Voices from the past (Re: [HPforGrownups] Snape and the Potters)

[Iris FT]

No: HPFGUIDX 47154


 
  
 

I’ve been following the debate about the man’s voice Harry hears while he’s learning how to conjure the Patronus Charm. According to Carol, it’s Severus’s voice, not James’s. That’s an interesting possibility, and I respect it. However, I think  that the explanation is more simple, and that Lupin’s reaction to what Harry says is connected to the psychological context of PoA rather than to the attack on Godric’s Hollow.

The Harry Potter series is very touching thanks to the humanity JKR gave to her characters, and it’s particularly true about PoA. That an amazing thought about Oedipus’s Complex, the most obvious aspect of this stage in Harry’s initiatory journey. It’s also a very fine painting of painful memories, memories of a broken friendship, of a lost paradise.

Once upon a time, there was a gang of brother-like friends, and destiny destroyed it.

That’s all the story of the Marauders, and I think that when JKR wrote the Patronus chapter, she was referring to that topic.

All that Harry learns while he’s trying to conjure the charm is directly connected to the episodes of the Shrieking Shack and to the appearance of the stag Patronus at the end of the novel. And there, JKR is not only painting Harry’s own pain and efforts to get out of it; she’s also painting, very delicately, Lupin’s silent suffering.

Lupin has been suffering for twelve years since the tragedy of Godric’s Hollow, and not only because he is a werewolf. His moral suffering is probably worst. When the Potters died, he lost everything. He lost his friends, and he lost his illusions about friendship. One among the inseparable Marauders was a traitor and caused the death of three innocents. His only chance of living a “normal” life, of being accepted the way he was, was shattered. What happened in Godric’s Hollow is certainly the worst moment in Lupin’s life.

Now, what is happening during the lesson? Lupin sees Harry fainting because of the suffering the Dementors remind him. He teaches Harry a charm that needs a happy memory as a support, but he discovers that in the boy’s mind there’s no happy memory strong enough to help him to resist the Dementor’s assault. That’s terrible, because instead of helping his friend’s son, he makes him suffer. The worst is yet to come: there are tears in Harry’s eyes, because he just heard his father’s voice.

The following dialogue makes no doubt:

‘I heard my dad’, Harry mumbled.’That’sthe first time I’ve ever heard him – he tried to take on Voldemort himself, to give my mum time to run for it
’

<
>

‘You heard James?’ said Lupin in a strange voice.

’Yeah
’<
> ‘Why – you didn’t know my dad, did you?’

‘I – I did, as a matter of fact,’ said Lupin. ‘We were friends at Hogwarts. Listen, Harry – perhaps we should leave it here tonight. This charm is ridiculously advanced
 I shouldn’t have suggested putting you through this
’ (UK paperback edition, p 178)

Lupin’s last sentence shows how sorry he is for what is happening. He probably thinks he’s torturing James’s son, and so he doesn’t want to go further in the lesson (he should give Snape some teaching advice!). The dialogue shows also that he is into a huge trouble, but I don’t think it’s because he finds odd James being at Godric’s Hollow. I believe, simply, that what happens to Harry is a real traumatism to him: it reminds him his worst memories. Furthermore, as he knows what it is like to suffer, he shares Harry’s pain.

If what he says in this chapter seems odd, it’s because his character is still keeping the huge secret of a werewolf doom, of a broken friendship, and of lost illusions. Nevertheless, just like Harry, Lupin is caught up by the voices from the past, and will have to face them.

 

Iris     



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