Summary
On their last day in Grimmauld Place before heading back to Hogwarts, Snape pays Harry a visit. Harry, quite unpleasantly surprised to be called upon by Snape, cannot imagine what he would want with him. Snape tells Harry that Dumbledore has instructed him to conduct private Occlumency lessons with Harry every week. Occlumency is the magical art of blocking entry into one's mind. Since Voldemort now understands that he and Harry have access to each other's minds, Dumbledore feels it prudent to train Harry to block Legilimency, which is essentially "mind-reading."
They return to school on the Knight Bus escorted by Mad-Eye and Tonks. As soon as they're back in the halls of Hogwarts, members of the D.A. ask Harry when their next meeting will be. Unfortunately, Harry cannot host a meeting on their first night back because he has an Occlumency lesson with Snape. Snape has ordered Harry to tell people that he's taking "remedial potions" with him, so as to throw off any suspicion. Harry runs into Cho in the hallway; the last time they saw each other, their encounter ended with an awkward and confusing kiss. However, Cho seems rather excited to see Harry. She asks him about the Hogsmeade trip and after a minute, Harry picks up on her cues and asks if she'd like to join him in Hogsmeade on Valentine's Day. He heads to his lesson with Snape with a spring in his step—at least something is going right with his day.
Harry enters Snape's office, and Snape draws a few of his own memories out and deposits them in a Pensieve. He then explains to Harry why Dumbledore is pushing for him to learn Occlumency. After Harry's vision of Nagini attacking Arthur, Voldemort is now aware of the channel between their minds and will likely try to penetrate Harry's mind at any opportunity. Snape explains that Hogwarts is surrounded by protective spells and ancient magic that mostly prevents Legilimency from occurring within its walls. Then, they begin their lesson. Snape repeatedly penetrates Harry's mind, offering Harry minimal instruction on how to prevent it from happening or repel it once it does. Harry, nonetheless, through sheer willpower, seems to expel Snape from his mind (but not before Snape sees into some of his more private memories, including his first kiss with Cho). They end the lesson, planning to meet again the following week. Snape warns Harry that he will be able to tell if Harry fails to practice. The lesson leaves Harry feeling quite ill. He goes to sleep and wakes up with Ron standing over him in horror. Harry experiences another dream in which he takes on the perspective of Voldemort. This time, he wakes up laughing maniacally. He knows from his dream that Voldemort is very pleased about something, but he has no idea what. He feels weak, his scar burns worse than ever, and all he knows is that Voldemort is the happiest he's been in over a decade.
A headline in The Daily Prophet the morning after Harry's latest fitful peek inside Voldemort's mind explains exactly why the Dark Lord was so overjoyed—ten of his loyal Death Eaters have escaped Azkaban prison. The Prophet offers very little explanation as to how the prisoners managed to escape, but blames the breakout on Sirius Black. Cornelius Fudge offers a statement in which he proposes that Sirius orchestrated the escape and now harbors the Death Eaters, and furthermore, that the Death Eaters regard Sirius as their new leader. The news of the Death Eaters' escape sends shockwaves through the magical community. Suddenly Harry's peers regard him less with suspicion and more with genuine interest. Harry's story seems more and more plausible as the days pass. In their next trip to Hogsmeade, Cho points out how strange it is that Dementors aren't patrolling the village with ten Death Eaters on the loose, when just two years ago, there were countless Dementors patrolling for Sirius alone. Harry takes this as even more evidence that the Ministry has lost control of the Dementors.
As Harry and Cho sit in a tea shop on Valentine's Day, Cho clearly becomes annoyed that Harry doesn't act more affectionately towards her. She then tries to talk to him about Cedric, and Harry changes the subject. Cho starts to cry and accuses Harry of blowing her off for plans with Hermione. Harry tries to explain that Hermione is just his friend, but before he can get the words out, Cho storms out of the shop. Harry meets Hermione, as planned, in The Three Broomsticks. He's surprised to find her sharing a booth with Luna Lovegood and Rita Skeeter, the former Prophet reporter who Hermione is blackmailing with the knowledge that she is an unregistered Animagus. Hermione offers Rita a deal. She will stop holding the Animagus information over her head if she publishes a tell-all interview of Harry in Luna's father's magazine, The Quibbler. Hermione, observing the public's unsatisfied reaction to The Daily Prophet's report on the escaped Death Eaters, sees an opportunity to fill in the gaps in the Ministry's narrative. Skeeter begrudgingly agrees to the task.
