37 Kim Kile – Harry Potter Does His Best Magic Without a Wand: How Harry Potter’s HERO Attributes Can Help Children Defeat Their Mental Health Demons

Kim is a second year PhD student in the American Studies program at IUPUI with a focus on the use of bibliotherapy/poetry therapy in school counseling programs. This field of study has allowed her to take poetry, creative writing, and children’s literature courses, including a class on the Harry Potter series (swoon!). When she’s not advising student-athletes at IUPUI on their academics, Kim loves to think of potential titles for stories and first lines of poetry. She also spends quite a bit of time playing with her two grandchildren, Henry and Sophia. Professor Alisa Clapp-Itnyre celebrates her work and states, “Ten pages, 10+ resources; Kim’s paper was very deserving of an A for this excellent, graduate-level research paper! I was very grateful to see all four of my comments addressed in this final version, leading to what I think is an EXCELLENT discussion of Harry Potter’s resilience!!! I even wonder if she might be able to get it published in one of the counseling or psychology journals.”

Harry Potter Does His Best Magic Without a Wand: How Harry Potter’s HERO Attributes Can Help Children Defeat Their Mental Health Demons

“The last words Albus Dumbledore spoke to the pair of us?
Harry is the best hope we have. Trust him.” ~ Kingsley Shacklebolt and Remus Lupin, K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

In my early days as a school counselor, I made a magic wand with a dowel rod, ribbon, glitter paint, and white knobs on both ends. It was nothing special, but it did the trick when I was working with my students who were experiencing emotional breakdowns or needed help. I simply asked them if I could grant them just one wish by waving my magic wand, what would they wish for? We both knew the magic for healing was not in the wand; it was in their ability to name their greatest desire and find it within themselves to make it come true. Harry Potter, the famous “boy who lived” in J. K. Rowling’s seven book series, did have a wand that created wonderful magic in his hand, but, like the children I worked with, it was useless in helping Harry heal himself. In his darkest moments and deepest grief, Harry had to rely on his HERO attributes (Hopefulness, Engagement, Resilience, and Open-mindedness) to overcome his greatest enemy, his own mental health. By calling on his personal attributes instead of his wand, Harry makes greater magic than he ever knew was possible, and by doing so, creates a roadmap for Muggle children everywhere to support themselves in times of crisis.

Harry’s life is a difficult life. Before readers know his wizarding story, they learn he is an orphan living with abusive and neglectful relatives. His aunt and uncle belittle him and allow their son to bully him. His only gifts are hand-me-downs from his cousin or “a cheap lemon ice pop” (SS 26) at the zoo. He has no friends nor knows of any adults in his life who respect him or look after him. Even after learning about his famous past and attending school at Hogwarts, Harry is dealt horrible blows. He witnesses the deaths of those closest to him, faces bullying from the greater wizarding world, and experiences feelings of grief, anger, and betrayal. While his circumstances may be magical, the events of his life, both before and after learning he is a wizard, are anything but magical. In fact, because his life circumstances are so relatable to children around the world, Harry is the perfect heroic example for adolescents and young adults who have also suffered from loss, bullying, grief, and their related mental health issues. Harry’s HERO attributes provide the magic many of his readers need for their own healing.

Hopefulness, engagement, resilience, and open-mindedness are all intrinsic characteristics found in Rowling’s character, Harry Potter, and throughout the series, readers have a front row seat in watching them develop and grow stronger within him. When we first meet Harry, he is an infant being delivered by a wizard to the doorstep of his Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon’s house on Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey. Ten years later, he is living in a cupboard, along with the spiders, under the stairs in the same house, not as a loved family member, but as a detested occupant. He believes he is an orphan due to a car accident that killed his parents and left him with a lightning bolt scar on his forehead. He knows nothing else about his previous life and nothing about his parents and the love they had for him. For many who study children’s literature, Harry’s story follows the classic fairytale formula. According to Colman Noctor in his article, “Putting Harry Potter on the Couch,” the fairytale formula “tends to include the death of parents, the presence of polarized evil characters (which are not without their own attraction) and a needy hero who begins in isolation and elicits sympathy from the reader” (Noctor 581). Noctor goes on to say, “With the brave father and self-sacrificing mother, J. K. Rowling has in effect created a family romance for us to enjoy” (Noctor 581); a family romance that appeals to children in crisis, whether orphaned, abused, or neglected, because of the related trauma to their own lives. They can empathize with Harry’s pain and emotional turmoil, while at the same, they can learn how he survives the atrocities of his life by using only his personal attributes. The importance of these attributes and how they transfer to the Muggle world of mental health counseling is what I will discuss in this paper.

