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
Illustrator Jason Cockcroft (UK),
Mary GrandPré (US)
Genre Fiction
Publisher Bloomsbury (UK),
Scholastic (US)
Release date June 21, 2003
Number in series Five
Sales 14.3 Million (US) as of December 2006
Story timeline 1976, 1995-1996
Preceded by Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Followed by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
This article is about the book. See Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (film) for other formats.
The term "OOTP" redirects here. For the Out of the Park Baseball text simulation game, click here
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 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,[1] and is the longest book in the series[2].
On 5 April 2006 Warner Brothers announced that the film of the same name, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, would be released in cinemas on 13 July 2007. [2]
Contents [hide]
1 Plot overview
2 Notes
3 Editions
4 Translations
5 Footnotes
6 External links
[edit] Plot overview
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The story starts with Harry hiding in the Dursley’s flower bed listening to the news, hoping to hear anything about the activities of Lord Voldemort or the Wizarding world in general. After a fight with his Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, Harry wanders about Little Whinging. He runs into his loathsome cousin Dudley when they are suddenly attacked by Dementors. Harry fends them off with a Patronus Charm, but Dudley is badly affected. A neighbour, Arabella Figg, arrives to help. She reveals she is a Squib and was asked by Albus Dumbledore to secretly watch over Harry when he came to live with the Dursleys, and she apologizes for how they have made his life miserable.
Back home, Vernon and Petunia blame Harry for Dudley's condition. Harry gets another shock when trying to explain to the Dursleys that Dementors were the cause of Dudley’s problem, Petunia explains, “They guard the wizard prison, Azkaban,”[3] making Harry glad, for the first time, that Petunia is his aunt. Harry receives an owl letter stating he has been expelled from Hogwarts for performing magic outside school. Several more letters arrive in quick succession: 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. Believing Harry has brought death to his family, Vernon orders him to leave. A Howler for Harry's aunt arrives warning her, "Remember my last, Petunia!"[4] Visibly shaken, she tells Vernon that Harry has to stay or the neighbours will talk.
Thinking they are on the short list for “All-England’s Best Kept Suburban Lawns”, the Dursleys leave Harry home alone. Several Order of the Phoenix members 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, and shouts at his friends Lord Voldemort, but he learns that Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge continues to deny Lord Voldemort's return and has used articles in The Daily Prophet to discredit Harry, while Dumbledore has been removed from several wizarding societies.
Arriving at the Ministry of Magic, Arthur Weasley accompanies Harry to the hearing, but, having been deliberately misinformed as to the time and location, they arrive late, only to learn that the hearing is actually a trial with the entire Wizengamot assembled. Dumbledore arrives with Mrs. Figg, who testifies that Harry acted in self-defense. Her testimony helps clear Harry of the charges against him. As he leaves the Ministry, Harry sees Lucius Malfoy, who he knows is a Death Eater, visiting Fudge.
Returning to Hogwarts, the Order, including Sirius in Animagus form, escorts the students to the railway station and share a compartment with the rather unusual Luna Lovegood. Back at Hogwarts, Hagrid is absent, and Dolores Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister, has been appointed by the Ministry as the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. She refuses to teach students any practical defense methods, only using textbooks to teach Ministry-approved theory. It is soon clear she is only there to spy on and take control of the school. She is soon appointed High Inquisitor, intimidating staff and students. She also harbours an intense dislike for Half-breeds, Centaurs, and similar creatures.
Ron becomes the new Keeper for the Gryffindor Quidditch team. 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 provoked by Draco Malfoy results in Umbridge banning Harry and Fred and George Weasley from playing. Ginny Weasley replaces Harry as Seeker.
Meanwhile, Hagrid returns, revealing that he and Madame Maxime were on a failed secret mission for Dumbledore to recruit the Giants against Voldemort. Hagrid's battered appearance alarms Harry, Ron, and Hermione, who soon discover Hagrid is hiding his Giant, and still wild half-brother, Grawp in the forest.
Further complicating matters, both Hagrid 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 fires Trelawney, but Dumbledore allows her to remain in residence and replaces her with his own appointment, the Centaur, Firenze.
Harry has been 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, he 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 true vision. Arthur is indeed discovered with venomous snake bites and taken to St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. Harry wonders if he is being possessed and transported by Voldemort to do his bidding, but Dumbledore reassures him he is not. Dumbledore has Severus Snape give Harry lessons in the art of Occlumency to block his mind from intrusion.
Threatening to expose her as an illegal Animagus, Hermione blackmails journalist Rita Skeeter into writing a favourable article about Harry witnessing 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. As retaliation against Umbridge, they name their group the Defense Association, or D.A. for short, although they begin calling themselves "Dumbledore's Army" to mock the paranoid Ministry of Magic. Umbridge uncovers the secret meetings, and to protect the students, Dumbledore claims he organized the group. When confronted by two Ministry Aurors (Dawlish and Shacklebolt), Fudge, Percy Weasley, and Umbridge, Dumbledore is spectacularly whisked away by his phoenix, Fawkes. Umbridge is appointed 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. The twins are caught, but deciding they have outgrown their full-time education, summon their confiscated brooms from Umbridge's office, and zoom off to start their own Joke Shop called Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. As a parting gesture, they leave a magical swamp inside the school.
Harry receives a vision that Sirius is being tortured at the Department of Mysteries, unaware it is a ruse. 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 the Cruciatus Curse on him, Hermione tells her that Dumbledore has hidden a powerful weapon in the Forbidden Forest. She leads Umbridge and Harry into the woods where they come upon the Centaurs, whom Umbridge foolishly insults. Enraged, one carries her off screaming. The other Centaurs are about to attack Harry and Hermione after they attempt to recruit them, but Hagrid's Giant brother, Grawp, crashes onto the scene, scattering the herd as they begin shooting arrows at him.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione, along with Luna, Ginny, and Neville 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 needs Harry to retrieve it for him. Only those who a prophecy concerns can touch the sphere without going insane, and Voldemort cannot risk exposure.
The students heroically fight the Death Eaters, but they are outmatched. Just as they are nearly defeated, Order members arrive. During the ensuing battle, the glass sphere is shattered. Sirius is attacked by his cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange, a Death Eater. Her spell blasts him in the chest and he falls backwards through a mysterious veiled archway, dead. 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 on the scene 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 reprinted in 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 lost prophecy's meaning, 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, deeply grieving his lost Godfather.
[edit] Notes
The Death Eaters captured at the Ministry were: Lucius Malfoy, Nott, Jugson, Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange, Antonin Dolohov, Crabbe, Walden Macnair, Avery, Augustus Rookwood, 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 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.
Dolores' name may have come from the Latin word "Doloris", meaning pain or discomfort. Also, Dolores means pains in Spanish.
[edit] Translations
The first official foreign translation of the book appeared in Vietnamese on 21 July 2003, when the first of 22 installments 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 [5].
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 [6] and the official Czech publisher (Albatros [7]) 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.