Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the fifth book in the Harry Potter series of books by J. K. Rowling. The book was published on 21 June 2003 in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia, and several other countries. It sold almost seven million copies in the United States and the United Kingdom combined on that day. It has 38 chapters, and is about 255,000 words long [1].
On 5 April 2006 Warner Brothers announced that the film of the same name, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, will be released in cinemas on 13 July 2007. [1]
Editions
- Bloomsbury (United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada etc.)
- ISBN 0-7475-5100-6 Hardback
- ISBN 0-7475-6940-1 Hardback (adult edition)
- Scholastic (United States etc.)
- ISBN 0-439-35806-X Hardback
Translations and Publishing
The first official foreign translation of the book appeared in Vietnamese on 21 July, 2003, when the first of 22 instalments were released. The first official European translation appeared in Serbia and Montenegro in Serbian, by official publisher Narodna Knjiga, in early September 2003. Other translations appeared later, e.g. in November 2003 in Dutch and German. The English language version has topped the best seller list in France; while in Germany and The Netherlands an unofficial distributed translation process has been started on the net [2].
In the Czech Republic a college student translated the book in July/September, long before its intended release date, and one 14-year old schoolboy made it available on his private website. This led to confusion, with many newspapers stating that this unofficial translation was done by group of teenagers [3] and the official Czech publisher (Albatros [4]) announcing that they would sue the schoolboy. Later they retracted this announcement.
In Britain, the blind then-Home Secretary David Blunkett complained about the delay of the cassette version of the book, as well as its projected price.
The Canadian version of the book is made from recycled paper and saved 29,640 trees in the initial print run of 1 million books. J.K. Rowling comments on this in a message written specifically for the Canadian edition of the book.
The German translation of this book is 300 pages longer than the English version.
Plot Overview
One night, as Harry wanders about Little Whinging, he, and also his cousin Dudley, are attacked by Dementors. Harry fends them off with a Patronus Charm, but Dudley is hurt. A neighbour, Arabella Figg, comes to help, revealing she was asked by Albus Dumbledore to watch over Harry. Back home, Harry receives a letter stating he has been expelled from Hogwarts (underage students are forbidden to perform magic outside school) and must appear at a hearing at the Ministry of Magic to explain his actions.
Several members of the Order of the Phoenix arrive to escort Harry to their secret headquarters at the Black family home, 12 Grimmauld Place in London. The Weasleys, Hermione, and Harry’s godfather Sirius Black are there. Harry is upset when he is denied detailed information regarding the Order's plans to fight Lord Voldemort. The Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, refuses to believe Voldemort has returned and has been discrediting Harry and Dumbledore through articles in The Daily Prophet.
Mr. Weasley accompanies Harry to the hearing, arriving late because they were unaware the time was changed. Dumbledore arrives with Mrs Figg, whose testimony that Harry acted in self-defense clears him. As they leave the Ministry, Harry sees Lucius Malfoy, a known Death Eater, visiting Fudge at the ministry.
Harry and his friends return to Hogwarts aboard the Hogwarts Express, sharing a compartment with the rather unusual Luna Lovegood. Hagrid has not returned to the school, and Dolores Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister, has been appointed by the Ministry to become the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. It becomes clear she is there to spy on and take control of the school. She refuses to teach any practical Defense Against the Dark Arts techniques, and is soon appointed High Inquisitor, intimidating staff and students. She harbors an immense dislike for half-breeds, Centaurs, and similar creatures.
Ron is the new Keeper for the Gryffindor Quidditch team. The season starts well, but Umbridge bans Harry and Fred and George Weasley from the team. Ron's younger sister, Ginny, becomes the new seeker. Hagrid returns, revealing he and Madam Maxine were on a failed secret mission for Dumbledore to recruit the giants against Voldemort. Both he and Professor Sybill Trelawney are heavily scrutinized by Umbridge, who views both incompetent. Umbridge's dislike for Hagrid is intensified by her prejudice towards "half-breeds" (Hagrid is half-giant). Umbridge sacks Trelawney, but Dumbledore replaces her with his own appointment, Firenze, before she can hire another teacher.
