Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Un article de Vev.

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 21 June 2003. The novel features Harry's struggles through his fifth year at Hogwarts, including the surreptitious return of Harry's nemesis Lord Voldemort, O.W.L. exams, awkward teenage love and an obstructive Ministry of Magic.

[modifier]

Plot

Harry Potter produces a Patronus charm when Dementors in a park attack him and his cousin Dudley. Order of the Phoenix members soon arrive to escort Harry to their secret headquarters at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place in London, where Harry joins the Weasley family, Hermione Granger, and Harry’s godfather Sirius Black. He 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 Squib neighbour, Arabella Figg. Harry is initially disappointed that unlike Ron and Hermione, he has not been made a prefect.

To the trio's surprise, the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts is Dolores Umbridge, a hostile Ministry official who presided at Harry's hearing. 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. Umbridge imposes sadistic punishments to those disobeying her rules, making them write with cutting quills (quills that cut the words into the skin when you write with them). 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, firing Trelawney and putting 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 disturbing dreams about running down a hallway and attempting to open a door in the Ministry'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 snakebites, causing Harry to fear that Voldemort is possessing him. In response, Dumbledore has Severus Snape teach Harry Occlumency to block his mind from intrusion, but their mutual animosity ends their lessons prematurely.

[modifier]

Rebellion and Dumbledore's Army

To combat the Ministry's smear campaign against Harry and Dumbledore, Hermione blackmails yellow 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 Quibbler from the school, but the story spreads rapidly, garnering support for Harry.

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

Umbridge becomes Headmistress and enacts even stricter rules, firing Hagrid. The disenchanted Weasley twins revolt, unleashing relentless magical chaos throughout the school, while the staff purposely does nothing to help Umbridge regain control. The twins are caught, but summoning their confiscated brooms, they fly away, leaving Hogwarts to open their own joke shop in Diagon Alley.

[modifier]

Battle at the Department of Mysteries

Harry has a vision of Sirius 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 in an attempt to frame or silence him. As she is about to use the illegal Cruciatus Curse on him (as she knows Fudge wouldn't mind), 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 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. Along with fellow D.A. members Ginny, Neville and Luna, the trio fly to the Ministry of Magic on the school's Thestrals.

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, whom Harry pursues into the atrium. Voldemort appears and attacks Harry, but Dumbledore saves him. 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.

[modifier]

Dealing with loss

Dumbledore apologises 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.

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 that 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. However, 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.

[modifier]

Release history

Potter fans waited three years between the releases of the fourth and fifth books.<ref>http://www.mugglenet.com/books/index.shtml</ref> 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.<ref name= "cnn">http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/books/06/21/sprj.cas03.potter.us/index.html</ref> As the series was already a global phenomenon, the book forged new pre-order records, with thousands of people queuing outside book stores on 20 June 2003 to secure their copy at midnight.<ref name= "cnn"/> Despite the security, thousands of copies were stolen from an Earlestown, Merseyside warehouse on 15 June 2003.<ref>http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/2996718.stm</ref>

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.<ref name= "sirius">"Rowling's tears at Potter book death", BBC News, 2003-06-18. Retrieved on 2007-07-24.</ref> She added that although her husband suggested she undo the character's death to stop her sadness, she needed to be "a ruthless killer."<ref name= "sirius"/> 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.<ref>http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/19935372/</ref> 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."<ref name= "sirius"/> 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.<ref>http://www.the-pensieve.org/archives/2003_06.html</ref>

In another interview when asked if there was anything she would go back and change about the seven novels, Rowling replied that she would have edited Phoenix more, as she feels it is too long.<ref>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20001720/page/4/</ref>

[modifier]

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 twenty-two 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.<ref> Harry auf Deutsch: Projekt-Übersicht der Harry Potter Übersetzung(en)

. Retrieved on 2005-12-05. </ref>

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<ref> Radio Prague - News

. Retrieved on 2005-12-05. </ref> and the official Czech publisher (Albatros) announcing that they would sue the schoolboy.<ref> http://www.albatros.cz

. Retrieved on 2005-12-05. </ref> Later they retracted this announcement.

[modifier]

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,<ref> Guardian Unlimited Books: Special Reports: June date for Harry Potter 5

. Retrieved on 2005-12-05. </ref> and is the longest book in the series.<ref>OoF longer than HBP and Book 7 with 784 pages[1]</ref>

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 one million books. J. K. Rowling comments on this in a message written specifically for the Canadian edition of the book.