The Dursleys Wake Up to Something Wicked (Book 5)

[Robert Henderson]

No: HPFGUIDX 105094

Although I've been a HPFG member for about 2 years, I haven't
posted before (except for a query to Peg Kerr regarding her essay on
the 7 Deadly Sins). I hope that I'm following protocol by sharing
this poem and essay here.

something wicked, inc.

from the hand of its maker it slips with no mark
descends through the skin where it peers in the dark
utters a curse without saying a word
to make in soft places a nest good and hard
it eases through veins aimed for the heart
creeps on the pulse with the stealth of a shark
cunning (like cancer), taking angles (like aids)
cloaked like a friend to prize open the gates
feeling with fingers like soft drops of rain
it gropes its way forward, stops now, and then
lengthens its shadow and steals its way in
eclipsing the light ever-watchful for Sin.
claim not, o sinner, you can't see It come.
remember the prickling in your thumb.

Copyright 2004 Robert Henderson

In "Order of the Phoenix," although Rowling specifically
names one group the "advance guard" (the title of chapter 3)
the book begins with the appearance of two advance guards, one
dispatched by the shadow, one by the light. It begins with an emphatic
demand that Harry tell the truth. Because we sympathize, perhaps for
the first time, with the Dursleys as parents who are distraught (crazy
with fear, the root of the word is "stretched") over an
unexplained attack on their son, the bizarreness of their insistence
on truth fails to register:

"DUDLEY!" roared Uncle Vernon. "I want to know exactly
what happened to my son!"

"FINE!" yelled Harry, and in his temper, red and gold sparks
shot out of the end of his wand, still clutched in his hand. All three
Dursleys flinched, looking terrified.

"Dudley and I were in the alleyway between Magnolia Crescent and
Wisteria Walk," said Harry, speaking fast, fighting to control his
temper. "Dudley thought he'd be smart with me, I pulled out
my wand but didn't use it. Then two dementors showed up—"

"But what ARE dementoids?" asked Uncle Vernon furiously.
"What do they DO?"

"I told you—they suck all the happiness out of you," said
Harry, "and if they get the chance, they kiss you—"

"Kiss you?" said Uncle Vernon, his eyes popping slightly.
"Kiss you?"

"It's what they call it when they suck the soul out of your
mouth."

Aunt Petunia uttered a soft scream.

"His soul? They didn't take—he's still got his—"

"Of course they didn't get his soul, you'd know if they
had, said Harry, exasperated. (OoP, p. 34)

What are dementoids? What do they do? The dementors are not merely the
manifestations of clinical depression; that's a red herring, a
facile explanation that satisfies the curious so Rowling can get on
with her work. The dementors are darkness, sin, incarnate
(incorporated), made manifest within the body. Our being created in
the image of God makes our spiritual life depend on listening to the
Holy Spirit, facing the truth in ourselves, and following that truth
no matter what it demands of us. This means that

"It is death to the soul to become unconscious. People die before
there is death to the body, because there is death in the soul. They
are mask-like leeches, walking about like spectres, dead but sucking .
. . You can succeed in going away from your problems, you need only to
look away from them long enough. You may escape, but it is the death
of the soul." from C.G. Jung's "Dream Analysis," p.
90.

Voldemort's flight from the Holy Spirit is from the darkness of
physical death. His wand, the will he works in the world, leaves a
distinct mark. The Dursley's flight is more insidious; they do
whatever they can to conduct business as usual, which is to avoid the
darkness within themselves, the shadow. Like Voldemort's, the
Dursleys' wand does its work, transforming themselves and their
son, leaving no mark. Both the Dark Lord and the dark Dursleys
consistently choose to dwell in darkness and to avoid the voice of the
truth, the freedom and light made available to us by means of our
growth in consciousness--thus giving us greater conscious control over
our choices--when we do the work asked of us by the Holy Spirit.

The appearance of Voldemort's advance guard, dispatched there by a
grievous shadow (the meaning of the name Dolores Umbridge), comes upon
the Dursleys like a nightmare because that is what it is, a warning in
the night from the unconscious, uttered by God in hope of awakening
the soul in time for it to escape from danger. In the Old Testament
book of Genesis, it was because Cain chose to ignore this voice that
we began murdering our brothers, not lighting a candle but cursing our
brothers for "their" darkness. We cannot claim we did not see
murder come. We felt it as it first stirred in a dream, a fantasy, in
our hand, in the prickling of our thumb.

Robert "Rapierpen" Henderson maintains a web site called The
Classrooms of Hogwarts that was started on May 14, 2001, to continue
discussion from the Barnes & Noble Online course "Teaching
Children Literature Using Harry Potter" and to serve as a MATRIX
for his book (in the works) on restoring the practical and spiritual
foundations of children's safety.