Harry is having strange dreams, mostly about running down a hallway and attempting to open a door in the Ministry of Magic's Department of Mysteries. In one nightmare, Harry dreams he is a snake attacking Ron's father, Arthur Weasley, who works at the Ministry. Waking up, Harry raises the alarm, believing he had a vision, and Arthur is indeed discovered with venonmous snake bites. Harry wonders if he is being possessed and transported by Voldemort to do his bidding. Dumbledore reassures him he is not, but asks Severus Snape to give Harry lessons in the art of Occlumency, the ability to block one's mind from another.
Threatening to expose her as an unregistered animagus, Hermione blackmails hack journalist Rita Skeeter into writing an article about Harry and Voldemort's return. Luna Lovegood's father publishes the article in his newspaper The Quibbler. Furious, Umbridge bans the tabloid at the school, but the story spreads rapidly, garnering support for Harry.
Hermione convinces Harry to secretly teach students Defense Against the Dark Arts. They form the D.A. (Defense Association), but this eventually becomes Dumbledore's Army in retaliation against Umbridge. She discovers the secret meetings, and to protect the students, Dumbledore claims he organized the group. When confronted by two Ministry Aurors, Fudge, and Umbridge, Dumbledore spectacularly disapparates. Umbridge appoints herself Headmistress, although Dumbledore's office is now impenetrable. Meanwhile, the Weasley twins instigate a student revolt, causing mayhem throughout the school. The teachers pointedly do nothing to help the new Headmistress regain control. Finally, the twins hop on their brooms, leaving the school for good to start their own joke shop. As a parting gesture, they leave a magical swamp inside the school.
Harry has a vision that Sirius is being tortured at the Department of Mysteries. He desperately attempts to contact Sirius via the fireplace in Umbridge's office but is caught. Umbridge reveals it was she who sent the Dementors to attack Harry during the summer. As she is about to use an Unforgivable Curse on him, Hermione tells her that Dumbledore has hidden a powerful weapon in the woods. Once in the forest, Umbridge foolishly insults the centaurs. Enraged, they carry her off screaming. Harry and company use the school's Thestrals to fly to the Ministry of Magic in London to save Sirius, unaware they are being lured into a trap.
When Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Luna, and Neville Longbottom arrive at the Department of Mysteries, they are ambushed by Death Eaters. Voldemort seeks a prophecy contained in a glass sphere, and he needs Harry to retrieve it. Only the people a prophecy refers to can touch the sphere.
The students heroically battle the Death Eaters, and just as they are nearly defeated, Order members arrive. During the ensuing battle, the glass sphere is shattered. Tragically, Sirius is hit with a spell from his cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange, a Death Eater. This causes him to fall through a magical veil and to his death. Soon Dumbledore arrives and most of the Death Eaters are captured.
Harry chases Bellatrix into the atrium as Lord Voldemort appears and duels with Dumbledore. Alerted Ministry of Magic employees arrive in time to see Voldemort before he disapparates, taking Bellatrix with him. Cornelius Fudge finally admits Voldemort has returned, and Harry's interview with Rita Skeeter is recycled for the Daily Prophet.
Later in his office, Dumbledore apologizes to the furious Harry for neglecting him over the past year. He explains his actions and reveals the meaning of the lost prophecy, which states Harry must kill Voldemort or be murdered by him. Sybill Trelawney predicted, "Either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives." At the end of the year, Harry returns to the Dursleys for another cheerless summer, still griving for his lost godfather.
