Rowling remained faithful to those larger realities about life, or else the whole purpose of the series would be jeopardized.

I’m revisiting the topic of the Deathly Hallows.  I will fully admit that I was originally seriously disappointed by the big revelation of what they were – I thought that maybe J.K. had finally fallen into the trap of writing an interesting plot at the expense of finding something deeper in the story.  In short, I thought that the Hallows were a cheap way of upping the excitement of the seventh book, a way of convincing readers that there was more to the story than camping on moors.  I guess my primary problem was that the Hallows were not what made Harry “Master of Death” when he defeated Voldemort; in my mind, I was expecting him to, like, be wearing the cloak and battling Voldemort with the Elder Wand while the specters of all Harry’s lost loved ones rushed to his defense or some nonsense.  It was so disappointing to me that there was never that epic culmination of the three parts of the Hallows. 

But now I’m older and wiser.  Or, at the very least, I have had much more time to mull over the Hallows, and after the past year’s events in my own life, I think I finally get it.  It’s balance, and it’s imperfection.  I’ll talk about the significance of J.K. telling an imperfect tale another time, but for now I will say that yes, I still feel that the climax of any other traditional fantasy novel would feature Harry uniting the Hallows and winning through that.  So Harry Potter doesn’t follow the lines of traditional fantasy; no surprise there.  But I realize now that the point of the Deathly Hallows – despite their title – was not to reveal a secret to conquering death but was, rather, a means of understanding how to live.  Maybe those two things seem interchangeable, but they are not, and J.K. is very clear in expressing that sentiment throughout the series.  Voldemort survived for decades, but did he ever live at all?  We could argue for ages about the differences between living and existing, but that’s not the point of this post.  If the Hallows were used to kill Voldemort, it would have completely discredited their message about living. 

Here’s my primary discovery about the Hallows (and keep in mind that I feel like I keep realizing more and more about them every day): they show us how to live the type of life that would allow us to someday greet Death “as an old friend,” with few regrets.  Doing so would require us to accept our faults and weaknesses, and refuse to let them bring us down; yet we also would not allow our talents and strengths to overtake us.  Flaws make us human, and accepting this additionally makes us stronger in a way that someone who relies purely on his or her strengths to get through life (something that Voldemort never understood).  Maybe this will make more sense if I break it down – or maybe what I’m trying to say will just continue to get more and more convoluted.  If that’s the case, feel free to stop reading at any time.

I’m going to reserve analysis of the three “Lost Boys” of Hogwarts for another post, but I will at least announce who they are for the sake of this conversation: Harry, Snape, and Voldemort.

So first there is the Elder Wand.  It was chosen by Antioch Peverell, the one who died for power.  Personified, the Elder Wand would be Voldemort, and his character is mirrored by Antioch: the eldest of the Lost Boys (or the eldest brother), a combative man who sought to both embarrass and conquer Death.  Antioch’s downfall was his thirst for power, as was Voldemort’s.

Then we have the Resurrection Stone.  This reward from Death was requested by Cadmus Peverell, the one who sought a dead love.  Snape quite clearly aligns with the tale of the Stone: the middle of the Lost Boys (or the middle brother), he was an arrogant man who was “driven mad with hopeless longing.”  Cadmus was greedy and dragged back his lost love from Death, where she belonged.  In the end, Cadmus’ obsession with this lost love drove him to commit suicide as a means of joining her.  For all intents and purposes, Snape, too, gave his life out of a deep and obsessive love for Lily Potter that consumed his existence long before he met his physical death at the jaws of Nagini.

And, finally, there is the Invisibility Cloak.  With it, Ignotus Peverell greeted death as an old friend.  Not only is Harry a direct descendent of Ignotus, but his character and motivations parallels the story of the Cloak directly.  The youngest of the Lost Boys (or the youngest brother), he was sought after by Death for many years – Harry had been marked for death since he was just one year old.  When Harry walked into the Forbidden Forest, he had accepted that it was finally his time to die, and in doing so he met Death “as an old friend.”  Ignotus, like Harry, was a humble man who did not aim to embarrass nor conquer Death.

And so we have the Deathly Hallows: the ultimate prescription for living the best life possible, sought by three very different men who each had their flaws and their strengths, both admirable and contemptible.  To truly live would be to find the equilibrium between the three Hallows and what they represent, to understand the importance of temperance in all, and to accept an existence in the “gray area” of in-betweens and balance – something that I, for one, have yet to figure out how to accomplish. 

Embrace and maximize all of the power that lies within you, but be humble about your successes.  Had Antioch not bragged about his unbeatable Elder Wand, he would not have been murdered the very same night that he won it.  Yet respect should be granted for refusing to accept defeat and seeking to rise above your opposition every time you are faced with it.  There are some things worth fighting for – but not everything.  It is okay to fail.  In fact, strength is built moment by moment, setback by setback, so slowly and gradually that you often don’t even recognize it.  Strength and power are that first breath of air that you take every time you claw your way out of the rubble of another letdown; it cannot be granted to you as a gift, nor seized as a prize, as was the Elder Wand. 

