Harry Potter (novel)/Tear Jerker

Philospher's Stone

• Eleven-year-old Harry looking into the Mirror of Erised and seeing his dead family is a heartbreaking moment and somewhat iconic in terms of the series as a whole.
  • On Pottercast, after DH had been released, John (I think, it's been three years) said he'd have liked to have read Harry looking into the Mirror again, only this time he'd've been the way Dumbledore described the "happiest man on Earth". Holy shit, was that emotional for this listener.

Prisoner of Azkaban

• When Harry realizes what his Patronus is.

"Prongs rode again last night."

• • Harry's learning of the Patronus (or rather, his initial struggle to do so) is sad in a way that's so obvious that it's almost subtle. Especially the film, where Harry fails the first time and Lupin asks him what happy memory he chose to try to power the Patronus. Harry responds with his first memory of riding a broomstick and Lupin says that it wasn't "nearly strong enough." But until Harry finds the loophole (the memory doesn't always have to be real - it can be a positive hope or dream or the like), that's literally the best he can come up with up to that point. :'(
• A rather subtle, but effective, moment comes in Prisoner of Azkaban when Harry catches himself half-hoping to be overwhelmed by a Dementor since, horrible as the experience is, it's the only time he's ever heard his parent's voices.

Goblet of Fire

• In Harry Potter 4, Harry mentions that it's Voldemort and his followers' fault for destroying these families. And that's when it hit this troper what the Death Eaters HAD done: mentally shattered Neville's parents, implied to have hurt a member of the Abotts, killed Moaning Murtle, ruined the Crouch family, killed most of the Tonks family, forced the Malfoy family to be separated, and killed Harry's parents, godparent, and James's friends. Even Wormtail counts. And this list isn't even over yet.
• Harry thinking about his parents never hugging him like that when Molly hugged him.
  • Not to mention that all the while, Harry was fighting back tears over Cedric's death.

Harry: I told him to take the cup with me.

• • Cedric's father, who acted like a pompous Jerkass towards Harry, won't take the Triwizard winnings and also lets him know that he doesn't blame him for Cedric's death.
• When dead Cedric asks Harry to take his body back to his parents.
• In Goblet of Fire: "And now another head was emerging from the tip of Voldemort's wand... and Harry knew when he saw it who it would be... knew, because the woman was the one he'd thought of more than any other tonight..." This is really one of the only times Harry ever gets to meet or speak to his parents.

Order of the Phoenix

• Two words: Sirius Black.
  • A subtle one with Lupin when Sirius dies- he's just lost the last of his best friends (Wormtail doesn't count), but instead of breaking down, he's trying to comfort Harry.
• Another subtle one this troper noticed from the film. Sirius Black's last words before he died were "Good Shot James!" That moment brings tears to this tropers eyes, when she thinks of how that is all Sirius wanted, one last little scuffle with his best friend. It makes his death easier to accept, because he is going to see James soon.
• The scene where Dumbledore explains to Harry why he wasn't made a prefect:

"I must confess... that I rather thought... you had enough responsibility to be going on with."

• Molly's personal boggart of seeing her sons (and Harry) killed.
  • That scene made her Crowning Moment of Awesome in DH even more awesome.
• In "Order of the Phoenix", Bellatrix taunting Neville about his parents ("Longbottom? Why, I've had the pleasure of meeting your parents, boy!"). It's made all the worse by the fact that we've seen them now. The tear jerker is his furious, heartbroken "I KNOW YOU HAVE!" The sheer emotion brings tears to your eyes, especially when you think about the fact that every time he sees his parents, it hits him all over again that this is the person who did that to them.
  • Personally, I'm a little furious that Neville didn't get to be the one to finish her off.
• In Order of the Phoenix, the scene where Moody gives Harry a photo of the original Order of the Phoenix and describes how many of them died. It's pretty sad because all of the subjects are smiling and waving at the viewer, oblivious to the fact that this photo was probably the last time they were all together and alive.
• I can't believe no one has mentioned the Order of the Phoenix film when Fred and George sit down to comfort a scared first year after he's been punished. They show him their hands and say, "See, it's not so bad. You can hardly see the scars." That one scene showed more about the true character of those young men than almost anything else in the movies. They aren't just good guys, they're good MEN, protecting AND comforting the weak when they need it.
• The scene in Dumbledore's office at the end of Order of the Phoenix. After everything that happens in the Department of Mysteries, Harry breaks.