Long Plot Summary
The Order of the Phoenix
The story begins with Harry at the Dursleys' home experiencing some teenage angst. Harry is frustrated because he doesn't know what the newly-reborn Lord Voldemort is planning, and because his friends won't share any information through correspondence. After an argument with his aunt and uncle, Harry wanders around Little Whinging and meets his obnoxious cousin, Dudley. As the two boys are heading home, Dementors appear and attack them, but Harry drives them off with the Patronus Charm. This saves Dudley from having his soul sucked out, but still leaves him chilled and almost unconscious. Fortunately their neighbour, Mrs Figg, arrives to help. She later reveals that she is a Squib and that she has been watching over Harry on Professor Dumbledore's instructions.
Once the boys arrive home, Vernon and Petunia turn on their nephew, blaming him for Dudley's condition. Vernon demands that Harry leave, even though Harry explains that Voldemort is after him. As this is going on, Harry receives a letter stating that he has been expelled from Hogwarts (as students are forbidden to do any magic outside of school) but then several more letters arrive in quick succession. Letters from Arthur Weasley and Sirius Black warn Harry not to leave the house, while another overturns his expulsion and orders him to appear at a hearing at the Ministry of Magic. The last letter is a Howler which screams "Remember my last, Petunia". Upon hearing this, Petunia insists that Harry will have to stay.
After being locked in his room for several days, a menagerie of wizards and witches comes to rescue Harry, Professor Remus Lupin and Mad-Eye Moody among them. They take him to 12 Grimmauld Place, the home of the Black family, who have used various techniques to hide the building, making it an ideal headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix. The Weasleys, Hermione, and Sirius are all staying there. Sirius has been ordered not to leave the house because of the Ministry's continued search for him (see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban). Harry finds himself angry and argumentative with those at Grimmauld Place, fuelled by his feeling that, despite his trust, they have not been honest with him. He is also disappointed to learn that Ron and Hermione have been made school prefects, but he has not. They all maintain that Dumbledore ordered absolute secrecy, which is why Harry has not been made aware of events. Harry nonetheless manages to learn quite a bit about what has transpired since the end of the last school year.
Although both Harry and Dumbledore have told the world that Lord Voldemort has returned, no one believes them. Indeed, the complacent Ministry of Magic, keen to avoid panic, has been working to discredit them both, using the wizarding newspaper The Daily Prophet to suggest that Harry and Dumbledore are eccentric liars. Dumbledore's supporters, however, have reformed the Order of the Phoenix, which existed the last time that Lord Voldemort threatened the world. A number of new members are in the Order as well, and it is dedicated to saving everyone from the resurgence of Voldemort and his Death Eaters.
Harry on Trial
Harry's hearing for his possible expulsion from Hogwarts finally arrives. It fills much of the household with trepidation, but they are fairly confident that he will be acquitted—he used the magic strictly in self-defence, which is permissible under the rules. However, upon arrival at the Ministry of Magic, Harry and Mr Weasley find out that the hearing has been brought forward without their knowledge, and its location moved to the basement, near the Department of Mysteries. Luckily, they make it just in time, though when Harry arrives, he realises that a trial has been called, with the entire Wizengamot assembled.
Although this appears to be an attempt to intimidate Harry and to keep Dumbledore from showing up as Harry's defence, the ancient wizard and headmaster of Hogwarts appears nonetheless. Mrs Figg also appears as a witness, testifying that the Dementors were real, not mere figments of Harry's imagination or lies, and Harry is exonerated. However, something seems strange - Dumbledore scarcely pays any attention to Harry, and as the young boy leaves, he sees Lucius Malfoy conferring with Cornelius Fudge. This shocks Harry, as Malfoy is a known Death Eater, though Mr Weasley alludes to bribery.
Return to Hogwarts
Eventually, Harry and his companions return to school. On the Hogwarts Express they meet a girl named Luna Lovegood, who takes on a prominent role later in the book. At Hogwarts they discover shocking news: Hagrid has not yet returned from whatever task Dumbledore sent him on at the end of last term; and their new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher is none other than Dolores Umbridge, one of the Wizengamot panel members at Harry's hearing. Umbridge refuses to allow the students to use actual magic in her classes, and it soon emerges that she works for the Ministry of Magic, which has installed her as a teacher at Hogwarts by decree, against Dumbledore's wishes, and in order to impose the Ministry's agenda on the school.
