The Lightning Struck Tower: "It is My Mercy, Not Yours That Matters Now"
Source: The Lightning Struck Tower: "It is My Mercy, Not Yours That Matters Now"
The Lightning Struck Tower: "It is My Mercy, Not Yours That Matters Now"
The Tower shows a tall tower perched on the top of a rocky mountain. Lightning strikes set the building alight, and two people leap from the windows, head first and arms outstretched. It is a scene of chaos and destruction.
The Tower itself is a solid structure, but because it has been built on shaky foundations, it only takes one bolt of lightning to bring it down. It represents ambitions and goals made on false premises.
The lightning represents a sudden surge of energy and insight that leads to a break through or revelation. It enters via the top of the building and knocks off the crown. The people are desperate to escape from the burning building, not knowing what awaits them as they fall. Around them are 22 flames, representing the 12 signs of the zodiac and 10 points of the Tree of Life suggesting that even in times of disaster, there is always divine intervention - The Tower, Tarot description from Rider Waite cards [Trelawney pulls this card in chapters preceding Dumbledore's death]
- Knocks off the Crown: The significance of this scene
The chapter that makes Harry feel "he must abandon for ever the illusion he ought to have lost at the age of one: that the shelter of a parent's arms meant that nothing could hurt him. (...) the last and greatest of his protectors had died and he was more alone than he had ever been before."
The chapter where Harry transitions into an adult, as a leader, looked at by members of the Order of Phoenix as "Harry is the best hope we have, trust him." The chapter where Snape, a fellow "abandoned boy" Harry later recognises, commits patricide and kills his father figure, Albus Dumbledore at his request.
It's a transfer of power - Dumbledore falls off the tower, Harry takes the metaphorical crown and resolves to destroy Horcruxes, while Snape continues to enact Dumbledore's will from the shadows.
- One Bolt of Lightning to Bring it Down: The flaw in the plan
"Expelliarmus!"
Harry's body became instantly rigid and immobile, and he felt himself fall back against the Tower wall, propped like an unsteady statue, unable to move or speak. (...) Dumbledore had wordlessly immobilised Harry, and the second he had taken to perform the spell had cost him the chance of defending himself. (HBP)
In the moment of danger, Dumbledore immobilises Harry to stop him from intervening in a potentially dangerous situation, exposing him to Draco's Expelliarmus. The allegiance of the Elder Wand, whose power Dumbledore intended would die with him, shifts to Draco Malfoy. Dumbledore acted just as he lamented in the ending chapters of OOTP: "I cared about you too much. (...) In other words, I acted exactly as Voldemort expects we fools who love to act."
Harry recognises the flaw in the ending chapters of Deathly Hallows, and wins the Elder wand with an Expelliarmus too. Interestingly, it's a spell Harry learnt by observing Snape in Duelling Club with Lockhart.
but Harry had lost his temper. He pulled out his wand and shouted, "Expelliarmus!" and just as Snape had disarmed Lockhart, so Malfoy found the diary shooting out of his hand into the air. (COS)
When he uses it later in the book, he refers to Snape as "Professor" unprompted, crediting him for what would later turn out to be his signature spell:
"Expelliarmus!”
Lockhart was blasted backward (...) "Shouldn’t have let Professor Snape teach us that one,” said Harry furiously, kicking Lockhart’s trunk aside. (COS)
Snape would later be killed by Voldemort, in his quest to gain power over the Elder wand.
- The Tower: Conspiring to save Draco's soul
Two men met at a windy hilltop, the leader of Order of Phoenix and a Death Eater, begging for the life of a woman he loved. The leader asked what he would get in return, the former Death Eater said, "Anything" and an alliance was formed. These are the two men working for the war, making difficult decisions - as Dumbledore said, "Giving Voldemort what appears to be crucial information while withholding the essentials is a job I would entrust to nobody but you." - carrying burdens of deaths on their conscience.
Dumbledore: "How many people have you watched die?"
Snape: "Lately those who I cannot save"
In HBP, they conspire to save Draco's soul.
"That boy's soul is not yet so damaged," said Dumbledore. "I would not have it ripped apart on my account."
"And my soul, Dumbledore? Mine?"
"You alone know whether it will harm your soul to help an old man avoid pain and humiliation," said Dumbledore. (DH)
We have Dumbledore on the tower, trying to reach Draco, trying to spare him from the kill ("killing is not as easy as innocent believe") while Snape has taken the Unbreakable Vow to take Draco's place, to do it in his stead. Harry and Snape save Draco from being a murderer three times in this book - one, Harry finds Katie Bell and takes the cursed necklace to the castle and Snape saves her,
"Still very unwell, although she was relatively lucky. She appears to have brushed the necklace with the smallest possible amount of skin; (...) she would have died, perhaps instantly. Luckily Professor Snape was able to do enough to prevent a rapid spread of the curse --"
two, Harry when he remembers the Prince's instructions about the bezoar and saves Ron, in a way embodying Snape,
"Don't start, Hermione," said Harry. "If it hadn't been for the Prince, *Ron wouldn't be sitting here now."
