Summary
Two weeks pass since Hermione suggested that Harry start a student-run Defense Against the Dark Arts class. Hermione hasn't brought it up since Harry reacted so poorly the first time, but she broaches the subject again as she, Ron, and Harry study potions in the library. Harry admits that he has given her proposal a great deal of thought. He oscillates between thinking it's a good idea and thinking that he is entirely underqualified to be teaching anyone anything. Hermione and Ron boost his confidence though, and eventually Harry agrees to teach a small group of their peers some defensive spells and tactics. Hermione sets out to recruit a few students who are eager to learn defensive spells (and are willing to keep a secret).
On the next Hogsmeade trip, Harry, Ron, and Hermione walk over to the Hog's Head tavern, a much less popular bar than The Three Broomsticks. Hermione figures that the Hog's Head, with its dingy reputation and lack of popularity, will afford their group a bit of privacy. The bar is empty when they arrive, except for the bartender and a cloaked woman at the bar. Then, the group of students Hermione invited show up, and there are far more people than Harry expected—over a dozen of them from every house but Slytherin crowd the Hog's Head and discuss the possibility of a defense class. Hermione would like to meet at least once a week. Angelina and Cho insist that their schedule cannot interfere with Quidditch. A few Hufflepuffs are hesitant about breaking school rules. One boy in particular, Zacharias Smith, wants proof that Voldemort is back. Harry tells them all that he's not there to prove that Voldemort has risen, and he's certainly not there to discuss the details of Cedric Diggory's murder. He makes it clear that if they're only at the bar to hear stories, they should leave. After a somewhat tense first meeting, all the students sign a piece of parchment committing to meet once a week in a location to be determined, and agree to keep their "study group" a secret from school officials, especially Dolores Umbridge.
Shortly after their first meeting, Umbridge passes a new rule in accordance with "Educational Decree Number Twenty-Four" that bans all clubs and teams unless they are expressly permitted by Umbridge herself. The timeliness of the decree leads Harry and Ron to believe that Umbridge must have somehow found out about their secret defense club, but Hermione assures them both that they would know if someone told Umbridge about their meeting—she hexed the sign-up sheet so that if anyone informed on them, the culprit would break out in boils. As such, they plan to forge ahead with their secret "study group," even with the threat of expulsion. While Harry is sitting in History of Magic, his owl Hedwig flies up to the window. It's highly unusual for Hedwig to interrupt Harry while he's in class, so he crouches and sneaks over to the window to let her in. She flies onto his shoulder, and when he gets back to his seat, he sees that her wing is injured. He asks to be excused from class and takes Hedwig to the teachers' lounge to find Professor Grubbly-Plank, who he thinks will be able to heal Hedwig. Grubbly-Plank is there along with Professor McGonagall. When Grubbly-Plank leaves the room with Hedwig, McGonagall warns Harry that channels of communication in and out of Hogwarts are no longer secure. She leaves it at that.
Hermione suspects that Umbridge is the one who hurt Hedwig, and that she likely read the letter that Hedwig carried. The letter is from Sirius; it is only one line and very vague, simply indicating that Harry meet him at the same time and place as before. Harry understands this to mean the fireplace in the Gryffindor common room. Later that night, while working on their mountain of homework, Sirius appears in the fireplace. He beams with pride at their effort to start an illegal defense club. He passes along a message from Molly Weasley, telling Ron not to participate in the club and strongly advising Harry and Hermione against it. Sirius, however, couldn't be more thrilled with them. Their conference abruptly ends when a hand swipes down where Sirius's head floats in the fireplace. Sirius immediately retreats, but the stubby hand continues to swipe around where his head just floated moments before. Harry, Ron, and Hermione bolt from the room, but from the staircase, they recognize the hand and the various rings that adorn the fingers as belonging to Dolores Umbridge.
