Mystery in Harry Potter

If there’s one thing everyone can agree on about the Harry Potter phenomenon, it’s that J.K. Rowling has borrowed quite a bit. This is seen as both a positive and a negative thing, depending on who’s talking. Harold Bloom, in a famous editorial for the Wall Street Journal in July of 2000, stated that Rowling’s basis was the classic Tom Brown’s Schooldays by Thomas Hughes: “Rowling has taken Tom Brown’s School Days and re-seen it in the magical mirror of Tolkien.” He dismisses the first Harry Potter book (the only one he bothered to read), asking “Can more than 35 million book buyers, and their offspring, be wrong? Yes, they have been, and will continue to be so for as long as they persevere with Potter.” Bloom is not alone in seeing Rowling’s work as inferior because it is derivative. Others see things differently, proclaiming that it is Rowling’s skill in weaving together many different genres that makes the Harry Potter series so unique. Anne Hiebert Alton stated that “rather than creating a hodgepodge with no recognizable or specific pattern, Rowling has fused these genres into a larger mosaic, which not only connects readers’ generic expectations with the tremendous success and popularity of the Harry Potter series but also leads to the ways in which the series conveys literary meaning” (141). One of the primary genres (other than the obvious fantasy genre) which Rowling makes use of in her series is the mystery. It is part of what gives Harry Potter its widespread appeal: adults and children alike enjoy trying to piece together the clues along with (or even before) Harry.

Each book in the Harry Potter series—numbering six at the moment, with a seventh volume eagerly awaited by fans—contains a mystery to be solved by Harry, usually with the help of his two best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry is determined to discover what was hidden in Vault 713 in Gringotts Bank and subsequently moved to Hogwarts, and who exactly is intent on stealing it. In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry must discover who the Heir of Slytherin might be, how they are perpetrating the attacks which leave students Petrified, and why Dobby the house-elf keeps trying to save his life. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban finds Harry searching for clues as to why Sirius Black might want to kill him, why a mysterious black dog keeps showing up, and who really was responsible for his parents’ deaths. In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry must try to discover the answers to the mysterious dreams he keeps having, who put his name in the Goblet of Fire, and why various acquaintances are acting very strangely. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix has Harry looking for clues wherever he can find them about what Voldemort is up to, what the secret weapon is that he’s so intent on getting, and why he keeps having these mysterious dreams. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince shows Harry pursuing several avenues of inquiry—why Draco Malfoy is acting the way he is, how Voldemort’s past can show him what he needs to know in the future, and what exactly Professor Slughorn attempted to erase from his memory. Time only will tell what mysteries Harry will be called on to solve in volume seven, but solving the mystery of the identity and location of the missing horcruxes is sure to be a large part of it. Overarching all of these mini-mysteries is the greatest mystery of all: Why does Voldemort want to kill Harry, what really happened the night his parents were killed, and how can Harry defeat him at last? Each of the smaller mysteries contributes in some way to the larger one, and each brings Harry closer to the final confrontation with Voldemort.

Laying the Foundation

The key to any good mystery story is to make the puzzle sufficiently interesting. Rowling certainly accomplishes this in the first chapter of the first novel, when she introduces the central mystery of the series. After explaining that Voldemort, a wizard so evil that most other magical folk fear saying his name, has killed James and Lily Potter, Rowling introduces our hero:

Professor McGonagall’s voice trembled as she went on. “That’s not all. They’re saying he tried to kill the Potter’s son, Harry. But — he couldn’t. He couldn’t kill that little boy. No one knows why, or how, but they’re saying that when he couldn’t kill Harry Potter, Voldemort’s power somehow broke — and that’s why he’s gone. Dumbledore nodded glumly.

“It’s — it’s true?” faltered Professor McGonagall. “After all he’s done... all the people he’s killed... he couldn’t kill a little boy? It’s just astounding... of all the things to stop him... but how in the name of heaven did Harry survive?”

“We can only guess,” said Dumbledore. “We may never know.” (12)

But we, as a reader, must know—even if it takes seven books to finally find out. Rowling similarly “hooks” the reader with the mystery of the Sorcerer’s Stone by having Hagrid point out repeatedly how important it is, only to juxtapose that idea with a tiny grubby package. Again and again, Rowling lays the foundation for the mystery at hand: Dobby’s mysterious warnings in Chamber, the terrifying appearance of the large black dog in Azkaban, the murder of Frank Bryce as witnessed by Harry in a dream in Goblet, the refusal of anyone to give Harry any information of Voldemort’s doings in Order, and the mysterious behavior of Draco Malfoy in Half-Blood Prince. Rowling catches our interest, and leaves us eager to find out more.