"He would if you'd just listened to Snape in our first year," said Hermione dismissively.
and then, with Dumbledore's consent and orders on both counts, Harry weakens Dumbledore and Snape kills him.
Hating himself, repulsed by what he was doing, Harry forced the goblet back toward Dumbledore's mouth and tipped it, so that Dumbledore drank the remainder of the potion inside.
To
Snape gazed for a moment at Dumbledore, and there was revulsion and hatred etched in the harsh lines of his face. Severus . . . please . . . "
When Draco approaches him, Dumbledore tries to get him to join the right side - the same way, years ago, he met another Death Eater at the hill top and gained a spy. The conversation between Draco and Dumbledore, and Snape and Dumbledore goes differently - but it has the same elements, Dumbledore in control, in position of power in the conversation, and both Snape and Draco (despite his bravado), fearful and at his mercy.
The adult Snape was panting, turning on the spot, his wand gripped tightly in his hand, waiting for something or for someone... His fear infected Harry too, (...) Then a blinding, jagged jet of white light flew through the air. Harry thought of lightning, but Snape had dropped to his knees and his wand had flown out of his hand."Don't kill me!"
With Draco, it is Dumbledore, who has been weakened by the potion, who is physically lower than him, and is wandless. One could misread that power dynamic in the situation, as Draco certainly does. But Dumbledore reminds us and Draco, in a chilling moment, who really holds power:
"But I got this far, didn't I?" he said slowly. "They thought I'd die in the attempt, but I'm here . . . and you're in my power . . . I'm the one with the wand . . . you're at my mercy . . ."
"No, Draco," said Dumbledore quietly. "It is my mercy, and not yours, that matters now."
It is through Dumbledore and Snape's mercy that Draco's soul is saved, and it is through Harry's mercy in DH, Draco's life is saved.
- Even in Times of Disaster, there is Always Divine Intervention: Patricide
Dumbledore functions as the God figure in the story, who both Harry and Snape project their attachment trauma on. I talk about Snape's projection in Dumbledore here
They both go through similar arcs with Dumbledore - they both consider him a great, powerful wizard. ("Dumbledore has been a great wizard - yes he has - the Dark Lord acknowledges it" Snape tells Bellatrix in HBP)
They both have been in his office at the time of their biggest emotional breakdown:
"DON'T!" bellowed Snape. "Gone...dead..."
"Is this remorse, Severus?"
"I wish...I wish I were dead..." (DH)
Harry yelled at them, snatching up a lunascope and throwing it into the fireplace. 'I'VE HAD ENOUGH, I'VE SEEN ENOUGH, I WANT OUT, I WANT IT TO END, I DON'T CARE ANY MORE--' (OOTP)
They come out of that office, forged as Dumbledore's men - Snape, promising to protect Harry and Harry, with his knowledge of Voldemort's past, wanting to finish what they started.
They both have watched Dumbledore remove his god-like image in their eyes and become human - where Harry watches Dumbledore plead and beg in the cave due to the effect of the potion and when Dumbledore begs Snape to kill him.
They both go through similar disillusionment with him-
"You refuse to tell me everything, yet you expect that small service of me!" snarled Snape, and real anger flared in the thin face now. "You take a great deal for granted, Dumbledore! Perhaps I have changed my mind!" (DH) + the infamous "You have used me" scene.
"Maybe I am!" Harry bellowed. "Look what he asked from me, Hermione! Risk your life, Harry! And again! And again! And don't expect me to explain everything, just trust me blindly, trust that I know what I'm doing, trust me even though I don't trust you! Never the whole truth! Never!" (DH)
Ultimately, even with their disillusionment, they both choose to enact Dumbledore's plan, choosing the Greater Good. Snape passes on the knowledge that Harry has to sacrifice himself, in effect choosing the Greater good over his own personal atonement (saving Lily's son for her) and Harry chooses to walk to his death.
It is safe to say, that Harry is speaking for both of them here:
"Because," said Harry, "sometimes you've got to think about more than your own safety! Sometimes you've got to think about the greater good! This is war!"
What's quietly devastating about Dumbledore's death is that Dumbledore, who until then held power over Snape, shifts the power dynamic between them and pleads, asks for something he knows Snape doesn't want to do, hates to do.
Snape gifts Dumbledore his death, a gift of "a great adventure" to a well organised mind, an act of mercy that condemns him to be looked at by the very side he is fighting for as a monster. Snape has no way of knowing that Harry would try to restore his reputation and let his deeds be known, he condemns himself to a life of fighting alone and dying alone in an utterly miserable, violent death and unknown in that act.
However, Harry, the Christ figure of the story, arrives. In his own act of mercy, he goes to Snape's body, not quite knowing why. And Snape, after an act of self immolation that condemned himself, asks Harry to look at him - to see who he really is. Harry does. He sees the totality of who Snape is, and chooses to honour him as "the bravest man he ever knew" in act of forgiveness and gratitude.