The publication of Harry's interview in The Quibbler infuriates Umbridge and inspires a new decree that "any student found in possession of the magazine The Quibbler will be expelled" (273). Umbridge seems to be the only faculty member upset by Harry's interview—the rest of the faculty are extremely pleased that he took it upon himself to defy The Daily Prophet. Hermione's idea seems to have worked, and The Quibbler article changes many witches and wizards' minds, especially in the wake of the mass escape from Azkaban. Dumbledore's Army is also thriving, with new fuel added to the fire with the imminent threat of a wizarding war. After the Lestranges' escape from Azkaban, Neville's spell-casting improves exponentially. Meanwhile, Harry's Occlumency skills leave much to be desired. He keeps having dreams from Voldemort's perspective, and he has a recurring dream that takes him down a long corridor in the Department of Mysteries; however, the dream always ends before he can open the door at the end of the corridor.
During a particularly tense session of Occlumency with Snape, Harry uses a shielding spell to expel Snape from his mind and it reverses the Legilimency, so Harry sees into Snape's mind. He sees a few barely legible childhood memories of Snape's. They are interrupted by the sound of screaming from the entrance hall. When they go to inspect, they find a large crowd around Trelawney, her trunks aggressively strewn before her. Professor Umbridge wears a sickening smile, presiding over the scene. Trelawney is in the process of being fired. Dumbledore bursts onto the scene and assures Trelawney that she will still live in Hogwarts castle. He concedes that Umbridge has the right to fire his teachers, but she does not have the right to evict them. When Umbridge asks what Dumbledore will do when she's found a new Divination instructor, Dumbledore assures her that he's already hired one. (The decree stipulates that the Inquisitor hires new professors only if the Headmaster fails to hire one first.) Dumbledore introduces the new Divination professor, a centaur named Firenze. Umbridge, who hates all so-called "half-breeds," is appalled.
Their first lesson with Firenze proves to be very different from the Divination classes to which they've grown accustomed under the tutelage of Trelawney. Firenze emphasizes the unknowability of the universe, and, unlike Trelawney, does not claim to be able to tell the future. Firenze's description of Seeing is more like a compass than a crystal ball—the universe provides clues and signs that then must be interpreted by Seers. He also tells the students that, as humans, they are likely not equipped with the intuition of Seers. Centaurs are, according to Firenze, more naturally attuned to the contours of the universe. At the end of the lesson, Firenze stops Harry and asks him to communicate with Hagrid for him. Firenze asks Harry to tell Hagrid, "His attempt is not working. He would do better to abandon it" (284). He refuses to elaborate. Harry passes along the message, but Hagrid shrugs it off and doesn't heed it.
At the next D.A. meeting, Harry marvels at his friends' progress. They have advanced to the Patronus charm, and several of the D.A. produce fully corporeal Patronuses. In the middle of their meeting, Dobby bursts into the Room of Requirement and struggles to tell Harry about an imminent threat he faces because he's been ordered by his employer (Hogwarts) to keep it quiet. Harry eventually is able to glean that Umbridge has learned about the D.A. and is en route to the Room of Requirement. The members scatter in the hallways, attempting to make it to a public space and blend in with their surroundings. Harry is intercepted by Malfoy on his way to the library, and Umbridge escorts him to Dumbledore's office. In Dumbledore's office, several other figures from the Ministry, including Cornelius Fudge himself, await Harry. Fudge is joined by Percy, Kinglsey Shacklebolt, and another Auror Harry hasn't met before. Umbridge levels her accusations and presents her proof; they had an informant in Hog's Head the day Harry assembled the D.A. They then bring in Cho's friend, Marietta Edgecombe, whose face is disfigured by purple pustules that form the word "SNEAK" (courtesy of Hermione's jinx). But when Cornelius presents the membership list to Dumbledore and Dumbledore sees that they named the group "Dumbledore's Army," he takes full responsibility, thus shunting the blame from Harry and saving him from expulsion. Then, when the Aurors make a move to arrest Dumbledore, he stuns them all (including Fudge and Umbridge) and escapes with Fawkes, his phoenix. By the time the Ministry members come to, Dumbledore is long gone, and Harry and McGonagall pretend to be none the wiser.
