Anger, Connection, and Activism: Coming of Age in Harry Potter
Sybillyn Jennings
This volume addresses groups organized around the emotion of anger, whether anger is the impetus for the group’s formation or whether an association, organized by other characteristics, has experiences that result in anger. Anger may arise temporarily in many different associations without those inside or outside the group viewing anger as its defining feature. Anger that sustains an association of adults over time may not be observable as an attack, though it may rouse the group to action and serve to remind its members of what has so insulted, injured, or threatened them. There are groups and anger aplenty in the Harry Potter novels, but are there angry groups? Anger, as Lazarus (1991) describes the adult emotion, is provoked by “a demeaning offense against me and mine” (p. 222). Parents may surely strike out in anger if their children are threatened, and there are many family groups in Rowling’s panoramic series of novels. Some groups are separated from each other by culture, as are wizards and non-magical people, or muggles, and such differences can engender anger. Some groups, such as wizards and goblins, have been set against each other by historical events. But what of angry groups in childhood? What does it mean for a child to grow up in a family that hates the child for burdening them, as is the case with Harry Potter? What does it mean for a child to figure out that his mother rejected him and so hate her for abandoning him, as with Tom Riddle? How do these early emotional experiences shape associations with others later in childhood and in adolescence, and how do these associations, in turn, shape emotional development? Anger can erupt in the face of having one’s identity questioned and one’s word not being believed, whether by dyadic groups or by larger groups that have power to enforce their interpretation, as happens with Harry. A group initiated to accomplish one function may evolve into an angry group, as is the case with Dumbledore’s Army.
Of what use is a series of novels in informing these developmental and social psychological questions? In recent years psychology has been exploring narrative methods of research, borrowing, in part, from the accepted and essential use of biography in clinical case studies (e.g., Bakan, 1996; Kegan, 1994; McAdams, 1993) along with Erikson’s (1958) pioneering work in psychohistory. In current psychology, Lewin’s (1939) dictum that behavior is a function of person X environment, although expressed and examined through different conceptual frameworks, has become a taken-for-granted assumption. Then too, studies of the development of mental life including emotions, memory, and most especially, consciousness (e.g., Lewis, 2014) lend credence to the importance of how people make meaning and how meaning changes or becomes crystallized as people develop resources to think about situations and their experience across time in the contexts of their lives. J. K. Rowling has given her readers an amazing story of a boy growing up, a wonder in itself. She has also given readers and fans a well from which they can draw to generate their own questions and musings about the many characters whom readers meet and learn about at different moments across their lives. Rowling herself extends Harry’s story by following the path of Harry and Ginny’s son, Albus Severus, to Hogwarts in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Rowling, Tiffany, & Thorne, 2016). Along with my students**, I have been experimenting with the novels as though they were a database to explore well-known concepts in developmental psychology such as attachment, loss, identity, friendship, reasoning, and issues of risk and resilience. In this chapter, I will explore pathways of anger in a number of characters and discuss how their associations with others intensify, deflect, or transform their emotional expression and understanding. Rowling’s fictive world, more capacious even than Hermione’s beaded bag, offers perspective on how divergent pathways in developing consciousness influence experiences of anger and their sequelae.
Rowling’s Harry Potter Novels
The story of Rowling’s series of novels is widely known so I offer a simple version here. Voldemort, a dark wizard, learning of a prophecy that a baby will rival his rule of the wizarding world, hunts down the likely baby, murdering him and his parents. But the one-year-old Harry Potter does not die. Voldemort’s curse backfires, causing Voldemort to vanish, leaving the scar of his attack on Harry’s forehead. The baby is taken to live with and be brought up by his aunt and uncle, who have no traffic with the wizarding world and treat Harry miserably as a freak to be shut away. At 11 years of age, for the first time, Harry learns that he is a wizard and has been enrolled in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The seven novels follow the adventurous, often impetuous and clueless, but kind, Harry through his schooling at Hogwarts as he learns about his past and the likelihood of his future troubles upon the return of Voldemort.
We begin with an overview of the magical world, which is structured, though incompletely, along the lines of a non-magical, or muggle, world. Although the magical world Rowling describes extends through history across countries and nations, one estimates that its total population is quite small owing, no doubt, to the fear and persecution of wizards and witches through the centuries. (Population estimates are offered in harrypotter.wikia.com.) According to Bagshot’s History of Magic, in 1689 wizards retreated into secrecy, hiding in “knots” of families in small English villages (Rowling, 2007, pp. 318–319). Across the seven novels readers are introduced to a number of wizard institutions including businesses (e.g., wand makers), governance (e.g., Ministry of Magic), media (e.g., The Daily Prophet), as well as many face-to-face groups. Rowling paints the Ministry as a typical, perhaps stereotypical, bureaucratic institution with a minister anxious about his political status and department heads working to gain the favor of those above them while civil servants conduct the chores of the quotidian. There is, however, no description of a parliament with organized, opposing political groups. The Ministry bumbles along in the enterprise of keeping the social order and, for the most part, the social good. At urgent times (i.e., the return of Voldemort), the Minister of Magic communicates with the British Prime Minister, much to the discomfort of the latter.
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the only wizarding educational institution in England, brings together members of the wizarding community and is the heart of the novels. The school is maintained and overseen by the Ministry of Magic. Its headmaster is Albus Dumbledore, a wizard of wide acclaim, greatly honored in the international magical world. Eleven-year-olds who are deemed somehow to be magical, receive letters from the headmaster inviting them to enroll in the seven-year course of study. Students are organized by their year in school, and any magical activity is traced when they are away from school because they are seen as not yet having control over their magical talents and may violate the 1689 law of secrecy, intended to maintain muggles’ ignorance of magic. Students purchase their first wands, robes, books, and school supplies in Diagon Alley in London.
At Hogwarts, differences within the magical community of birth status (pure blood wizard or half-blood wizard, mudblood, a racial slur describing a wizard with muggle parentage), economic class, and more importantly character and intellect, find some expression through the organization of four houses, each with its own space, faculty head, ghost, and the historical legacy of its founder. Students live in their respective houses, but they attend classes together, convene in the great hall of the castle for meals, ceremonies, and celebratory feasts. Houses compete throughout the year, gaining and losing points for behavior, for academic performance, and for their teams’ performances in the wondrous, magical team sport of quidditch; however, anger is not a feature that characterizes any one house. During an opening ceremony, the ancient Sorting Hat is placed on each entering student’s head in turn. The Sorting Hat tells students the house they will be in and sings of Hogwarts’s history and current concerns.
