Deathly Hallows, Chapter 28: The Missing Mirror

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Or, Dishing the Dirt on Dumbledore, Part 4

While the first sentence in this chapter is only four words long, the second is the run-on sentence from hell:

He saw the achingly familiar Hogsmeade High Street: dark shop fronts, and the outline of black mountains beyond the village, and the curve in the road ahead that led off toward Hogwarts, and light spilling from the windows of the Three Broomsticks, and with a lurch of the heart he remembered, with piercing accuracy, how he had landed here nearly a year before, supporting a desperately weak Dumbledore; all this in a second upon landing--and then, even as he released his grip upon Ron’s and Hermione’s arms, it happened.

That’s ninety words long. Ninety! When I was in second grade, I turned in a book report that contained a sentence that was not nearly that bad. I just listed characters in the book: this and that and the other and another, instead of saying this, that, the other, and another. My teacher wouldn’t let me get away with it, and I was eight. Did Rowling not go to second grade? Did she never have to write papers in school?

“It” turns out to be a blood-curdling scream. A dozen (not thirteen?) Death Eaters charge out into the street looking for what caused the racket. One of them calls for the invisibility cloak, but it doesn’t obey his Summoning Charm. Oh. Come. On. So not only is this the most superspeshul invisibility cloak of all time, the one that belonged to Death himself, but it also can’t be Summoned by anybody but its owner, or, presumably, his designated agents? Rowling really was making it up as she went along at this point, wasn’t she?

When the DEs can’t find HRH, they act like Monty Burns on The Simpsons and say, “Release the hounds dementors!” The Trio tries to Disapparate, but the DE charms won’t allow them to. Harry releases his Patronus as a last resort, which allows the DEs to find them. Apparently they’re better briefed than they were before because one of them knows Harry’s Patronus is a stag. Fortunately for the Trio, authorial divine intervention is still working because a door opens nearby and someone orders them to come in.

Harry recognizes the Hog’s Head Inn from its “grubby, sawdust-strewn bar.” This is reason number 5,674,429 in which magical society is inferior to non-magical society: Apparently they have no Board of Health that requires establishments that serve food to maintain a high standard of cleanliness. Why is there sawdust on the bar, anyway? Have they been doing construction? If so, shouldn’t the workers have cleaned up their mess when they quit for the day? Either that, or the part of the pub being worked on should be closed to the public as unsafe until it’s finished.

The Trio goes upstairs into their savior’s private quarters, which are in no better condition than the public room: rickety stairs, grimy window, threadbare carpet. Rowling is really going out of her way to make Aberforth look like a slob, isn’t she? She even refers to his glasses as being dirty and grimy, which most people who wear glasses can’t stand. Of course, he could just be chronically depressed. With his tragic history, and being eternally trashed by his famous, powerful, and admired brother, whose slanders are believed without question, he would have every reason to feel sad.

Aberforth confronts the DEs, telling them it was his goat Patronus they saw, not a stag. The goat is described as “something huge and horned.” Goats are not normally “huge,” but this may be some special variety Aberforth developed himself.

He continues to argue with the DEs about why his door was open, but he doesn’t succeed in making them leave until he points out that, if his bar closes down, it will shut down their black market businesses as well. I wonder if this is one of those situations where a younger sibling knew he could never compete with an older superstar sibling on the superstar’s own turf, so he decided to go in the opposite direction and become at least superficially antisocial and criminal as a way of staking out his own area of success.

Above the fireplace in Aberforth’s room is a painting of his sister, Ariana; leaning against it is the magic mirror that belonged to Sirius and that Aberforth bought from Fletcher.

Aberforth belongs to the stereotype Cleveland Amory once called “crotchety but golden-hearted.” He castigates the Trio for being stupid enough to come, but still cares enough about their safety to have sent Dobby to rescue them. He also admits he’s been watching for them via the mirror.

Ron asks if he sent the doe Patronus, and Aberforth replies with what may be the best line in the book: “Brains like that, you could be a Death Eater, son. Haven’t I just proved my Patronus is a goat?”

