“all was well”. oh i felt so oddly when the books finished with that. as if the boy i understood has disappeared. before, this world of war: i knew harry potter’s fear, his doubt, the uncertainty.
i wonder, really, is it all well? in my mind, harry woke up every day after, for years, screaming. reaching out for people who no longer existed, who evaporated before him in the glow of sparks.
molly weasley finds herself knitting an “F” on a sweater every year. even though she knows better.
George, who walks away from jokes for a long time, lets someone else manage the joke shop. on family vacation to disneyworld because his father loves the idea of muggle magic. having a breakdown at the haunted mansion because “here lies fred, a big ol’ rock fell on his head” is one of the gravestones. he can’t stop laughing or crying because it’s so funny, isn’t it - he spends a long time losing it, feeling himself carried off by people who tell him hush, st. mungo’s is listening, we can’t have you there, dear - until one day, he realizes the only method they have of fixing him is more magic. takes all that extra money from his full share in the joke shop, and, like harry, passes it on. puts money into mental health. teaches people like himself how to laugh again.
dean and seamus finnigan finally wed, open the first place in diagon alley for queer wizards running from their families. places like this, of houses for the homeless orphans, have become increasingly popular after the war. there are children who grew up without a house to call home.
and now, in the era of uncertainty. harry fought so there would be no more fighting. i wonder, through dudley, how much he learns of the muggle world news. and i wonder how much, through muggle-born students, it just seeps through. i wonder if the students sit in castles, worrying about a third world war, just like we do. i wonder if harry would be standing at that station, watching his children leave, not happy. worried. knowing they’re safe, probably, but knowing the world could change at the behest of one man’s rage. thinking about how now his children must too be afraid of dying.
it seems fake to me that it would all work out. that teddy wouldn’t grow up savage, angry. furious at the world for taking his parents, who were barely over thirty. secretly blaming harry, who asked them to fight in the first place. slytherins who wear survivor’s guilt, who tied scarves around faces and fought their parents; the slytherin house now bullied, tormented for the sins of their families. and gryffindor, the bully, harry potter’s house, can do no wrong nor evil. how darker purposes of magic are popular, how students use wands to change their faces, to change their bodies to be “beautiful”.
i wonder how much muggle has seeped in, seeped through. after all, isn’t voldemort dead now. i wonder if they fight for the rights of syrian refugees, i wonder if they discuss the racism in their country.
the thing is, their world can only be well if they are apart from us. unreal. if they never felt anything so deeply it was a dagger through a heartbeat. if truly, he is happy: it feels like harry potter no longer belongs to me.