Angry Groups in the Magical World
The world Hogwarts students study extends beyond wizards to muggles and nonhuman, non-wizard groups of centaurs, elves, giants, goblins, mer-people, beasts and magical creatures with whom they live in an apparent, though uneasy, peace. A fountain in the Ministry of Magic (Rowling, 2003) portrays the racial hierarchy of “The Magical Brethren” in “a group of golden statues” (p. 127). Tallest is a wizard with wand directed upward, then a witch looking up at him with her wand poised upward. They are surrounded by those they have subjugated; a centaur, goblin, and house-elf all gaze up at them.
Wizards and witches are identified by their ability to do magic. This ability becomes evident in childhood, and can then be developed through training. Children born to wizards who do not demonstrate the ability to do magic are referred to as squibs. At 11 years of age, children obtain their first wands in a complex transaction between the child and the wand overseen by an established wand maker (Rowling, 1997). Wandlore is an esoteric and difficult area of study addressing the special relationship between wand and wizard (Rowling, 2007). Wizards who violate wizarding law may have their wands broken. Goblins refer to wizards as wand carriers, noting the essential role wands play in identifying this group. Wands serve as the sort of artifacts that Caporael (1997, p. 290) discusses as linking individuals to their world culture and supporting a shared reality.
Centaurs want no traffic with wizards, whom they view as inferior to them in contemplating the universe. Centaurs maintain their distance from human groups and their role in protecting the beasts of the forest. Centaurs become angry when a member of their group, Firenze, helps Harry, a human. Later, their anger at Firenze’s agreement to teach Hogwarts students, and so violating the distance between centaurs and humans, results in his being banished from the forest.
In the magical world, goblins offer the clearest example of an angry group. Vanquished by wizards in ancient wars, goblins’ distrust and enmity toward wizards, though kept at bay, continues. Wizards accord goblins respect and admire their craftsmanship. They depend on goblins to manage and to safeguard the impenetrable Gringotts Bank, where wizards keep their wealth. Bill Weasley, who works with goblins at Gringotts, warns Harry, who is planning a transaction with the goblin, Griphook, that goblins and wizards do not live in a shared reality. For goblins, an object belongs to the one who has crafted it; whereas, for wizards, the purchase of an object determines ownership.
House-elves, who are also capable of magic, present a different situation, from the standpoint of angry groups. House-elves belong to, and live to serve, their wizard families and other wizard institutions, as slaves do their masters. Both house-elves and wizards view this relationship as the received state of affairs. Some masters are kind; others cruel, but the relationship of house-elf to wizard is not questioned. House-elves identify with their families, and their emotional feelings appear to depend, not entirely on their identification as house-elf, but on the particularity of the relationship. For example, the house-elf, Dobby, upon being set free from his master, pledges allegiance to the wizard who freed him (Rowling, 1998). Turning from these larger social aggregates, we will examine anger as it appears in the smaller, face-to-face worlds of Rowling’s characters.
Rowling introduces her readers to many families, over 20 by my count, across the seven novels. Some families we barely glimpse; others we come to know rather well. The families come in a variety of arrangements; some, like the Weasleys, function well and happily, others, like the Gaunts and the Crouchs, are bitterly dysfunctional. A central theme of the novels is the responsibility of families to protect and to care for their children. In the magical world as in ours, life is full of risks in bringing up children. Some families, for different reasons, are unable to protect their children. Severus Snape’s parents are so caught up in argument and poverty that they neglect their son. Tom Riddle’s father deserts his mother. Remus Lupin’s family could not prevent their child from being bitten by a werewolf, or Adriana Dumbledore’s family from her being attacked by a gang of muggle boys. Some parents die, as did James and Lily Potter and Remus and Tonks Lupin, or are tortured into madness in fighting the war against the Death Eaters, as were Neville Longbottom’s parents. Then too, children may rebel against their family’s beliefs, as does Sirius Black, creating lasting strife and anger. Children can reject family responsibilities that fall to them, leading to self-hate, remorse, and lasting grief, as happens to Albus Dumbledore.
Protecting children can have hard consequences. Percival Dumbledore violated the wizarding law of secrecy to avenge an attack on his young daughter and died in prison. Lily died trying to protect her son from Voldemort’s curse, Narcissa Malfoy lied to Voldemort that he had indeed killed Harry to protect her son, Mrs. Crouch saved her son from prison by going in his stead, and Aunt Petunia abandoned her possessions to protect her son. With seething, cold rage Molly Weasley fought and killed Bellatrix Lestrange to protect her children. Some of these actions are generated by anger; others are cause for anger and revenge. Circumstances that create risk for the development of children in families are topics of extensive study in the psychological literature (e.g., Goldstein & Brooks, 2006) and of deep concern in applied fields (Garbarino, 1982; 1999). Rowling’s array of fictional families and their troubles can help readers broaden their appreciation of stress that families experience. The range of risk (except for divorce, which Rowling does not include) also provides a perspective from which to analyze and to critique inventories and interview protocols used in researching resilience in families (e.g., Sroufe, Egeland, Carlson, & Collins, 2005).
Protection takes a somewhat more complex turn in the dyadic relationships among adults that Rowling describes. Severus Snape makes an unbreakable vow to Narcissa Malfoy to protect Narcissa’s son, Draco. Severus, the long unknown protector, has vowed to Dumbledore that he will protect Lily’s son, Harry, whose father Severus detests. Later, Severus gives Dumbledore his word that he will protect Draco by killing Dumbledore. Both Dumbledore and Snape protect what Dumbledore describes as Draco and Harry’s “undamaged” souls by keeping them from committing murder (Rowling, 2007, p. 683).
Throughout the novels many individuals protect Harry. I focus here on Dumbledore, who protects Harry directly, by saving his life in a number of episodes, and indirectly, through teaching him. Most importantly, Dumbledore protects and cares for Harry by supporting Harry’s friendships. Dumbledore reveals information to Harry and assigns Harry various tasks, pledging him not to divulge this information except to his friends, Ron and Hermione. Thus, the group of friends is strengthened by Dumbledore. In the next-to-last conversation between Harry Potter and the deceased Dumbledore, at an empty King’s Cross Station of the mind, Dumbledore describes “the true magic” of Harry’s invisibility cloak as its ability ”to protect and shield others as well as its owner” (Rowling, 2007, p. 716). The cloak has been passed down to Harry through generations; it connects him to his family and reveals his courage in protecting those who have protected him. In Rowling’s novels, the fascinating stories of protecting adults weave in and out as finely as the threads of Harry’s invisibility cloak, the cloak under which Harry, Ron, and Hermione come of age.
