Osama and Voldemort

 The news of Osama Bin Laden's death has brought with it the standard patriotic behavior that is a mark of our times. Singing "We Are the Champions" outside the White House, really? There is nothing that screams one nation under God like Queen piped over a dead body. Meanwhile, my friend, Beth, wrote an "R.I.P" obit for Bin Laden in an attempt to look beyond the hatred and search for real and legitimate peace. Is this something to revel in?

I think many of us who are searching for peace, rather than victory, are having difficulty putting into words what Bin Laden's death means. Our first instinct is to withhold celebration, as hatred seems to breed only more hatred. "Are we better people now?" my former Philosophy professor, David O'Hara, asked on Facebook last night.

Probably not.

I was struggling to give words to my feelings as well. Then, a couple of friends pointed out to me an unlikely anniversary. May 1 was the day that the Battle of Hogwarts was fought in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. For probably the hundredth time, the Harry Potter series gave me language to talk about something that left me dumb. I suppose that is what great stories do. Left speechless, it gave me a voice. Perhaps it sounds disingenuous to talk about Voldemort and Osama Bin Laden in the same breath, and yet that is precisely what good stories allow us to do. They do not minimize their scope with a self-gratifying plot-line and one-dimensional characters; instead, they paint a life that is our own and yet more vivid, with situations that enlighten our lives in the world outside of the pages.

When Harry and Voldemort have their final duel, Harry gives Voldemort one last chance--a chance to show remorse. It is an opportunity that Voldemort scoffs at. Remorse? He doesn't understand what remorse could possibly achieve. And yet, Voldemort's defeat is not due to Harry's prodigious magical skills (which he doesn't have) or brutal use of spells (which he doesn't use), but it is instead a result of the power that matters more than any of that: love. It is a disarming spell that ricochets the killing curse back at Voldemort. Death leads inevitably back to death.

We are left to wonder: would we shoot to kill or to disarm?

In our world we have the same decisions. Somebody killed Bin Laden not with a disarming spell but with a bullet. And in the wake of this, Harry calls us to take a step back and ask, "Do we feel remorse?" For as much as we want to make Osama into Voldemort and ourselves into Harry, our reality is that we so often look more like the one fleeing from death; our inner Voldemorts are alive and well. To say that Bin Laden bears a striking resemblance to Voldemort is true but incomplete. The reality of our situation today is that we all look a lot like Voldemort, and we can only hope our killing curses don't rebound.

I won't leave it there, because I think there is some good here. We can be more than this. This much is evident on Facebook with the uneasy response so many obviously feel. To those of us who are uncertain how to react, we are left the words that Dumbledore gives Harry at King's Cross. Words that beg us to ask: What matters? Words that give us the following answer:

"That which Voldemort does not value, he takes no trouble to comprehend. Of house-elves and children's tales, of love, loyalty, and innocence, Voldemort knows and understands nothing. Nothing. That they all have a power beyond his own, a power beyond the reach of any magic, is a truth he has never grasped."

Love, loyalty and innocence. Let's work on that.