H is for Hopefulness

Before Harry knows he is a wizard, he exhibits his first HERO attribute – hopefulness. On his cousin Dudley’s birthday, Harry learns there is no one available to watch him while the others visit the zoo and Rowling writes, “‘You could just leave me here,’ Harry put in hopefully” (SS 23). After ten years of abuse and ten years of being left out of birthday celebrations, Harry is still hopeful that he will be given the freedom to do as he pleases for an afternoon. Even when he is told he must join them, he cannot “believe his luck” (SS 23). Within minutes, Harry found the best in two different situations. Ashley Wolf in her paper, “Harry Potter and the Enhancement of Hope: What Harry Potter and Positive Psychology can Teach Us about the Good Life,” discusses viewing Harry Potter “through the lens of hope” and how Harry’s attribute of hopefulness can be passed along to readers. She goes on to say, “that intentionally spotting strengths in fictional characters can help individuals build the same qualities within themselves” (Wolf 30). Before selecting his wand at Ollivanders, Harry makes magic happen for both him and his readers by continually believing his wishes can come true.

As the series progresses and the wizarding world becomes more complicated for Harry and his friends at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Harry’s use of hopefulness also becomes more complicated. In the first few books of the series, readers see Harry’s hopefulness in the way he first finds and then continues to look for his parents in magical ways. This search for family is fundamental to the classic orphan story. According to Claudia Mills in her article, “Children in Search of a Family: Orphan Novels Through the Century,” orphan stories are so popular because “[t]he orphan child represents pure possibility, freedom from family ties that chafe and bind” (Mills 228). She goes on to say, “Thus the orphan novel both allows the child reader to escape vicariously from the confines of family ties and stresses their importance” (Mills 228). Harry takes us on that journey of freedom while still desperately hoping for family during his first Christmas at Hogwarts. Having been given the gift of his father’s Invisibility Cloak by Professor Dumbledore, Harry sneaks around the castle, enjoying his new-found freedom until he nearly runs into the caretaker, Filch, and Professor Snape. Dodging into an empty classroom, Harry finds the Mirror of Erised. Tucked away in the deserted room, Harry leans into the magnificent mirror to see not a reflection of the classroom behind him, but the faces of strangers who look vaguely familiar and, immediately, hope bubbles up from within him. In that moment, his hope for a family becomes Harry’s realization. “The Potters smiled and waved at Harry and he stared hungrily back at them, his hands pressed flat against the glass as though he was hoping to fall right through it and reach them” (SS 209). Harry’s greatest desire, his hope of knowing his parents, his dream of no longer being an orphan, had come true and he made it happen simply by believing. Cognitive Behavior therapists call this act of finding hope and positivity in difficult situations, “changing the channel” (Mulholland 270). Neil Mulholland, a senior psychologist in child and family psychiatry, shares how Harry often changes his “spells” from negative to positive without the use of his wand. “He seems to recover well from each major life-threatening crisis, and so we might conclude that Harry’s thoughts and beliefs about his apparent destiny would seem to be quite positive and hopeful, as he does remarkably well at rebounding and recovering from all the disasters thrown at him” (Mulholland 271). In the case of the Mirror of Erised, Harry’s happiness at finding his family within the glass ends quickly when Professor Dumbledore meets him there and shares what the mirror really shows, a person’s greatest desire. Instead of refusing to believe the mirror is just a powerful enchantment, Harry agrees with Dumbledore that he should no longer visit it because he would never find happiness in the world of “what ifs.” Harry’s ability to remain hopeful even in the face of disappointment is a strong example for young children and adolescents who are also struggling with losing parents and their dreams of a family.

