Oot P - Plot

Plot

Harry Potter is spending another summer with his dreadful Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, when a pair of Dementors stage an unexpected attack on Harry and his cousin Dudley. After he uses magic to defend himself and Dudley, he is temporarily expelled from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for using magic outside of the school, despite being legally allowed to do in self-defence, before it is rescinded. A few days afterwards, Harry is visited by a group of wizards and Mad-Eye Moody and is whisked off to Number 12, Grimmauld Place, London, the home of Harry's godfather, Sirius Black, and the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix. As Harry learns from his best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, the Order of the Phoenix is a group of witches and wizards, led by Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore, dedicated to fighting the evil Lord Voldemort and his followers. The Order is forced to operate in secrecy, outside of the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Magic, which is headed by the dense and corrupt Cornelius Fudge, who refuses to believe that Lord Voldemort has returned. In addition, Harry learns that he and Dumbledore have been made victims of a ministry smear campaign aimed at discrediting them and their beliefs about Voldemort's return. Because of his use of magic, Harry's fate is to be determined at a disciplinary hearing at the Ministry of Magic, which turns out to be an apparent show trial. With Dumbledore's help, Harry is cleared by the Wizengamot and permitted to return to Hogwarts.

Reunited with his best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, Harry returns to Hogwarts and learns that Dolores Umbridge, an employee of Fudge, will be his new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. The Sorting Hat, which traditionally sorts all new students into one of four houses, cautions the students against becoming too internally divided. Meanwhile, due to the smear campaign against him, Harry is the subject of unwanted gossip from the student body at large, and a number of people turn against him. Professor Umbridge and Harry soon clash, as she, like Fudge, refuses to believe that Voldemort has returned and punishes Harry when he points out Voldemort's return by forcing him to write lines with a special quill that carves "I must not tell lies" into the back of his hand.

Umbridge refuses to teach her students how to perform defensive spells, and before long, Fudge appoints her High Inquisitor of Hogwarts, giving her the authority to inspect all faculty members and evaluate their skills. In desperation, Harry, Hermione, and Ron form their own Defense Against the Dark Arts group, called Dumbledore's Army, or "D.A". Twenty-five other students sign up, including several of Harry's friends as well as the eccentric Luna Lovegood, and they meet as often as possible to learn and practice Defense spells, and learn well from Harry. One night, Harry has a vision where he inhabits the body of a large snake (which turns out to be Voldemort's pet snake, Nagini), and attacks Ron's father. Harry wakes up horrified, and Professor McGonagall takes him to Dumbledore immediately. Dumbledore uses the portraits on the walls of his office to raise an alert, and Mr. Weasley is promptly rescued by two members of the Order. The Weasley family, accompanied by Harry and the Order, visit Arthur Weasley in St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. Afterwards, Dumbledore demands that Harry take Occlumency lessons with Professor Snape, for the purpose of protecting his mind against further invasions by Lord Voldemort. During the lessons, Harry learns that a corridor he has been repeatedly visiting in his dreams is part of the Department of Mysteries.

Harry is unsuccessful at Occlumency because he has such difficulty clearing his mind of all thoughts, making it difficult for him to focus on closing his mind off to all outside influence, in addition to wanting to find out what they mean. Meanwhile, his scar (from the attack in which Voldemort killed Harry's parents) burns horribly every time Voldemort experiences a powerful emotion. The D.A. continues to meet regularly, and Harry's peers show great improvement until they are caught by Umbridge. Dumbledore takes full responsibility for the group and resigns as Headmaster, and Umbridge takes over his position. Shortly afterwards, Harry ends up viewing a memory of Snape's, showing him being bullied by Harry's father James and Sirius, back in their schooldays. Harry wishes desperately to contact his godfather to talk about his father, but Umbridge has been inspecting all owl posts and patrolling the fires of Hogwarts, preventing communication via the Floo Network. Ron's brothers, Fred and George Weasley agree to distract Umbridge so that Harry can use her fireplace to talk to Sirius, who clears up Harry's doubts about his father. Immediately afterwards, they leave Hogwarts, moving to London where they plan to open a joke shop in the wizarding town of Diagon Alley using the money Harry won the previous year in the Triwizard Tournament.

The students begin taking their O.W.L. exams, and Harry has another vision, this time about Sirius being held captive and tortured by Voldemort. Horrified, Harry becomes determined to save him. Hermione warns Harry that Voldemort may be deliberately trying to lure Harry to the Department of Mysteries, but Harry is too concerned about Sirius to pay heed. Harry sneaks into Umbridge's office, and, using her fireplace, transports himself to 12, Grimmauld Place to look for Sirius. Kreacher, the House of Black's house elf, tells Harry that Sirius is at the Ministry of Magic. Harry returns to Hogwarts when he is pulled back through the fire by Umbridge to find that he and his friends have been caught in Umbridge's office. Ron, Luna, Ginny, and Neville, who tried to distract Umbridge so that Harry could use her fireplace, have all been seized by Slytherins and gagged. Hermione and Harry convince Umbridge to follow them into the forest, where they claim to be hiding a weapon for Dumbledore which they had just finished and wanted to tell him about.

Once in the forest, Umbridge provokes the resident herd of centaurs, and is taken into the forest by them. Harry and his friends use the school's thestrals, winged skeletal horses to fly to the Ministry. Once they arrive, Harry cannot find Sirius and realises that Hermione was right. Harry also sees that one of the glass spheres has his name on it, as well as Voldemort's. Harry grabs the sphere, and Death Eaters led by Lucius Malfoy surround to attack, demanding that Harry hand over the prophecy. Employing all of their Defence skills, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Luna, and Neville have moderate success fighting the Death Eaters, but they are ultimately helped enormously by the arrival of several members of the Order, including Dumbledore. In the midst of the fight, Harry drops the glass sphere and it shatters. Sirius is killed by his own cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange, when she blasts him through the veil.

Harry tries to avenge his godfather and follows Bellatrix, but is met by Voldemort at the fountain. Dumbledore appears shortly after Voldemort and the two engage in an intense duel. Voldemort fights Dumbledore to stalemate, then possesses Harry in an attempt to get Dumbledore to sacrifice Harry in the hope of killing him. Voldemort and Lestrange escape, just as Fudge appears at the Ministry, finally faced with incontrovertible evidence that the Dark Lord has returned. Dumbledore sends Harry back to school, where, after Harry has a breakdown, screaming that "he's had enough" of all the pain and anguish and death and destruction, he explains that the sphere was a prophecy which stated that Harry has a power that Voldemort will never know: the power of love, given to him by his mother's sacrifice fifteen years earlier. The prophecy goes on to claim that neither Harry nor Voldemort can live while the other survives. Dumbledore takes this opportunity to tell Harry why he must spend his summers with the Dursleys in Little Whinging: because Harry's mother died to save him, he is blessed with her love, a blessing that can be sealed only by blood. Harry's Aunt Petunia, his mother's sister, makes that bond complete by taking Harry into her home. As long as he still calls Little Whinging home, Harry is safe. At the end of the year, members of Order warn the Dursleys that they will have to answer to the Order should they mistreat Harry, who returns to the Dursleys for the summer.