Once school starts, things happen at a rapid pace. The fifth year is when the O.W.L.s are taken, and the teachers push the students hard in preparation. Professor Umbridge gains more and more influence on the school, through a succession of further Decrees passed by the Ministry of Magic, culminating in her appointment as Hogwarts High Inquisitor, and begins to make intrusive and intimidating inspections of teachers and students alike. Ron is made the new keeper for the Gryffindor Quidditch team. In a letter to Ron, Ron's older brother Percy, who is now working for Fudge, advises Ron to 'sever ties' with Harry because he says Harry is an unbalanced, dangerous person to fraternise with. He also recommends that Ron report anything unusual to Umbridge, whom he calls 'a very lovely, helpful woman.' In addition, he hints that this might be Dumbledore's last year at Hogwarts. Ron responds by tearing his brother's letter to shreds and burning it, making his choice not to join Umbridge and to remain fiercely loyal to Harry.
Umbridge's Oppression
Dolores Jane Umbridge, the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, is a particularly unpleasant character. Her lessons consist solely of reading the textbook; no training or practicing whatsoever. The given reason is something along the lines of "It's too dangerous to use actual spells, students are too young for that." The real reason is, the Ministry (particularly Cornelius Fudge, the minister) is laboring under the delusion that Dumbledore is training his students to form a sort of wizard army to be used against Fudge. Therefore, Umbridge makes sure they have no opportunity to become effective wizards. In light of Umbridge's refusal to teach anything useful in her Defence Against the Dark Arts classes, Hermione convinces Harry to give secret lessons to a group of students who want to learn real Defence Against the Dark Arts; reluctantly, he agrees, and they all sign a paper stating their intent to never reveal "Dumbledore's Army" (their ironic name for the club) to Umbridge.
Hagrid later returns, looking much the worse for wear. Although he eventually divulges his mission to recruit the giants to the Order's side, he is much more reluctant to come clean about the cause of his injuries. Both he and Professor Sybill Trelawney are under heavy scrutiny by Umbridge, as she views both of them as incompetent; Umbridge is also prejudiced against "half-breeds", and Hagrid is half-human, half-giant.
As Umbridge convinces Fudge to pass more edicts, activities in the school become intensely curtailed. All student groups are banned, until Umbridge herself reinstates them; the Slytherin Quidditch team is almost immediately reactivated, but the Gryffindor team is held up until Minerva McGonagall goes over Umbridge's head and has Dumbledore reinstate it. This eventually causes Dumbledore's own power as Headmaster to be secondary, in many respects, to Umbridge herself, via yet another edict, which results in a greater dislike of her by many students, save perhaps those in Slytherin House. The Slytherins compose a taunting ditty entitled "Weasley is Our King" in an attempt to intimidate Ron into playing poorly. It succeeds, but Harry captures the Snitch in the first game to clinch victory. However, a fight afterwards provoked by Draco Malfoy results in Harry and Fred and George Weasley being permanently banned from playing by Umbridge so long as she remains at Hogwarts.
Dumbledore's Army
Secretly, the Defence Against the Dark Arts classes, led by Harry, go on. They now call themselves the "D.A.", initially for Defence Association but settling on Dumbledore's Army. The name expresses the students' defiance of the paranoid and complacent Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, who fears that Dumbledore is seeking to create his own army to use against the Ministry itself. Ironically the subtext is that some, if not all, of those present would indeed fight for Dumbledore against the ministry.
All along, Harry has had a number of strange dreams, mostly about running down a hallway and attempting to open a door in the Ministry of Magic's Department of Mysteries. In one of these nightmares, Harry dreams that he is a snake attacking Ron's father, Arthur Weasley, who works at the Ministry. Waking up, Harry raises the alarm, believing his dream to have been a vision, and Arthur is indeed discovered with venomous snake bites and hospitalised, eventually recovering from his injuries. Harry begins to wonder if he is being possessed and transported by Voldemort to do his bidding; others reassure him that this cannot be so. Soon, however, Dumbledore orders Harry to be placed under Severus Snape's tutelage in the art of Occlumency, the ability to prevent the penetration of ones thoughts by another.