Harry’s hopefulness continues throughout the series. In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry learns about the Patronus charm from Professor Lupin. This piece of advanced magic creates a protective creature when faced with a dementor, a prison guard in the wizarding world that can suck away one’s soul. In her article, “Mental Illness in the World of Wizardry,” Jessica Leigh Murakami, describes the emotional effects of the dementors as depression-like and compares what they do to victims as mental illness. “The symptoms of major depression include the absence of Patronus-like qualities, namely hope, happiness, and the desire to live” (Murakami 183). Harry is sensitive to the effects of the dementors, which one could take to mean he is prone to exhibiting depressive traits, but Professor Lupin trains him to create a Patronus to push them aside. At their first lesson, Lupin shares what a Patronus is and how it works. “The Patronus is a kind of positive force, a projection of the very things that the dementor feeds upon – hope, happiness, the desire to survive – but it cannot feel despair, as real humans can, so the dementors can’t hurt it” (PofA 237). While the charm is magical, the thought behind it is not. To create a Patronus, Harry must conjure a happy memory in his mind; he must be in a state of hopefulness to bring the Patronus into being and that requires no magic, just hope. Harry becomes so good at creating his Patronus that he teaches fellow members of Dumbledore’s Army in their defense against the dark arts work, and he soon becomes a symbol of hope himself. Rufus Scrimgeour, the Minister for Magic, tells Harry just that in Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince. “‘the point is, you are a symbol of hope for many, Harry. The idea that there is somebody out there who might be able, who might even be destined, to destroy He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named – well, naturally, it gives people a lift’” (HBP 345). Whether fighting his own demons, giving hope to the wizarding world that Voldemort can be defeated, or planting a seed of hope in young readers that they, too, can protect themselves from their own fears, Harry’s attribute of hopefulness is the attribute of a hero.

E is for Engagement

While Harry finds hopefulness inside of himself, he needs the help from others to enact his next HERO attribute, engagement. Harry was 11 years old when he first became a member of a community, a place where he belongs. Until then, he was ignored, bullied, neglected, and abused by those closest to him. He is never included in Dursley family outings or made to feel welcome. In fact, when he wants to learn more about his parents his uncle forbids him to ask questions and, sadly, “There were no photographs of them in the house” (SS 30). He even dreamed of “some unknown relation coming to take him away” (SS 30). Harry, in fact, craved belonging so badly he imagined people on the street recognizing him. “Yet sometimes he thought (or maybe hoped) that strangers in the street seemed to know him” (SS 30). He looked for community everywhere. Andrew P. Mills discusses the value of belonging and the sense of community in his article, “Patriotism, House Loyalty, and Obligations.” Mills defines community by using the political philosophy of “communitarianism” – the belief “that participation in the life of some particular community provides meaning for our lives and is the source of our value system” (Mills 108). Until Harry is notified by Hagrid that he is a wizard, and he belongs at a school named Hogwarts, Harry has realized no benefits of belonging anywhere. Once he can identify with the community in which he truly belongs, however, his entire world falls into place. The strange events in his Muggle life, like speaking to snakes and moving things with his mind, make complete sense to his fellow wizarding friends. The benefit of belonging to a community for Harry, however, extends farther than finally having a sense of family and purpose. For him, the Hogwarts community provides him with the opportunity to finally engage with others for a common cause – defeating Lord Voldemort. And Harry finds a plethora of supporters at Hogwarts. His “team” includes Hagrid, Professor Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall, his best friends, Hermione and Ron, his Gryffindor housemates, his fellow Quidditch team members, and the Weasley family. According to Mulholland in his article, “Using Psychological Treatment with Harry,” Harry’s “cheering team (especially Dumbledore) helps Harry focus on his strengths, remember his successes, and move forward positively toward solutions instead of remaining stuck in his problems” (Mulholland 269). By leaning into his community, Harry finds support in his hardest time without the use of his wand or magic. He simply relies on his friends and mentors to help him. One example of this is when Harry searches for the Sorcerer’s Stone in the first book. When presented with the various challenges along the way, Harry must trust Hermione and Ron to help him. It is Hermione who understands the properties of the Devil’s Snare and who figures out the riddle of the potions, and Ron who wins the game of Wizard’s Chess. Although Harry is alone in the end when he defeats Professor Quirrell and Voldemort, he is there because he engaged with others in his community and trusted them just as one might do in the Muggle world in times of need.

Without the support of his community, however, Harry becomes lost, angry, and bitter. Readers see this side of him at the beginning of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix when Harry discovers that the Order members, and his best friends, Ron and Hermione, have been meeting all summer at Number 12 Grimmauld Place without him. He also learns that his friends have been specifically told by Dumbledore to keep Harry in the dark. Not knowing and not belonging anymore, sends Harry into a fit of rage which he takes out on his closest friends. “Every bitter and resentful thought that Harry had had in the past month was pouring out of him; his frustration at the lack of news, the hurt that they had all been together without him, his fury at being followed and not told about it: All the feelings he was half-ashamed of finally burst their boundaries” (OofP 66). For a hurt child confronting his deepest fears, Harry, once again, leads by example in naming his frustrations and bringing them to light. He is not afraid to lean into what he is feeling which, for Muggles, is a crucial step in the psychological healing process.