The morning after Dumbledore's flight, another Ministry decree names Umbridge the acting Headmaster of Hogwarts. Fred and George hint at a master plan to cause as much mayhem as possible for Umbridge while she's acting Headmaster. Hermione warns them that they'll be expelled, and they explain that they don't care about finishing school anymore. Harry is called into Umbridge's office on his way to lunch. When he arrives, she insists that he drink something. He finally accepts a cup of tea, but her insistence that he sip the tea makes him suspicious that she slipped a potion into it, so he only pretends to drink. As soon as he pretends to drink the tea, Umbridge fires off questions about the whereabouts of Dumbledore and Sirius. Harry calmly claims ignorance. During the interrogation, a loud explosion shakes the office from the corridor. They rush out of the room to find hundreds of magical fireworks erupting through the halls. The fireworks continue all day long, and the professors refuse to put them out themselves, so Umbridge is kept busy running around extinguishing them all day.
On his way to his next Occlumency lesson, Cho stops Harry in the hallway and apologizes for her friend informing on them. Her apology quickly becomes a half-hearted defense of Marietta, and Harry's temper flares. He lashes out at Cho and says that Marrietta's actions are indefensible. Cho storms off, furious. Harry arrives at his Occlumency lesson prepared to be scolded by Snape for failing to practice. Instead, their lesson is postponed because Malfoy informs Snape that the Slytherin Quidditch captain has been found jammed inside a toilet. Malfoy and a group of Slytherins now work for Umbridge's "Inquisitorial Squad," a designation that gives select students the power to dock points from houses indiscriminately. Malfoy and Snape leave the office, leaving Harry alone with Snape's Pensieve. Harry knows that the Pensieve contains memories that Snape is expressly keeping from him and he can't resist. He plunges in.
The Pensieve takes Harry back to when Snape is fifteen years old and taking his Defense Against the Dark Arts O.W.L. Near young Snape, James Potter, Remus Lupin, Sirius, and Pettigrew also finish up their exams. Harry is shocked to see that he is, as everyone says, truly a spitting image of his father at his age with only small differences. Harry follows his father's group out to the lawn, where Snape buries his face in books under a familiar tree. James and his friends sit around and quip, and Harry notices that his father is kind of a show-off, releasing a snitch into the air and catching it over and over again. Then, spotting Snape, James decides to harass him. He walks over to where Snape sits and begins to hex him. A girl rushes over to Snape's defense, and Harry recognizes her as his mother, Lily. Lily calls James arrogant and cruel and tells him to stop bullying Snape, but Snape claims he doesn't need her help and then calls her a "Mudblood." Lily storms off, and James continues to torment Snape, but the scene is interrupted when the adult Snape re-enters his office and finds Harry in the Pensieve. He throws Harry to the ground and tells him never to come back to his office again. Harry leaves the office thoroughly shaken—not by Snape's scolding, but by the revelation that his father was as arrogant as Snape always claims he was.
After witnessing the scene in Snape's Pensieve, Harry needs some clarity from Sirius. He wants to know more about his father's behavior. Was he always like that? Did he get better? Harry tells Ginny that he wants to talk to Sirius, and Ginny passes the message along to Fred and George, who are both thrilled to plan a diversion. Harry knows that the only fireplace not being policed by Ministry officials is Umbridge's own fireplace, so he has to sneak into her office to shuttle into Grimmauld Place. But before he can do that, Harry attends a career counseling meeting with Professor McGonagall, his head of house. At the meeting, Harry tells McGonagall that he is interested in becoming an Auror. McGonagall tells him he'll have to improve his marks in Potions and Transfiguration, but that it is certainly possible. Umbridge, who sits in on the meeting, interrupts several times to say that Harry doesn't have the Defense Against the Dark Arts credentials, nor does he have the temperament, to become an Auror. The meeting grows increasingly tense until it explodes and ends with McGonagall and Umbridge screaming at one another. Harry slips out.