For that matter, Aberforth has nearly all the best lines in the book. I absolutely love Aberforth. I may even love him more than Snape because, unlike Snape, he’s not still under the mind control of Albus. He both sees and speaks the truth about his brother. I’m really sorry he and Auntie Muriel never got together to bring Albus down. Hmmm. They’re about the same age. Aberforth + Muriel = OTP!

Aberforth serves the kids an old-fashioned meal of bread, cheese, and mead. While they stuff their faces, he tries to talk them into leaving town, and preferably the country. Of course, Harry insists they can’t do that because they’re on a mission from God Albus. Thus ensues the best conversation in the entire series.

Aberforth says, “My brother Albus wanted a lot of things, and people had a habit of getting hurt while he was carrying out his grand plans...Forget my brother and his clever schemes. He’s gone where none of this can hurt him, and you don’t owe him anything.”

Harry tries to pull rank, insisting the old man doesn’t “understand.” Aberforth retorts, “You don’t think I understood my own brother? Think you knew Albus better than I did?”

Harry tries again, insisting Albus left him a mission to fulfill. Aberforth calls his bluff, jeering, “Did he now? Nice job, I hope? Pleasant? Easy? Sort of thing you’d expect an unqualified wizard kid to be able to do without overstretching themselves?”

I love it! He called Harry “an unqualified wizard kid.”  That alone is reason to love him.

Aberforth tries to convince Harry the war is over, Voldemort’s won, and Harry and his friends should accept that fact and save themselves. Harry (no doubt unconsciously) uses the “broken record” technique, stubbornly repeating that he has a job that he alone can do, as Albus told him in detail.

Acting very Snapish, Aberforth ripostes, “Oh, did he now? And did he tell you everything, was he honest with you?”

When Harry squirms uncomfortably, tacitly acknowledging with his silence that Aberforth  is right, the old man says, “I knew my brother, Potter. He learned secrecy at our mother’s knee. Secrets and lies, that’s how we grew up, and Albus...he was a natural.”

In other words, he was an inveterate liar and con artist from an early age. Anybody still want to argue he wasn’t a psychopath?

Aberforth’s statement also raises another question. We’re probably supposed to interpret the references to “secrets and lies” as being about Ariana and her illness. But is that all Aberforth is referring to?

Look at the phrasing: “at our mother’s knee.” That expression usually refers to very young children getting their first lessons as they stand at the knee of their seated mother. If the Dumbledore children learned secrecy at such a young age, they were being taught to cover up something other than a sister’s illness because that illness had not yet occurred. The sister might not even have been born yet.

Aberforth also says, “that’s how we grew up.” This expression refers to the entire span of one’s childhood and adolescence. The implication is strong that there were many secrets and lies in the Dumbledore household; Ariana’s illness was only the most obvious of them--but possibly not the worst.

When Hermione asks about the picture on the mantel, Harry says Doge mentioned Ariana. Aberforth speaks one of his many home truths, this one about Doge: “Thought the sun shone out of my brother’s every orifice, he did. Well, so did plenty of people, you three included, by the looks of it.”

Harry kept quiet. He did not want to express the doubts and uncertainties about Dumbledore that had riddled him for months now. He had made his choice while he dug Dobby’s grave, he had decided to continue along the winding, dangerous path indicated for him by Albus Dumbledore, to accept that he had not been told everything that he wanted to know, but simply to trust. He had no desire to doubt again; he did not want to hear anything that would deflect him from his purpose...Harry thought that Aberforth knew what he was thinking and despised him for it.

I know I certainly do, Harry. Damn. This is where Harry steps back from the precipice of spiritual growth and maturity and makes the conscious choice to regress into a permanently childish state of development.

It’s not for nothing the Hs get along much better after this. Harry has regressed from Level 4 to Level 2, so he and Hermione are on the same level again. He’s also allowing himself to be ordered around by others, instead of trying to be his own person, which makes it easier for her to control him.

This is really depressing, so I’m going to take a break and let the Beatles talk for me. This song by George Harrison describes perfectly what both Aberforth and sensible readers have to be thinking at this point. “Think for Yourself” has what must be one of the most sarcastic arrangements in all of music. It gives the rhythm section center stage, with a fuzz bass that sounds like someone blowing raspberries, drumming that emulates slaps across the face, and the normally innocuous tambourine alternating jeering tinkles with hissing rattles that remind one of a rattlesnake’s warning.