Harry also engages with the magical objects and creatures he encounters in the wizarding world, and he shows immense respect for those others consider beneath wizards and witches. In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry befriends the Malfoy’s house elf, Dobby, and in Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry makes friends with the Hippogriff, Buckbeak. In both cases, these friendships create alliances which come back to assist Harry and his friends later in the series. Melanie Dawson discusses the connection Harry has with the natural world and magical creatures within it in her essay, “Sugared Violets and Conscious Wands: Deep Ecology in the Harry Potter Series.” She contends that Harry’s ability to build consensus and engage with all types of creatures and animals is a type of magic that will save the natural world. She shares, “Harry’s various successes throughout the series are thus linked to a need to foster cooperation so as to work against Voldemort and his followers” (Dawson 79). Creating alliances and engaging with those around you is another lesson Harry teaches young children about dealing with trauma. Instead of going inside himself, Harry looks to creatures of all kinds as his partners and support in the battle against his demons. In the Muggle world, fighting through mental illness requires a child to engage in therapy, engage with those who are fighting with them, and engage with those who are their allies. Harry’s interactions with ALL creatures demonstrate the power behind engaging with the world around us to create a better place for ourselves and others.

R is for Resilience

Besides having the ability to engage with and trust others, Harry also demonstrates an incredible aptitude for resiliency throughout the series. The American Psychological Association defines resilience as “the process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences, especially through mental, emotional, and behavioral flexibility and adjustment to external and internal demands.” Many scholars have written about Harry’s resilience in the face of adversity. In Emily Anderson’s work, “Harry Potter, Lord Voldemort, and the Importance of Resilience,” Anderson begins by listing the horrors and abuses of Harry’s early life and then discusses his ability to bounce back from them. She attributes his resiliency to the first fifteen months of his life when he was with his parents. Using Erikson’s Theory of Development, Anderson shares, “The major factor in Harry’s ability to withstand such abuse is his secure attachment to his parents during the first fifteen months of his life, a time period which also set the stage for positive growth through the rest of his childhood” (Anderson 21). This observation is key to understanding why Harry continues to meet the numerous challenges he faces in the seven books.

Counselors and therapists often consider the number of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) when working with clients. Through a short questionnaire, they can determine just how many damaging childhood experiences a client has had. These events include being abused, neglected, and/or sexually assaulted, experiencing a parental divorce or loss, living with domestic abuse between parents, having an alcoholic or addicted parent, and having mental illness in the family. As a part of this paper, I used Harry’s experiences to see what he would score on a Pinetree Institute ACEs questionnaire. I answered yes for Harry for the following questions:

1. “Did a parent or other adult in the household often or very often…Swear at you, insult you, put you down, or humiliate you? Or Act in a way that made you afraid that you might be physically hurt?

2. Did you often or very often feel that…No one in your family loved you or thought you were important or special? Or Your family didn’t look out for each other, feel close to each other, or support each other?

3. Did you often or very often feel that…You didn’t have enough to eat, had to wear dirty clothes, and had no one to protect you?”(Pinetree Institute)

With each ‘yes’ answer counting as one point, Harry scores a three on this ACEs questionnaire. According to the CDC, this score places Harry at risk for developing social and emotional problems (Stevenson 1). But as readers of the series know, Harry develops strong social connections and can balance his emotional problems in the same way a normal teenager does. Professionals in the counseling world attribute a patient’s unexpected success when faced with a high ACE score to Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs). Thanks to the community Harry engages with and the secure attachment he made with his parents as an infant, Harry has a remarkably high PCE score which accounts for his strong resiliency. If Harry took the PCE survey, he would be able to answer “yes” to the following statements using a liberal definition of family and including his experiences at Hogwarts after leaving the Dursley’s house:

1. “I believe that my mother loved me when I was little.
2. I believe that my father loved me when I was little.
3. When I was little, other people helped my mother and father take care of me and they seemed to love me.
4. I’ve heard that when I was an infant someone in my family enjoyed playing with me, and I enjoyed it, too.
5. When I was a child, there were relatives in my family who made me feel better if I were sad or worried.
6. When I was a child, neighbors or my friends’ parents seemed to like me.
7. When I was a child, teachers, coaches, youth leaders, or ministers were there to help me.
8. Someone in my family cared about how I was doing in school.
9. My family, neighbors and friends talked often about making our lives better.
10. We had rules in our house and were expected to keep them.
11. When I felt really bad, I could almost always find someone I trusted to talk to.
12. As a youth, people noticed that I was capable and could get things done.
13. I was independent and a go-getter.
14. I believed that life is what you make it” (Pinetree Institute).