Friends and Enemies
If Privet Drive, Diagon Alley, and the Forbidden Forest set boundaries between non-magical and magical human groups, and Hogwarts reveals the stratification among wizards, the scene on the train as students travel to Hogwarts (Rowling, 1997) introduces what will become the core group of the novels, the trio of friends, Harry, Ron, and Hermione. The three first-years are united in this scene by Draco Malfoy’s rejection of them. Ron’s family, though pureblood, is large, identifiable as Weasleys by their red hair, hand-me-down make-do robes, second-hand books, and no spending money for a treat. On top of that, Ron’s father holds an undistinguished position in the Ministry of Magic. Hermione is a witch, but the daughter of muggles, thus from Draco’s perspective a disgusting mudblood, and Harry is rejected because he declines Draco’s offer to join his group of companions. Harry’s pronouncement to Draco that he thinks he knows who the right kind of people are with whom to associate is the first time we hear Harry expressing his beliefs. Later, at the opening ceremony, when the Sorting Hat distributes the first- year students across the four houses, anxious as Harry is in this completely unfamiliar world, he asks the sorting hat not to be placed in Slytherin, Draco’s ancestral house. At the time of this assertion, Harry is unaware that his parents were in Gryffindor, only that he is choosing away from Draco. Thus the inimical peer groups are set—Draco and his companions against Harry with Ron, and soon after Hermione, reinforced by the institutionalized competition between Slytherin and Gryffindor. Draco’s rejection of Harry’s friends because of blood and economic status do indeed anger Harry, as does Draco’s presumption in telling Harry what to do.
Readers quickly recognize how essential each member of the trio is in maintaining a sense of purpose and in accomplishing any task (what current psychologists refer to as distributed cognition, Hutchins, 1995, and social cognition; Caporael, 1997; Resnick, Levine, & Teasely, 1991). Though Harry is identified as the nominal “hero” of the story, without Ron and Hermione, Harry could not succeed. And should Harry fail, as Harry much later in the story discovers Dumbledore’s calculations, there would still be Ron and Hermione to carry out the mission to defeat Voldemort. The importance of their friendship cannot be overestimated. For Harry, the bond among the three of them offers the care he has been without for 10 years in his aunt and uncle’s home and provides security as he finds his way at Hogwarts.
All four functions of friendship, so clearly laid out by Bukowski (2003), are evident in this group. Friends know they are valued for themselves. Being with a friend reduces anxiety in the face of threat and protects against continuing adverse effects of earlier rejections one may have experienced. Friends encourage exploration and support each other in trying out new skills. They are co-constructors of knowledge. Friends can speak openly; they can challenge each other. Friends create an environment with its own expectations—a culture. Across the novels, the friendship group expands to include the awkward, late-bloomer, Neville Longbottom, and the insightful oddball, Luna Lovegood. It is in this group that Harry comes to care for others and to know what it is like to be cared for. This is always the back-story of the novels—love, that ancient magic, deflecting anger and transcending power. Voldemort lacks what Harry holds dear—friends. This is the word, repeated a thousand times, in a wreath Luna paints on her ceiling encircling and joining portraits of her friends. The enchanted ceiling in the great hall at Hogwarts is made of stars, sometimes stormy, sometimes bright. Luna paints the heavens as the constancy of friends.
In the last novel of the series (Rowling, 2007), the trio does not return to school. Instead, they set out on the secret mission Dumbledore has given Harry, with Ron and Hermione, to find and to destroy the remaining horcruxes. These are objects in which, through acts of murder and dark magic, Voldemort has implanted parts of his soul. The trio is resolute in not sharing the information Dumbledore has asked them to keep to themselves. This exclusivity is irritating to others, especially Ron’s family and the Order of the Phoenix, the group of adult wizards led by Dumbledore to oppose Voldemort and his Death Eaters. From the trio’s perspective, it is essential that they protect their families and supporters from attempts by Voldemort to gain information, thus their secrecy. They are on their own without the protection of family, away from the familiar Hogwarts, and absent Dumbledore’s guidance. Hermione’s wit and care do much to provide protection for the three friends. She applies her magical skills to enlarge a beaded bag to hold everything they need: books, a tent, essential potions, clothes, even toothbrushes. It is she who casts the protective spells about their encampment while they are on the run. The three friends are often discouraged and become angry and jealous. They blame each other for not having a plan or knowing what direction to take. They have little knowledge to work from and even less experience in taking care of themselves and living together. The tasks Dumbledore sets them are daunting, and they are challenged in every way: their belief in Dumbledore, their sense of purpose, their everyday needs for food and shelter, their magical skills, and most of all their friendship. There are serious breaks—Harry’s impulsive acts, Ron’s leaving, Hermione’s curse that breaks Harry’s wand. Still the connection holds. Rowling shows her readers how repair work gets done, how anger can be transcended by taking responsibility, by reflecting on the situation, and by joined action. In close relationships, as Sullivan (1940/1945, p. 20) reminds us, “When the satisfaction or the security of another person becomes as significant to one as is one’s own satisfaction or security, then the state of love exists.”
Anger, Loss, and Trust
Harry’s anger stems from the loss of his family. As readers we imagine Harry’s despair; we detest his ill treatment by his aunt, uncle, and cousin, and observe the hatred he returns to the Dursleys early on in the books. But in the last novel when he visits the place where his parents were murdered, the place where he survived, we hear his lashing out at the situation he has inherited and the enduring sadness his deepening realization brings. Why couldn’t he have died along with his parents? Why was he saved? Why didn’t Dumbledore tell him? Why hadn’t he asked Dumbledore for more complete explanations? Why had he trusted Dumbledore? What if he had a normal family who would love and protect him, a family like that of his friend Ron, a mother who would make his birthday cake (Rowling 2007, p. 321)?
Like Harry, abandonment in infancy is at the core of Tom Marvolo Riddle’s (Voldemort) anger. It catalyzes his single-minded drive to punish muggles, to control wizards, to conquer death, and blinds him to all other motives. Voldemort tells Dumbledore that, “There is nothing worse than death” (Rowling, 2003, p. 814); after all, it is death that has cheated him from having a mother. As Dumbledore tells the story of Voldemort’s origins (Rowling, 2007), the hapless witch, Merope, lives with her abusive father and brother on the edge of the country estate of the wealthy, muggle Riddle family. She falls in love with their handsome son, Tom, and bewitches him into marriage. The enchantment, however, breaks, and Tom leaves Merope, pregnant and penniless, to fend for herself in London. What Voldemort cannot reconcile is that Merope, a witch, fails to use her magical powers to control the unfamiliar environment and to stay alive to care for the baby she births. Instead, she dies, leaving him to endure growing up in a muggle orphanage with a muggle’s name. Whereas others might view Merope’s situation with more generosity, for Tom Riddle no explanation will excuse his mother, nor will murdering his wizard grandfather and his muggle father and family make up for their offenses against him, what Lewis (2014, p. 248) discusses as a conversion of shame to blaming others. Here then is the source of Voldemort’s continuing anger and bitter rejection of love as a deeper, more ancient magic. Merope failed to survive. Unlike Harry’s mother, she even failed to give him the protection of her love.
