A Thousand Times No

[Warning: The following post contains a spoiler for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.]

Jo Rowling has buried a subtle yet clever retort to Christian fundamentalists in the final installment of the Harry Potter series. After years of being harangued as a promoter of nothing short of Satanism, Rowling has quietly slipped an unattributed quote from the Gospel itself into Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

I was surprised to see it, and even more stunned that I recognized the words immediately, given my limited knowledge of the New Testament. I knew the passage by heart, having sung a beautiful Ned Rorem motet setting of the text several years ago. (Coincidence is a powerful thing.)

In Chapter Sixteen, the following words are inscribed on the tombstone of Kendra and Ariana Dumbledore:

Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

This is from the sixth chapter of Gospel of St. Matthew, as presented in the King James Version of the New Testament. It is a quote from Jesus himself, spoken moments after he has uttered the Lord’s Prayer.

[20] But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:

[21] For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Nicely done, JKR. Touché.

(If this whets your appetite to find more artistic interpretations the most radically humanist of the Gospels, lend an ear to Bach’s glorious “Mattäuspassion,” known in English as the “St. Matthew Passion,” or search out Pier Paolo Pasolini’s cinematic masterpiece, “Il Vangelo secondo Matteo,” known in English as “The Gospel According to St. Matthew.”)

Well, today’s the big day. After all these years, we’ve reached the end of the road with dear old Harry Potter.

Last night, I headed to one of Philadelphia’s premiere independent booksellers, the Joseph Fox Bookshop, shortly after 11:45pm. My history as a midnight Potterhead dates back to when Fox Books occupied the basement space under their current store, and Jo Rowling was still releasing new books on an annual schedule. Back in those days, I was one of the few childless adults standing in line when the clock struck twelve. The store was filled with an air of anticipation, fun…and youth. It was a scene dominated by children, giddy from waiting well past their bedtimes amid the plates of homemade treats brought in by the parents of fellow devotees.

Flash forward to yesterday night. Fox Books now requires a short trip up, rather than down, the stairs to reach their front door. The store was packed with people again, but almost entirely grown-ups of the childless persuasion. Carrying on the tradition, I brought treats: jelly beans, cocoa krispie bars, and a tray of brownies fresh out of the oven. Friends of mine, hearing me extol tales of home-baked goodness and manageable, unreserved lines, met me at the store.

One of my friends hit the jackpot. As she finished signing her credit card slip while standing in the prepayment line, Michael Fox glanced down at his watch. “It’s midnight! I guess we can start handing these out now,” he said, passing her a receipt and a fresh new copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows with a great smile.

Some of us walked a few short blocks to Rittenhouse Square, a pocket-sized urban oasis nearby. Aided by a luminous LightWedge, my friend British Andy began reading aloud as I sat on a park bench with him and his wife Moira. The book opens with a quotation from none other than William Penn, the Quaker statesman who, over 300 years ago, planned the very park where we sat:

…This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal.

On a cool, clear summer’s night, listening to Andy’s sweet British delivery as he read through the book’s first chapter, it was the most fitting possible beginning to the Potter series’ end.

If, like me, you’ve been following the Tour de France out of the corner of your eye, you might have noticed that the famous “Blue Train” came to an abrupt halt. The deep navy of the US Postal uniforms and the sky blue of the Discovery Channel uniforms are gone. This year Team Disco sports a new look for the Tour, featuring green highlights to underscore their commitment to becoming carbon-neutral in 2007.

Now, on this day when the temperatures on the way to Marseilles exceeded 100°F (nearly 40°C), could someone be good enough to explain to me how donning a predominantly black team kit demonstrates any sort of awareness of one’s natural surroundings? The Disco boys are plenty hot enough without donning their own skintight greenhouses, no?