Harry Isn’t Quite Out Of His Teens When It Fully Hits Him—the War, The Blood And The Guts Spread

Harry isn’t quite out of his teens when it fully hits him—the war, the blood and the guts spread across the corridors of Hogwarts, the screams and sobs, the nightmares, the shadows that never seem to leave him.

It’s too much.

He gets a flat in London—Muggle London. Hermione and the Weasleys give him space. Kingsley ensures the wizarding world gives him privacy. Not that some aren’t reluctant. Rita Skeeter releases articles every day, wondering when their Boy Who Lived will return.

But Harry doesn’t see those articles.

He tries to forget who he is for awhile.

His flat is cozy. He stuffs it with plants and paintings and books. He has a cat (or three). He wears sweaters and blazers with corduroy pants. He goes to the market every morning to buy fruits and vegetables. That’s where he meets the kindly old woman who lives down the street.

She lived through World War II and so many other wars, wars that Harry has never experienced but can only imagine.

She goes to his house and she goes to hers. There’s always tea and small cakes and dinners and cocoa—apparently she believes that a teenager needs cocoa—and baking and reading and knitting.

Harry uses magic to brew the cocoa one day, not realizing that she’s standing in the doorway. She calms him by telling him that she knows all about magic.

Their conversations shift after that. They talk about their favorite creatures and how hard it was to watch them perish before their eyes. They talk about the wall that seemingly gave way to let them enter the magical world. They talk about lions and friends and family and love and betrayals and life and death.

“When did you leave?” Harry asks one day.

She pauses, a hand resting on his cat’s head. After a moment, she looks up with a heaviness in her eyes, a heaviness that Harry sees when he looks in the mirror everyday.

“I was young,” she says. “Younger than you are now. But I had already grown up. I didn’t want to leave, not really, but it became too much.”

“Do you regret it?”

“Some days I do, some days I don’t.”

“Yeah…”

It’s a few months later, when he’s helping her shovel the first snow from her walkway, that he asks, “Did you ever try going back?”

“Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t,” she says, shoving a cup of cocoa into his hands. “I was shut out as soon as I hesitated.”

He pauses, nearly dropping the cocoa, before whispering, “That’s horrible.”

“What about you?” She escorts him inside, her cane tapping against the floor that he’s magically heated to warm her feet. “Would you be welcomed back?”

“Oh, yeah,” Harry says. “Til they turn on me because they don’t like the color of my shirt or because I sneezed the wrong way or because—you name it.”

She laughs and he smiles.

“Imagine that,” she softly says. “Rulers of our worlds and we’re not even allowed in them.”

“Imagine that.”

He does go back to the wizarding world, of course, but he never forgets his London flat. He visits the street from time to time, knowing that Susan Pevensie will be there, ready to push a cup of cocoa into his hands.

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Palestine Masterlist

Introduction to Palestine:

Decolonize Palestine:

Palestine 101

Rainbow washing

Frequently asked questions

Myths

IMEU (Institute for Middle East Understanding):

Quick Facts - The Palestinian Nakba

The Nakba and Palestinian Refugees

The Gaza Strip

The Palestinian catastrophe (Al-Nakba)

Al-Nakba (documentary)

The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017 (book)

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (book)

Nakba Day: What happened in Palestine in 1948? (Article)

The Nakba did not start or end in 1948 (Article)

Donations and charities:

Al-Shabaka

Electronic Intifada

Adalah Justice Project

IMEU Fundraiser

Medical Aid for Palestinians

Palestine Children’s Relief Fund

Addameer

Muslim Aid

Palestine Red Crescent

Gaza Mutual Aid Patreon

Books:

A New Critical Approach to the History of Palestine

The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge

Hidden Histories: Palestine and the Eastern Mediterranean

The Balfour Declaration: Empire, the Mandate and Resistance in Palestine

Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique

From Haven to Conquest: Readings in Zionism and the Palestine Problem until 1948

Captive Revolution - Palestinian Women’s Anti-Colonial Struggle within the Israeli Prison System

Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History

Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics

Before Their Diaspora: A Photographic History of The Palestinians 1876-1948

The Battle for Justice in Palestine Paperback

Uncivil Rites: Palestine and the Limits of Academic Freedom

Palestine Rising: How I survived the 1948 Deir Yasin Massacre

The Transformation of Palestine: Essays on the Origin and Development of the Arab-Israeli Conflict

A Land Without a People: Israel, Transfer, and the Palestinians 1949-1996

The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood

A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples

Where Now for Palestine?: The Demise of the Two-State Solution

Terrorist Assemblages - Homonationalism in Queer Times

Militarization and Violence against Women in Conflict Zones in the Middle East

The one-state solution: A breakthrough for peace in the Israeli-Palestinian deadlock

The Persistence of the Palestinian Question: Essays on Zionism and the Palestinians

Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians

The False Prophets of Peace: Liberal Zionism and the Struggle for Palestine

Ten myths about Israel

Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question

Israel and its Palestinian Citizens - Ethnic Privileges in the Jewish State

Palestinians in Israel: Segregation, Discrimination and Democracy

Greater than the Sum of Our Parts: Feminism, Inter/Nationalism, and Palestine

Palestine Hijacked

Palestinian Culture:

Mountain against the Sea: Essays on Palestinian Society and Culture

Palestinian Costume

Traditional Palestinian Costume: Origins and Evolution

Tatreez & Tea: Embroidery and Storytelling in the Palestinian Diaspora

Embroidering Identities: A Century of Palestinian Clothing (Oriental Institute Museum Publications)

The Palestinian Table (Authentic Palestinian Recipes)

Falastin: A Cookbook

Palestine on a Plate: Memories from My Mother’s Kitchen

Palestinian Social Customs and Traditions

Palestinian Culture before the Nakba

Tatreez & Tea (Website)

The Traditional Clothing of Palestine

The Palestinian thobe: A creative expression of national identity

Embroidering Identities:A Century of Palestinian Clothing

Palestine Traditional Costumes

Palestine Family

Palestinian Costume

Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, v5: Volume 5: Central and Southwest Asia

Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and Adventure

Documentaries, Films, and Video Essays:

Jenin, Jenin

Born in Gaza

GAZA

Wedding in Galilee

Omar

5 Broken Cameras

OBAIDA

Indigeneity, Indigenous Liberation, and Settler Colonialism (not entirely about Palestine, but an important watch for indigenous struggles worldwide - including Palestine)

Edward Said - Reflections on Exile and Other Essays

Palestine Remix:

AL NAKBA

Gaza Lives On

Gaza we are coming

Lost cities of Palestine

Stories from the Intifada

Last Shepherds of the Valley

Voices from Gaza

Muhammad Smiry

Najla Shawa

Nour Naim

Wael Al dahdouh

Motaz Azaiza

Ghassan Abu Sitta

Refaat Alareer (murdered by Israel - 12/7/2023. Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un)

Plestia Alaqad

Bisan Owda

Ebrahem Ateef

Mohammed Zaanoun

Doaa Mohammad

Hind Khoudary

Palestinian Voices, Organizations, and News

Boycott Divest and Sanction (BDS)

Defense for Children in Palestine

Palestine Legal

Palestine Action

Palestine Action US

United Nations relief and works for Palestinian refugees in the Middle East (UNRWA)

National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)

Times of Gaza

Middle East Eye

Middle East Monitor

Mohammed El-Kurd

Muna El-Kurd

Electronic Intifada

Dr. Yara Hawari

Mariam Barghouti

Omar Ghraieb

Steven Salaita

Noura Erakat

The Palestinian Museum N.G.

Palestine Museum US

Artists for Palestine UK

Eye on Palestine

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luwinaforna24

4 years ago

When you think of perception, there’s a million versions of yourself out there that people think are actually you. You can be upset about that or make the best of it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ -Hawks

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luwinaforna24

4 years ago

Once is Always

The first day back in England, every one of the Pevensie children managed an extravagant fall.

Their legs are shorter than they should be, but they can’t say this out loud.

Weeks go by. Eventually, they all relearn how to walk.

But there are other, stranger things they can’t relearn.

Like how:

Lucy is eight.

Lucy is twenty-three.

She can’t remember how to be small and unimportant, or how to play children’s games. Fifteen years in another world have left her used to being listened to, relied upon. The horrors of war are far less frightening than the horror of ignorance, of tiny uncalloused hands. Or waking in the night remembering the culture, the world she left behind.

Like how:

And Susan is twelve - nearly - thirty.

With small children of her own under her care. She can’t forget the feel of them growing inside her.

She can’t unlearn the way her ears are always listening for them. Years later she is still celebrating birthdays for people who live only in her memory, only knee high. At night she’d kept awake wondering about the strangers she gave birth too.

So she keeps trying to forget.

For the boys it is different. But not better:

Peter is thirteen and full of anger. The adults call it puberty. The adults don’t realize the shadow in his eyes is the same shadow in the eyes of returning soldiers. High King Peter, with so many lives under his command now commands nothing, and knows nothing. Responsibility and questions weigh on him.

But Edmund wakes up one day and realizes that after so many years no stranger can ever go to war with him about a child betraying his family for roses and sugar. His worst mistake weighs only on his mind now. And somehow, it’s this small silver lining that lets him pull their family back from the brink. He is no longer the broken one, no longer haunted by a child he no longer is.

Even so.

The Pevensie’s are adrift in a world of smoke and debris, and the rolling empty countryside. The war here is not fought with swords and fangs, but gas, and fire from above.

A fate worse than death is not being turned to stone.

There is no Lion coming at the eleventh hour to save them all. No lion except the one they carry inside themselves.

And that would have to be enough.

So each Pevensie found a way to matter, to change, to save.

And a little bit of Aslan crept in around the corners when they needed him most.

There was a snap and a growl to Lucy her mother had never seen.

A spine of unyielding stone in Susan.

A soft listening silence in Edmund.

And in Peter a flash of fang, and reckless hope.

The Pevensies are not in Narnia.

So they took part of it with them.

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