The two babies, Tom and Harry, have their physical needs attended to, though it would seem grudgingly on Aunt Petunia’s part. As toddlers and young children they must have been engaged and talked to by their caregivers, whether unkindly for Harry and indifferently for Tom; we have no details and do not know. Harry is described as a small boy with unruly hair and glasses, his forehead marked by an ugly scar. He has no way of countering the Dursleys’ account of his past, nor their negative view of him. He has a running inimical relationship with his cousin, Dudley, which for all its unhappiness, seems to give Harry a sense of what he hates and what he does not want to be (Abecassis, 2003). Tom is described as handsome. He appears to be attractive to his caregivers and other children in the orphanage, but as he gets older other children are wary, even fearful, of him (Rowling, 2007). Tom senses he is different from and better than the other children. Dumbledore’s interaction with Tom at 11 years of age shows Tom priding himself on his skill in taking care of himself, on not needing anyone. Tom is eager to be gone from the orphanage and off to Hogwarts, a more fitting place for him.
The seeds of disbelief and mistrust are sown early on in the Dursley household and have lasting repercussions, as we observe in Harry and learn from psychological theory, whether Erikson’s (1982), Bowlby’s (1980, 1988), or Ainsworth’s (1995) accounts. Countering these experiences of mistrust is Harry’s earliest experience as the beloved infant son of Lily and James. By 15 months, Harry has surely formed an attachment to his parents, and his development is proceeding in a positive, healthy manner. Then, with Voldemort’s curse, separation strikes, leading to ultimate loss; the anchors of Harry’s security are yanked up, and Harry is set adrift. The pathways of loss at this age have been well described in the psychological literature (e.g., Bowlby, 1980, 1988), and we turn to these descriptions to imagine Harry’s experiences in late infancy and toddlerhood, especially his interactions with Petunia. Petunia remains angry toward her sister, Lily, for being a witch when she is not and for abandoning her by attending Hogwarts. There may well be threads of connection provided by similarities in the sisters’ voices and touch that soften the baby’s loss of his mother. It is hard to conceive of Petunia’s complete rejection of her older sister’s baby, though favoring her own son of the same age. Still, smiles and hugs for Dudley and scowls and inattention to Harry seem more likely than not.
In the course of the series Harry discovers that he has a godfather who cares deeply for him. But this hope of family is cut off when his godfather is killed in a duel. Losing his godfather, who has died coming to help Harry, makes fresh the loss of his parents and intensifies his anger in the face of loss. Harry does not consciously hold anger against his own parents, who died trying to protect him. Instead he seems to have displaced his anger, raising it to a general, unbending principle, as we see in an interaction with Remus Lupin in the last novel. Remus, who had been their teacher of Defense Against the Dark Arts in their third year at Hogwarts, suggests that, even not knowing the task they have been set by Dumbledore, he might accompany them. He reminds the trio that they have no idea of the powerful magic they are likely to be up against and that he could be helpful. While Harry is taking in this possibility, Remus acknowledges that Tonks, his young wife, is expecting a baby. At first the news is greeted with customary congratulations. But Harry becomes enraged and lets go a tirade of assaults that end with Harry calling Remus a coward for abandoning his child. At this last insult, Remus vanishes by disapparating, and Hermione and Ron, distressed at Harry, tell him that he has gone too far. Harry acknowledges that he should not have called Remus a coward, and then rationalizes, “But if it makes him go back to Tonks, it’ll be worth it, won’t it?” (Rowling, 2007, p. 215).
Remus is angry with himself, a werewolf fathering a baby, and has reached out to these young friends, offering them skills he knows he has. Remus feels, though he does not say, his own parents’ grief and anger. They did not, could not, protect him as a young child from being bitten by a werewolf. For Harry, there is no competing emotion, understanding, or action: Parents do not abandon their children. Parents protect their children, as his father and mother protected him with their lives. Remus is able to deflect his own anger with Harry, and later honors Harry by asking him to be the baby’s godfather. In a later scene, Harry struggles trying to resolve in his own mind the choice Remus and Tonks have made to leave their baby in his grandmother’s care and join the battle for Hogwarts, the battle in which they die. As Harry walks into the forest to meet Voldemort and his own death, he is accompanied by shadows of his parents, godfather, and Remus. Harry tells Remus that he is sorry, that he did not want him to die. Remus responds, “I am sorry too .… Sorry I will never know him … but he will know why I died and I hope he will understand. I was trying to make a world in which he could live a happier life” (Rowling, 2007, p. 700). This degree of commitment, whether one looks at it from the standpoint of self-development (Kegan, 1983), the progression of reasoning (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1986; Perry, 1970), or the development of moral reasoning (Colby et al., 1983; Gilligan, 1982) is something Harry has not yet internalized.
Anger at Not Being Believed
Harry grows up in an environment of lies intended to protect him. Here is a basis for the oscillation between belief and doubt in his identity that will trouble Harry throughout his adolescence and will fuel his anger in not being believed, particularly by those who have power over him. Dumbledore seeks to protect Harry from Voldemort, who was unable to kill him, and also from knowing that he is a cause célèbre among wizards. His aunt and uncle seek to protect themselves from the fact that they have a wizard in their home. Harry’s “abnormality” is a cause of anger and fear to Aunt Petunia and an embarrassment to Uncle Vernon. They take in the 15-month-old Harry, but treat him badly in an effort to wipe out all tendencies toward wizardry, which they hate and view as disgusting and evil. Unable to completely quash these tendencies in the 10 years they have neglected, more than nurtured, Harry and kept him in a cupboard under the stairs, they become ever more angry at their situation when Harry, at 11, learns his identity as a wizard.
For the young Harry, the revelations delivered by the kindest and most trusting of wizards, Rubeus Hagrid, amaze him. Hagrid asks him, “Never wondered how you got that mark on yer forehead? That was no ordinary cut. That’s what yeh get when a powerful, evil curse touches yeh …” (Rowling, 1997, p. 55). Harry, “the boy who lived” (Rowling 1997, p. 1), is also the boy marked by anger. But Harry has to grow into his anger at Voldemort. The scar elicits the sensory experiences of light and sound when his mother was murdered, and it comes to signify a conflict he is caught up in. Harry’s emotions deepen as his awareness of the meaning of his scar changes from what others have told him has happened to his own experience. As the story progresses, Harry sees and then physically experiences Voldemort’s rage against others through the pain produced by the scar that Voldemort’s curse stamped on his forehead. The lightning scar unites the physical-emotional-cognitive-social experience of anger; it is always there. Learning to interpret the pain his scar produces helps Harry subordinate his growing hatred toward Voldemort to the purpose of defeating him, a mission the 16-year-old Harry chooses.