I’ve got a word or two

To say about the things that you do.

You’re telling all those lies

About the good things that we can have

If we close our eyes.

Do what you want to do,

And go where you’re going to.

Think for yourself,

‘Cause I won’t be there with you.

I left you far behind,

The ruins of the life

That you have in mind.

And though you still can’t see,

I know your mind’s made up:

You’re gonna cause more misery.

Do what you want to do,

And go where you’re going to.

Think for yourself,

‘Cause I won’t be there with you.

Although your mind’s opaque,

Try thinking more,

If just for your own sake.

The future still looks good,

And you’ve got time to rectify

All the things that you should.

Do what you want to do,

And go where you’re going to.

Think for yourself,

‘Cause I won’t be there with you.

Hermione tries to defend Albus, insisting, “Professor Dumbledore cared about Harry, very much.”

Aberforth retorts, “Did he now? Funny thing, how many of the people my brother cared about very much ended up in a worse state than if he’d let ‘em well alone.”

That is the ultimate definition of a toxic person: Someone who is so poisonous that even his “caring” is dangerous.

This chapter is packed with more interest and information than any ten of the regular chapters in DBP, and it’s all because of Aberforth. His trenchant remarks about Albus and Albus’s plans pack the kind of punch that only a family member’s words can.

As if Aberforth’s takedown of Albus weren’t enough to rivet the reader’s attention, things get even better when Aberforth gives a detailed account of Albus’s Summer of Love (for Gellert, Power, and Ambition). When I first read this book, I assumed Ariana had lost her mind, an impression that was later reinforced by everything I read on the subject by other commentators. But when I reread DBP for this sporking, I got a completely different impression.

First, look at what Aberforth says about Ariana’s illness. This is the complete text of his words on that subject:

When my sister was six years old, she was attacked, set upon, by three Muggle boys....

It destroyed her, what they did: She was never right again. She wouldn’t use magic, but she couldn’t get rid of it; it turned inward and drove her mad, it exploded out of her when she couldn’t control it, and at times she was strange and dangerous. But mostly she was sweet and scared and harmless.

...[I]f the Ministry had known what Ariana had become, she’d have been locked up in St. Mungo’s for good...unbalanced like she was, with magic exploding out of her at moments when she couldn’t keep it in any longer.

We had to keep her safe and quiet. We moved house, put it about she was ill, and my mother tried to keep her calm and happy.

I was her favorite...He didn’t want to be bothered with her. She liked me best. I could get her to eat when she wouldn’t do it for my mother, I could get her to calm down when she was in one of her rages, and when she was quiet, she used to help me feed the goats. (Emphasis in original)

Then, when she was fourteen...See, I wasn’t there. If I’d been there, I could have calmed her down. She had one of her rages, and my mother wasn’t as young as she was, and...it was an accident. Ariana couldn’t control it. But my mother was killed. (Ellipses in original)

...[T]here’s no prizes for looking after your half-mad sister, stopping her blowing up the house every other day.

I told him...You can’t move her, she’s in no fit state, you can’t take her with you, wherever it is you’re planning to go, when you’re making your clever speeches, trying to whip yourselves up a following.

And there was an argument...then all three of us were dueling, and the flashing lights and the bangs set her off, she couldn’t stand it--

--and I think she wanted to help, but she didn’t really know what she was doing...

When I read those passages this time, I thought, That doesn’t sound like insanity. That sounds like epilepsy.

Look at the similarities:

The illness was precipitated by an attack. We are not told what Ariana’s injuries were, but given that three boys suddenly set upon her, a head injury is a good possibility. Epilepsy is often caused by a head injury.

The magic “exploded out of her.” “She couldn’t control it.” That sounds like someone having what used to be called a grand mal seizure, or what’s now called a tonic-clonic seizure. That’s what I thought she had before reading the document from the Epilepsy Foundation quoted below.

