Sirius' death and the power of love

[susanbones2003]

No: HPFGUIDX 82319

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Ernie Prang" 
<ernie_prang at h...> wrote:
>SNIP> 
Ernie quotes:
> 
> "Let the pain stop, thought Harry ... let him kill us ... end it, 
Dumbledore 
> ... death is nothing compared to this ...
> 
> And I'll see Sirius again ...
> 
> And as Harry's heart filled with emotion, the creature's coils 
loosened, the 
> pain was gone; Harry was lying face down on the floor, his glasses 
gone, 
> shivering as though he lay upon ice, not wood ..."
SNIP
> > 
> Ernie Prang, driving the Knight Bus for thirty months

Ernie:
Good post and as usual, it sparked another question and I was 
wondering what you might make of it. I include the quotation above 
since it is at the heart of my question. From this bit, we see that 
Harry was willing to embrace death for physical relief as well as the 
relief of being united with Sirius again. Yet, later, when he has his 
talk with Luna, he appears significantly taken aback when she 
mentions seeing dead loved ones again.
Speaking of her mother's death Luna says:

"Yes, it was rather horrible,"said Luna conversationally. "I still 
feel very sad about it sometimes. But I've still got Dad. And anyway, 
it's not as though I'll never see Mum again, is it?"
     "Er-isn't it?" said Harry uncertainly.
     She shook her head in disbelief. "Oh come on. You heard them 
just behid the veil, didn't you?"
     "You mean..."
     "In the room with the archway. They were just lurking out of 
sight, that's all. You heard them."
     They looked at each other, Luna was smiling slightly. Harry did 
not know what to say, or to think. Luna believed so many 
extraordinary things...yet he had been sure he had heard voices 
behind the veil too...

At first reading, it seems as if Harry is not at all sure there is an 
afterlife, a place where he'd be able to see Sirius again. Does this 
contradict his feelings during the possession? The feelings that 
apparently saved him from the Dark Lord? Your post just sort of 
exposed this to me. If there have been posts on this, someone please 
direct me because my search came up with nothing(as we know there is 
a knack to using the search engine). I really am at a loss to 
understand this unless Harry, so near death during the possession was 
somehow closer to Sirius and had no doubt or fear. There is this idea 
of the veil being very thin at death, the veil separating this world 
and the next. All I can think of is that the farther from death he 
got, he lost that knowledge. Anyone care to throw in their ideas?
Jennifer


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