Initially, however, he is more enchanted with the new world of magic to which he learns he belongs than angered by the lies that have tied him to the cupboard under the stairs. Hagrid offers explanations that normalize feelings and experiences Harry had, but did not understand and so denied. Such actions were taken as evidence of Harry’s abnormality by his aunt and uncle, and Harry had little ground for not believing their account of him and his actions. Not being believed, denying, and so not trusting either his aunt and uncle or, most especially, his own experience, is all too frequent for Harry.
The 11-year-old Harry is often mute; he does not disclose what he thinks and feels. He does not appear curious about the world; he has little experience with books, though he has gone to school. Harry’s reactions to others and to events can be swift. Speed has been his major resource in protecting himself from his cousin Dudley and Dudley’s bullying gang. Seldom does Harry initiate interaction; silent acquiescence has been the safest response to being ordered about and put down by his Uncle Vernon, much as house-elves are treated in the wizarding world. It is unlikely that anyone in the Dursley household has asked Harry what he thinks about anything, what he likes or does not like, what opinions he may have; Harry has few opportunities to practice conversation, much less reflection, and there is nothing he can call his own. It is something of a miracle that he has glasses, broken though they are. No wonder he cannot believe Hagrid’s announcement that he, Harry, is a wizard and his name has been down to attend Hogwarts since he was born.
The first three novels of the series play on issues of trust and doubt organized around identity—true identity, false identity, mistaken identity. Identity is a central, organizing concept in developmental psychology following Erikson’s (1958, 1968) accounts of adolescence as a time in which one works through a sense of who one is, and who one is not, in relation to others. Harry is learning about, questioning, and coming to settle into the belief that he is a wizard and that he belongs in Gryffindor House. For the first time in his life he sees his parents in the Mirror of Erised. Though dead, they become real to him. Harry is impulsive and quick to defend others, for example, against Draco’s continuing taunts (Rowling, 1997). He is learning what it means to acquire skills and use them properly. He experiences the house-elf, Dobby’s, good intentions to protect him using magic that goes awry. He and his friend, Ron, discover the false identity of their teacher, Lockhart, who uses magic to gain his own ends (Rowling, 1998). Harry is finding that he cares for others and that they care for him. He has moments of intuitive awareness, for example, when he protects his father’s friends by preventing them from committing murder (Rowling, 1999).
The experience of not being believed intensifies in Harry’s fourth year at Hogwarts (Rowling, 2000). Unbeknownst to Harry and in violation of the rules of the contest, his name has been entered into the international tournament being hosted at Hogwarts. Although Hermione believes Harry and fears for him because the tasks the school champions must compete in are so dangerous, Ron doubts Harry, as do most of the Hogwarts students. Ron, his best friend, accuses Harry of secretly putting his name in the goblet. Harry’s feeling of security in being Harry Potter, a fourth year student in Gryffindor, is deeply shaken.
In the last task of the tournament, Harry and his fellow Hogwarts competitor, Cedric Diggory, decide together to take the tournament prize cup. Neither is aware that a charm has been put on the cup, turning it into a portkey, which transports them instantly from the maze at Hogwarts to a country graveyard where almost immediately Cedric is murdered. In a gruesome scene Voldemort creates a body for himself from a potion rivaling the witches’ brew in Macbeth, requiring his servant’s arm and Harry’s blood. Voldemort, now embodied, calls his followers, the Death Eaters, to observe him murder Harry. In fright and horror of what he is witnessing, Harry summons enough strength to fight Voldemort. They duel, revealing a secret connection between their wands. Harry narrowly escapes through a portkey, returning him, with Cedric’s body in his arms, to Hogwarts. Harry, exhausted, appalled by what has happened and deeply distressed, tells Dumbledore all that he has witnessed. Harry’s direct experience is critical because it arms him against falling prey to others’ doubts and to the ensuing efforts by the Ministry to cover up Voldemort’s re-appearance. Dumbledore, who believes Harry’s word, and the Minister of Magic, who denies Harry’s report that Voldemort has returned, part ways. The event also intensifies enmity between the paired trios, Draco with Crabbe and Goyle, who take the Ministry’s side, and Ron and Hermione, who do not doubt Harry. Draco goads Harry by again scorning his choice of mudblood and blood-traitor friends. Harry’s anger erupts on the train home, and his friends and supporters join him in a retaliatory hexing attack on Draco and company.
In his fifth year (Rowling, 2000) Harry is caught in a tangle of distrust. Over the summer vacation, in the neighborhood of his aunt and uncle’s home, Harry and his cousin are attacked by dementors, who guard the distant, secret wizard prison, Azkaban. Violating the rule against using magic outside of school, Harry produces his patronus to ward off the dementors, thus saving his cousin’s life. Harry’s violation leads to a hearing at the Ministry to determine whether he may return to Hogwarts. The Ministry continues to deny that Voldemort has returned, and they consider even less likely that dementors could appear in a suburban muggle community. Only a thread of testimony absolves Harry at the hearing. Upon returning to Hogwarts, Harry is called a liar for his insistence that Voldemort has returned and has re-called his force, the Death Eaters. Harry refuses to take back what he knows to be true, which leads to multiple detentions during which he undergoes the torturous punishment of writing over and over again in his own blood on his hand, “I will not tell lies.” Harry wears the faint outline of these words as a continual reminder of not being believed, much as his scar reminds him of the loss of his parents.
Then, through a combination of his own forgetfulness, impulsiveness, and betrayal by the house-elf, Kreacher, Harry is led into a trap. His friends are injured, and his newfound godfather, Sirius Black, is killed in a duel with Voldemort’s loyal Death Eater, Bellatrix. Harry comes undone. He attacks Bellatrix, and for the first time in his life he throws at her the forbidden curse, Crucio. His curse is deflected, and Bellatrix throws back in his face his underage magical skills and derides his fit of fury. Later, back at Hogwarts, angry at himself and beside himself with grief at the death of his godfather, Harry rages against Dumbledore, hating him, wanting to hurt him, displacing his fury at Bellatrix and the situation he cannot control onto his kindly and understanding mentor.
Deflecting Anger: Dumbledore as Mentor
It is not so hard to understand Harry’s anger at the loss of his godfather and in response to not being believed. It takes just another step to see how not being believed leads Harry to question Dumbledore. Harry counts on Dumbledore’s integrity, and Dumbledore, from their earliest encounters in Year 1, has assured Harry that he will tell him the truth, though he may not be able at that particular time to disclose all that he knows.