Everyone tried to keep her quiet. Since they wouldn’t have known what was wrong with her, and there was probably no medication for the illness, the family would have seen keeping her calm as their only alternative to her seizures.

She’d have been locked up if her illness had become known. In the nineteenth century it was common to lock up people with “embarrassing” illnesses such as insanity, epilepsy, and dementia. Since magical society was and is far more backward and ignorant about such conditions than non-magical society, they would have been even more inclined to “put away” someone like Ariana.

She had violent rages. This is some of what the Epilepsy Foundation has to say about complex-partial seizures. I assume my audience is intelligent and perceptive enough to notice the most relevant remarks without my bolding them.

A non-convulsive seizure with altered awareness and automatic behavior is called a complex partial seizure, or a psychomotor or temporal lobe seizure. A major problem in the public handling of complex partial seizures, the most common type of seizure, is recognition of the symptoms. The unusual behavior associated with complex partial seizures is often misinterpreted as stemming from intoxication or mental illness. It is this type of seizure that is also associated with symptoms that may be erroneously perceived as aggression. Lack of public understanding has resulted in people with complex partial seizures being unfairly arrested (and sometimes seriously injured in the process) and prosecuted based on perceived intoxication, violence, disorderly conduct or indecent exposure–all because of involuntary actions produced by seizures.

Typically, a complex partial seizure starts with a blank stare and loss of contact with surroundings. This is often followed by chewing movements, picking at or fumbling with clothing, mumbling and performing simple, unorganized movements over and over again. Sometimes people wander around, and in rare cases, a person might try to undress during a seizure, or become very agitated, screaming, running or making flailing movements with his arms or bicycling movements with his legs. Actions and movements are typically unorganized, confused and unfocused (that is, not directed at a specific person or object) during a complex partial seizure.

During these episodes the person is on "automatic pilot" so far as his actions are concerned, is totally unaware of what is happening, and, when consciousness returns, will have no memory of what occurred during the seizure. After a few minutes, natural systems in the brain subdue the electrical overload which caused the seizure, and consciousness returns. The time after a seizure is called the postictal or post-ictal period and this recovery period can last minutes to an hour or more. During this time a person is typically dazed and fatigued, and gradually becomes aware of surroundings as normal brain function returns. During this period a person is easily frightened, upset and unable to communicate effectively and may become belligerent or aggressive, especially when approached, as he or she may perceive this as a threat...  

While in an altered state of awareness, an individual with complex-partial seizures may commit an undirected act which may be perceived as "criminal"–for instance, picking up objects, grabbing someone close by, and opening or rattling doors--that may lead to arrest and prosecution for such crimes as shoplifting, assault, or disorderly conduct. These behaviors are usually stereotypical, that is, the person does something similar every time he has a seizure, and the individual usually has impaired consciousness so he cannot control the movements or behaviors.

The flashing lights and bangs set her off. I once read in an advice column a letter from a woman with epilepsy who couldn’t go on amusement park rides because the motion, loud music, and flashing lights brought on seizures.

As part of my research, I found there is a variety of epilepsy called photosensitive eplilepsy. It’s found more often in girls than in boys, and is particularly stimulated by saturated “deep” red lights. When the red flashes with another color--like during a spell battle--that can also trigger a seizure. Anyone who wants to see an example of this can watch the Nine Inch Nails video, “Came Back Haunted,” which is prefaced by a warning that it can cause seizures in people with photosensitive epilepsy.

So at last we have a diagnosis for Ariana Dumbledore: trauma-induced photosensitive epilepsy resulting in complex partial seizures.

Aberforth finishes his story by saying, “...and I don’t know which of us did it, it could have been any of us--and she was dead.” In her sporking of this chapter in the Deadly Hollows community, gehayi made a solid case for Albus’s having murdered Ariana because she was in the way of his world-conquering ambitions. I still think that’s a reasonable interpretation, but my discovery of her epilepsy raises another possibility: accidental death.

