Storytelling for Week 6: The Mahabharata

Author's Note. For this week's storytelling, I decided I wanted to incorporate one of my favorite book series---Harry Potter! I've read the books one too many times and love them more each and every time. Since completing the Mahabharata, there is one scene that reminds me of something in one of the books. This will have a lot of spoilers about the last book in the HP series...just a warning! In the last book of the Harry Potter series [SPOILER ALERT], there is a stone, called the resurrection stone, that gave the owner the power to bring back loved ones from the dead (in a kind of half ghost, half living form). While reading the Mahabharata, there was a scene towards the end where the Pandavas get to see their lost loved ones in the Ganges River. In my story, I will write about the Harry Potter trio (Harry, Ron, and Hermione) and one of the Patil sisters, Pavarti, talking about this part of the Mahabharata. This story will take place following the [SPOILER ALERT] great Battle of Hogwarts where Harry is recalling the power of the stone that he used to see his loved ones before going to Voldemort--the big bad guy for anyone who has not read the series :). Just for some background information: the students attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry are put into certain "houses"/"teams" (Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin). Each "team" has a certain part of the castle where they live in, and each house's common room is a kind of living room that the students spend their time in. Any characters mentioned that are not the trio are simply other characters in the Harry Potter series. Hope you enjoy!




Gryffindor Common Room

Harry, Ron, and Hermione were sitting in the Gryffindor common room, recalling the events of the Battle that had just occurred a few weeks ago.

The trio in the Common Room (Image Source).

Harry always felt a stab of pain any time the Battle was mentioned. He could not help but feel the agony of the loss of so many of his closest friends, those he considered his family. Those that supported him. Those that fought for him. Those that died for him. He tried to push the thought away and focus on the positive changes that were slowly happening after their world had been rid of the awful enemy.

Hermione and Ron could not help but wonder at those moments right before Harry confronted Voldemort. Ron hesitantly approached the subject.

"Say, Harry, you don't have to tell us anything about it if you don't want to...but how did it feel right before you faced Voldemort. I mean, bloody hell, I would have been scared out of my mind!"

Hermione scolded him, "Oh Ronald. Be a bit more sensitive about this will you?!"

Harry realized he had not yet told his closest friends all about the time right before he was willing to give up his life to end the Battle of Hogwarts. Ron was right. He was scared out of his mind. Which is why he had used the resurrection stone. Harry decided the time was finally right to tell them just what unfolded in the last part of the Battle between him and Voldemort.

"It's fine, Hermione. Really. I'm sorry I haven't told you both about what happened but I've just had a lot to process."

Hermione didn't want Harry to feel guilty at all.

"Oh Harry, don't apologize! We know you needed time to think everything through."

Ron nodded in agreement and Harry finally began his story.

"As I was walking in the forest toward Voldemort, I could hear him and his followers in the clearance right beyond me. I was very nervous, like you said Ron. I needed support. But there was no one around me. I took the resurrection stone out of my pocket and, in that moment, I knew what I needed to do. I turned it over in my hand three times and whispered that I was about to die. It was incredible. Just incredible. Almost immediately, ghost-like forms of my parents, Lupin, and Sirius came forth. They were almost real, but not quite solid..y'know?"

Ron and Hermione could only nod in silence as Harry continued on.

"I could talk to them, they could talk to me. They gave me the support and love and comfort that I needed to take those steps toward Voldemort. I am still a bit freaked out about just how powerful that stone was. I mean really...I got to see my loved ones even after they died. Have you ever heard of something like that?!"

One of the Patil sisters, Pavarti, was sitting on a couch near the trio and could not help but overhear what Harry had been telling Ron and Hermione. She got up and made her way toward her fellow Gryffindors. To provide him with some comfort, she wanted to tell him about an Indian epic she had read a long time ago.

"Hi Harry. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but I couldn't help but overhear your story about the resurrection stone. You seem a little apprehensive about the incredible power of the stone. I just wanted to let you know that it is not a crazy idea. I read this Indian epic a while back called the Mahabharata, and in the story a similar thing happened. Following a lengthy and tragic battle, the survivors are in mourning and in need of reassurance and comfort...some closure as well, understandably. A great sage called Vyasa came and told them that he would be able to relieve their suffering. He told them that they should bathe in the great Ganges River and after that, they would be able to see their lost loved ones again."

Pavarti Patil in the Common Room (Image Source).

Harry listened with rapt attention, as though his life depended on it. What happened in the forest for him was no small incident. It was not something he could just accept and forget. It was a lot to take in and rationalize. He listened closely as Pavarti continued.

"They did as they were told and bathed in the Ganges. The river water began to bubble and foam, and one after another, all the deceased relatives and comrades ascended through the water. They reunited with their loved ones, hugged, wept, and held on to each other tightly. Their grief and suffering slowly began to ebb away as they felt such joy from seeing each other once again. Once the sun began to rise, the deceased parted from their loved ones and made their way back to the water. Although they would not come back to life, this powerful reunion of the dead with the living helped ease the sorrow and grief that everyone had felt. They got the closure that they needed. From that day on, they were able to go on with their lives, thinking of their lost loved ones with happy memories."

Harry felt as though a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He was not crazy. The stone was not crazy. Everything that had happened was not crazy. It was a process of closure that he had to go through. Harry wondered if the story Pavarti had told was real.

"What an incredible story, Pavarti. Thank you. Really. Thank you so much. You don't know how much I needed that. But...I am curious about something. Is this a real story or just something that someone made up in their head?"

Pavarti could only smile before saying, "Of course it happened inside their head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?"***


~The End~


Bibliography.
Indian Myth and Legend by Donald A. Mackenzie (1913). Web Source: Mahabharata [PDE].
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling (2007).
***A direct quote--(but spoken by Dumbledore) in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling (2007).