Hermione has contacted the journalist Rita Skeeter, and threatens to reveal to the authorities that she (Rita) is an unregistered animagus (see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) unless she interviews Harry concerning the truth about Voldemort's return. Luna Lovegood's father happens to be the editor of The Quibbler, and her father agrees to take Rita's article. When it appears, Umbridge is furious: she forbids Harry to go on any further Hogsmeade trips, and bans copies of The Quibbler inside the school. Fortunately for Harry, this gives the magazine the lure of the forbidden and soon the publication spreads like wildfire throughout the school despite Umbridge's frantic efforts to stop it.
Empowered to do so by Ministry edicts, Umbridge sacks Professor Trelawney, but Dumbledore, citing his remaining authority as Headmaster, insists that Trelawney be allowed to stay in residence at the castle despite Umbridge's attempt to evict her as well. Dumbledore also manages to recruit a replacement Divination teacher, a centaur named Firenze, whom Harry met in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. This irritates Umbridge greatly. Dumbledore has outwitted her using her own rules; the Ministry decrees have only given Umbridge the power to make appointments when the Headmaster is unable to find a satisfactory candidate. She also dislikes what she disdainfully - but wrongly - refers to as "half-breeds", including centaurs.
A Dating Disaster
Harry's attraction to the Ravenclaw Quidditch player Cho Chang further complicates the situation; he is awkward and confused in close situations with her, and is unable to handle her mood swings and grief over Cedric's death. Harry has admired Cho's good looks since he was a third year, but they only start dating in his fifth year. After sharing a kiss under mistletoe just before the Christmas holidays, Harry is elated, but is troubled by Cho's sadness and his inability to correctly deal with it. A particularly painful experience in the wizarding town of Hogsmeade on Valentine's Day appears to destroy what little foundation the two had built for their relationship. Cho grows cold and angry over their coffee, and Harry is perplexed and unable to understand what he said that upset her so. When realising that Cho is jealous of Hermione, Harry is so relieved to discover the cause of her anger that he bursts out laughing - which greatly offends Cho. Bursting into tears, she runs out of the Hogsmeade teashop, much to Harry's embarrassment.
Things begin to come to a head between Harry and Cho, when, in the middle of a DA meeting, the members are informed that they have been exposed and Umbridge is on her way to catch them. Harry is the only one caught and is taken to Dumbledore's office, where he discovers that Cho's friend, Mariette Edgecombe was the informer, who is heavily disfigured following an ingenious charm employed by Hermione. Dumbledore, in order to protect the students, convinces Fudge and Umbridge that it was his idea to form the DA in order to depose Fudge as Minister of Magic, pandering to Fudge's existing paranoia. Dumbledore escapes, and Umbridge is installed as the new Headmistress (per one of the many Decrees passed by the Ministry) and forms an Inquisitorial Squad. The Weasley twins use their talent for practical jokes to cause trouble around the school, while all of the teachers, who dislike Umbridge intensely, pointedly do nothing to help the new Headmistress cope. Both Harry and Cho defend their respective friends' actions, which leads to a heated argument. When he sees tears in Cho's eyes, Harry warns her that he won't tolerate her crying anymore as he has enough to cope with as it is. Stung, Cho snaps that he can go ahead and cope with his problems then, and storms off angrily. Extremely angry, Harry walks away too. After the argument, Harry and Cho's relationship turns cold and the two stop talking to each other.
The Weasley twins set off one last prank as a decoy so that Harry can talk to Sirius via the fireplace in Umbridge's office - the only one not under surveillance - and are caught; they decide to leave Hogwarts in spectacular fashion, leaving a magical swamp inside the school, and to use the winnings from the Triwizard Tournament given to them by Harry to start their joke shop, 'Weasley's Wizard Wheezes'.