Clues and Red Herrings

Rowling is similarly adept at giving well-hidden clues while simultaneously misdirecting our attention. The first example of this comes in Stone, when Harry sees Professor Snape for the first time:

Harry, who was starting to feel warm and sleepy, looked up at the High Table again. Hagrid was drinking deeply from his goblet. Professor McGonagall was talking to Professor Dumbledore. Professor Quirrell, in his absurd turban, was talking to a teacher with greasy black hair, a hooked nose, and sallow skin.

It happened very suddenly. The hook-nosed teacher looked past Quirrell's turban straight into Harry's eyes — and a sharp, hot pain shot across the scar on Harry's forehead. (126)

Harry assumes (as does the first-time reader) that the pain has something to do with Professor Snape, when in reality his scar is reacting to Voldemort himself, who is hiding under Professor Quirell’s turban. In Chamber, Rowling cleverly plants clues to the identity of the attacker and the eventual solution throughout the book: Ginny running back to the Burrow for her diary (66), Harry’s ability to speak Parseltongue when no one else can (196), the mysterious behavior of the spiders and the slaughtering of the school roosters (201), and even Ron’s joking uttered suggestion that Tom Riddle had killed Moaning Myrtle (232). In the meantime, we’re also misdirected: Hagrid’s appearance in Knockturn Alley (54), Draco Malfoy’s cry of “You’ll be next, Mudbloods!” (139), Percy’s odd behavior skulking around empty classrooms (219), and Tom Riddle’s depiction of his “capture” of Hagrid (246–248).

As adept as Rowling is at planting clues for her smaller mysteries, it becomes more and more obvious as the series goes on that she is even more clever at planting clues for the larger one. We learn in Stone that it was Lily Potter’s love for Harry that saved his life all those years ago (299), in Order of the Phoenix it is hinted that love is “the power that the Dark Lord knows not” (841, 844), and finally in Prince it is expressed openly: “‘So, when the prophecy says that I’ll have “power the Dark Lord knows not,’ it just means—love?’ asked Harry, feeling a little let down.” “Yes—just love,” said Dumbledore” (509). Similarly, the diary Harry destroyed in Chamber has turned out to be so much more important than just a diary—it contained a piece of Voldemort’s soul, and by destroying it, Harry took one step closer to destroying Voldemort for good (500-501). In perhaps the biggest twist of all, the many misdirections which pointed, time after time, to Snape as the “bad guy” only to be proved wrong, may finally have been proved right: Snape has, seemingly, irrevocably proved his allegiance to Voldemort (although there are many theories that dispute that). With one book still left to go, who knows how many more clues we will discover, hidden in the pages of the previous six books?

In a book review written for the New York Times, Stephen King expressed his admiration of Rowling’s talent for writing mysteries:

In a Newsweek interview with Malcolm Jones, Rowling admitted to reading Tolkien rather late in the game, but it's hard to believe she hasn't read her Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers. Although they bear the trappings of fantasy, and the mingling of the real world and the world of wizards and flying broomsticks is delightful, the Harry Potter books are, at heart, satisfyingly shrewd mystery tales. Potter 3 (''Azkaban'') dealt with Harry's parents (like all good boy heroes, Harry's an orphan) and cleared up the multiple mysteries of their deaths in a way that would likely have pleased Ross Macdonald, that longtime creator of hidden pasts and convoluted family trees.

King is correct. Amidst the magic wands, the magical creatures, and the sinister spells, Harry Potter is a mystery: one that millions of people can’t wait to see solved.

Works Cited

Alton, Anne Hiebert. “Generic Fusion and the Mosaic of Harry Potter.” Harry Potter’s World: Multidisciplinary Critical Perspectives. Elizabeth E. Heilman, ed. New York: RoutledgeFalmer, 2003.

Bloom, Harold. “Can 35 Million Book Buyers Be Wrong? Yes.” Wall Street Journal, 11 July, 2000, p. A.26

King, Stephen. “Wild About Harry”. New York Times, 23 July 2000. Accessed online 15 December 2005. <http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/07/23/reviews/000723.23kinglt.html?oref=login>

Rowling, J[oanne]. K[athleen]. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. New York: Levine-Scholastic, 1997.

---. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. New York: Levine-Scholastic, 1998.

---. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. New York: Levine-Scholastic, 2000.

---. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. New York: Levine-Scholastic, 2003.

---. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. New York: Levine-Scholastic, 2005.