There are several ways this could have happened: (1) It’s rare, but people do die from seizures. Another website I looked at says, “Death or permanent brain damage from seizures is rare, but either can occur if the seizure is prolonged or many seizures occur soon after each other.” Depending on how long this Battle of the Teen Titans lasted, it could have brought on an unusually severe or prolonged seizure and killed Ariana. The boys may have been so intent on their battle they didn’t notice she was dead until they finished. Since she had never died of her seizures before, it would have been reasonable for them to assume one of them had killed her with a spell. (2) Ariana could have fallen and struck her head during her seizure, particularly if she had become abnormally agitated by the fight between her brothers and Gellert. (3) A stray spell could have struck her accidentally and knocked her down, causing a fatal head injury. (4) She could have tried to grab Albus or Gellert to make them stop fighting, been shoved away, fallen, and struck her head. (I don’t think Aberforth would have shoved her.)

At the end of this pathetic story, Aberforth collapses into a chair and weeps. The Trio reacts in interesting ways: Hermione cries; Ron becomes pale; and Harry? “Harry felt nothing but revulsion: He wished he had not heard it, wished he could wash his mind clean of it.”

My immediate reaction to Harry’s revulsion was also revulsion. I was thoroughly revolted that anybody, upon hearing such an awful tale, and seeing someone still suffering such pain and guilt as Aberforth was experiencing, could think only of himself, i.e., how disgusted he feels about this family’s trauma. There is no empathy there at all. Tell me again why I’m supposed to regard this guy as a hero?

After several days I came back to this scene, and I realized what is going on: Harry is crushing down his own doubts about Albus. Having made the conscious decision to substitute blind faith in a dubious authority figure for maturity, courage, and independent thought, he can’t stand to hear again about what a dickwad Dumbledore was. Acknowledging that his idol was ever that bad, that he betrayed not just his brother, but also his needy sister, is just too painful. If only subconsciously, it reminds Harry of all the times Albus screwed him over after he came to Hogwarts, not to mention the abuse and neglect Harry suffered at the Dursleys’ hands because of Dumbledore’s insistence Harry had to live with them. It confirms the suspicion Harry can’t bear to admit even to himself: Despite what Hermione insisted in the woods when they read Skeeter’s biography of him, Dumbledore never changed. He remained a selfish, manipulative, backstabbing shit to the day he died.

And beyond. As we shall see.

Harry must wonder in the depths of his mind what it says about him, that he is willing to surrender his mind and his will to carrying out the desires of such a person. Is he really any better than the Death Eaters who mindlessly follow Voldemort, like crazy Bella? If Dumbledore made such hideous mistakes in judgment before, how does Harry know he can be trusted now? It wasn’t just regarding Ariana that he behaved abominably. There was that business with Tom Riddle, allowing an obviously dangerous child to get magical training so he could become even more dangerous. More bad judgment! He borrowed James’s invisibility cloak when the Potters were in hiding, thus robbing them of an invaluable way to escape when attacked. And it all comes back to Harry: Albus dumped a baby on people who didn’t want him and allowed that child to be abused and neglected for over a decade. He sent Harry on a quest with insufficient information on how to proceed, thus almost guaranteeing failure. After all the previous secrets and lies, Harry can’t help but suspect that somehow, somewhere, there’s something else he’s not being told--and it must be really bad, to have been kept secret until the final showdown with Voldemort.

So Harry has plenty of reason to be revolted at this point. What he really wants is to have his mind “washed clean” of the nagging voice of his own instincts whispering to him, Harry, don’t trust Dumbledore! Look at all the evidence. You know he’s screwing you over. You just know it! Aberforth is right. He does know his brother better than you do. He’s trying to save your life! He doesn’t even know you, but he cares more about you than his brother ever did. When did the Headmaster ever show this much care for you? Get out! Get out while you still can!

This is Harry reaching for that fourth stage of spiritual development again, his subconscious mind knowing that growth is what he really needs and wants, and his conscious mind frantically shoving down that realization because it’s just too frightening and painful even to acknowledge, let alone act upon. As Charlotte Davis Kasl* put it, “Sometimes amid the churning and the change one flashes on the thought, ‘I wish things were simple and clear like they used to be.’ But you can’t go back, because you know too much, and deep inside, most people don’t really want to. Sometimes you just want it to be easier.” (47)

But, as we know, Harry does go back. He unknows what he knows and turns his back on the genuine gold of maturity and independence, however painful and lonely, choosing instead the fool’s gold of joining the herd in submission to the One True God of the Potterverse, Albus Dumbledore. This is a spiritual and psychological version of foot-binding--and Harry does it to himself. How sad.