Sirius in Trouble
During the Astronomy OWL exam at night, Harry and others witness a group of people attempting to capture and expel Hagrid. Professor McGonagall tries to stop them, and is hit with a number of Stunning Spells, which incapacitate her. Soon after, during his History of Magic OWL, Harry has a dream which seems to complete the journey down the hallway: as Voldemort, he has Sirius captured in the Department of Mysteries; and is torturing him.
Harry and his crew make a desperate attempt to contact Sirius via the fireplace in Umbridge's office, but the Black family's house-elf, Kreacher, deliberately tricks Harry into believing Sirius has vanished; he was in fact tending to Buckbeak, the hippogriff. Umbridge and her minions--mainly Slytherin students--capture Harry's gang. Thinking fast, Hermione makes up a story about whom they were trying to contact, and says that they were protecting a weapon, and that she and Harry would lead Umbridge to it. Umbridge asks Snape to give her some Veritaserum, but he claims he has none left; she is not aware that he is also a member of the Order of the Phoenix. Umbridge tells Harry that it was she who ordered the Dementors on him during the summer.
Escape to London
Hermione entices Umbridge to follow her and Harry into the woods, under the pretext of leading Umbridge to some "weapon" Dumbledore had been preparing. Actually, she was counting on the fact that the haughty centaurs, furious that one of their brethren now works for humans, are disposed to hate adult wizards and would attack Umbridge for them. Indeed, the centaurs break Umbridge's wand and a mob drags her away - it is unclear what precisely they did to her, but later, she still had a look of shock on her face the morning after being taken back to the hospital. The centaurs are about to do the same to Harry and Hermione when Hagrid's half-brother - a "small" giant named Grawp, whom Hagrid had brought back with him from his quest over the summer - appears and scatters the centaurs. Ron, Ginny, Luna, and Neville arrive, having escaped their "Inquisitorial Squad" captors, and they resolve to go to the Ministry to rescue Sirius, riding on thestrals, horse-like creatures visible only to people who have personally witnessed a death.
Upon arriving at the Department of Mysteries, and after a number of false turns, they arrive at the location in Harry's dream. They find no sign of Sirius, but Harry finds a glass ball with his name on it and impulsively picks it up. Then Lucius Malfoy, leading a group of twelve Death Eaters, appears out of the darkness and demands the ball. The Death Eaters include, among others, Draco's father, Lucius Malfoy; MacNair, the executioner in the employ of the Ministry; Azkaban escapee and former Department of Mysteries employee Rookwood; and Azkaban escapee Bellatrix Lestrange, Sirius's cousin and torturer of Neville Longbottom's parents.
As Harry subsequently discovers, the glass orb was the record of a prophecy. Voldemort had previously learned of the first part of the prophecy, which spoke of Harry as the one person who could destroy Voldemort. After many failed attempts to kill Harry, including the one that gave him the scar, Voldemort decided he might find out how to destroy him by hearing the whole prophecy. The safeguards on the prophecy allow only the subjects, Harry and Voldemort, to touch the sphere without suffering insanity. Since Voldemort was unwilling to risk discovery by going there himself, he had to trick Harry into doing it for him. When Voldemort realised that the connection between him and Harry gave them access to each other's minds, he planted that vision of Sirius' torture to lure Harry into the Department of Mysteries.
The Battle at the Ministry
A great skirmish begins between the students and the Death Eaters. Most of the students are seriously injured, but as they near defeat, five of the adult wizards from the Order of the Phoenix appear to help them, including Sirius. During the ensuing battle, the glass sphere which holds the prophecy is shattered. A ghostly image pronounces the prophecy but no one can hear it amidst the fighting. Also, tragically, Sirius is struck by a curse from the wand of his cousin, the Death Eater Bellatrix Lestrange. He falls through a veil inside an arch in the Death Chamber of the Department of Mysteries, and vanishes. Dumbledore shows up and ropes off most of the Death Eaters, but Bellatrix escapes.