Seeing Umbridge's hand in the fireplace confirms for them that she's intercepting Harry's mail. Angelina manages to get Umbridge to approve the Gryffindor Quidditch team, but the weather is so bad that they can barely see during practice. One night as Harry tries to write one of the many essays he's been assigned, he falls asleep and wakes up to Dobby tidying the common room. Dobby balances dozens of hats on his head and wears layers upon layers of socks and gloves. Harry recognizes the clothes as those Hermione has been knitting. Dobby explains that he has been taking the clothes, since all of the other house-elves are offended by them. Dobby is now the only elf willing to clean the Gryffindor common room. Dobby asks Harry if there's anything he can do for him, and at first, Harry can't think of anything. But then it occurs to him—they still need a suitable room to practice defensive spells. Harry tells Dobby that he's looking for a discreet location where he and twenty-seven other people can duel. Dobby tells Harry about the Room of Requirement.
The Room of Requirement is a room that appears uniquely to the person or group of people that need it. It can take any form, depending on the needs of its occupants. Harry recalls Dumbledore describing a time when he desperately needed to use the bathroom, and a lavatory appeared where there was usually a solid wall. Dobby instructs Harry on how to find the room, and later that day, he, Ron, and Hermione follow Dobby's instructions. The room appears to them, and when they walk in, it contains everything they might need for their secret defense class. There are shelves full of defense textbooks, high ceilings, and a wide open space for dueling. Twenty-eight cushions litter the floor, one for each member of the class. Shortly after Harry, Ron, and Hermione find the room, the rest of the class files in. They vote on a name for their group and decide on D.A. for "Dumbledore's Army." Harry devotes the first class to the disarming spell. They spend hours practicing on each other, and Harry is surprised to find that most of the class is not proficient at disarming. Over the course of the class, he sees a marked improvement. Even Neville manages to disarm Harry. They're so eager to learn that the time gets away from them. By the time someone checks their watch, they are ten minutes past curfew. They wrap the class up hastily and agree to meet again on Wednesday.
The first Quidditch match of the season approaches and Ron's nerves are getting the best of him. On the day of the match, Hermoine gives him an encouraging peck on the cheek before he and Harry trudge out to the Quidditch green. The crowd is even more raucous than usual since there hasn't been a match in over a year (the previous year, the Triwizard Tournament replaced Quidditch). As the players take their positions, Harry hears a strange, rhyming chant emanating from the Slytherin side of the stands. The chant is, to his horror, about Ron. The Slytherin team wears badges that say, "Weasley is our king," and the chant ridicules Ron for being a terrible Seeker and poor. To make matters worse, Ron lets in four goals and makes zero saves. The song hurts his confidence, makes him nervous, and causes him to perform poorly. Then his poor performance further damages his confidence, and the cycle feeds into itself, rendering Ron basically useless in the match.
Harry manages to catch the snitch before the score gap becomes too wide to win, and Gryffindor takes the match. However, after the match, when both teams are grounded, Malfoy continues to provoke Harry and the Weasley brothers. He makes fun of their mother's weight and their father's career at the Ministry. Harry attempts to hold George back from attacking Malfoy while the rest of the team restrains Fred. Then Malfoy makes a crack about Harry's mother. Harry lets go fo George and charges Malfoy himself. They both pummel Malfoy until Madam Hooch intervenes. She sends them both to McGonagall's office, where Umbridge is also present. McGonagall is furious and assigns them each a week of detention, but Umbridge suggests a lifelong ban on playing Quidditch for both of them. She then informs McGonagall that she has the authority to dole out punishment based on the latest Ministry decree. So, Fred, George, and Harry are officially banned from playing Quidditch, and their brooms are confiscated and held in Umbridge's office. The only silver lining in the whole situation is that it appears, from the lighted window of his cabin, that Hagrid has finally returned to Hogwarts.
Seeing Hagrid's window light up, Harry, Ron, and Hermione immediately grab Harry's invisibility cloak and walk out to his cabin. He greets them congenially, but they are alarmed by the fresh cuts and bruises on his face and blood caked into his hair. Hagrid assures them that he's fine. He slaps a raw dragon steak over his eye to relieve the pain. They ask him about his secret mission, and at first he resists telling them about it. When they ask specifically about giants, Hagrid knows that they've somehow heard about his secret mission, so he relents and tells them the story.