Later that day, ignoring Hermione's pleading, Harry heads toward Umbridge's office with his invisibility cloak. Fred and George promised a diversion around this time that would allow him to conference with Sirius in the fireplace. He slips into Umbridge's office, hears a commotion a few corridors over, and throws in a dash of Floo powder. When Harry's head pops into Grimmauld Place, he sees Lupin at the table, writing notes. Lupin calls down for Sirius, who rushes to the fireplace to see what's the matter. Harry assures him there is no emergency, but tells them both about what he witnessed in the Pensieve. They explain that yes, they were arrogant young men at Hogwarts, but that James changed, and his and Lily's relationship grew slowly over time. They say James and Snape always had it out for each other, and Harry shouldn't base his entire perception of his father on that one memory. Harry lets it slip that Snape stopped teaching him Occlumency, and Sirius urges him to go to Snape as soon as possible to demand more lessons. Harry hears Filch approaching the room, so he withdraws from the fireplace and slips out the door. He walks toward the commotion, where he finds a huge crowd around Fred and George in the entrance hall. Filch excitedly sidles up to Umbridge with a form approving the use of a whip on students as punishment. Umbridge explains to Fred and George that according to a new decree, they can be punished corporally. Fred and George summon their brooms, announce that they are leaving school, and advertise their new brick-and-mortar jokeshop in Diagon Alley as they fly off into the sunset. Umbridge, denied the opportunity to inflict pain on students, is livid.
Fred and George's bold exit from Hogwarts inspires a wave of mischief and rebellion throughout the school. All manner of disruptions—including dungbombs, Skiving Snackboxes, and nifflers—are released in the corridors, classrooms, and the office of Umbridge herself. Other faculty members seems to silently support the rebellion and certainly do nothing to quell it. Harry admits to giving Fred and George his Triwizard winnings when he hears Hermione and Ron theorize about how the twins may have criminally acquired the funds for a shop in Diagon Alley. Ron is thrilled that Harry gave them the seed money because now his mother can't blame him. Ron has enough to worry about with the final leg of the House Quidditch Cup coming up. Hufflepuff narrowly beats Slytherin, leaving Gryffindor in the running to win the Cup against Ravenclaw, despite their embarrassing loss after Harry, Fred, and George were banned.
During the match, Hagrid pulls Harry and Hermione out of the stands and takes them to the Forbidden Forest. Hagrid seems desperate and asks for their help, though he won't tell them what exactly they're helping him with; he'd rather show them. They hike deep into the forest, Hagrid's crossbow at his shoulder, until the reach a clearing where several trees have been torn up at the root. What Harry mistakes for a large mound of earth is actually Hagrid's half-brother, Grawp. Finally, they realize why Hagrid has been showing up with new cuts and bruises, and why it took him two months to get back to Hogwarts after leaving the giant settlement. He discovered his half-brother at the settlement, saw that he was being bullied and mistreated by other giants, and decided to take him to the Forbidden Forest to socialize him with humans. Now that Hagrid feels like he's bound to be fired and evicted from Hogwarts, he needs Harry, Ron, and Hermione to look after Grawp. Harry and Hermione reluctantly agree to the task, despite the obvious dangers. As they leave the forest, they encounter a group of centaurs. The centaurs are highly displeased with Hagrid for saving Firenze when they planned on murdering him for accepting a teaching position at Hogwarts. The centaurs agree to let them pass only because Hagrid is in the presence of children. As they approach the Quidditch green, they hear the cheers of Gryffindors and see that Ron is being paraded around on their housemates' shoulders. Gryffindor managed to win the House Cup after all.
Harry and Hermione let Ron enjoy the bliss of a Quidditch victory for an entire afternoon before they tell him that they didn't actually see his victory, that Hagrid has been hiding a giant in the Forbidden Forest, and that they promised him they would look after the giant when he is inevitably fired from Hogwarts. Ron is rather horrified by this flood of information, but holds out hope that Hagrid will keep his post until the end of the year since, after all, he has made it this far.
O.W.L. exams commence for fifth-years. The entire class is swept up in a marathon of testing and studying that lasts for two weeks. All in all, Harry, Ron, and Hermione manage to keep it together and perform fairly well in their subjects. Harry is sure that he scored an Outstanding in his Defense Against the Dark Arts exam and that he may have even eeked out a passing grade in Potions. All is relatively well until their Astronomy exam, during which they all gaze at the stars through telescopes on a high tower of Hogwarts. From the tower, the students are distracted by a view of what is happening on the ground around Hagrid's cabin. Umbridge and a group of Aurors surround Hagrid's place and draw him out. They then attempt to stun him, but their spells deflect off of his enormous body. However, they manage to stun his dog Fang. McGonagall runs out to aid him, but the Aurors hit her with four simultaneous stunning charms, causing her to crumple to the ground. Hagrid manages to knock out his assailants and flee into the forest with Fang over his shoulder. The students are left in shock from the Astronomy tower. During their final exam in History of Magic, Harry has another vision of the Department of Mysteries. This time, Voldemort is torturing his godfather, Sirius, for information about whatever "secret weapon" is being hidden in the Department. Harry wakes up flailing on the floor of the Great Hall, where the examiners insist that he be rushed to the hospital wing.
