Death in Harry Potter

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"Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love."
- Dumbledore (Deathly Hallows, pg. 722)

"The Snitch. His nerveless fingers fumbled for a moment with the pouch at his neck and he pulled it out.
    I open at the close.
   Breathing fast and hard, he stared down at it. Now that he wanted time to move as slowly as possible, it seemed to have sped up, and understanding was coming so fast it seemed to have bypassed thought. This was the close. This was the moment.
   He pressed the golden metal to his lips and whispered, "I am about to die." ..............
      Lily's smile was widest of all. She pushed her long hair back as she drew close to him, and her green eyes, so like his, searched his face hungrily, as though she would never be able to look at him enough.
   "You've been so brave."
   He could not speak. His eyes feasted on her, and he thought that he would like to stand and look at her forever, and that would be enough.
   "You are nearly there, " said James. "Very close. We are... so proud of you."
   "Does it hurt?"
   The childish question had fallen from Harry's lips before he could stop it.
   "Dying? Not at all," said Sirius. "Quicker and easier than falling asleep."
   ... "You'll stay with me?" (said Harry)
   "Until the very end," said James."
(Deathly Hallows, page 698-700)

And slight change in the movie...... "You'll stay with me?" to which Lily replies, "We never left you."

No Man Is An Island

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John Donne's Meditation no. 17 from "Devotions upon Emergent Occasions" (1624):

No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man
is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a
Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse,
as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor
of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death
diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And
therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.

Death- From Jane Eyre

The following is a quote from the classic Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. The scene is 2 small children in a dreary orphanage. Jane has never had a loving family and lived with a wicked Aunt, until sent here. The headmaster calls her a liar and puts her on a stool (with a sign LIAR) to stand all day without food and water. Another small child, Helen, comforts her afterwards, bringing her some food and these words.....
The irony of course, is later her one and true friend, Helen, dies in Jane's arms.

"Helen, why do you stay with a girl whom everybody believes to be a liar?"
   "Everybody, Jane? Why, there are only eighty people who have heard you called so, and the world contains hundreds of millions."
"But what have I to do with millions? The eighty I know despise me."
   "Jane, you are mistaken: probably not one in the school either despises or dislikes you: many, I am sure, pity you much."
"How can they pity me after what Mr.Brocklehurst said?"
   "Mr. Brocklehurst is not a god: nor is he even a great and admired man; he is little liked here; he never took steps to make himself liked. Had he treated you as an especial favourite, you would have found enemies, declared or covert, all around you; as it is, the greater number would offer you sympathy if they dared. Teachers and pupils may look coldly on you for a day or two, but friendly feelings are concealed in their hearts and if you persevere in doing well, these feelings will ere long appear so much the more evidently for their temporary suppression. Besides Jane," - she paused.
"Well Helen?" said I, putting my hand into hers: she chafed my fingers gently to warm them, and went on-
   "If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends."
"No; I know I should think well of myself; but that is not enough: if others don't love me, I would rather die than live - I cannot bear to be solitary and hated, Helen. Look here; to gain some real affection from you, or Miss Temple, or any other whom I truly love, I would willingly submit to have the bone of my arm broken, or to let a bull toss me, or to stand behind a kicking horse, and let it dash its hoof at my chest,"-

   "Hush, Jane! You think too much of the love of human beings: you are too impulsive, too vehement: the sovereign hand that created your frame, and put life into it, has provided you with other resources than your feeble self, or than creatures feeble as you. Besides this earth, and besides the race of men, there is an invisible world and a kingdom of spirits: that world is round us, for it is everywhere; and those spirits watch us, for they are commissioned to guard us; and if we were dying in pain and shame, if scorn smote us on all sides, and hatred crushed us, angels see our tortures, recognise our innocence (if innocent we be: as I know you are of this charge which Mr.Brocklehurst has weakly and pompously repeated at second hand from Mrs.Reed; for I read a sincere nature in your ardent eyes and on your clear front), and God waits only the separation of spirit from flesh to crown us with a full reward. Why, then, should we ever sink overwhelmed with distress, when life is so soon over, and death is so certain an entrance to happiness - to glory?"

I was silent: Helen had calmed me...