Avada Kedavra My Heart

Blog 10

On Wednesday, I was 5 minutes late for my calculus class. The reasoning? I was reading the last few chapters of Half-Blood Prince and started bawling my eyes out to the point where I had to clean myself up so my face wasn’t as blotchy and swollen as Hagrid’s before I could leave for class.

This was my fifth time reading Half-Blood and I still cry every. single. time. The first time, Dumbledore's death got me simply because it’s Dumbledore. He’s been Harry’s mentor since the first book. He’s helped Harry make sense of his whole life, brought him into the wizarding world, and has been his greatest mentor. On a first read, Dumbledore is easily one of the most likeable characters, simply for his wisdom, charisma, and ability to see the good in everyone. I specifically remember on my first read absolutely losing my shit after reading him say “Severus, please,” and then Snape hitting him with the curse anyways.

On a reread however, that quote takes an entire new meaning. Instead of it being Dumbledore pleading for his life, it turns into him begging Snape to follow through with the murder. Which honestly, makes it worse for me. Dumbledore is still dying but now we have in the added fact that Snape has to kill the only man who ever trusted him and could see the good in him. It physically makes my heart hurt.

Another killer is that this is the fourth time Harry has helplessly watched someone he loves or cares for die. First, his parents, then Cedric, then Sirius, and now Dumbledore. Harry has been surrounded by death his entire life and he can never seem to stop it. Watching Dumbledore get murdered while standing there paralyzed must have been absolutely horrible. I cannot imagine watching the person I looked up to most in my life being murdered in front of my eyes and not even being able to make a sound.

As if the death of Dumbledore with the added effect of Harry being forced to watch wasn’t enough, seeing how the wizarding community reacts makes it even worse. Dumbledore was the most famous wizard in the world, having a positive impact on almost every wizard he met. He was the type of person that even if you disagreed with him, you still respected him. Because of this, nearly every wizard was affected by his death.

While I always seem to cry the hardest for Dumbledore’s death more than any other character death in the series (okay, maybe it’s a tie with Sirius), I cannot deny that the series would have been unfinished without it. It opens up the ability for all of Harry’s doubts in the 7th book of the man he thought Dumbledore was versus the man Dumbledore kept hidden. If Dumbledore had been there all throughout Deathly Hallows Harry wouldn’t have grown himself because he would’ve always relied on Dumbledore for the answers. Harry needed to go through this final battle alone and keeping Dumbledore alive would’ve prevented that. While Dumbledore is and will always be one of my favorite characters, the series benefitted from his death. While I hate his death, I understand why it had to happen and it made the series all the better.