During the summer, Harry Potter is frustrated by his friends' non-communication and with Dumbledore barring him from helping combat a newly-resurgent Lord Voldemort. One evening, Dementors attack him and cousin Dudley, but Harry fends them off using the Patronus Charm. Later, Order of the Phoenix members arrive at the Dursley house to evacuate Harry. They whisk him off to Number 12, Grimmauld Place, Sirius Black's family home, which is now the Order's headquarters. Ron and Hermione are there and tell Harry that the Order is a secret organisation that Dumbledore created to fight Voldemort and the Death Eaters. Harry wants to join, but is too young.
The Ministry of Magic, under Cornelius Fudge, attempt to malign Harry for stating that Voldemort has returned. Harry is also charged with performing underage magic while with a Muggle, but is exonerated and returns to Hogwarts. Dolores Umbridge, a senior Ministry employee, is the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. She initiates strict rules and a textbook-only curriculum and forbids the students from practicing defensive spells. Harry, Ron, and Hermione form a secret student Defense group called Dumbledore's Army. The group secretly meets in the Room of Requirement to practice under Harry's instruction.
One night, Harry dreams that Arthur Weasley is attacked by Voldemort's snake, Nagini. His vision is true, and Arthur is found seriously injured at the Ministry. Dumbledore realises that Harry's and Voldemort's minds are connected, and he orders Professor Snape to teach Harry Occlumency, a skill to close one's mind against others. Umbridge is tipped-off about Dumbledore's Army; to prevent Harry's expulsion, Dumbledore claims responsibility for forming the group. To avoid arrest, he goes into hiding. Umbridge is appointed headmistress, though she is magically barred from entering Dumbledore's tower, and begins enacting strict rules and regulations.
Harry's Occlumency lessons go poorly. During his Ordinary Wizarding Level exams, he envisions Voldemort torturing Sirius in the Department of Mysteries at the Ministry. Harry attempts to contact Sirius at Grimmauld Place, using the Floo Network in Umbridge's office, but she catches and interrogates him, threatening to use the Cruciatus Curse on him. Hermione intervenes by concocting a story that leads them into the Forbidden Forest. Umbridge provokes the centaurs, who take her captive.
Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Neville and Luna fly to the Ministry to save Sirius, but he is not in the Department of Mysteries. Instead, the room in his vision has shelves filled with glass spheres, one of which bears Harry's and Voldemort's names. Harry picks it up and is immediately surrounded by Death Eaters. Lucius Malfoy reveals that Harry was lured there by a fake vision from Voldemort, and that he wishes to hear the prophecy contained in the glass sphere. He asks Harry for the sphere, but Harry refuses. The Hogwarts group fight the Death Eaters and evade them. Order of the Phoenix members (tipped off by Professor Snape) arrive and battle the Death Eaters. Lucius Malfoy accidentally drops the prophecy sphere, destroying it. Later during the battle, Bellatrix Lestrange kills Sirius.
Harry chases Bellatrix into the atrium. Voldemort appears and tries to kill Harry, but Dumbledore appears and thwarts him. Fudge and other Ministry of Magic employees arrive on the scene and witness Voldemort just before he escapes. In his office, Dumbledore tells Harry the prophecy was made by Professor Trelawney, who predicted the birth of a child with power against Voldemort. This caused Voldemort to pursue Harry's parents, and is why he targets Harry. Overwhelmed by the prophecy and mourning Sirius' death, Harry grows sullen, although the wizarding community now believes and respects him. Supported by his friends, Harry is able to endure another summer with the Dursleys.
Publication and release
Potter fans waited three years between the releases of the fourth and fifth books.[2][3] 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.[4] 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 copies at midnight.[4] Despite the security, thousands of copies were stolen from an Earlestown, Merseyside warehouse on 15 June 2003.[5]
Critical response
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was met with mostly positive reviews and received several awards. [6]The Guardian reported on reviews from several British publications that had rated the novel out of five: Daily Mail gave it a four, The Observer, Evening Standard, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph and The Times gave it a three and Independent on Sunday gave it a two.[7] In 2004, the book was cited as an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults and as an American Library Association Notable Book.[8][9] It also received the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio 2004 Gold Medal, along with several other awards.[10] Rowling was praised for her imagination by USA Today writer Deirdre Donahue.[11]The New York Times writer John Leonard praised the novel, saying "The Order of the Phoenix starts slow, gathers speed and then skateboards, with somersaults, to its furious conclusion....As Harry gets older, Rowling gets better."[12] However, he also criticised "the one-note Draco Malfoy" and the predictable Lord Voldemort.[12]
After the publishing of Order of the Phoenix, the sixth book of the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was published on 16 July 2005 and sold 9 million copies in the first 24 hours of its worldwide release.[1][18] The seventh and final novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was published 21 July 2007.[19] The book sold 11 million copies within 24 hours of its release: 2.7 million copies in the UK and 8.3 million in the US.[18]
A video game adaptation of the book and film versions of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was made for Microsoft Windows, PS2, PS3, Xbox 360, PSP, Nintendo DS, Wii, Game Boy Advance, and Mac OS X.[25] It was released on 25 June 2007 in the U.S., 28 June 2007 in Australia, and 29 June 2007 in the UK and Europe for PlayStation 3, PSP, PlayStation 2, Windows, and 3 July 2007 for most other platforms.[26] The games were published by Electronic Arts.[27]
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 bestseller list in France, whereas in Germany and the Netherlands, an unofficial distributed translation process was started on the internet.[28]
^Knapp, N.F. (2003). "In Defense of Harry Potter: An Apologia"(PDF). School Libraries Worldwide. 9 (1). International Association of School Librarianship: 78–91. Archived from the original(PDF) on 9 March 2011. Retrieved 14 May 2009.