Love deeply and endlessly, but do not sacrifice your own days and years over what you have lost.  There is no shame in a broken heart, but only if you realize that that heart – however bent, bruised, and damaged – belongs to you and you alone, and that obsession will neither bring back that which you have lost, nor will it make your heart whole again.  Wishing that you could alter the past does nothing but consumes your future.  You will spend your living days as Cadmus did, in a sort of half-life.  Dead while still breathing.  As Dumbledore famously proclaimed to Harry, “It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.”

Learn humility and accept that death is inevitable, and that is should be neither feared nor embraced.  Death is not an enemy lurking around every corner but is, rather, an equal who stands at the vanishing point of the horizon.  Life is finite and should be wasted on neither the power nor the grief that took over Antioch and Cadmus, Voldemort and Snape.  Epicurus was no wizard, but I think that Ignotus and Harry alike would have understood and agreed with his words: “Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.”  Respect the power of death, but live while you are alive.

Understand that, and maybe we’ll all figure out how to become Master of Death.

Ay, damn Trelawney and her damn Divination.  We all know I hate Umbridge, so I’m not going to talk further about the fact that she’s the Worst Person Ever.  Instead, I’m choosing to speak a bit about Professor Sybil Trelawney, possibly the most infuriating professor in all of Hogwarts history.  There’s no doubt that having Snape harass you throughout Potions class every day would be frustrating beyond all doubt, but at least he’s a competent teacher who the students could probably learn from (even if doing so meant losing House points and being on the receiving end of humiliation).  He’s demanding, but so brilliant at his topic.

I considered complaining about Lockhart, but upon further reflection realized that I probably would have loved his class if I went to Hogwarts because it’s like that class that you go to, sit in the back and text your friends while blogging online, and which you never do your homework for because the teacher forgets he even handed it out in the first place.  He’s so easy to manipulate, which just so happens to be one of my specialties.

But no, no.  My choice is Trelawney, that irritating, bug-eyed, more-mystical-than-thou woman.  She’s not only a useless professor, she’s the type of teacher that takes what could be a really fascinating subject and makes it as dry as the freaking Sahara.  Every time Harry goes into her classroom, I can just imagine how stiflingly hot and dimly-lit it is, and all those times that I have desperately attempted to keep my eyes from dropping closed during a boring class come rushing back to me in an unpleasant flood.  To top it all off, she makes them do a fair amount of work.  Not a fan.  If only Umbridge had succeeded in canning her ass.

Okay, now it’s time to discuss my favorite villain.  My immediate thoughts go to Bellatrix Lestrange, because she is so unabashedly, wickedly, deliciously awful and cruel.  In part, I think this is thanks to Helena Bonham Carter’s genius performance in the films.  Her unrequited love for Voldemort is such an interesting little sub-plot.  And yet… I still think my Favorite Villain Award goes to…

Dolores Jane Umbridge.  I’ve already talked about why I hate her, but my reasons for choosing her as my favorite villain are slightly different.  We all know that she’s a racist, pompous, elitist, back-stabbing straight-up bitch, and every time I read a passage featuring her, I find myself gritting my teeth.  My fingers itch to skip over those portions of the books, and that’s exactly why she’s my favorite.  While Bellatrix is tantalizingly insane, she is also unremittingly devoted to the Death Eater cause (and to Voldemort), and this makes her somewhat less of a three-dimensional character.  Umbridge wavers back and forth originally between being annoying yet good-intentioned or purely evil with a sugary coating.  You can almost admit that she does kind of have a point about the professors at Hogwarts often being somewhat… subpar, shall we say.  And you have to wonder to what degree she actually buys into all that she spouts off for the Ministry… unlike Bellatrix, who obviously believes 100% in her “cause” and probably does not see herself as performing in an evil manner, you get the feeling that Umbridge is well aware that maybe Harry was telling the truth about Voldemort returning, and that forcing him to torture himself with her quill during detention was pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable.  Whereas Bellatrix would probably hunt down some Mudbloods and Muggles to harm even if she were not in the midst of a war, I have to wonder if Umbridge would have pursued trying to ruin Harry’s life if he had been like, “Yep, I lied!  Voldemort isn’t back, no worries!”  This is a woman whose devotion to Fudge and the Ministry led her to respond to what she viewed as threats in a totally batshit-crazy manner that included emotional, verbal, and physical torture and abuse of students and professors alike.  The fact that I think she knows she is bad and wrong (especially during the “trial” of Mary Cattermole) makes me revile her even more.  People who can tell the difference between right and wrong and consciously choose the latter disgust me far more than those who have no concept of the two.  J.K. takes my hatred for this and wraps it up in the pink, kitten-covered bundle known as Dolores Umbridge, and it is for this reason that I continue to feel that Umbridge is the most well-written villain of the series.

