Sacrificial Love In Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone

When hearing the words ‘Harry Potter’, the first image that comes to mind is of wizards and witches on broomsticks, and a particular boy with a scar on his forehead. Biblical ideas are automatically assumed as against the principles presented in the famous novels, many times due to an outcry by groups of Christians, thus resulting in the two rarely being associated. However, biblical themes run rampant throughout J.K Rowling’s Harry Potter series- especially of the Holy Trinity, the idea of worthiness, and sacrificial love.

In the eighth and final book of the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, we discover the story of the Peverell brothers and how they cheated Death to make it safely across a dangerous river, but are met by him

It all started with the death of Harry’s mother, Lily. Lily died to save Harry, throwing herself over top of her infant son to protect him from the green killing curse that was coming from the end Voldemort’s wand. In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Dumbledore describes this act of love to Harry, “If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. He didn’t realize that love as powerful as your mother’s for you leaves it own mark… to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever. It is in your very skin.” This very protection is what causes Harry to live and Voldemort to lose almost all of his power, and sets Voldemort on a quest to once and for all get rid of “the boy who lived”. This concept that grew up with Harry and is the essence of his existence is what eventually leads him to willingly embrace death when he later comes to understand that it is necessary to save others. He also does not draw the line at only saving those he loves, but sacrificing himself for the entire wizarding world, even when many of them are not worthy. A clear cut distinction is made between Harry, who gives life to others by his own self-sacrifice, and Voldemort’s will to death for others, specifically purebloods who to him are only worthy of life (Caldecott). This whole theme is a direct parallel to Christ and his self-sacrifice on the cross to save the sins of humanity, even those who greatly persecuted him. Harry, like Jesus, did not try to cheat death, but embraced it for the sake of