Harry 2, Voldemort 0

Harry Potter beat Lord Voldemort again today. Well, really, Obama beat McCain. Or the people beat the status quo. Or hope beat fear. But that’s just semantics.

Everything that Harry Potter stands for: love, heart, nerve, gut, justice, goodness, friendship,
hope ’ all of that ’ won out over everything that Lord Voldemort stands for,
which can be neatly lumped together under the umbrella of fear.

I talk about hope and fear quite a bit. And I’m certainly not the only one,
especially within the last several weeks.
Perhaps it’s because I firmly believe that my Patronus will always win
out over the Dementor.

Or perhaps it’s because I was just reinforced in my
belief by a tidal wave of the American people, a people, I must admit, that I
had almost given up on in my darkest hour.

But the Lunas, Ernies and Seamuses of the world thought
happy thoughts for the Harrys, Rons and Hermiones of the world, when they
needed it most. They helped to drive the
darkness away. They helped to save America.

We, the people came through tonight. The majority of us united, like Gryffindors,
Hufflepuffs, and Ravenclaws (and even a few Slytherins), and managed to usher
in a new era for our country.

When the world was most threatened by the darkness that
has seeped into its soul these last several years, we the people rose to the occasion,
took responsibility for ourselves, and did what we had to do in order to ensure
a more balanced system.

And it certainly didn’t hurt that we had hope as our
guiding light. It never hurts, after
all, to allow hope to lead the way. Just
ask Harry. The impossible was made possible this day. The epic quality of the people’s
victory today is something that I haven’t quite fully absorbed yet.

But President-Elect Barack Obama made it clear that we
have our work cut out for us. There are
challenges that face our nation and the world that will not allow us much time
to celebrate this enormous milestone.

We need to get to work.
We need to reorganize our Ministry of Magic and do a complete overhaul of the Auror
Department. And that’s just the tip of
the iceberg.

But we the people have faced seemingly insurmountable
challenges before. And we the people
have reached deep down inside ourselves, finding that thread of humanity we all
share, which allows us to fight and unite together for the greater good of our
country, and the world.

Yes we can. That’s
a good message. That’s a hopeful statement. Yes we can.
Change the world. The youth vote
came out in huge numbers tonight.

I’d like to believe that Harry beating Voldemort had a
small part to play in that.