Happy endings and locked rooms

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 164645

eggplant:
> Considering that locked room, the most mysterious thing about it is
> if it's just love behind it as most assume then why is it locked? I 
> would think you'd want to set love free and get into the world. 
> There must be something besides ordinary vanilla love in that room,
> love on steroids or something that makes it downright dangerous. Or 
> maybe the Ministry wizards didn't lock it and are in fact trying to
> unlock it, but without success. Maybe in book 7 Harry will find a
> way to unlock it, something even Dumbledore couldn't do. 

Jen: Huh, that's an interesting thought, that it can't be unlocked.  
I got the impression from Dumbledore people actually study the force 
in the room so the door can be opened, but I like the idea that not 
*everyone* can open the door.  Maybe Harry couldn't open the door yet 
because he hadn't overcome all the barriers to accessing his power in 
OOTP?  I'd find that a compelling twist.  I believe Lily worked at 
the DOM and studied that force and while she didn't plan her 
sacrifice, the combination of having the same power as Harry and her 
almost unconcious incorporation of what she studied led to her 
innately knowing what to do.

I completely bought Dumbledore's line about a 'force more wonderful 
and terrible than death, than human intelligence, than forces of 
nature.'  Feeling love from and for another is wonderful, but 
watching someone you love hurting or losing love altogether does feel 
terribly painful.  And someone like Voldemort who has never 
experienced love finds it agony.  That made sense to me after hearing 
how babies who have never attached to a primary caregiver and 
experienced physical bonding with another find it difficult to accept 
physical expressions of love (and perhaps emotional too, my only 
knowledge is reading a few articles but I remembered these when 
learning about baby Riddle).

Eggplant:
> He knows that opening the door is the only way to destroy Voldemort
> but Harry also knows that if he does so he will die too; remember 
> that powerful "old magic" involves sacrifice. Perhaps in the second
> to the last chapter, the one just before epilog where the adult 
> lives of the surviving characters are described, Harry opens that 
> door and Harry Potter is no more.  

Jen:  I'd say Dumbledore believed the force is what guides Harry to 
put other people's lives before his own and also what protects him 
from Voldemort.  I'm pretty sure the realization that the locked room 
is the means to vanquish LV will be Harry's to make, once he puts 
together what he learned from Dumbledore about his own power and 
Voldemort's weakness, and when he finally learns Lily's story 
(regardless of whether she worked at the DOM).   

Eggplant:
> Maybe that also explains the gleam of triumph in GOF seen in
> Dumbledore's eye immediately followed by sorrow. Whatever that was
> about it seems clear to me it must have involved having a glorious
> idea followed by a very sad idea. The most glorious idea I can think
> of is a way to defeat Voldemort, the saddest idea I can think of is
> Harry's death.  

Jen:  Aw, that strikes me as a sad but true thought.  I'm assuming 
the gleam has to do with Harry's blood weakening Voldemort in some 
way he overlooked (as usual since he doesn't know love), but it's the 
same difference if both the power in the room and the blood 
protection running in Harry's veins are love.

Eggplant
> To put it more concretely, will you be happy when you read the last
> page or will you have a tear in your eye? I think that largely 
> depends on if Harry is happy on the last page. Personally I think
> if Harry survives he will be crippled emotionally and perhaps 
> physically as well.

Jen:  I will feel sad if Harry dies. Period.  I see where there might 
be a necessity for that happening although not because his life would 
always be marred by his experiences if he lived.  The prophecy seems 
to be saying if one dies the other can actually 'live' for the first 
time since their two fates joined, and I read 'live' to be both 
literal and figurative.  Unlike Carol mentioned, I'm not convinced 
one of them must live from the way the prophecy is worded.

It all depends on where JKR is going with the sacrifice theme:  Will 
Harry, like all those who came before him and gave their lives for 
him, be the final sacrifice in order for the WW to be free of 
Voldemort?  That appeals to my sense of symmetry if Lily started the 
tale and Harry ends it the same way.  The alternative is that unlike 
the rest of the people who loved him, Harry will only have to be 
willing to sacrifice himself and he's already proven he is.  

Either way, I think the Deathly Hallows could be bookends for the 
series, referring in the beginning to the All Hallow's Eve when the 
Potters died, and in the end to the holy/sacred force in the locked 
room where Voldemort is finally vanquished, and Harry...don't know 
but hope it's the place where he loses the soul piece connecting him 
to LV (if he has one) and is finally able to really live.

Thanks Eggplant, really nice post and interesting ideas to mull over 
here.

Jen R.