He and Olympe Maxime, the headmistress of Beauxbatons (also a half-giant), travelled out to a mountain range in France with the goal of convincing what remains of the giant race to fight alongside Dumbledore against the Death Eaters. When they found the giants' settlement, they made a camp nearby and waited until morning to approach the chief. Following Dumbledore's instructions, Hagrid and Olympe approached Karkus, the chief of the giants, with a gift in hand. Their gift was everlasting fire in the form of wood enchanted by Dumbledore himself. The second day of negotiations, they brought Karkus an indestructable war helmet. Before the third day, however, a fight broke out among the giants, and Karkus was killed by a usurper named Golgomath. Golgomath refused to negotiate with Hagrid and Olympe and chased them out of the settlement. He did, however, negotiate with Death Eaters. Hagrid and Olympe stayed near the settlement and spotted a few known Death Eaters fraternizing with Golgomath. In the end, Hagrid and Olympe managed to convince a few giants not to join Voldemort's cause, but most of the giants remained under the leadership of Golgomath, who devoted himself to hunting down the few giants willing to fight for Dumbledore.
As Hagrid tells his story, someone bangs on his front door. Harry, Ron, and Hermione scurry under the invisibility cloak. Hagrid opens the door and Umbridge walks in and immediately starts interrogating Hagrid about his whereabouts. She informs him that there will be an inspection of his Care of Magical Creatures class. She also mentions that there are three sets of footprints in the snow leading up to his cabin, but no footprints leaving it. She obviously suspects that there are people in the cabin with him, but she is unable to spot Harry, Ron, and Hermione from under Harry's cloak. She eventually heads back toward the castle. Hermione warns Hagrid not to bring any dangerous creatures to his class, or he'll surely be sacked by Umbridge. Hagrid shrugs off her warning and sends them back to the castle; he's had a long journey and would like to get some rest.
Hagrid's first lesson after his return to Hogwarts focuses on Thestrals, the black, reptilian horses that pull the Hogwarts carriages from Hogsmeade Station to Hogwarts Castle. Only three people in the class are able to see the Thestrals because they only appear to people who have witnessed death. Halfway through the lesson, Umbridge shows up to observe and inspect. She speaks to Hagrid slowly and loudly, as if he doesn't understand English. She then asks leading questions to the Slytherins and twists the words of the Gryffindors to support her narrative that Hagrid is irresponsible and incompetent. Hermione is almost certain that Umbridge is going to place Hagrid on probation, and it's all because of her hatred for magical beings of mixed blood. Hagrid is a half-giant, so naturally Umbridge targets him for removal.
Harry is not looking forward to spending the holidays alone at Hogwarts, but when he voices his trepidation, Ron informs him that he's coming with him to the Burrow for Christmas. Harry wonders if Molly would be open to inviting Sirius to the Burrow for Christmas as well. At the last meeting of Dumbledore's Army before the holiday, Harry lingers in the Room of Requirement, hoping to have a moment alone with Cho. When the room clears, Cho starts crying. Harry rushes to her side to see what's wrong, and she tells him that she's just been thinking a lot about Cedric, wondering if he'd been more prepared, whether he could have survived. Harry assures her that Cedric knew how to do all of the spells that they've been practicing. He was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, and once Voldemort decides to kill someone, they are very unlikely to live. Harry and Cho then share a kiss. Harry returns to the common room thoroughly confused by his encounter with Cho. Hermione explains to him why Cho feels so conflicted about "liking" Harry. She feels guilty about feeling romantic feelings for him while still grieving Cedric.
That night, Harry has a fitful sleep. First, he dreams about Cho and the Room of Requirement, but then that dream is interrupted by a much stranger and more vivid dream. In the second dream, he experiences the point of view of a large snake. The snake slithers up to Arthur Weasley and strikes him several times, leaving him bloody on the ground. Harry wakes up with his roommates surrounding him. He's been yelling in his sleep, and he's covered in sweat. His scar is burning worse than it ever has before. McGonagall rushes into the room and Harry explains to her that Arthur Weasley is in grave danger. Someone has to find him at once or he will surely bleed to death. McGonagall is confused because he's just dreamed about attacking Arthur, but Harry insists that this dream is different from a normal dream. His dreams about Voldemort are often glimpses into the reality of what Voldemort experiences in real time. McGonagall believes him, and together they go to Dumbledore's office.
