Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

The Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows book opens with a Quaker reflection on the immortality of friendship.

William Penn at the beginning of Harry Potter

When millions of readers opened Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in 2007, they encountered something unexpected before the story had even begun — a quote from a 17th - 18th Century Quaker. The quotation comes from William Penn (1644 - 1718), the Quaker founder of Pennsylvania and one of the first generations of Friends.

Rowling drew the quotation from Penn's More Fruits of Solitude, published in 1703. She shortened and reworked a series of reflections from a section entitled 'Union of Friends', bringing together Penn's thoughts about death, separation and friendship.

“Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still.“

Death as a crossing

Penn's image is simple. Death is a crossing rather than the destruction of friendship. Just as friends separated by an ocean remain connected to one another, death creates distance without necessarily ending the relationship.

Sea crossings were familiar in Penn's world. Friends travelled between Britain, continental Europe and the American colonies to preach, settle and maintain Quaker communities. Leaving someone behind did not mean that friendship had ceased. It meant that the relationship continued across a physical separation.

Penn carried that idea beyond geography. In 'Union of Friends', he wrote that love could survive even the greatest separation of all. Friends who died could still, in his words, “live in one another still”. It is an image of distance held within relationship.

The immortality of friendship

Penn made the meaning clearer at the end of the same sequence of reflections. He wrote that although Friends might be said to die their, “Friendship and Society“ remained present because they were immortal.

The thought begins with individual friendship but can also be understood through the continuing life of the Society of Friends. Individual Quakers are born, live and die, while the friendships, influence and spiritual inheritance carried within the community continue into another generation.

A Meeting therefore belongs to more than the Friends who happen to be present at one moment in its history. Each generation receives something from those who came before and, in turn, leaves something for those who follow. Quaker friendship reaches beyond the lifetime of any one Friend.

Penn's words still living

More than three centuries after Penn wrote those reflections, J.K. Rowling placed them at the threshold of the final Harry Potter novel. She later described Penn's words as having “served as a guiding light” that led her where she needed to go.

Penn wrote that Friends continue to live in one another, and his own words continued long after his death. They passed from the pages of a Quaker-written book into a 21st century novel and were encountered there by millions of readers who may never previously have heard of William Penn.

The quotation at the beginning of the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows book therefore carries its own quiet demonstration of Penn's idea. Individual Friends pass away, but friendship, influence and the Society they helped to shape continue. In Penn's words, they, &quo;Live in one another still &quo;.