Harry: I DON'T CARE! I'VE HAD ENOUGH, I'VE SEEN ENOUGH, I WANT OUT, I WANT IT TO END, I DON'T CARE ANYMORE--
Dumbledore: You do care. You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it.

• • It's made even worse when coming back to Book 5 after finishing the series. Why is Dumbledore so calm and understanding? Because he went through the same thing.
• "Snape's Worst Memory" becomes this after you read Deathly Hallows and realize just how much that particular memory hurt for the poor guy.
• The "flaw" in Dumbledore's plan.

"I cared about you too much. I cared more for your happiness than your knowing the truth, more for your peace of mind than my plan, more for your life than the lives that might be lost if the plan failed. In other words, I acted exactly as Voldemort expects we fools who love to act. Is there a defence? I defy anyone who has watched you as I have - and I have watched you more closely than you can have imagined - not to want to save you more pain than you had already suffered. What did I care if numbers of nameless and faceless people and creatures were slaughtered in the vague future, if in the here and now you were alive, well and happy? I never imagined I would have such a person on my hands."

• • This is basically Dumbledore admitting that, not only did he begin to love his most effective intended weapon against Voldemort the moment he saw how brave and selfless and good he (Harry) had become, he was probably trying to stop himself from caring about anyone this much after what happened to his sister.

Half-Blood Prince

• Dumbledore's funeral.
• Dumbledore throughout all of the scene in the cave, if you have read Deathly Hallows.
• When Harry sees Dumbledore's body on the grass next to the tower in Half-Blood Prince. It was bad enough seeing that Snape actually killed Dumbeldore, but the fight scene distracts you from that until Harry pushes through the crowd around Dumbledore's body. Then there's the bit with the fake locket.
• In Half-Blood Prince, when Slughorn finally gives Harry his memory. His sad declaration that he's not proud of what he did, and the way he tremulously asks Harry not to think too badly of him after he sees it touchingly and completely removes all ill will we might feel towards the poor guy.
• In Half-Blood Prince, when recruiting Slughorn to work at Hogwarts, Dumbledore told Harry that he wouldn't need to worry about being attacked, because "You (Harry) are with me (Dumbledore)". At the end of the book, after Dumbledore took all of the potion to get the fake Horcrux, Harry is helping Dumbledore get out of the cave, leading to this exchange:

"It's going to be all right, sir," Harry said over and over again, more worried by Dumbledore's silence than he had been by his weakened voice. "We're nearly there.... I can Apparate us both back.... Don't worry...."
"I am not worried, Harry," said Dumbledore, his voice a little stronger despite the freezing water. "I am with you."

• Snape's "Don't call me coward!" in book 6 becomes this when you realize how much he went through just to get to that moment.

Deathly Hallows

• Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, has this in bucketloads, including, but not limited to: Dobby's death and funeral, Fred Weasley's death, the Resurrection Stone scene, where Harry's parents, Sirius and Lupin appear to escort Harry to his almost certain death, Colin Creevey, "tiny in death", Dumbledore's past, especially when Dumbledore cries when recalling it to Harry, the scene where Harry visits his parents' graves in Godric's Hollow, "wishing he were sleeping under the snow with them".
  • Ron and Harry's meeting next to the icy lake.
  • When Harry learned that he is Voldemort's Horcrux; "Oh my God, he's really gonna die".
  • When Snape was killed.
    • His last words: "Look... at... me..." Because he wanted to see Lily's eyes one more time before he died.
    • Snape's death in the film. He's lying dying in the boat house from having his throat slashed by Voldemort and the bites from Nagini and he gives Harry the memories. His last words; You have your mother's eyes.... The whole time, Lily's Theme has been playing in the background.
  • There was a new scene added to Snape's memories. As Dumbledore tells Snape that Harry is the last Horcrux and that Harry must die, we see Snape visiting the Potters' home just shortly after Voldemort killed James and Lily. As Snape shows Dumbledore that his Patronus is a doe and Dumbledore asks "after all this time" and Snape replies "Always", we see Snape holding Lily's dead body and crying hysterically. And if that isn't bad enough, we see baby Harry kneeling in the crib behind him, face streaked with tears, clutching the bars and wailing inconsolably.
  • When Lupin says that his only regret in life is that he won't get to watch his son grow up.
  • The scene that shows Tonks's and Lupin's bodies, while Harry remembers that they had a son.
  • Here lies Dobby, a free Elf.
  • Hedwig's death.
  • The scene where Hermione is being tortured, while Harry and Ron listen, trapped in the basement of the Malfoy house.
    • The most tearjerk-y thing about that scene isn't even that Hermione is getting tortured, it's that Ron is absolutely losing it because he can't do anything.
  • Everything about Fred's death. Percy laying over his body to protect it, Ron trying to get Percy to move with tears streaking down his face, Harry and Percy moving the body away from the battle.