Readers know about the tremendous bond Harry had with his parents and the strength of their love for him. It is that love, in fact, that saves him from death at the hands of Lord Voldemort multiple times. In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, however, Harry learns he has a godfather, Sirius Black, who knew him as a baby and takes a strong interest in him in the present, and in Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix, Harry learns about his parents’ close circle of friends. Once at Hogwarts, Harry is surrounded by adults, friends, and parents of friends who care about him and his schoolwork, listen to him in times of need, and discuss a wizarding world which is better than the one they live in now. They expect him to uphold the school and wizarding rules and recognize that he is the one who can accomplish what others cannot. And, by the end of the series, Harry believes that his life is finally within his control. In every way, Harry earns a perfect score on the PCEs survey, giving him the ability to overcome his high score on the ACEs questionnaire proving he has an incredible ability to be resilient.

The Harry Potter series is full of examples of Harry demonstrating resilience. Jamie Aten, Ph.D., authored an article in Psychology Today along with his daughter, Colleen Aten, discussing Harry’s ability to be resilient. One example they share is Harry’s resolve and resilience during the second challenge of the Triwizard Tournament in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. When faced with what seemed insurmountable challenges, Harry continues to fight until his tasks are done. He battles past the grindylows, disobeys the merpeople, and perseveres in saving more than his allotted lives (Aten 5). Danielle M. Provenzano and Richard E. Heyman discuss Harry’s resilience in their article, “Harry Potter and the Resilience to Adversity.” They, too, attribute Harry’s ability to overcome his adversities to his infancy in a loving home, his luck at being placed at Hogwarts, and the supportive relationships he engages in throughout his adolescence. While Harry may not recognize the strength of this attribute – “Just listen to me, all right? It sounds great when you say it like that, but all that stuff was luck” (OofP 327) – those who read the Harry Potter series will see that Harry “despite the traumas, abuse, and neglect (he) suffers as a child, …lives normally” (Provenzano and Heyman 105) and that fact is important to anyone who needs to find a hero to lead the way. In fact, in a study published in the Journal of Affective Disorders in 2021, researchers found that middle school students who engaged in a Harry Potter-based mental health literacy curriculum which included cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) skills showed a decrease in suicidal thinking by nearly half and an increase in overall mental well-being (Klim-Conforti, et al. 135). Embedded into a literature unit using Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, this curriculum focuses on the attribute of resilience when dealing with symptoms of depression and anxiety, creating a Defense Against the Dark Arts mindset in Muggle middle school classroom.

Just because Harry is blessed with a strong aptitude for resilience, however, does not mean he is not tested. Multiple times throughout the series, we see a weakened Harry battling back from emotional weariness. Most Harry Potter scholars will point to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Harry’s battle against Voldemort in the graveyard at the end of the Triwizard Tournament as one such moment. Clutching the winner’s cup along with fellow competitor, Cedric Diggory, Harry realizes too late they have been kidnapped and transported to a deadly encounter with Lord Voldemort. His scar searing with pain, Harry has no chance of saving Cedric when he hears Voldemort say, “‘Kill the spare’” (GofF 638). Although Harry manages to survive this encounter, he is traumatized by the senseless murder of a fellow Hogwarts student and Cedric’s death haunts Harry for the rest of the series; the image of Cedric laying still on the ground and, later, Cedric begging to be taken back to his family after the Priori Incantatem spell brings his spirit to life. Although Harry is tortured with Unforgivable curses, he maintains the mental fortitude to withstand Voldemort’s Imperius curse simply by willing himself to maintain control and, although he has his wand, it cannot provide the magic Harry needs to stay mentally alert. By sheer willpower, a byproduct of his resilience, Harry escapes both the curse and the graveyard, but not without emotional destruction which takes support, time, and determination to overcome. Harry will need to rely on the closest members of his community, along with his resilience, to give him the strength he needs to fight this demon.

