Devastation in Harry Potter

[Prof. Tarma Amelia Black]

Slytherin hosts a Harry Potter Read-Along; currently they are doing Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Arianna Stonewater asks questions based on the current chapter being read. (Scarlet Leslie-Lewis puts in a couple of discussion questions, for each chapter, too.)

I'd been cruising along, answering questions correctly (sometimes I had to look them up) and then, of a sudden, I hit a chapter which Arianna was kind enough to poke me asking was I SURE I wanted to send that in for an answer?

Thing is, I'd read the chapter (okay, cruised it lightly .... skimmed it .... okay, bounced off high-lights here and there) and I wondered 'why am I having difficulty with this chapter?'

Then I knew. Ah. This is where Sirius Black goes through, falls through, the archway. Not only that, the way it is written, the actions of all the people of that particular story line, of everything that happened, combined to make it one of the most shattering things, that I'd read so far, to happen.

I remember reading this and feeling devastated. For me, I don't know why, this is probably the most devastating moment of the whole series of books.

Is there a moment, in the series, when you read it and felt devastated? (Or moments in which you felt that way?)

[Prof. Maxim Trevelyan]

For me it was actually in two places, during the lull in the fighting where Voldemort told Harry that he had one hour to come to the Forbidden Forest to surrender and the immediate aftermath, where Harry notices just how many people were wounded or have died during the battle.

But most heart wrenching (which was especially well-written and acted out in the movie) for me was Fred’s death. In the book, where Percy, who up till then did not go along very well with the family is devastated and from the brilliant performance of the Weasley family actors in the movie. Very poignant.

[Phoenix Hale]

I remember having to reread Fred and Colin Creevey's deaths, because I could simply not process that it happened. Also, Cedric's death hit me very hard since it was the first death of a character after we had really gotten to know them.