I also have an overwhelming soft spot for Draco Malfoy (as I know many readers do), but I think I will reserve my thoughts about him for a future character analysis devoted to him and him alone.

I intended to discuss my favorite HP villain today, which got me thinking about the Malfoys, which then led me to contemplate Narcissa’s role in the books, which in turn made me realize that I instead would like to talk about something quite different: a mother’s love.  JK has always made it very clear that there is a centrality in the series around the devotion of mothers to their children (much of which is probably based on her own mother’s death prior to the publication of the series).  But when you think about it, there is so much more to the theme than “Oh, Lily saved Harry!  Yay mums!”  No, mothers’ love for their children is what saved the wizarding world time and time again.  The women involved are not necessarily good role models – or even good people – but the strength of their love for their children has outweighed all other ideologies.  There are three primary examples that I would like to discuss – one of a mother’s sacrifice, one of a mother’s fierce protectiveness, and one of a mother’s devotion to her child above all else.

We begin with Lily.  By this point, Lily’s love for Harry has been literally pounded into our minds to the point that sometimes I wish she had just stood aside and been like, “Okay, Voldy, fine!  Take the baby!  I don’t care!”  But she did not, and thus, we have Harry Potter.  Let’s just take a quick look-see at Lily’s actions: her self-sacrifice allowed Harry to survive Voldemort’s Killing Curse, causing it to rebound and reduce the man who had been terrorizing Britain into a weak spirit.  When he attempted to steal the Philosopher’s Stone (which would have ensured him eternal life), he was again thwarted by Lily’s love.  As long as Lily’s blood ran in Harry’s veins (and only Harry’s veins), Voldemort – and, by extension, his host body of Quirrell – could not touch Harry.  Once more, Voldemort’s takeover of the wizarding world was put off; yet his existence was recognized by Dumbledore, which gave him time to begin preparing for the growing strength of Voldemort again.  Even after Voldemort used Harry’s (and, by extension, Lily’s) blood in his resurrection into a human form, Lily’s love continued to impede his plans.  This time, when Harry was, for all intents and purposes, killed by Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest during the Battle of Hogwarts, he remained tied to life because of Lily’s blood now flowing through the living body of Voldemort.

Secondly, there is Molly Weasley.  Now Molly is just a fucking kick-ass beast 24/7, and the love she has for her children (and for her family as a whole) is endless.  But let’s concentrate on that one moment where she definitively alters the course of the Battle of Hogwarts – and, thereby, of wizarding history as a whole – by murdering Bellatrix Lestrange.  Everybody wanted to kill Bellatrix, let’s be honest, but her skill and absolute insanity was such that she was nigh invincible.  Until she tried to kill Molly Weasley’s only daughter, that is.  That was enough for Molly to shove everyone else out of the way and take on the madwoman herself, but throw in the moment when Bellatrix cruelly asked, “What will happen to your children when Mummy’s gone the same way as Freddie?,” and kind, plump, stern, and moral Mrs. Weasley turned into a murderer without shame or hesitation.  The reminder that Molly had lost one of her dearest sons, the taunting thought of her children being left motherless (she had long seen how horrible that fate was for Harry), it all was enough to redirect Molly’s focus into a Killing Curse strong and precise enough to bring the downfall of Voldemort’s right-hand woman.  She had been the last standing Death Eater during that final battle, and her defeat allowed Harry to finally directly confront Voldemort, which, of course, led to his own death.

The third and final example of a mother’s love that I am choosing to discuss here is that of Narcissa Malfoy.  Perhaps more than either Lily or Molly, Narcissa’s actions had the single most direct influence over the outcome of the Battle of Hogwarts and the fate of the wizarding world.  Yet she is also a character that had been reviled throughout the entire series for her belief in Pure Blood superiority and her devotion to Voldemort and his cause.  While it was obvious throughout HP7 that the Malfoys were growing more and more disenchanted with Voldemort’s insanity, it still came as a shock when she risked death and lied to the Dark Lord, proclaiming that Harry was dead when it was clear to her that he was not.  This was not due to some revelation about the equality of those of all blood statuses, nor because she felt guilt about her previous role in the war; no, Narcissa remained someone whose values most would be disgusted by.  Rather, her devotion to her son overrode her loyalty to her own beliefs, to Voldemort, to her extended family (including her sister Bellatrix).  The knowledge that Draco was even possibly alive in the school was enough to convince Narcissa to take one of the greatest risks that anyone throughout the series had.  This was the turning point of the battle, and had Narcissa not gambled everything on her love for Draco, Harry would have been immediately revealed as being alive still, and would (no doubt) promptly have been killed or otherwise incapacitated to prevent his involvement in the upcoming takeover of Hogwarts.  I can’t help but find the case of Narcissa particularly fascinating because she, like so many other characters found in HP, represents so clearly what Sirius once said to Harry: “…the world isn’t split into good people and Death Eaters.”  Narcissa’s beliefs and actions may have been abhorrent, but the love that she held for her only child elevated her from a one-dimensional stereotype to a complex character who forced readers to contemplate a difficult question – if a “bad” person performs an act that is world-alteringly “good,” what does that say about that person?  About the way we look at that person?  About the way we define “good” and “bad,” about the lines between the two that we draw so definitively in the sand?