Life for Harry continues to be hard following Cedric’s death in the graveyard and the return of Lord Voldemort. Harry receives little support from the general wizarding community and, in fact, is ostracized and bullied for claiming Lord Voldemort has returned. Following a summer on Privet Drive filled with nightmares, a dementor attack, and little news from the wizarding world, Harry is shocked to learn that he is the enemy. On trial for using underage magic and facing expulsion from Hogwarts, Harry struggles to make sense of his world. In the literary world, this is the initiation stage of a hero’s journey, a term first used by mythologist, Joseph Campbell and described by Julia Boll in her essay, “Harry Potter’s Archetypal Journey.” During the initiation stage, the hero is tested in a variety of ways, all leading up to a ‘supreme ordeal’ (Boll 97). Boll contends that Harry experiences multiple ‘supreme ordeals’ in the last four books of the series, including the events in the graveyard in Goblet of Fire and his battle with the Death Eaters and Voldemort at the Ministry of Magic in Order of the Phoenix. Although smaller in scale, Harry’s treatment by his schoolmates, Professor Umbridge, and newspaper columnist, Rita Skeeter, are ordeals which also take a toll on his mental well-being. Harry’s anger is palpable in Order of the Phoenix and readers can easily see the effects Harry’s recent traumatic experiences have had on him; yet he still manages to overcome them. Part of the reason he can do this is because of the people he surrounds himself with. Positive relationships with peers and adults help to create and sustain resilience according to Provenzano and Heyman. “These particular supportive relationships seem to play a particularly important role in buffering the child from emotional maltreatment” (Provenzano and Heyman 112). Harry’s association with Dumbledore’s Army and the Order of the Phoenix connect him to a community of support and ground him emotionally and mentally during his most challenging times at Hogwarts.

Two of the people Harry relies on the most are his godfather, Sirius Black, and Hogwarts headmaster, Professor Dumbledore. Sirius provides a connection for Harry to his past, a look at his parents through the eyes of a friend while Dumbledore gives Harry a look into his future, but both men provide counsel, guidance, and wisdom to Harry during crucial times in his hero’s journey. Following the horrific events at the end of Goblet of Fire, Harry begins to question the world of right, wrong, good, and evil. He is struggling because he has not yet realized that humanity is made of up of various shades of gray and during our lives, we live in both lighter and darker shades on that spectrum. When discussing the horror that Hogwarts has become under the tutelage of Delores Umbridge, Harry gets a much-needed piece of advice from Sirius when he tells Harry, “The world isn’t split into good people and Death Eaters” (OofP 302). Coming from a place of love and compassion, Sirius shows Harry that he has a right to be angry and confused about the events of his life, but where he falls between good people and Death Eaters is determined by his actions. Harry heard this sentiment before from Professor Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets following his interaction with Tom Riddle in the Chamber of Secrets. When Harry questions his goodness because of his connection to Riddle/Voldemort, Dumbledore assures Harry that their journeys do not need to be the same. “It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities” (CofS 333). Both men give Harry the encouragement he needs to visualize himself separately from the evils he has come to see in the world and their words will help Harry survive his traumas, even after they are gone.

Harry relies so heavily on these two mentors that when they die, he is broken emotionally. Upon both of their deaths, Harry experiences many emotions in a brief period of time associated with grief; shock, denial, disbelief, guilt, and anger. As these feelings swirl within him, he struggles to move forward, but because he is resilient and recognizes he cannot do it alone, he reaches out to others to help him find peace. One of those helpers is a character who readers first meet in the Order of the Phoenix, Luna Lovegood. At the start of the book, upon arriving at Hogwarts, Harry suddenly realizes that the carriages he thought were driven by magic are actually pulled by horse-like creatures called thestrals. When he realizes Ron and Hermione cannot see them, he begins to think he is crazy until Luna, another lost soul, assures him he is not. “Don’t worry,” she tells him. “You’re as sane as I am” (OofP 199). Hermione later tells Harry that only people who have seen death can see thestrals. In the moments when Harry questions his mental well-being due to the deaths and traumatic events he witnesses, he discovers he has not been left alone to fight the demons.

Another source of comfort for Harry comes from an unusual source – Fawkes, Dumbledore’s Phoenix. Three separate times, Fawkes sings his palliative song to Harry; first in the Chamber of Secrets when Fawkes heals Harry’s Basilisk wound, second during Harry’s wand battle with Voldemort in the graveyard, and, thirdly, during Dumbledore’s funeral. To Harry, Fawkes is a healer, and his song brings Harry hope. As Harry’s and Voldemort’s wands refuse to duel because of the shared Phoenix tail core, Harry hears Fawkes’s song and, as Rowling describes, “It was the sound of hope to Harry. . . the most beautiful and welcome thing he had ever heard in his life” (GofF 664). Throughout his deepest struggles, after the deaths of his two greatest mentors, Harry finds hope in friends, including magical creatures. For as resilient as Harry is, though, all his traumas leave him scarred. Dumbledore foretells the readers in Book 1 that these scars will have a purpose later when he says in the Sorcerer’s Stone, “Scars can come in handy” (SS 15). And as we know in the Muggle world, too, both physical and emotional scars make the parts of us that hurt stronger. For Muggle children, reading how Harry learns that resilience sometimes takes teamwork, especially when seeing the truth for the first time.

