Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

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Harry Potter books
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Author J. K. Rowling
Illustrators Jason Cockcroft
Mary GrandPré
Genre Fantasy
Publishers Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, Scholastic Press, Raincoast Books
Released June 21, 2003
Book no. Five
Sales ~55 million (Worldwide)
Story timeline Unknown
Chapters 38
Pages 766
870
Preceded by Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Followed by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the fifth novel in the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling. It is the longest book in the series, and was released on June 21, 2003.

Plot

Trouble before school
Harry Potter casts a Patronus charm when he and his cousin Dudley are attacked by Dementors in a park. Order of the Phoenix members soon arrive to escort Harry to their secret headquarters at the Black family home, Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place in London. The Weasley family, Hermione Granger, and Harry’s godfather Sirius Black are there, and Harry learns that Voldemort is building an army and is attempting to retrieve a "weapon". Meanwhile, the Ministry of Magic charges Harry with performing underage magic. A few days later, Arthur Weasley escorts Harry to his hearing where he is cleared after testimony from Albus Dumbledore and Harry's neighbour, Arabella Figg (who is a Squib).


Problems at Hogwarts
Ron and Hermione are named Gryffindor prefects, leaving Harry somewhat envious. At Hogwarts, they are surprised that Dolores Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister and who presided at Harry's hearing, has been appointed as the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Hermione's opinion that the Ministry is interfering with Hogwarts is accurate; Umbridge is there to spy on the school and only teaches Ministry approved theory rather than practical defence methods. She is soon appointed as High Inquisitor, arbitrarily imposing strict rules and regulations. She also harbours racial hatred for "half-breeds," such as centaurs, werewolves, and similar creatures. She considers Rubeus Hagrid (a half-giant) and Sybill Trelawney incompetent, and fires Trelawney and puts Hagrid on probation. Although Dumbledore is unable to prevent Trelawney's dismissal, he invokes his authority to allow her to remain in the castle and appoints a new Divination teacher — the centaur, Firenze.

Harry has been having disturbing dreams about running down a hallway and attempting to open a door in the Ministry of Magic's Department of Mysteries. One night he dreams he is a snake attacking Ron's father. Mr. Weasley is indeed found injured at the Ministry, suffering from severe venomous snake bites, causing Harry to fear that he is being possessed by Voldemort. In response, Dumbledore has Severus Snape teach Harry Occlumency to block his mind from intrusion, but their mutual animosity ends their lessons prematurely.

To combat the Ministry's smear campaign against Harry and Dumbledore, Hermione blackmails hack journalist Rita Skeeter into writing a favourable article about Harry witnessing Voldemort's return. Ravenclaw student Luna Lovegood's father publishes the story in his magazine, The Quibbler. Furious, Umbridge bans the tabloid from the school, but the story spreads rapidly, garnering support for Harry.


Dumbledore's Army and the Student Revolt
Hermione convinces Harry to secretly teach Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff students Defense Against the Dark Arts. They name their clandestine group "Dumbledore's Army", or "D.A." for short, to mock the Ministry of Magic, which fears Dumbledore is secretly building a wizard army. Under Harry's tutoring, the group learns defensive Dark Art magic, but Umbridge's Inquisitorial Squad, consisting mostly of Slytherin students, eventually uncovers the D.A.'s meetings. To protect Harry and the other students from reprisals, Dumbledore claims he organized the group. Confronted by two Aurors (Dawlish and Shacklebolt), Minister Fudge, Percy Weasley and Umbridge, Dumbledore easily overpowers them and is spectacularly whisked away by his phoenix, Fawkes.

Umbridge is appointed Headmistress and enacts even more rigid rules and fires Hagrid. Fed up, the Weasley twins revolt, unleashing non-stop magical chaos throughout the school, while the staff purposely do nothing to help Umbridge regain control. Fred and George are caught, but summoning their confiscated brooms, they zoom off, leaving Hogwarts for good to open their own joke shop in Diagon Alley.


Visions
Harry receives a vision that Sirius is being tortured at the Department of Mysteries, although Hermione suspects it may be a trap. Harry desperately attempts to contact Sirius at Grimmauld Place via the Floo Network in Umbridge's office fireplace, but he is caught. Umbridge reveals it was she who sent the Dementors to attack Harry during the summer. As she is about to use the illegal Cruciatus Curse on him, Hermione claims that Dumbledore has hidden a powerful weapon in the Forbidden Forest. She leads Harry and Umbridge into the forest where they encounter the centaurs. Umbridge foolishly insults them and an angry centaur picks up Umbridge and carries her off screaming into the woods. When Hagrid's giant half-brother, Grawp, crashes onto the scene, Hermione and Harry escape amid the chaos. Harry, Ron, and Hermione, along with fellow D.A. members Ginny, Neville, and Luna fly to the Ministry of Magic on the school's Thestrals.


Battle at the Department of Mysteries
At the Ministry of Magic, Death Eaters ambush the students. They heroically defend themselves, but are outmatched. As they are nearly defeated, Order members arrive. During the ensuing battle, the glass prophecy sphere that Voldemort was seeking is shattered and the prophecy lost. Sirius is blasted with a spell by his Death Eater cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange, and falls backwards through a mysterious veiled archway. Lupin restrains Harry from going after him; Sirius is dead.

The Death Eaters are captured except for Bellatrix Lestrange, who Harry pursues into the atrium. Lord Voldemort appears and attacks Harry, but he is saved by Dumbledore. Ministry of Magic employees arrive in time to see the Dark Lord before he Disapparates, taking Lestrange with him. Cornelius Fudge finally admits that Voldemort has returned. Rita Skeeter's story is reprinted in the Daily Prophet, exonerating Harry and Dumbledore.

