When The Order of the Phoenix, the fifth installment, was released in 2003, the reader responses to the book departed slightly from the usual revelatory praise. Harry is tied to a gravestone as the wizard who killed his parents coldly orders the death of his classmate, Cedric Diggory-who is then murdered in front of him. He reaches the end only to find it’s all been a ploy by a newly resurrected Voldemort. Harry has just fought his way through a labyrinth, the final task of the Triwizard Tournament.
Perhaps the most important moment in the series comes at the end of the fourth book, The Goblet of Fire. He grows up in an abusive household with his aunt, uncle, and cousin, but starting when he’s 11, Harry spends most of the year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a place where violence abounds, ranging from spells gone awry to wizard duels to all-out war. The seven-part series is bookended by loss, beginning with the murder of Harry’s parents by the evil Lord Voldemort when the boy is a year old, and culminating in Harry’s own (brief) death at age 17. It is also a story absolutely filled with images of death. It is about mythical creatures, and magical castles, and found family. The Harry Potter series is, of course, about an orphan who happens to be a wizard.
In many ways, the books have always been an echo. As a result, Harry Potter tends to mean something different to me, as it might to others who’ve endured trauma. Because of Harry-who saw people his age die, who learned that mortality is not something to fear, and who worked through his anger to find strength even when it was hard-I eventually had something to map my own experience onto. I watched him struggle with grief and rage as he sought to gain control of his life and to do what he believed to be right. Years before my own brush with death, I read about Harry’s.
I’ve been grappling with post-traumatic stress disorder since that day. I could have been one of them, which feels dramatic to say, but when I look at photographs of what used to be my school after it was reduced to a pile of rubble, I know it’s true. At age 16, I was sitting in the hallway of my high school in southern Alabama when a tornado tore through the structure, killing eight students, classmates I’d known since I was a child. As someone who suffered a traumatic event at a young age it hurts even 10 years later to read the inner thoughts of a teenaged Harry as he starts losing more of his friends and loved ones. I feel a bit of apprehension, knowing what lies ahead. Revisiting the series is always a joy, but although I tend to speed through the first three books, I instinctively start slowing down at Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The later books, especially from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix onward, show what it’s like to carry the weight of awful things they go further than most children’s literature, doubling down on the guilt, fear, violence, and, ultimately, death that the young heroes face. But, crucially, the series was unafraid to grow darker and more serious as it wore on. Starting in 1997, Rowling followed the boy wizard and his friends through their teenage years, paying as close attention to the mundane (crushes, school dances, exams) as to the magical (potion-making, Quidditch, house elves). To a generation of fans, Harry can sometimes feel more like a childhood companion than a fictional character. Rowling’s Harry Potter series-by attending midnight-release parties, getting my hands on the latest books, and lining up to watch the new films. Like many people who grew up in the ’90s and early aughts, my youth was indelibly shaped by J.K.