The world had ended, so why had the battle not ceased, the castle fallen silent in horror, and every combatant laid down their arms?

• • I am about to die. This troper survived Sirius, Dumbledore, Hedwig, Moody, Fred, Lupin, Tonks, and Dobby without shedding a tear. That scene made her bawl like a baby.
  • During the Battle of Hogwarts, when Harry sees that Lupin and Tonks are dead, he pretty much shatters emotionally, running blindly toward the only place where he feels safe: Dumbledore's office. When the gargoyle guarding the staircase to the office asks for the password, Harry says the first thing that comes to mind: "Dumbledore". The password works. Fridge Brilliance kicks in when you realize that Snape set that password, meaning that despite everything, he was just as dedicated to honoring the man's memory as Harry was.
  • Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and McGonagall's reaction to Harry's Disney Death.
  • This troper didn't cry until she read Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness. It turned all the people who died in the final battle from a Redshirt Army of background characters into people with hopes and dreams, families and best friends, people she'd gotten familiar with, people whose jokes and little quirks she'd laughed at, just all around PEOPLE.
  • A comparatively minor one, but the habit Harry develops of taking out the Marauder's Map just to look at Ginny's dot because that's the closest he can be to her.
• When Harry finds a letter his mom wrote to Sirius (in Deathly Hallows).
• Kreacher's Tale. That is all.
• Godric's Hollow. Everything: The grave scene, seeing his house with all the encouraging notes, and the statue commemorating the Potter family, all together.
• The Prince's Tale was actually a refreshing happy moment for a young Snape with him excitedly telling Lily about Hogwarts until this happens:

"And will it really come by owl?" Lily whispered.
"Normally," said Snape. "But you're Muggle-born, so someone from the school will have to come and explain to your parents."
"Does it make a difference, being Muggle-born?"
Snape hesitated. His black eyes, eager in the greenish gloom, moved over her pale face, her dark red hair.
"No," he said. "It doesn't make any difference."

• • "The Prince's Tale" as a whole is a massive Crowning Moment of Sadness for Snape. From his childhood to being bullied at school, to pushing Lily away and his reaction to her death, culminating with the fact that he spent the rest of his life trying to make up for causing it... This chapter rivals Dumbledore's funeral as the saddest one in the series.

Dumbledore: After all this time?
Snape: Always.

• Hermione putting a memory charm on her parents to keep them safe:

"Wendell and Monica Wilkins don’t know they have a daughter, see."

• • This was one of the saddest parts of the film adaptation, where Hermione magically edits herself out of the seventeen years' worth of family photos sitting on the Grangers' mantle after she erases her family's memories.
• Narcissa asking Harry whether Draco was alive. And then betraying Voldemort himself.
  • Then immediately afterwards, when the fighting breaks out again, her and Lucius running through the battle, not lifting a finger to help Voldemort's side, screaming for Draco. Two of the most devout Death Eaters in the series no longer care about Voldemort's war or blood purity or anything else and are simply reduced to two frantic parents desperately searching for their son. It was a moment that made two of the most unsympathetic characters in the books very human.
• In Deathly Hallows, when Lupin visits the Trio at Grimmauld Place and confesses to leaving his pregnant wife. While it's a painful moment for Lupin, so full of guilt and self-loathing, it's actually even worse for Harry, who has just seen his very last "father figure" knocked off a pedestal.

