Harry Potter, Hermoine Granger, Ronald Weasely, Albus Dumbledore, Severus Snape, these names are not just other movie character names, they are emotions, inspirations, friends, family, the people we have grown up with, people we dreamed of to be, all combined in one magical world by a broke author with a vivid imagination, J.K.Rowling. From the release of the first movie in 2001 until the last part released in 2011 it has been one hell of a journey, what we missed during those growing years of our lives is the lesson that the series taught us, simply because we were not mature enough to understand them.
So, let's discuss them one by one :
The legendary friendship of Harry, Ron and Hermoine including Neville, Luna, Ginny, George and Fred have taught us that it does not matter how hard life gets if you have “true” friends who support, motivate, criticize and most importantly, stand up to you if you are wrong, you can get over anything. Life becomes much easier, more fun and bearable with these friends. Now, in the current Covid scenario this becomes increasingly important, to have friends you can talk to, you can share with and who are there to support you no matter what. What is more important is to have a “Neville” in your group because as Dumbledore aptly put “ It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to our enemies, but even greater to stand up to our friends (especially when they are doing or about to do something wrong).”
Severus Snape, the most hated character until the release of the 7th movie, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, part 1 was not what we thought he was. It took us 10 years to understand what was really going through his mind and what his real intentions were, most of us cried our hearts out after knowing the unbearable pain he put himself through to be Severus Snape. He also showcased that true love stays forever no matter what happens in your life, now just remember your first crush, you remember the face, the name and everything else and it also made you smile.
Harry always wanted to fight Lord Voldemort alone, his intentions were not to let anyone get hurt, and he might have been right about it, but his friends never left him alone and he needed them at every step and so do you. You might not have acknowledged the fact that if you had no friends, would you even call your life, living. Remember the assignments you copied, the lunches you shared, the laughter you had, the heartbreaks that were cured, for the college hostellers, the late nights, the chats, it was all because of friends and family(and both can be the same).
Harry had several heartbreaks throughout his life, be it Dursely's who treated him like an added baggage they had to carry or his once girlfriend turning into a traitor and going to work for Umbridge, or be it the death of Sirius Black and then Albus Dumbledore, he went through all and this made him stronger mentally and more committed to making the wizarding world free of all evil. As it is aptly mentioned in the movie “ Numbing the pain for a while will only make it worse when you finally feel it.” So, thrust this thought into your mind and face the pain head-on and this is the only way to feel good and move on. Also according to Madam Pomfrey “ Thoughts could leave deeper scars than almost anything else.”
Harry was rich but he did not have a family and yearned for it, Ron was poor but had a wholesome loving family. There was a stark difference between the two and both completed each other, the point being that money is not that much important if you have people who love you and are with you at every moment. If you look closely keeping in perspective the current scenario, a pandemic like covid does not differentiate and target the rich and poor differently, so you get the point.
Remember the time when Ron had to follow spiders in the forbidden forest to cure Hermoine or when Ron thought that he had Harry's luck potion in the Quiddich match when he did not. The learning from the two instances is that you have to face your fears to get over them and you will have to believe in yourself to get over uncertainties you face in your life (your hard work is your luck potion ). As it is mentioned in the movie “ It's our choices, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
As we are well aware of the “Order of Phoenix” or better known as “Dumbledore's Army” there was a community that was at disposal to fight the adversary. Now the part that we can all relate to is that the community had their share of agreements and differences but they stood together no matter what, it's just the same with us and the community we are part of. The community is important because “ The world isn't split into good people and death eaters(read: bad people). We all have got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we really are.”
Every character we know of had a past, because of the past and choices they made, they became the person they portrayed. Take for eg: Snape or Bellatrix Lestrange, even with all the wisdom that Dumbledore had, he had a past too. We can learn from it that no one wanted to change their past because even in the magical world nobody had the power to do so but instead they accepted it and paved the, way for their future.
Now this one is something which many of us can agree with, but rarely can we learn to apply and live with it. Neville was a misfit, Luna was a misfit, but they accepted it and continued living the way they were because that is important. We always talk about self-love being the greatest form of love but we rarely practice it. As the dialogue goes “ People find it far easier to forgive others for being wrong than being right.”
Now this one is saved for the last because of the reason that after you are finished reading the article you take away something positive from it. Harry never gave up, not even when he was finding the Horcruxes (which he knew nothing about) . Ron never gave up, not on the friendship, not on Hermoine and not on his family. Hermoine never gave up on Harry and Ron. So the learning to take away from this is, that no matter where you are in life, no matter how hard it gets, don't back down, do not give up, remember, even the Phoenix rises from the ashes.
“Happiness can be found in darkest of times if one only remembers to turn on the lights”
