In the aftermath of his battle with Voldemort at the end of the Tri-Wizard Tournament, Harry Potter spends his annual summer with the Dursleys more depressed than ever. Dumbledore has insisted he return to Privet Drive and take no action to combat the Dark Lord. Even worse, his best friends Ron and Hermione have gone incommunicado, leaving him totally disconnected from the wizarding world. Until one night, dementors attack Harry and his cousin Dudley, forcing him to use magic to fend them off and exposing him to the scrutiny of the Ministry of Magic.
Unfortunately for Harry, the Minister, Cyril Fudge, is in denial about Voldemort’s return, and has thus undertaken a campaign of misinformation against both Dumbledore and Potter, who was, after all, the only actual witness. Harry thus goes from hero to pariah, a somewhat familiar journey for him in this series.
Standing by Harry is the titular Order of the Phoenix, a secret society of magical beings formed by Dumbledore for the express purpose of combatting Lord Voldemort and preventing his evil from spreading. Membership consists of some people we’ve met already, like Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, and (to Harry’s consternation) Professor Snape. There are also some new figures to the reader, like Tonks, a shape-shifting witch, Kingsley Shacklebolt, a mole inside the Ministry of Magic, and the actual Mad-Eye Moody, freed at the end of book four.
For now, Harry is too young to join in the fight, and so he, Ron, and Hermione are to head back to Hogwarts and keep their heads down. Ron and Hermione have been made prefects, to Ron’s chagrin, and all three are anxiously awaiting their O.W.L.’s at the end of the school year. Throwing a kink into these plans is the arrival of their new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Dolores Umbridge. A plant forced on Hogwarts by the Ministry, Umbridge is a delightfully repugnant character. Officious, smug, and duplicitous, Umbridge gets under the skin of everyone at Hogwarts as she worms her way into power thanks to her powerful friends.
And if all that is not enough, Harry has started having strange and vivid dreams. Dreams that do not feel like dreams at all. As he tries to steer clear of Umbridge, figure out what his dreams mean, and keep on top of his homework, Harry and his friends start to consider life beyond Hogwarts. What will he and his schoolmates do for their careers? How will they live in a world with the deadly Lord Voldemort at work?
The fifth book in the series, and the longest, Order of the Phoenix has perhaps too much going on. The action is really heating up, but Rowling dithers too often on new characters and side plots that don’t pay off well enough to justify their length. Still, there is a lot to enjoy within these pages, and enough development of Harry and his friends to adequately set up the rest of the series.