"Parents shouldn't leave their kids unless -- unless they've got to."

• • The way Harry hesitates during the sentence says all too clearly that he's thinking about his own situation - and possibly Tom Riddle's as well. As a result of their parents not being there (Tom Riddle the elder is implied to have abandoned Merope shortly after finding out she was pregnant), both of them were brought up in home situations where they were misunderstood, persecuted, and feared. What Harry really means to say is that the only good excuse for a parent not to be there for their child is if that parent dies. And considering Lupin's fate at the end of the book...
• Lupin died with a picture of his son in his pocket.

General

• Frank and Alice Longbottom's story.
  • Just like the scene in Goblet of Fire where Dumbledore explains to Harry what happened to Frank and Alice, and Harry himself is so appalled that he thinks he was lucky to just have his parents dead, whereas Neville's parents still live but can't even recognize their child, so damaged they were.
  • When Moody taught the Unforgivable Curses, it must have been having a hell of a moment for Harry and Neville...
    • That scene was so well-shot. When "Moody" used the Avada Kedavra on the spider, and just as you see the green flash and the spider's limbs start to go limp, the camera changes its focus depth to Harry in the background, who is absolutely white as a ghost because he sees the green light and almost knows what it is before "Moody" explains it.
  • It's actually both a Tear Jerker AND a Moral Event Horizon for Fake Moody. Think about it. HE is the one responsible for Alice & Frank's demise, along with the Lestranges. Now look at that scene again. He is basically torturing Neville for: A) His own ends, just to get a chance to revive his Lord, and B) Because he KNOWS how Neville would react.
  • Worse so in Harry Potter when Harry, Hermione, Ginny, and Ron actually see Neville with his parents at St. Mungo's. Neville's grandmother tells him to throw away the wrapper Alice has given her son, and he slips it into his pocket. Anything with Neville and his parents, really.
    • God, that scene... somehow it's made even worse by the fact that, in the middle of this fantasy series with all sorts of funny spell effects and whimsical noodle incidents, we get a very low-key, realistic depiction of a son visiting his mentally shattered parents.
    • What got me was Harry's reaction - the part where Neville looked like he was "daring them to laugh" and it said "Harry didn't think he'd ever seen anything less funny in his life."
• Just realizing that Harry won't be with Sirius in the end of Prisoner of Azkaban.
• Any moment between Narcissa's betrayal of Voldemort and Voldemort's death. The two that give me the worst case of tears are Slughorn (who has always been shown as a bit of a coward) leading the reinforcements for the Battle of Hogwarts and Molly Weasley fighting with Bellatrix Lestrange.
• The realisation that Andromeda Tonks lost her husband and her daughter's husband walked out on them. Then, he comes back, her grandson is named after her dead husband, and it seems okay. But then there's the battle at Hogwarts. Lupin leaves, and then so does her daughter, and neither of them come back, leaving her with her grandson, named for her husband, and with the same morphing abilities as her dead daughter. The woman barely appears in the book, but experiences as much loss as so many others. (Also, Sirius had died nearly two years beforehand, and a comment Sirius makes in Book 5 implies that they were closest to each other among their family members.)
  • Not to mention the fact that she's the sister of Voldemort's right-hand woman. You see Harry's reaction to her when he doesn't initially realize who she is (or rather, who she isn't), and wonder if other strangers had given her that same reaction. And then you wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that she and her husband live in a secluded location, away from other wizards and witches.
• Barty Crouch Jr.'s story. His past is still depressing. He was the "Well Done, Son" Guy, with a father who loved work a great deal more than his own son. He did whatever he could to impress his father, who never let Barty know that he was impressed at his top grades in the OWLs and the NEWTs. The only family member who loved him died to give him freedom, which he never obtained because he spent the next thirteen years under the control of his father via Mind Rape, which drove him mad. He sided with Voldemort because he was more like a father than his own to him.