Harry, enraged and wanting revenge for Sirius, chases after Bellatrix, and soon catches up with her in the main atrium of the Ministry of Magic. He attempts to use the Cruciatus Curse and various other jinxes, but Bellatrix blocks everything and demands the prophecy. Harry retorts, "You're going to have to kill me, because it's gone!" Lord Voldemort hears this through his connection with Harry, and apparates inside the atrium. Voldemort's terrible anger causes Harry's scar to hurt too badly for him to fight. However, Dumbledore suddenly appears on the scene and blocks the killing curse Voldemort directed at Harry. Voldemort and Dumbledore duel, and after a dramatic fight, Voldemort disapparates with Bellatrix. He hadn't completely gone, however; he possesses Harry's body and forces him to beg Dumbledore to kill him, but the force of Harry's love soon makes possession unbearable to Voldemort, who finally gives up. Meanwhile, Ministry of Magic employees had arrived in time to see Voldemort for themselves. Among them is Cornelius Fudge, who finally accepts Voldemort's return and believes what Dumbledore and Harry have been saying. In turn, The Daily Prophet reverses its hostile attitude towards the pair, restoring their reputations and praising them for warning the wizarding community of Voldemort's return.
The Prophecy
As the story draws to a close, Dumbledore explains much to Harry. He did not wish to be close to him during the year, as he could sense Voldemort's growing power over the boy--indeed, on more than one occasion, Harry was filled with a desire to strike down Dumbledore. He regretted not helping Harry learn Occlumency, and also reveals the prophecy. It turns out that at her initial Hogwarts interview, held sixteen years ago at the Hog's Head Inn at Hogsmeade, Sybill Trelawney prophesied that:
The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches...born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies...and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not...and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives...the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies...
This was interpreted to mean that Voldemort would kill either Harry or Neville Longbottom, who were both born at the end of July, or vice-versa. Only part of this prophecy was told to Voldemort, as Voldemort's spy, who was eavesdropping on the conversation between Trelawney and Dumbledore, was thrown out before Trelawney had completed the prophecy (The identity of the eavesdropper was later revealed in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince). After Voldemort, hearing only part of the prophecy, attacked Harry as a child, the latter part of the prophecy was realised; Harry would be his foe and kill or be killed by him, not Neville. Had Voldemort heard all the prophecy, he would have realised that by attacking Harry, he would transfer some of his powers to Harry.
The existence of this prophecy brings clarity to Dumbledore remarking that Trelawney's prediction in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban has been her second real one. The first prediction was the Harry/Voldemort prophecy.
Dumbledore also tells why Harry must stay with the Dursleys each summer. After Harry's mother died to save him, the charm of protection against Voldemort that her act cast on Harry is sustained as long as Harry has a home among those who share Lily Potter's blood. Aunt Petunia, Lily's sister, therefore acts as a protector for Harry, and it was Dumbledore who sent Petunia the Howler at the beginning of the story to remind her of this.
Concluding Dumbledore and Harry's meeting, Dumbledore informs Harry that, because of the incredible burden he has unknowingly shouldered his entire life, he felt that Harry had had enough to deal with without being made a Prefect, explaining why Ron was chosen and not him.
In the end, Harry goes back to the Dursleys', but not without Vernon and Petunia getting a stern talking-to by a number of wizards in the Order (including a menacing Alastor Moody). Changes are brewing in the wizarding world. Indeed, the last chapter of the book is entitled "The Second War Begins."
Notes
External links
- ^ "Guardian Unlimited Books : Special Reports : June date for Harry Potter 5". Retrieved December 5.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); Unknown parameter|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - ^ "Harry auf Deutsch : Projekt-Übersicht der Harry Potter Übersetzung(en)". Retrieved December 5.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); Unknown parameter|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - ^ "Radio Prague - News". Retrieved December 5.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); Unknown parameter|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - ^ "http://www.albatros.cz". Retrieved December 5.
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