Dumbledore struggles in his relationship to Harry, questioning himself as to the timing of letting Harry know what is likely to be in store for him. Rowling offers up the adult’s dilemma of how much to tell a child and how much to hold for the child to learn by him or herself. In contrast to Dumbledore, for Molly Weasley, witch and mother of seven children, the boundary between adults and children is clear; wizards come of age at 17. By then they will have completed their schooling and will be accorded the privileges and responsibilities of adult wizards. But Harry is not an ordinary underage wizard. Dumbledore, though he is well aware of the wizarding world’s need for the extraordinary Harry, is anxious for Harry to learn, to be “trained up,” as Hagrid says, to make friends, and to enjoy his school years. And slowly, five novels’ worth to be exact, Dumbledore comes to grips with disclosing to Harry, in the sixth novel, the extraordinary circumstances that make him “the chosen one.” The need for disclosure is made urgent by Dumbledore’s imminent death from encountering a deadly curse. Believing Dumbledore and believing in Dumbledore are paramount in Harry’s understanding his own identity and in choosing that he will be faithful to Dumbledore. This is Erikson’s (1961, 1982) notion of fidelity, the virtue or personality strength that takes on increased importance in adolescence. When our mentors are found to be imperfect, believing in them can swiftly engender anger, doubt, and repudiation.
Rowling’s insight into the widening and deepening of consciousness is a marvel. I sometimes think she has read and digested much of developmental psychology. She employs adult characters in what Vygotsky (1962) has described as the zone of proximal development, where development is encouraged by challenges just a little beyond where the learner is, with the help of models and guidance. For example, during a rough patch when Harry and Ron are irritated with Hermione and are not speaking to her, Hagrid invites the two boys to his cabin. He lets the boys know how Hermione has found time to help him with the hippogriff, Buckbeak’s, defense; the boys know they have not helped, and Harry, chagrined, apologizes. Hagrid doesn’t sermonize, but he says, “I gotta tell yeh, I thought you two’d value yer friend more’n broomsticks or rats. Tha’s all” (Rowling, 1999, p. 274).
Through the pensieve, Harry has opportunities to look into the earlier lives of people he knows only as adults. The pensieve is an external memory store that allows wizards to capture and to exchange their personal, episodic memories. Physically, the pensieve is a stone basin into which a wizard pours an event extracted from memory, whether his own or another’s, that has been captured in a flask. For example, by looking deep into the basin Dumbledore and Harry can experience a remembered episode in its time and space. These glimpses raise questions in Harry’s mind and lead to greater awareness of individuals’ feelings and actions. In his later lessons with Dumbledore, Dumbledore follows up his trips with Harry into the pensieve by quizzing Harry about what Harry has noticed and how he is analyzing what he has seen (Rowling, 2005).
Harry’s early history with the Ministry of Magic is clouded by the scrapes he has gotten into, not all by his own doing. But his distrust of the ministry is intensified by the Ministry’s failure to believe that he has indeed seen Voldemort and that Voldemort has returned. When the Minister of Magic finally acknowledges Voldemort’s return, he asks Harry to become part of the Ministry’s media blitz to reassure the wizarding community that the Ministry is mobilizing against Voldemort. Harry rejects the Minister’s request outright; Harry has no use for the Minister of Magic. The Ministry has failed by not believing him and by not taking steps to prepare for Voldemort’s return when it should have. Instead, the Ministry tried to protect itself. It removed Dumbledore as Headmaster and perpetrated destructive decrees at Hogwarts, interfering with students’ education. Now, following Dumbledore’s death and funeral, when the Ministry has been seriously weakened and is on the brink of collapse, again Harry rejects the Minister’s request for assistance. Harry reminds the Minister that he is, as the Minister has dubbed him, “Dumbledore’s man” (Rowling, 2005, p. 348).
Harry’s distrust, enmity, and anger come to a peak when the Minister arrives at the Weasleys’ home demanding to meet alone with the trio. In this scene, the Minister explains that he is there about Dumbledore’s will. The three had no idea that Dumbledore had a will, and even less that they would be included in it. Harry angrily refuses the Minister’s plan to meet with each of them separately, and they pepper the Minister with questions about why he has taken so long to inform them of Dumbledore’s will. Hermione catches the Minister off-guard when she explains, to the benefit of her clueless chums, that according to wizarding law, the ministry is obliged to notify beneficiaries and distribute what they have been given within a time certain. She expects that the delay gave the ministry time to probe the objects, examining them for information they imagine Dumbledore may have left in hidden protections. Anger and distrust at the Ministry fuels this group of 17-year-olds’ resistance to the Minister of Magic’s demands that they reveal the mission Dumbledore has given them.
Injustice: Activism
So far I have suggested that anger arises from loss: the loss of protection in childhood, without physical or moral power to defend oneself, and loss of trust in oneself, when one’s experience, and later one’s word, are doubted. Tom Riddle’s defense, as he builds it, is to make himself powerful, unbeatable, immortal. Harry’s defense is connection. The path Hermione, the only child of loving parents, presents is different from both Tom’s and Harry’s. As we meet Hermione’s parents, they are supportive of their daughter, different from them though she is. Hermione’s security in her family and her schooling allows her to cross boundaries between muggle and wizard worlds. Her interests are not so much in their technologies; rather Hermione’s concerns are with social arrangements and moral principles that have evolved in the history of the cultural groups. Hermione’s defense is in learning rules, in caring for others, and applying her analytical skills when these two principles come in conflict. When we meet Hermione at 11 years of age, she is a bright, self-confident young girl and an observant, questioning student, eager to learn all that she can as she enters the wizarding world. Her classmates tend to resent her outstanding performance in class and view her as a know-it-all. Hermione does insist on checking facts, following rules, and telling the truth. She has become friends with Harry and Ron early in their first year at Hogwarts, joining them in their adventures, and pretty much protecting them from failing their classes by correcting their homework.
Hermione’s social action stems from her awareness of and care for others and a sense of righteous anger about slavery, based on the principles she has acquired in the muggle world. But her first attempt at activism is a dismal failure. Unfamiliar with the magical world’s master/slave relationship between wizard and house-elf, the 12-year-old Hermione is outraged when she learns that there are house-elves at Hogwarts who live unseen in the kitchen preparing meals and serving the staff and students. She also learns through the incident in Year 2 (Rowling, 1998) between Lucius Malfoy and Harry concerning the house-elf, Dobby, that house-elves can be freed from service if clothes are extended to and accepted by the house-elf. Armed with this knowledge, Hermione forms the Society for the Protection of Elfish Welfare (S.P.E.W) and teaches herself to knit so that she can make small hats, which she leaves about the Gryffindor rooms for house-elves to pick up. Her efforts to persuade her classmates, even her closest friends, to join S.P.E.W. fail, and the house-elves do not pick up the hats.
