5 More Days

“Never used an Unforgivable Curse before, have you, boy?” she (Bellatrix) yelled. She had abandoned her baby voice now. “You need to mean them, Potter! You need to really want to cause pain—to enjoy it---righteous anger won’t hurt me for long—"
--Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix page 810

I want to point out a specific part of this quote: righteous anger won’t hurt me for long. I have to admit I think this line is fabulous. At this point in the book, Harry is fighting for his life against the evil Death Eaters. He has just watched Bellatrix murder his godfather and he doesn’t even know if his friends have survived the terrible fights with the Death Eaters. He is angry. And he has every right to be angry. And it is this fact and the fact that Harry has love within him that he cannot truly hurt Bellatrix. As angry as Harry is at the loss of his godfather, he cannot truly enjoy the pain of another. His righteous anger is no match for the evilness of Bellatrix.

This is a quote where the lesson is what we take from it. It is not something that I can completely explain, but I can say that this scene leaves me pondering each time I read it.