Growing up with Harry

The Harry Potter books are written in a way that the audience watches how all the characters grow up and pass through adolescence together.  The books are not only a series about overcoming evil, but also about coming of age of the characters.  Starting from age eleven, Harry is young, but pretty mature for being so young.  Harry, more than any of the other students, has had more heartache and gone through so much.  Living with his aunt and uncle, who showed him no love, gave him a reason to grow up more and faster than someone like Ron, who grew up in a very loving family.  He also became much more independent in this setting, which has helped him to overcome the obstacles set in front of him.

Throughout the series, Harry is pushed to overcome evil and not succumb to it.  Every chance he has had to fight for the good, he has and succeeded.  Even being as young as eleven and twelve, he had fought Voldemort to retrieve the Sorcerer’s Stone and also to kill the memory of Voldemort as well as the monster within in the Chamber of Secrets.  For a young age, Harry has had to grow up quickly and Dumbledore has watched him do so.  Though Harry had shown his strength and worth, Dumbledore decided to hold off on telling him his inevitable fate, in which either he must murder Voldemort or be murdered by him.

J.K. Rowling had to write a strong character that would be able to deal with this terrible fate.  Making a character like Harry, who had to deal with losing his parents before he had a chance to get to know them and grow up in an unloving house, made him such a strong and mature person who has a chance to defeat evil for good with the help of Dumbledore.  Harry has developed into an even stronger individual having to pass so many obstacles, including the Triwizard Tournament.  The way Harry takes the news of his fate from Dumbledore shows his maturity and strength.  Though only at fifteen years old, he has accepted the life he was born into and ready to do what it takes to overcome all evil.  I do not believe many fifteen year olds would have accepted that as well as Harry did.