Hermione does not give up the cause, and her anger at injustice in the magical world, symbolized in the Ministry statue depicting wizard rule over all other beings, intensifies through the novels. She is always subject to taunts, especially by Draco Malfoy, and at one point, Hermione, her patience at an end, takes an angry and well-directed swing at him. She explains to Harry the likely motivation behind the house-elf, Kreacher’s, lies that have led Harry’s godfather into the trap where he meets his death. Kreacher, however, meets her compassionate efforts with derision. In the last novel, having endured torture because of her mudblood status, Hermione responds to the goblin’s question of who, among wizards, would protest the treatment of those they have subjugated. “We do!” said Hermione. She had sat up straight, her eyes bright. “We protest! And I’m hunted quite as much as any goblin or elf, Griphook! I’m a Mudblood” (Rowling, 2007, p. 489).
Like Hermione, Ron holds the prejudices of the culture in which he has grown up. Although his family does not own a house-elf, Ron takes the view that house-elves like the received arrangement and would be unable to manage otherwise. Dumbledore’s, Hagrid’s, and Hermione’s ideas, respectively, about love over power, the beauty of dragons, and S.P.E.W. earn them Ron’s ready quip—“mental.” Ron has no illusions about his skills, though he wants to be as good as his older brothers. Ron’s sense of loyalty to family and friends is highly developed, and we see his care in not expecting or asking for more than he thinks they can afford, for example, the CleanSweep rather than the more expensive, high-end Firebolt broomstick. Ron’s consciousness about social justice takes a bit longer, spurred on as it is by his growing love of Hermione. Ron wins Hermione’s embrace at last by reminding her and Harry as the battle for Hogwarts begins that they need to tell the house-elves in the kitchen to get out: “We can’t order them to die for us” (Rowling, 2007, p. 625).
Choice: Shared Agency
In a recent paper, Aldwin (2015) poses the question of how free will develops, and she offers two possible sources: (1) experiences of stress that lead to awareness of oneself in relation to others, and (2) experiences of reflection that increase self-awareness, a sense of agentic action. Harry has both of these experiences, the first with the house-elf, Dobby, whom he freed. Dobby’s gratitude to and admiration of Harry are boundless. Though he is a free elf, not bound to Harry or any family, against all odds, Dobby chooses to rescue Harry and his friends from the cellar at Malfoy Manor where they are imprisoned. In the successful rescue attempt, Bellatrix stabs Dobby and kills him. Digging Dobby’s grave by hand rather than by magic, Harry comes to resolution about his course of action, setting aside his doubts about Dumbledore’s motives, and counting on the loyalty and love of Ron and Hermione. Secondly, we observe the impulsive Harry becoming more reflective. Often Harry sees something, hears something, gets an idea in his mind, makes a decision, and acts on it, without thinking it through. Dumbledore’s guidance progressing across the series of novels has been essential for Harry to learn what choice entails. It was Dumbledore who explained to the clueless 11-year-old Harry that he had made a choice under the Sorting Hat; he chose not to be in Slytherin. Harry, at 17, carries on a conversation in his mind with the dead Dumbledore. The continuing topic is choice, and Harry, through Dumbledore’s voice now internalized in his head, reminds himself that he can choose. He can return to fight Voldemort or he can “board a train” (Rowling, 2007, p. 722). Harry is no Hamlet, and we would not expect to hear him ruminate over the decision. Harry has a task to perform. If he fails, Ron and Hermione will carry on along with Neville Longbottom, whom Harry entrusts with the order to kill the snake. They are joined as friends, and their collaboration as a group creates shared agency.
Resistance: Protego
Rowling emphasizes and celebrates practice—practice in learning spells, in quidditch, in friendship. Although the novels feature magic, magic requires practice. In their fifth year Defense Against the Dark Arts class, Hermione is appalled by the instructor’s failure to provide hands-on learning and practice. Protego, for example, is a spell that inserts a shield between opponents, preventing them from harming each other. In fact, the instructor, the awful Dolores Umbrage, prohibits demonstration as well as practice, claiming that reading the Ministry-approved text is sufficient. Hermione views this situation, in conjunction with ministry decrees that appear to be taking control over the curriculum and faculty, as preventing students from learning to protect themselves. Her concern has intensified with the Ministry’s denial of what she knows to be true because she, unlike the Ministry, believes Harry that Voldemort has returned. Thus Hermione’s activism emerges in the face of threat to her and her classmates, who will not have the knowledge and experience to protect themselves, and her anger at Harry’s not being believed.
But now, three years later, Hermione has become savvy. She has learned the need for more effective strategies to enlist others in joining a movement. Her first and main task is to persuade Harry that he has knowledge and experience that can help his peers, and then that he can teach them some of the defensive spells that have helped him. She also has to address their peers’ uncertainty about forming a group when there are students who are unsure that they can trust Harry in the face of the ministry, supported by the wizard newspaper, The Daily Prophet, telling their parents not to worry and denying Voldemort’s return. Hermione arranges an informational meeting off school grounds, following which interested students can meet and decide to go forward. At this meeting students sign their names and decide on the group’s name, Dumbledore’s Army or the D.A. Hermione has charmed galleons (the currency used in the wizarding world) so that they will alert the holder as to the date and time of the next meeting without drawing attention to the presence of the secret group. Harry is responsible for finding a meeting space. All goes well until one member reveals the existence of the group to the acting headmistress. However, due to Hermione’s planning and her magical skill, betrayers are cursed with a disfiguring skin eruption. Fearing further damage, the student who snitched reports nothing more at a hearing before the minister of magic. Dumbledore’s Army succeeds, not only in giving students practice in defending themselves, but also in creating camaraderie and a sense of shared purpose. The skill, cleverness, and thoroughness that Rowling accords Hermione in organizing a group are noteworthy. Hermione uses her outrage at Dolores Umbrage’s teaching in Defense Against the Dark Arts to mobilize others to defend themselves by learning what they will need to know.
Rowling does not miss showing that the other side is also skilled. Voldemort has given Draco the task of murdering Dumbledore to redeem his father’s name and status among the Death Eaters. Lucius had failed in a task that Voldemort had set him, namely to retrieve a prophecy globe from the Department of Mysteries in the Ministry of Magic offices. Furthermore, the Death Eaters, led by Lucius, had not been victorious in the battle that erupted (Rowling, 2003). Draco, for all his family’s wealth and pure-blood status, does not appear a happy boy. He is haughty with his peers. His companions hang on him and follow his directions, but appear to offer little else to the group. Draco falls short of his father’s expectations, which increases the importance of carrying out the task set him by Voldemort as the way in which he will earn his father’s praise and love. Draco, at 16, is allowed by Voldemort to join the Death Eaters, but Voldemort is no mentor. He hands Draco a heavy burden. If Draco fails to kill Dumbledore, Voldemort will kill him and his parents. Although Draco’s planning largely happens behind the scenes, it is not difficult to imagine the difficulty this adolescent has in organizing the more experienced adult Death Eaters, who fear Voldemort’s wrath and compete for his favor, to lead an attack on Hogwarts. He works diligently to plan a passage into Hogwarts that will breach the protections placed upon the school, protections that will be lost upon Dumbledore’s death. For Draco, the work is about personal success, not collaboration (Sullivan, 1953).