O is for Open-mindedness

Harry’s final HERO attribute is his ability to be open-minded and to learn from others. Entering Hogwarts, Harry is a blank slate. He has little to no idea about his famous wizarding history and does not know the difference between the Expelliarmus and Impedimenta spells. To be successful, he must be willing to learn from others and to be open to new experiences while figuring out his new normal. It is at Hogwarts where Harry finds his true purpose and the understanding of his place in a greater world; it is where he becomes a “seeker” and develops a willingness to learn about the world around him. In the wizarding world, being a Seeker refers to a position on the coveted Quidditch team. It is the position that can win the game by simply making one play – catching the Golden Snitch. Harry quickly learns that he is a natural “seeker,” and he eagerly takes his place as a first year on the Gryffindor Quidditch team where he transfers his skill of paying attention and observation to other parts of his wizarding life.

Mulholland uses the Seeker analogy in his article, “Using Psychological Treatment with Harry” because Harry’s skill as a Seeker lends itself well in the Muggle world of counseling. Other than flying on a broomstick, Harry uses no other magic to find and capture his target. His laser focus to catch the Snitch while also needing “to dodge the Bludgers” (Mulholland 268) serves him well in other areas of his life just as they would with anyone trying to avoid the dangers and fears they face. Mulholland shares, “Perhaps one of the reasons Harry endures so successfully is that he intuitively focuses less on all of the fearful dangers (problems) that he faces and more on how he has always eventually been able to ‘magically’ defend against them, to dodge them, to beat them back, to face them with bravery and not let them defeat him” (Mulholland 268). What we also learn from Harry is that conquering a fear may not always work the first time. During a Quidditch match against Hufflepuff in his third year, Harry is knocked off his broomstick when dementors enter the Quidditch pitch. He first encounters them on the train ride to Hogwarts and passes out there, as well. It is Dementors 2, Harry 0 before Harry learns how to manage the feelings he gets when he begins to feel the coldness and hopelessness that creeps through him when he is near a dementor. Instead of caving into those feelings and believing he will never conquer this fear, Harry is open to learning how to conjure a Patronus and works until he can create one under even the most trying circumstances.

Boll also uses the seeker metaphor when discussing Harry’s heroic attributes. She believes his designation as a seeker, though, goes beyond just being open-minded. She sees him as “an archetypal seeker after truth” (Boll 89). It is Harry’s curiosity and thirst for knowledge that allows him to leave the familiar in search of something better. This is especially true in the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Although Harry is abused and neglected while living with the Dursleys, there is comfort in knowing what to expect. When Hagrid arrives to take Harry to Hogwarts, however, Harry must decide on whether to take a risk on the unknown. Laura Oldford, a certified therapeutic recreation specialist, compares Harry’s leap of faith with the leap her clients take when entering therapy in her article, “The Use of Harry Potter and Fairytales in Narrative Therapy.” She says, “Harry must make a decision to leave a familiar environment, or to trust a stranger” (Oldford 7). Leaving with Hagrid, she says, is Harry’s first step on a journey of “hard work of discovery and reconstruction” (Oldford 7). Harry’s journey, as it is for so many other children struggling with traumatic events and their mental health consequences, is a multi-step process.

Harry’s relationship with Professor Dumbledore is another example of Harry having an open mind to learn all he can about his nemesis, Lord Voldemort. Harry’s lessons with Dumbledore in The Half-Blood Prince demonstrate not only Harry’s willingness to learn, but also his ability to trust the unknown with the help of his mentor. Before entering the cave to retrieve a horcrux, Dumbledore makes Harry promise to “obey any command I might give you at once, and without question” (HBP 550). While this request goes against Harry’s nature, he makes the promise not only because he respects Dumbledore, but also because he is open to the possibility that he may be in a situation where Dumbledore’s condition is a likelihood.