Analysis
Rowling returns, in these middle chapters, to a familiar theme of mass media. In book four, Rowling spent a great deal of time critiquing The Daily Prophet and the court of public opinion through the character of Rita Skeeter, and here in book five, Rowling brings Rita Skeeter back from her forced hiatus (Hermione blackmails Rita with the knowledge that she is an unregistered Animagus). In Chapter 25, "The Beetle at Bay," Hermione seizes on an opportunity to sway public opinion in the direction of the Order of the Phoenix.
For the entirety of the book, the Ministry has denied claims that Voldemort has returned. One of the biggest concerns raised by Dumbledore is that Voldemort will recruit the Ministry's army of Dementors, the very creatures the Ministry employs to guard Azkaban. Fudge maintains that the Dementors remain in his firm control. However, the inciting events of this book hinge on the notion that the Dementors are already working for Voldemort—when the Dementors attack Harry and Dudley in Chapter 1, the Ministry knows nothing about it. Twenty-five chapters later, a headline in The Daily Prophet reports that ten former Death Eaters have escaped Azkaban prison. The only explanation for their escape is that they were aided by Dementors. The Prophet's report is criticized by readers for offering an incomplete analysis of the circumstances and jumping to conclusions with little to no evidence. With this mass escape of Voldemort's followers, the Prophet's readership starts to believe that perhaps Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore could be telling the truth.
When Harry meets with Hermione, Skeeter, and Luna in Hogsmeade, Hermione lays out a proposal to Rita Skeeter: if she publishes a tell-all interview with Harry in The Quibbler, Luna's father's magazine, then Hermione will release her from the binds of blackmail. The scenario demonstrates a general cynicism towards mass media that the series maintains. In an exchange between Hermione and Skeeter, Skeeter admits to Ministry meddling at the paper, which amounts to government censorship. She says, "Fudge is leaning on the Prophet, but it comes to the same thing. They won’t print a story that shows Harry in a good light. Nobody wants to read it. It’s against the public mood." Hermione responds, “So the Daily Prophet exists to tell people what they want to hear, does it?” and Rita says to her, “the Prophet exists to sell itself, you silly girl" (267).
With the introduction of The Quibbler, Rowling proposes a doomed dichotomy of print media where on one side, there is the establishment, mainstream media (i.e., the Daily Prophet, which is influenced by capitalist greed and unchecked government censorship), and on the other hand, there is an anti-government, tabloid-like newspaper that prints mostly conspiracy theories and flouts reliable sourcing and journalistic responsibility (i.e. The Quibbler). Rowling favors The Quibbler, and thus it becomes the platform for Harry to speak the truth about Lord Voldemort to a wide audience. The idiom, a stopped clock is right twice a day, seems to apply to The Quibbler in the sense that it prints a steady stream of nonsense, and every once in a while, one of its stories will resemble the truth. The question then becomes, is The Quibbler discounting what little truth it prints by surrounding it with nonsense? However, the books stop short of scrutinizing The Quibbler, and the general public of the Wizarding World seems rather unconflicted about where Harry's interview is printed.
Hermione's proposal to Skeeter also demonstrates a shrewdness in her character that develops more as the series progresses. Hermione, once totally unwilling to break the rules, now seems to follow the rules as they accord to her own moral compass and sense of risk and reward. Sometimes Hermione's sense of justice can be swift and brutal. For example, when she has the members of Dumbledore's Army sign the membership list, she doesn't tell them about a hex she placed on the list that would cause their faces to break out in painful purple pustules that align to spell the word "SNEAK" across their foreheads. Cho Chang's friend Marietta learns about this hex the hard way, when she informs on the D.A. to Umbridge. Marietta's outbreak causes a rift in Harry and Cho's blossoming (and struggling) romantic relationship.
Romance is another new theme of the series; as the main cast of characters grows older, Rowling injects more teen drama into the narrative. Harry's nervousness around Cho becomes almost as important as the pain he feels in his scar. Ron's jealousy about Hermione continuing to write to Viktor Krum suggests that there may be something romantic happening between them, and even Ginny, Ron's little sister, starts dating. When Harry witnesses Snape's most embarrassing memory in the Pensieve, one of the major questions he's left with is why his mother ever decided to date his father. Even as the imminent war looms over the grounds of Hogwarts, adolescence remains just as imposing.
