I just finished reading the Harry Potter series for the first time. It was an incredible journey of love, friendship, and sacrifice and I can’t wait to read it again, but something that happened in the end of the final book made me think. Hard.

If you haven’t read the story, I’ll catch you up as concisely as I can, for the sake of this post. Two wizards — Harry and Voldemort. Voldemort is evil and kills a lot of people, and he intends to kill Harry. Along the way, Voldemort made what they call “Horcruxes”. Basically, it’s a piece of his soul that he broke into 7 pieces, thinking that if at least one Horcrux is safe, he is immortal. This isn’t really a spoiler because it’s been published for a while, but, when Voldemort tried and failed to kill Harry when Harry was a baby, he made an unintentional Horcrux in Harry. So, in essence, a part of this villain was always living inside of Harry even if neither of them knew.

When Harry figures out he is a Horcrux, he knows that for Voldemort to be ultimately defeated, Harry must sacrifice himself to death. Turns out, Voldemort didn’t kill  Harry but finally destroyed his Horcrux living inside of him, and because of that Harry can defeat him later.

Everyone wants to be Harry. He’s the hero. He’s brave. I know I am no Harry. I’m the goofy best friend who would rather eat than go find Horcruxes. . .

But. . .

We’re all Harry. We all have an unsightly piece living within us, through no fault of our own,  that we can chose to let control us or we can chose to claim our victory over it. Once Harry surrenders this part of himself, he has freedom and power he never had before. The same can be true for us, all it takes is surrender.