For Harry, being open-minded also takes on a literal meaning. Because of his connection with Lord Voldemort through his lightning bolt scar, Harry often feels Voldemort’s emotions and can see what Voldemort is seeing as if Harry is Voldemort himself. For most of the series, Harry struggles with the pain, both literally and figuratively, of being so attached to this force of evil. In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Dumbledore requests that Professor Snape train Harry in Occlumency, the ability to close one’s mind to Legilimency, the ability to read another’s mind and influence their thoughts and emotions. Dumbledore wants to close the two-way street between the minds of Harry and Voldemort. Unfortunately, Harry struggles with clearing away his thoughts and emotions, and the lessons are frustrating for both Harry and Professor Snape. In a MuggleNet interview from 2005 found on The Harry Potter Compendium website, J. K. Rowling discusses why Harry never succeeds at mastering this skill. “Harry’s problem with it was always that his emotions were too near the surface and that he is in some ways too damaged. But he’s also very in touch with his feelings about what’s happened to him. He’s not repressed, he’s quite honest about facing them, and he couldn’t suppress them, he couldn’t suppress these memories” (The Harry Potter Compendium). Not closing this avenue into Voldemort’s mind, however, becomes a strength and a strategy for Harry in the final book. As Oldford shares in her article, “The Use of Harry Potter and Fairytales in Narrative Therapy,” “Harry learns to ask for others’ help more quickly and does not repress thoughts and dreams about his enemy; rather, he learns to use these as a tool for survival” (Oldford 7). Taking what is initially a negative and turning it into a positive, Harry demonstrates a practice found in mental health therapy. Mulholland sees the theme of Harry having patience during his most trying times as a learning tool for everyone. In counseling terms this is considered mindfulness and Mulholland defines it as “learning to accept difficult situations and working with them rather than reacting in an unhealthy way” (Mulholland 279). As Harry and the others prepare for battle against Voldemort, Harry leans into the present and opens his mind to discover what Voldemort is doing. Harry’s important discovery that Voldemort is searching for his horcruxes, not the elements of the Deathly Hallows, allows Harry and the others to prepare Hogwarts for battle. Harry accepts the pain he feels when being in that moment to achieve a better outcome much like clients do when they are engaged in mental health counseling.

Harry once again shows his open-mindedness near the end of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows when he talks with Dumbledore at the heavenly King’s Cross Station. After Harry decides to return and face Voldemort for the last time, he asks Dumbledore, “‘Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?’” and in reply, Dumbledore responds “‘Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?’” (DH 723). In this moment, Harry allows himself to consider the idea that opening his mind to the possibility of dying is what grants him the ability to live. Living with an open mind, sometimes called having a growth mindset, creates the opportunity not only for Harry to grow and adapt, but to also be an example to others who need encouragement to do the same.

Harry is our HERO: How HERO Qualities Win in the End

So why does Harry Potter work so well as a literary hero for children suffering from adverse childhood experiences? Professionals in the field give a variety of reasons all stemming from the belief that Harry represents hope for readers who suffer like him. Kathy Hunt, a lecturer in education at the University of Durham in the United Kingdom, shares in her article, “‘Do You Know Harry Potter? Well, He is an Orphan’: Every Bereaved Child Matters,” “children interact in deep and meaningful ways with story to cope with and to move through therapeutic process” (Hunt 39). She goes on to share a story about an orphan she counseled who was thoroughly attached to her Harry Potter book and Hunt used it to explore the child’s strong emotions through the “metaphor of play” (Hunt 41). Hunt also describes this process as aesthetic distance or what happens when the story, “creates distance between the child and the events in her life, thus enabling her to process the painful experience safely” (Hunt 41). Drew Chappell, in his work, “Sneaking Out After Dark: Resistance, Agency, and the Postmodern Child in JK Rowling’s Harry Potter Series,” reiterates this benefit of using Harry Potter’s HERO attributes when he says, “through identification with Harry and his friends, young readers may come to terms with the terrors in their own lives” (Chappell 291). Noctor echoes both Hunt and Chappell when he discusses the challenges Harry faces in all seven books when he says, “the strength and depth of character needed to overcome them are very real and pertinent to overcoming many adolescent challenges” (Noctor 586). But the most compelling reason comes from a reader who suffers from mental health issues herself. Megan McClintock wrote in an essay found on the Elemental website about the power Rowling gives her readers through Harry Potter, “She gives us “Expecto Patronum” – the idea that we can use love and happiness to fight against crippling despair, even as we stare down the barrel of our most terrifying fears” (McClintock 5). The hope McClintock found by reading Harry Potter provides that best reason for why Harry Potter is a hero.

Throughout the Harry Potter series, Harry demonstrates many qualities assigned to literary heroes: he is brave, courageous, determined, and full of conviction. For Muggles who think only magic can help them overcome their emotional “boggarts,” they simply need to remember that Harry worked his therapeutic magic without using magic at all. He is a HERO because he demonstrates hopefulness, engages with his community, possesses resilience, and meets his challenges head-on with an open mind.

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