Ron and Harry enter Dumbledore's office with McGonagall. Harry explains his dream to Dumbledore, and Dumbledore seems to immediately understand the gravity of the situation after Harry tells him that he experienced the dream from the perspective of the snake. Dumbledore's office is full of portraits of former headmasters of Hogwarts; he sends the two most prominent headmasters out to search for Arthur (their portraits hang in institutions all throughout the Wizarding World, allowing them to shuttle between locations at will). They quickly locate Arthur and notify the proper channels to rush him to St. Mungo's Hospital. Dumbledore sends Fawkes, his phoenix, to sound a warning to the rest of the Order, and asks McGonagall to round up the rest of the Weasley children and gather them in his office. Dumbledore communicates with Sirius to make sure Grimmauld Place is safe before sending Harry and the Weasleys there for safe keeping while Arthur is checked into intensive care. They travel by portkey to Grimmauld Place before Umbridge, who realizes they are out of bed, can stop them from leaving.
At Sirius' house, Fred and George argue with Sirius that they should be going to St. Mungo's to see their father. Sirius tells them that they have to stay put. Fred and George accuse Sirius of not taking any risks while other people risk their lives for the Order. Eventually, Sirius convinces everyone to calm down and stay put. At five in the morning, Molly shows up to Grimmauld Place and tells everyone that Arthur is out of the woods, stabilized, and resting. They plan to visit him after lunch. Molly thanks Harry for saving Arthur's life, but Harry is still filled with guilt over the feeling that he didn't just witness the attack, but took part in it.
That afternoon, Harry, Molly, and the Weasley clan head to St. Mungo's in the company of Mad-Eye Moody and Nymphadora Tonks. Arthur is in good spirits, reading the Daily Prophet and telling them about the other witches and wizards in his ward. Fred and George try to ply Arthur for information, but he keeps his Order business to himself. After the kids leave the room, Moody and Tonks go in to confer with Arthur. Fred and George hand everyone an Extendable Ear so they can listen in, but what they hear is scarier than they bargained for. Moody seems to think that Harry is possessed by Lord Voldemort.
Harry's mind races with this new possibility that he could be possessed by Voldemort. He feels like he is now a danger to everyone around him, and simply by inhabiting the Order headquarters, he is feeding Voldemort vital information about his friends and loved ones. Harry decides he should leave Grimmauld Place at once, so packs his trunk and prepares to go back to Privet Drive, where he knows none of his magical friends will be. As he drags his trunk into the center of the room, the portrait of Phineas Nigellus accuses him of running away and acting cowardly. Nigellus is another one of Sirius' ancestors and a former headmaster of Hogwarts (which is why he is able to communicate with Dumbledore). Nigellus tells Harry that Dumbledore says to stay put (almost as if Dumbledore can read Harry's mind about leaving Grimmauld Place). Harry's anger toward Dumbledore increases. How can Dumbledore continue to give him these vague instructions without offering an ounce of explanation? However, Harry heeds his advice and stays put; he simply avoids contact with anyone in Sirius' house.
Hermione shows up to Grimmauld Place after a few days and draws Harry out of his bedroom. She forces him to talk with Ron and Ginny about his feelings. Ginny tells Harry he's being foolish and reminds him that she was actually possessed by Voldemort and can tell him exactly how it feels. When she was possessed, she lost hours of memory, basically blacking out while Voldemort took hold of her consciousness. After talking it through with Hermione and Ginny, Harry feels much better and starts to actually socialize and enjoy the holiday at Grimmauld Place. On Christmas Day, the Weasleys drive to St. Mungo's in an enchanted car "borrowed" by Mundungus. They visit Arthur, whose recovery has been slightly stunted by an attempt to use a Muggle remedy called "stitches." Molly starts to yell at Arthur for encouraging the trainee to use a Muggle remedy, so the kids wander off to find the tearoom. On the way to the tearoom, they pass the long-term in-patient ward for permanent spell damage. They encounter Gilderoy Lockhart, their former Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher and best-selling author of magical memoirs (that turned out to be fraudulent). Lockhart ropes them into visiting the closed ward where he lives, and much to Neville's horror, Harry and the Weasleys cross paths with Neville and his grandmother as they're visiting his parents, who are permanently insane after being tortured by Bellatrix Lestrange and Barty Crouch Jr. Harry knew about Neville's parents, but Dumbledore swore him to secrecy. Neville is extremely embarrassed and distressed to see his school friends at the ward, but his grandmother is appalled by the fact that he hasn't told his friends about his parents. She tells them all how it happened, and then she and Neville leave the ward, leaving Hermione and the Weasleys in a slight state of shock at learning this new layer to Neville Longbottom's life.
