What JKR Finds Important

[Tonks]

No: HPFGUIDX 116192


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "delwynmarch" 
<delwynmarch at y...> wrote:
> 
> Del wrote :
> There's a huge difference between "things are not well, Harry has 
been changed forever" and "Harry will turn into a git in the next 
month". I knew Harry wasn't well, of course, but I never in the 
entire world would have expected him to turn into Angry!Harry all of 
a sudden like he did. What I expected was exactly the contrary : 
Silent!Harry, Leave-me-alone!Harry, I-don't-care!Harry. I did NOT 
expect a Harry who resents his friends for not telling him more 
(after all, Harry's habit is to *not* ask questions, right ?). I did 
NOT expect a Harry who turns his own frustration on his cousin. I 
did NOT expect a Harry who lashes at everyone. I did NOT expect a 
Harry who greeted his friends with yells and recriminations, and so 
on. 

Tonks here:

I mentioned this in another post some time back. Harry is acting 
this way because he has been through a traumatic situation. Leave 
out the fact that he is also a teenager and look just at the trauma 
that he has suffered. JKR has done an excellent job of portraying a 
person with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). All of the 
clinical signs are there. Hyper-vigilance, irritability, nightmares, 
and so on. The fact that this has also happened to a teenager with 
no social support at home makes it even worse. Harry is acting like 
many of us would if we had been through the same thing that he has. 
He feels guilty for Cedric's death, even if Dumbledore tells him not 
to. This is a VERY emotional time for him. That is what we are 
seeing here.  He is still the same good kid under it all, and in 
time he will heal.  Although he has had another tragic loss at the 
end of OOP. And again, he is probably feeling guilty.  He will 
probably be a mess in the opening of the next book too.  Or at least 
depressed from grief. I thing that one important thing that JKR is 
teaching here, is to show a teenager going through all of this and 
coping. Not well, but coping. No suicide here. She will show the 
teenagers of the world how to cope with trauma and loss.

Tonks_op