Moving on from that, perhaps even more striking is what the lack of a mother’s love can create.  Merope Gaunt was endlessly devoted to the Muggle Tom Riddle, and because of this she used a potion to make him (falsely) fall in love with her.  But when she discovered that she was pregnant, her hope was that the baby would force Tom to love her, and she lifted the magic from him.  She sought to use her child as a method for convincing the one she loved to stay, which would fulfill her own desires.  Yet this is not how things worked out, obviously.  Tom Riddle immediately fled the relationship, Merope was left destitute, and she died after giving birth to her son.  Her last wish?  To name her child after the man who had never honestly loved her or her child.  Tom Marvolo Riddle was born, as were the origins of the creation of Lord Voldemort.  Without a mother’s love to guide him through his childhood, a baby eventually morphed into the world’s most evil wizard in history.

JK herself once said, “To have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever.”  Lily and her sacrifice for Harry is obviously the physical form of such a thing, but the love of mothers throughout the series – both those you would expect it from and those whose affection was shocking – protected not only their children, but the wizarding world as a whole.

I already realize that this may be entirely inappropriate since this blog is dedicated to the serious and earnest discussion of all things HP, but… I think the time has come for an official Harry Potter Drinking Game to be established.  I’ve seen a variety of options online, but they are either quite lame (“take a drink if someone casts a spell!”) or would result in alcohol poisoning (“chug your drink if someone says “Harry”!)  So I’ve decided to gather up the best of the best and throw in a few ideas of my own.  Some of them will be tailored to specific films, but others are really applicable to all the movies.  Enjoy your firewhiskey, everyone, and remember: don’t drink and disapparate!

-          Take a drink if:

o   Someone says the full name “Harry Potter”  —  take two drinks if he or she says it in a shocked or overly-dramatic voice

o   Ron has a scared, disgusted, or confused facial expression

o   Hermione sounds like she’s acting on Broadway because she’s speaking in Such.  A.  Dramatic.  Voice.

o   Hermione excessively berates Harry and/or Ron

o   Fred and George speak simultaneously or finish one another’s sentences

o   Harry clutches his scar when it hurts

o   Hermione “eyebrow acts”

o   Malfoy taunts or abuses someone  —  take two drinks if that person is supposed to be someone Malfoy is friends with

o   Malfoy looks disgusted with everything about Hogwarts (since all he really wants is to go to Pigfarts)

o   Dumbledore alludes to a secret but refuses to talk about it at the time

o   Harry has a vision of Voldemort

o   Someone tells Harry that he has his father’s appearance and/or his mother’s eyes

o   Someone gives Harry the “you are the chosen one treatment” (courtesy of http://www.rottentomatoes.com/user/437343/blogs/)

o   Malfoy looks terrified

o   Harry is amazed by magic

o   Something is taken out of Hermione’s bewitched bag

-          Take two drinks if:

o   The picture of Harry’s parents dancing appears (courtesy of http://www.rottentomatoes.com/user/437343/blogs/)

o   Harry says something “inspirational or reassuring” (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2010/11/18/take-drink-whenever-harry/)

o   Draco refers to “my father”

o   Someone casts “Avada Kedavra”

o   There is a creepy close-up of Harry sleeping and/or having visions

o   Someone has a bad feeling about this, but it’s their only hope

o   Harry yells at people for no good reason because he’s *~angsty~*

-          Finish your drink if:

o   Harry catches the snitch

o   Harry points out that he is an orphan and/or his parents were killed  —  same goes for if someone else mentions these facts

o   Dumbledore shares a knowing glance with Harry

o   The villain/hero begins a monologue at the end of the story

-          Take a full shot if:

o   A student at Hogwarts is physically abused by a teacher

o   A main character dies

So there you have it – follow these rules and it’s only a matter of time until you’ll be thoroughly sloshed.  Goal = HP marathon with all eight movies played back-to-back over the course of 20 hours.  You may need to intersperse the alcohol with some more sobering drinks so that you don’t wind up in the Hospital Wing, but regardless: enjoy!