Analysis
Umbridge's reign of terror at Hogwarts continues to infringe upon the rights of students. Rowling presents Umbridge's reforms in the form of "Educational Decrees." An early decree dissolves student organizations, teams, and clubs, banning any "regular meeting of three or more students" (165) and thus explicitly infringing on the students' right to assembly. While Umbridge's character becomes almost a caricature of an evil, goading autocrat, her decrees attack real, basic human rights honored in many countries around the world, and certainly in England, where the story takes place. The right to peaceful assembly is protected by English law and is considered part and parcel with freedom of speech; Umbridge's decrees are not subtle in their mimicry of a suppressive political regime. She censors students (like Harry) who dare to suggest anything different than the narrative accepted by the Ministry, and she takes her censorship a step further by physically abusing dissenters. By positioning Umbridge as the embodiment of Ministry authority at Hogwarts, Rowling proposes that the Ministry itself is responding to the fear of Voldemort by becoming a suppressive regime that uses any means necessary to quell subversive efforts to fight the Dark forces.
Although Umbridge likes to pretend that her only allegiance is to the law and the rules of the Ministry, she betrays her personal biases when interacting with Slytherins and inspecting Hagrid's class. Umbridge's seeming favoritism towards Slytherin house complicates the notion that, as Sirius says, "the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters" (142). While Umbridge is not a Death Eater, she seems to unabashedly identify with their politics around race, and she clearly rewards Slytherins with more autonomy and flexibility towards the rules. An example of this imbalance is when Umbridge bans Harry, Fred, and George from Quidditch for acting violently towards Malfoy, but punishes Crabbe's violence with nothing more than detention.
Rowling continues to expand the reach of her magical world in Order of the Phoenix, finally bringing her readers to locations like St. Mungo's Hospital and the Ministry itself. Order of the Phoenix is the first book in which readers are brought into the physical locations of some of the most important institutions of the English Wizarding World. St. Mungo's doesn't have doctors, but rather "healers." In fact, when Harry refers to the St. Mungo's healers as doctors, Ron insists that they are not like "those Muggle nutters that cut people up" (227). In addition to physically bringing these locations to life, Rowling imbues them with a sense of familiarity and parallelism to the real "Muggle" world of her readers by describing Public Service Announcements posted around St. Mungo's like, "A CLEAN CAULDRON KEEPS POTIONS FROM BECOMING POISONS" and "ANTIDOTES ARE ANTI-DON’TS UNLESS APPROVED BY A QUALIFIED HEALER" (227-228).
These details provide a cohesiveness to the world and a continuity between the books. Twice in one chapter, Rowling recalls the events of The Chamber of Secrets, and not just in an empty, referential way, but in a consequential, plot-driven manner. In Chapter 23, "Christmas on the Closed Ward," Ginny reminds Harry that she was possessed by Voldemort in book two, and that his symptoms do not match up with her experience, which includes long periods of blacking out. And then, on their way to the tearoom at St. Mungo's, they encounter Gilderoy Lockhart, whose memory was permanently wiped in a scuffle with Harry, Ron, and Hermione in book two, as he attempted to wipe their memories.
In addition, the encounter leads them to the closed ward, where they meet Neville and his grandmother, who are visiting Neville's parents. Neville's parents were tortured by Death Eaters and now live at St. Mungo's, deemed permanently insane due to the Cruciatus curse. Hermione, learning that Bellatrix Lestrange is the person responsible for their state, realizes that Kreacher has a large photo of Bellatrix in his den, and this allegiance complicates Hermione's attempt at empathy for Kreacher as it relates to her fight for Elfish Welfare.
