Feel the Love
by Erin Kuschert
You have all heard the theory that the power contained in the locked room of the Department of Mysteries is love; however, there is evidence sufficient to reject this claim. After reading OotP through again, I believe that I have found enough evidence to support the theory concerning love. I hope that the passages I will present will convince you that the power is actually love.
(1)The first new clue I noticed was on page 720 (Aus. Version [Voldemort possessing Harry]
“Kill me now, Dumbledore.”
Blinded and dying, every part of him screaming for release, Harry felt the creature use him again. “If death is nothing, Dumbledore, kill the boy .”
Let the pain stop, thought Harry –let him kill us –end it, Dumbledore– death is nothing compared to this– And I’ll see Sirius again…
And as Harry’s heart filled with emotion, the creature’s coils loosened, the pain was gone; Harry was lying face down on the floor, his glasses gone, shivering as though he lay upon ice, not wood
(2)Dumbledore explains why this is so on page 743(Aus. Version);
“It is the power held within that room that you possess in such quantities and which Voldemort has not at all. That power took you to save Sirius tonight. That power also saved you from possession by Voldemort, because he could not bear to reside in a body so full of a force he detests. In the end, it mattered not that you could not close your mind. It was your heart that saved you.”
The underlined section of the first passage is what I would like to first focus on, as it is my main point. Harry has remembered how he feels about Sirius, and when this emotion comes rushing back through his body, Voldemort can no longer remain in his[Harry’s] body, relieving Harry of the pain the possession was causing him. On page 732, Dumbledore says that Harry was coming to regard Sirius as ‘a mixture of father and brother’; what emotion do you feel about fathers and brothers the majority of the time? That’s right, LOVE. Harry was feeling his love for Sirius and Voldemort could not bear to continue possession of his body while he remembered it.
Secondly, in the second passage, the line, “It was your heart that saved you,’ is the next thing that I would like to discuss. Dumbledore says, ’your heart,’ and by this he does not mean the blood-pumping organ within Harry’s chest, he means his ability to feel love and courage; his sense of morality. What emotion is most often associated with ‘your heart?’ again, the answer is LOVE. It was love that saved Harry.
My final piece of evidence does not have a corresponding passage from Harry Potter, but it comes from experiences that I’m sure many of us have had. Dumbledore describes the mysterious force as at once more wonderful and terrible than death (and I am assuming that by wonderful, he means powerful). Love can make people feel empowered, strong, and wonderful, but when that love is lost or taken from them it can feel worse than death, or that person feels a pain worse that death. Therefore love, especially when it is lost, can be at once more wonderful and terrible than death.
I hope that the evidence I have presented has further convinced you that the force that is at once more wonderful and terrible than death is love.