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Harry dozed fitfully, sinking into dreams full of clammy, rotted hands and petrified pleading, jerking awake to dwell again on his mother's voice.

Harry potter and the prisoner of Azkaban

Harry is having a nightmare of his dead mother. So I guess the part marked in bold means something similar, but don't know what exactly it means.

It's hard to understand this phrase because I don't know why "to" is used here(grammatical role of "to" maybe?), and also because of "dwell on ~".

Does this mean Harry suddenly woke up, because of her mother's voice?

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    It's a slightly odd juxtaposition of meanings, since jerking awake is a sudden activity, whereas dwelling on [some obsessive idea] is a very extended activity. But putting that aside, consider a typical construction like He jerked awake to find she was gone. In that (and in your cited example), the "meaning" of to is simply that the second activity (dwelling on something, or finding something out) came at the same time or immediately after the sudden awakening. In your example, there's no sense of "because" whatsoever.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Jan 22, 2018 at 14:59
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    Another phrase with the same meaning is awoke with a jerk. A jerk is a sudden spasm. After a night of heavy partying, she awoke with a jerk.
    – TimR
    Commented Jan 22, 2018 at 20:26
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    It does not mean H.P. awoke 'because' of his mother's voice. It means H.P. awoke suddenly (contextually due to nightmares) and once awake began to think, obsess, dwell on/about his mother's voice.
    – EllieK
    Commented Jan 22, 2018 at 21:48

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The infinitival clause there expresses what happens next without any intervening events, and so it can be used to convey a sense of abruptness or surprise:

He rounded the corner to find his brother standing there on the sidewalk and speaking on his mobile phone.

He doesn't round the corner with the intention of finding his brother. Finding his brother is what happens immediately upon his rounding the corner.

It can also be used to convey a sense of that which is relentlessly true:

He shook the iron bars to discover again there was no escape from this prison.

In a similar usage, sometimes it is used with the word only and then it conveys the sense of a (recurrent) disappointing result:

He jumped again as high as he could only to fall short of the grapes hanging from the trellis.

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    He rounded the corner to find his brother standing there on the sidewalk and speaking on his mobile phone. I'm wondering how to paraphrase the sentence. My try: He rounded the corner and immediately find his brother standing there on the sidewalk and speaking on his mobile phone.
    – dan
    Commented Jan 23, 2018 at 1:37
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    @dan: Try it with when. When he rounded the corner he found his brother.... or better yet, with rounding: Rounding the corner he found his brother....
    – TimR
    Commented Jan 23, 2018 at 13:40

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