It's hard to pare down all the things I love about Harry Potter to ten, so I won't really think about it as that. I couldn't possibly. So I'll just start today with the first thing I think of.
Scars.
One scar in particular is highly featured in the Harry Potter series, featured in the first chapter of the first book to the epilogue of the last. But Harry is not the only character who sports a scar.
Professor Albus Dumbledore reveals to Professor McGonagal in the first chapter of Sorcerer's Stone that he has a "highly useful" scar above his left knee that is an exact map of the London Underground. This is one of my favorite little snippets from Harry Potter that makes Harry Potter so great. JK Rowling's superb sense of humor and whimsy shines clearly in this sentence. And I would argue that JK Rowling's humor and whimsy and wit are what set the Harry Potter books (stylistically) apart from most fantasy novels. So yes: Part A. Dumbledore's London Underground scar is one of the many whimsical and bizarre details that embroider the series in a way that makes them rich, beautiful and timeless.
Part B. Dumbledore's mention of this silly scar is also one of the first insights we get into Dumbledore's sense of wit and humor and whimsy--which isn't too different from that of JK Rowling. What the reader might first attribute to character development of an eclectic and queer (no pun intended) character actually hints at a deeper and more profound character development. JK Rowling said:
I see [Dumbledore] as fundamentally a very intellectual, brilliant and precocious person whose emotional life was absolutely subjugated to the life of the mind - by his choice - and then his first foray into the world of emotion is catastrophic and I think that would forevermore stun that part of his life and leave it stultified and he would be, what he becomes. That's what I saw as Dumbledore's past. That's always what I saw was in his past. And he keeps a distance between himself and others through humour, a certain detachment and a frivolity of manner. But he's also isolated by his brain. He's isolated by the fact he knows so much, guesses so much, guesses correctly.
...I am totes cheating with this top ten thing. Dumbledore spans my Top Ten list and will probably come up more as the days go on. But yes, Part B: the scar as symbolism for Dumbledore's humor and outlandish behavior--behavior that is endearing and charming, but also that hints at Dumbledore's past and depth of mind.
And Dumbledore's scar Part C.
The scar represents the imperfects that make Dumbledore's character so multifaceted and great. If the headmaster of Hogwarts was merely an aloof and wise wizard with a sweeping white beard and pointed hat--yawn. It's been done many a time before. But in Harry Potter, the wise man, the prophet, Harry's mentor and savior, is Albus Perciful Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. He is a man who loves ballroom dancing and who eats nasty-flavored treats by mistake. He finds music to be "a magic beyond all we do here" and wipes tears from his eyes at the sound of his students' discordant song (even as the other teachers' expressions tighten.) Dumbledore lets Harry fight his own battles. He makes mistakes (though rarely). His past is filled with unrequited love, with loss, with pain. But he is a man who believes above all in the power of love. The greatest wizard of the age--a brilliant man, "quite mad, yes," but a champion--a beacon--for the powers of truth, love and knowledge. He is a hero to many and fought against evil until his last breath--but he sometimes mistakes earwax for toffee, fell in love with an evil wizard, and yes, has a blemish upon his left knee. But Dumbledore would not take back any of these faults--he learns from them (well, perhaps not with the Bertie Bott's Beans)---he says to McGonagal, "I would not remove Harry's scar if I could. Scars can come in handy." Scars are blemishes, disfigurements, imperfections. The character of Dumbledore embraces these things, and in doing so becomes one of the most brilliant literary figures of our age.
And that brings us to the most obvious and important scar of all the Harry Potter books. The iconic symbol of the series: Harry's scar, in the shape of a bolt of lightning, on his forehead. Well, one could write a whole book about Harry's scar (or seven)...No, what I mean is there is a lot of symbolism and meaning that can be attributed to the lightning bolt scar.
Harry Potter is a boy wizard with a lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead. It takes him (and his readers) years to learn about the exact history and properties of his scar. In Sorcerer's Stone he learns from Hagrid that it was a mark left by an evil wizard who tried to kill him. The scar later burns in the presence of Quirrell, and in the following books, continues to warn Harry when Voldemort is nearby or when he is feeling particularly murderous/happy/angry/is killing someone. JK Rowling clarified in an interview that Harry's scar hurts because the piece of Voldemort's soul trapped in Harry is trying to rejoin with its whole through the site of the wound. Oh yeah, and Harry's scar is kind of a horcrux. When Voldemort tried to kill Harry, he accidentally transplanted a bit of his soul into Harry himself, thereby making him a horcrux. Which then leads to the conundrum that, by living, Harry keeps Voldemort alive. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. So, scar from killing curse that killed Harry's parents, hurts when Voldemort is near or emotional, turns out to be evidence of horcruxness. In book five Harry starts to get visions of what Voldemort is doing...Voldemort exploits this and then Sirius dies...Ok. Well, that's Harry's scar's history in a nutshell.
You know, now I am thinking about Harry being a horcrux and all the A-HA moments at the end of book seven. How interesting that Harry contains a piece of Voldemort's soul, which keeps Voldemort alive. And also, Voldemort is full of Harry's blood, which keeps Harry alive, because Harry's blood is also his mother's blood which forms a protection because Harry's mother died to save him. Each wizard has imbibed a physical property that ensures the life of the other. (Neither can live while the other survives...)
On the subject of Harry's mother: Lily. Whose self-sacrifice is the reason Harry got a scar instead of a grave that night on Halloween, sometime in the 80's (1987?). Harry's mom died to save her son, which is the ultimate act of love, Dumbledore tells Harry in the hospital wing at the end of SS. Dumbledore explains that that kind of love creates a magical protection that cannot be broken by hatred or dark magic. Lily Potter's protection protected Harry from death as a baby, and later keeps Quirrel from touching him, and later saves Harry's life again in book seven.
The important thing about all this is that this protection and power of LOVE is a more powerful force in the world of Harry Potter than dark spells or potions, evil or selfish acts, hatred, death, or destruction. Love TRANSCENDS these things. "Just because they die does not mean the ones we love ever truly leave us!" Dumbledore tells Harry again and again about the powers of love until Harry finally gets it. Until we, readers, finally get it. Love. It is the single most powerful and important thing. Symbolically, emotionally, personally, and, in the world of Harry Potter--magically. Love forms a literal field of protection. Love from another fights for you--it physically protects you. In Harry Potter, the intangible becomes physical though the manifestation of magic. And while we young nerds may pine for our letter to Hogwarts, may long for the ability to bespell our bullies and to fly off the kickball field, may ache for magic, JK Rowling tells us again and again--the most important things are real. Maybe not magic, but friendship, loyalty, bravery and LOVE are realities that can be attained and cherished. We may not get a letter in emerald script inviting us to Hogwarts, but we will find our own Hogwarts. We will find friends and love and a place where we belong--and these things have always been the most important to Harry. Not the magic, not the broomsticks. Love.
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