Later, Dumbledore apologizes to Harry for withholding information over the past five years. He reveals the lost prophecy, which was originally given to him by Sybill Trelawney. Either Harry or Voldemort "must die at the hands of the other, for neither can live while the other survives". Dumbledore also reveals that, due to when the boy was predicted to be born, Neville Longbottom could also have been the child in the prophecy. Dumbledore believes Voldemort chose to attack Harry because he is a half-blood like himself; Neville is a pureblood. In so doing, the Dark Lord marked Harry as his equal. Dumbledore also discloses why he continues to send Harry back to the Dursleys' home for the summer. He tells Harry that when his mother died to protect him, this initiated an ancient magic. As long as Harry stays at the house of his blood-relative long enough to call it a home, it would provide for him a shield protection not even Voldemort is able to overcome. Furthermore, Dumbledore explains to Harry why he had not made him a prefect: he thought that Harry had enough to worry about and did not want to burden him with more responsibilities.


Dealing with loss
Shortly before school ends, Harry seeks out Nearly Headless Nick. He asks if Sirius can come back as a ghost, but Sir Nick says, "he will have...gone on". It is only those fearing death who remain as earthbound spirits. Still grieving, Harry finds Luna Lovegood hanging posters in the hall asking the whereabouts of her missing possessions that students have taken to taunt her. He asks about her being able to see the thestrals, and she replies that she saw her mother die, the result of an experimental magic spell gone wrong. But Luna says that she knows she will see her mother again; she and others who have died are just behind the veiled arch. Surprisingly, Harry feels comforted knowing that he may see Sirius again and heads off to finish packing.

At King's Cross station, several Order members are there to greet Harry and the Dursleys. Alastor Moody warns Uncle Vernon that if Harry is mistreated, they will intervene. Harry leaves to head back to 4 Privet Drive with the Dursleys, stopping once to look back towards his two best friends, Ron and Hermione.


Notes
The Death Eaters captured at the Ministry were Nott, Jugson, Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange, Antonin Dolohov, Vincent Crabbe Sr., Walden Macnair, Avery, Augustus Rookwood, Lucius Malfoy and Mulciber. Lord Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange were also at the Ministry, but they escaped. This list includes most of the Death Eaters whose names were known to the reader at this time, though Peter Pettigrew and Goyle Sr. were both absent from this mission and likely others as well, given the number of Death Eaters that Harry saw at Voldemort's rebirth in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The only Death Eater that had never been mentioned before was Jugson.
The access code for the visitor's entrance for the Ministry of Magic is 6-2-4-4-2 on the telephone, which spells M-A-G-I-C.
In another interview where she was asked if there was anything she would go back and change about the seven novels, Rowling stated she would go back and edit Phoenix a bit better, as she feels it is too long.[1]
In the second chapter Petunia surprises Harry with her knowledge about the Dementors. She reveals that she heard 'that awful boy — telling her about them'. While Harry guesses that she is talking about his parents, in book 7 it is revealed that Petunia actually overheard Snape, not James, talking to Lily.

Pre-release history
Potter fans waited three years between the releases of the fourth and fifth books.[2] Before the release of the fifth book, 200 million copies of the first four books had already been sold and translated into 55 languages in 200 countries.[3] As the series was already a global phenomenon, the book forged new pre-order records, with thousands of people queueing outside book stores on June 20th, 2003 to secure their copy at midnight.[3] Despite the security, thousands of copies were stolen from a Earlestown, Merseyside warehouse on June 15, 2003.[4]

In a Newsnight interview with Jeremy Paxman, Rowling reported that she was "reduced to tears" when she killed off a significant character in the book, despite rewriting the death scene several times.[5] She added that although her husband suggested she undo the character's death to stop her sadness, she needed to be "a ruthless killer."[5] However, Rowling revealed in a 2007 interview that she had originally planned to kill off Arthur Weasley in this book, but ultimately couldn't bear to do it.[6] Three days before the book's release, betting firm Ladbrokes stopped taking bets as to the identity of the character to die, saying that people already knew and that it would be a "licence to lose money."[5] Scottish bookmaker Blue Square also took bets on the identity of the killed character, with Hagrid the favourite at 7/2 odds, followed by Sirius Black at 4/1 and Professors Minerva McGonagall and Albus Dumbledore at 5/1.[7]


Translations
Main article: Harry Potter in translation
The first official foreign translation of the book appeared in Vietnamese on 21 July 2003, when the first of 22 instalments was released. The first official European translation appeared in Serbia and Montenegro in Serbian, by the 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.[8]

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[9] and the official Czech publisher (Albatros) announcing that they would sue the schoolboy.[10] Later they retracted this announcement.

Editions
The book was published on 21 June 2003 in the United Kingdom and the majority of other countries. It sold almost seven million copies in the United Kingdom and United States combined on that day. It has 38 chapters, is about 255,000 words long,[11] and is the longest book in the series.[12]

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 the equivalent of 29,650 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.

Bloomsbury (United Kingdom, Australia, Canada etc.)
ISBN 0-7475-5100-6 Hardback
ISBN 0-7475-6107-9 Paperback
ISBN 0-7475-6940-1 Hardback (adult edition)
ISBN 0-7475-7073-6 Paperback (adult edition)
Scholastic (United States etc.)
ISBN 0-439-35806-X Hardback
ISBN 0-439-35807-8 Paperback