As I re-read Harry Potter over break, a question inspired by the recent hubbub over The Golden Compass swirled in the back of my mind: is there any reason the Harry Potter books should be banned from schools? I perceived no objectionable material, particularly in this last book. In fact, Rowling renders magic not only incidental, but ultimately powerless in this epic struggle between good and evil.
Magic allows Harry, Ron and Hermione to travel, communicate and escape. Magic protects them, but they accrue no power through their use of magic. Lord Voldemort, who seeks power through magic, suffers a two part defeat which further marginalizes magic as a power to be sought. In the first part of Voldemort's defeat, the wandless Harry puts up no resistance to his foe's killing curse which kills only the part of Lord Voldemort that lived within Harry. And in the second instance, Harry meets Lord Voldemort's killing curse with a rudimentary curse, the first spell he learned at Hogwart's: expellarimus.
To a petition-bearing mom intent on banning the Harry Potter series from her child's schol library, I imagine myself patiently explaining that Rowling consistently identifies love as the most powerful force in the universe. Magical power pales in comparison to the power of love. By the end of the novel, magic operates in the realm of fantasy and whimsy. Characaters penetrate brick walls to get on a train and portraits leave their frames to chat with other portraits, hardly the stuff of dark, satanic magic.
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