Friends

One of my favorite scenes from the Harry Potter books never made it into the movies. It’s from the last book, The Deathly Hallows. Things are not going well for Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley.  The three teenagers are hunted by a corrupt government and separated from friends and family as fear and evil spread over the Magic and non-magic worlds.

            The three find themselves at a school friend’s home. While the point of the visit was to speak to her father, in the book the trio wonder into her room during the visit, where they find that their friend, Luna, has covered her walls with paintings of not just them, but of a few of their other friends as well. Linking the portraits are what look like gold chains, but what is really the word “friend “repeated over and over again in gold script.  It was then that they realized not only how much Luna cared for them, but how much they cared for her.

 Sometimes we get so caught up in our ordinary lives that we think great, solid, even epic friendships only exist on the page or on the screen. While the only epic things done with friends may be trips to Disney World, Dungeon and Dragon games, or Lord of the Rings marathons, the fact that we have friends is epic in of itself.  Friends are precious gifts in a challenging world and I thank God for mine.