Let us pause a moment to mourn the Harry Potter who could have been, if J K Rowling herself had not been too spiritually underdeveloped to write him.

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Aberforth continues with his story, saying Gellert took off, and Albus was free to pursue “greatness.” Harry cuts in, insisting Albus was never free. He offers as “evidence” the elder Dumbledore’s words in the Horcrux cave: “Don’t hurt them, please...hurt me instead.” Well, no. What he said was, “Don’t hurt them, don’t hurt them, please, please, it’s my fault, hurt me instead...” The problem is, there’s no indication whom Albus is either addressing or talking about. Those words could refer to the generations of bullies and bullying victims at Hogwarts, or Voldemort and his many victims, such as Harry’s parents and the people murdered to make Horcruces. Or it could be addressed to Gellert but refer to the people killed during World War II while Albus fooled around about confronting his ex. Considering the umpteen people whose lives were damaged or destroyed by Dumbledore, he could be addressing a multitude of criminals and victims all at once. It’s not for nothing he spends several centuries in Hell in excessivelyperky’s wonderful short story, “Folk of the Wood.”

Besides, Albus spoke ten lines in the cave (line here meaning a series of words that stretches all the way across the page), and three of them refer to not hurting other people. The other seven lines are purely selfish, e.g., “Make it stop,” “I don’t want to,” and “I want to die.” Even in extremis, Albus Dumbledore was a narcissist to the core.

Harry and Aberforth continue to argue, with Aberforth more interested in Harry’s safety than Harry is himself. Somewhere, Albus is looking at this and thinking about his brainwashing, Damn, I’m good. The best there is, in fact.

Harry proves he was indeed taught well by his idol when he says, “Your brother knew how to finish You-Know-Who and he passed the knowledge on to me.”

Wait a minute. When did that happen? What about all that angsting in the woods about “we don’t know what we’re doing or looking for” and “Dumbledore left us a mess and didn’t tell us anything”? So all along Harry knew what to do, and he was just holding out on us?

ALL THOSE ENDLESS CHAPTERS OF BOREDOM IN THE BOONDOCKS WERE FOR NOTHING? GODDAMN YOU, JOANNE ROWLING! FOR TORTURING YOUR READERS THIS WAY, YOU DESERVE TO BE BEATEN TO A BLOODY PULP!

Oh. Okay. So it’s not true. Harry’s just lying to score points in an argument. That seems like a very Slytherin thing to do, so no doubt the Voldiesoul fragment is responsible. I just knew the hero of the best-selling children’s book series of all time couldn’t really be a liar, dimwit, doormat, bully, and heartless, selfish bastard (not to mention torturer, but that comes later). What a relief! I’m glad we’ve gotten that resolved.

Harry browbeats Aberforth into submission (again emulating his idol), and Aberforth sends Ariana-of-the-portrait down the tunnel into Hogwarts to fetch someone from the in-school resistance. A few minutes later, one of the true heroes of the story arrives--Navel! Uh, I mean, Neville.

We’ve got fewer than 200 pages to go. Hang in there, people. It’ll be over soon.

*Many Roads, One Journey: Moving Beyond the Twelve Steps

Comments

[hwyla.livejournal.com]

Quote: aikaterini
Which is what Harry’s parents should have done, instead of just staying home with the baby and hoping that James’ grand plan would work out.

Quote: oneandthetruth
I've often thought that. I guess the Watsonian reason they didn't was that they were Gryffindors, so they were constitutionally incapable of backing down from a challenge, no matter how outmatched they were.
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And part of it all is that I doubt Albus ever told them the real reason Voldy was after them. I cannot see James keeping the prophecy from Sirius IF he had ever known it. Running when a madman is after your child is protective. Running when you think the madman is only after you - cowardice.

[snapes-witch.livejournal.com]

I've always assumed they didn't know about the prophecy.