Although aligned on opposing sides, Hermione and Draco plan and mobilize their respective groups to prepare for attacking the opposing force. These teen-age groups, organized by students within Hogwarts, parallel the re-energized adult forces of Dumbledore’s Order of the Phoenix and Voldemort’s Death Eaters, the groups that will do battle in the closing, climactic chapters of the last novel. The need to protect themselves, their families, friends, and classmates motivates Hermione and Draco’s activism.
In the last novel (Rowling, 2007), the Ministry of Magic has fallen to Voldemort, and his Death Eaters have taken control over Hogwarts. Dumbledore’s Army has been re-established under the joined leadership of students who were in the original organization as an underground resistance group at Hogwarts. Dumbledore’s Army, now most clearly an angry group with the stalwart Neville Longbottom at its head, undermines the new teaching tactics and does everything it can to oppose the Death Eaters, who respond with outrageous punishments. In the closing chapters of the series, the student-organized group leads the open war against Voldemort and his Death Eaters. Neville’s command as he stands, wandless, defying Voldemort is, “Dumbledore’s Army!”
Concluding Comments
Rowling’s story, though set in a magical world, is of our time with our concerns about power and injustice, our fears and our certainties about what we can and cannot control, as individuals and in multiple associations with each other. Rowling illustrates the slow unfolding of lifespan development with its missteps, stops, and re-starts through glimpses into the lives of different characters with different starting points, who encounter different supports and risks along their way. My effort has been to draw out the paths of but a few characters, examining the course of their anger arising from loss, especially in childhood, and appreciation of injustice with its threats of insult and injury. Rowling affirms what we wish to believe, namely, that connection with others who care for us can buffer anger, making time and space for planful action and strengthening resolve to counter trouble, as we are sure to encounter it. Still, the story is not over. We, readers and psychologists, are left with the lost boys, with groups that do not share realities, with the continuing breach we cannot repair, the flayed thing squealing in King’s Cross Station.
References
Abecassis, M. (2003). I hate you just the way you are: Exploring the formation, maintenance, and need for enemies. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 102, 5–22.
Ainsworth, M. D. S., & Marvin, R. S. (1995). On the shaping of attachment theory and research: An interview with Mary D. S. Ainsworth. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 60(2–3), 3–21.
Aldwin, C. (2015). How can developmental systems theories cope with free will? The importance of stress-related growth and mindfulness. Research in Human Development, 3–4, 189–195. doi:10.1080/15427609.2015.1068042
Bakan, D. (1996). Some reflections on narrative research and hurt and harm. In R. Josselson (Ed.), Ethics and process in the narrative study of lives (Vol. 4, pp. 3–8). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Belenky, M. F., Clinchy, B. M., Goldberger, N. R., & Tarule, J. M. (1986). Women’s ways of knowing. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Bowlby, J. (1980). Attachment and Loss. Vol. 3. Loss. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Bowlby, J. (1988). A secure base: Parent-child attachment and healthy human development. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Bukowski, W. F. (2003). Friendship and the worlds of childhood. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 102, 93–105.
Caporael, L. (1997). The evolution of truly social cognition: The core configurations model. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 1(4), 276–298.
Colby, A., Kohlberg, I., Gibbs, J., Lieberman, M., Fischer, K., & Saltzstein, H. D. (1983). A longitudinal study of moral judgment. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 48(1–2), 1–124.
Erikson, E. H. (1958). Young man Luther. New York, NY: Norton.
Erikson, E. H. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis. New York, NY: Norton.
Erikson, E. H. (1961). The roots of virtue. In J. Huxley (Ed.), The humanist frame (pp. 145–165). New York, NY: Harper.
Erikson, E. H. (1982). The life cycle completed. New York, NY: Norton.
Garbarino, J. (1982). Children and families in the social environment. New York, NY: Aldine.
Garbarino, J. (1999). Lost boys: Why our sons turn violent and how we can save them. New York, NY: The Free Press.
Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Goldstein. S., & Brooks, R. B. (Eds.). (2006). Handbook of resilience in children. NY: Springer.
Hutchins, E. (1995). Cognition in the wild. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Kegan, R. (1983). The evolving self. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kegan, R. (1994). In over our heads: The mental demands of modern life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Lazarus, R. S. (1991). Emotion and adaptation. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Lewin, K. (1939). Field theory and experiment in social psychology: Concepts and methods. American Journal of Sociology, 44, 868–897.
Lewis, M. (2014). The rise of consciousness and the development of emotional life. New York, NY: Guilford.
McAdams, D. (1993). Stories we live by: Personal myths and the making of the self. New York, NY: Morrow.
Perry, W. (1970). Forms of intellectual development in the college years. New York, NY: Holt.
Resnick, L. B., Levine, J. M., and Teasley, S. D. (Eds.). (1991). Perspectives on socially shared cognition. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Rowling, J. K. (1997). Harry Potter and the sorcerer’s stone. New York, NY: Scholastic Press.
Rowling, J. K. (1998). Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets. New York, NY: Scholastic Press.
Rowling, J. K. (1999). Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban. New York, NY: Scholastic Press.
Rowling, J. K. (2000). Harry Potter and the goblet of fire. New York, NY: Scholastic Press.
Rowling, J. K. (2003). Harry Potter and the order of the phoenix. New York, NY: Scholastic Press.
Rowling, J. K. (2005). Harry Potter and the half-blood prince. New York, NY: Scholastic Press.
Rowling, J. K. (2007). Harry Potter and the deathly hallows. New York, NY: Scholastic Press.
Rowling, J. K., Tiffany, J, & Thorne, J. (2016). Harry Potter and the cursed child. Parts One and Two. The rehearsal script. New York, NY: Scholastic Inc.
Sroufe, A., Egeland, B. Carlson, E., & Collins, A. (2005). The development of the person: The Minnesota study of risk and adaptation from birth to adulthood. New York, NY: Guilford.
Sullivan, H. S. (1940/1945). Conceptions of modern psychiatry. The First William Alanson White Memorial Lectures. Lecture 2. The human organism and its necessary environment, (pp. 14–27). Washington, D.C.: The William Alanson White Memorial Foundation.
Sullivan, H. S. (1953). The interpersonal theory of psychiatry. New York: NY: McGraw Hill.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1962). Thought and language. E. Hanfmann & G. Vakar (Eds. and Trans.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
** I offer thanks to my seminar students for their delight in studying the novels, to Sara Schuman and Michelle Napierski-Prancl for their helpful suggestions, to Kenneth Jennings for sharing the Harry Potter journey, and, of course, to J.K. Rowling for making it all possible.