Originally Posted by
TheFifthElement
Yes, I think so. I think it's also significant that he kills Hermine in the end, and so he is 'condemned to live'. Hermine seems to represent the part of Harry which is adept in the things he himself avoids/despises - dancing, socialising, etc - and in expressing her wish for Harry to kill her this was, instead, Harry himself expressing his desire to destroy those aspects of his personality which he seemed to see as base or alien to him. But that wasn't his lesson, and so he failed; he didn't achieve 'Immortality' and was instead condemned to live. Because it seemed to me that he was supposed to be learning to live with, to embrace, all aspects of himself, to put aside his personality (or perhaps what he perceived was his personality) instead of permitting his perceived dual nature to pull him apart and feed his desire for self destruction. I think this is the 'healing' of which Hesse spoke. Or I might be miles off the mark, but that's what I got from it anyway.