What distinguishes a hero? A power? The family he comes from? Destiny?
Humans have always wondered what good and evil are, two categories we would like to keep apart from ourselves. But good and evil, as studies since the end of World War II (Hannah Arendt, Stanley Milgram, Philip Zimbardo) have made clear, are separated by a thin line that runs through us. A line called choice.
Harry Potter is not good. Harry Potter chooses good, and this is a fundamental difference. When the Sorting Hat sorts him—and also, in the future, when it questions his belonging—Harry replies, "Not Slytherin." He knows, he instinctively senses, that evil dwells within him; the hat strengthens him, "You could do great things." In a world obsessed with blood purity, Harry's first choice is to reject an imposed identity, a belonging that is an explicit metaphor for racism.
It's not even the prophecy that makes him a hero: it only describes what could happen, not who Harry is. Dumbledore himself says it: it was Voldemort's choice that gave weight to the prophecy, and this makes it clear that destiny does not exist without a choice—to do evil as well as to love. To love, in fact, is a verb, and as such it holds true to the extent that it is active, exercised. Love is practiced. The protection Lily leaves for Harry, her beloved son, is the concrete consequence of a choice: to die for someone. Good in Harry Potter always manifests itself as an act, never as a state of mind.
If this makes sense from a dramaturgical perspective, it does so because stories are a metaphor for life , and today more than ever, on April 25th, we cannot help but think that the partisans made a choice. Not with the fascists. Not with the Nazis. Not with those who suppress freedom with violence, but always for freedom that belongs to all and is for all. For all. The same inner drive that Hermione felt when she founded Crepa, the Committee for the Rehabilitation of Proletarian and Alienated Elves: a movement that wants to restore freedom even to those who believe they don't deserve it, because they belong to an "inferior race."
The elves themselves seem unwilling to be freed, yet Hermione insists, understanding that those who are oppressed may have internalized their own oppression. Freedom must sometimes be defended, even demanded, even for those who are unable to ask for it. It's a difficult lesson, and the parallel seems like a tightrope walk: yet, many Italians in 1943-45 didn't ask for the Resistance. The majority stood by, waiting. The partisans fought for them too , even for those who didn't openly support them, for those who feared the consequences freedom might bring. But, as we know, the fight for the freedom of others is often lonely and misunderstood.
After all, Calvino masterfully explains in "The Path to the Nest of Spiders" that the worst of those who fought for freedom were still better than the best of those who wanted to leave freedom to ferocious dictators, because it's the reason you fight that identifies you, that determines your belonging to one side of history, the right one or the wrong one. And there's nothing divisive about that.
Seven books, thousands of pages to teach us that good and evil are not abstract entities or ontological categories: they are choices, daily practices, exercises of freedom. It is important, however, to understand that if choosing good is a freedom, this implies that choosing evil is also a freedom. Death Eaters are not monsters. Sure, there are fanatics and madmen among them, but some have simply chosen not to oppose, to join out of fear or convenience. Draco Malfoy is perhaps the most powerful example: he is not evil, he is a boy who is afraid and obeys. When he pretends not to recognize Harry in "The Deathly Hallows," he chooses good, or at least chooses not to commit evil. Which rarely has the face of Voldemort. More often, it has the face of indifference, cowardice, and "it doesn't concern me." Hannah Arendt would have called it the banality of evil.
The partisans were not born heroes. They were boys, girls, farmers, workers, students, women, ordinary people who at a certain point said: no further. No more. Many had everything to lose. Many lost their lives. They had no certainty of victory, no prophecies, no Albus Dumbledore to guide them. They chose good in conditions of total uncertainty, and this makes their choice, if anything, even greater. Like Hermione with the elves, they fought for an idea of freedom and dignity that went beyond their own immediate self-interest.
April 25th, then, isn't a memorial: it's a reminder that good demands choice. It's not enough not to be Voldemort or Hitler. You have to be willing to be Hermione, and fight for the freedom even of those who don't believe they deserve it; be Ron, capable of making mistakes but retracing his steps; and, finally, be Harry, who, faced with the lure of power, chooses. Because freedom is choice, always.