Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Chapter Notes

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Chapter 29: Career’s advice

• “Harry kept reminding himself that Lily had intervened; his mother had been decent. Yet, the memory of the look on her face as she had shouted at James disturbed him quite as much as anything else; she had clearly loathed James, and Harry simply could not understand how they could have ended up married. Once or twice he even wondered whether James had forced her into it …” – I mean in a world where love potions and spells exist that thought is not entirely unreasonable. It is also obvious that Harry has never read “Pride & Prejudice”. Or any kind of fan fiction about himself and Draco, because just cause you hate somebody you can still end up together. Still though, just as we idolize our parents I think we also have a very romantic idea of them as a couple as a child, at least I did. And it is interesting how Harry looks at Lily here, at her perspective, how he identifies with her, and wonders what she saw in his father, and how she could have possibly fallen in love with him. Of course Harry only saw a single event, a small glimpse of his parents, and as Sirius and Lupin later tell him his father did change. And despite the fact that romantic relationships can be very complicated, we (and Harry) simply have to trust that Lily wouldn’t have chosen James if she didn’t think he was a genuine good man.

• “For nearly five years the thought of his father had been a source of comfort, of inspiration. Whenever someone had told him he was like James, he had glowed with pride inside. And now … now he felt cold and miserable at the thought of him.” – Well at least Snape never meant that as a compliment. If anything it does make Harry wonder if perhaps at times he had acted like his father, making him more sensitive for his own behaviour.

• Oh Ginny. She sees that Harry is down, and despite the fact that she obviously still has feelings for Harry, she asks if she can help, if it is Cho he wants to talk to. We know she must be jealous of her on some level, and yet she swallows that feeling down, trying to help Harry.

• “‘What do you think about this?’ Hermione demanded of Ron, and Harry was reminded irresistibly of Mrs Weasley appealing to her husband during Harry’s first dinner in Grimmauld Place.” – Oh my. Of course both women want the man to back her up, but Hermione should know Ron well enough to know he doesn’t have the courage to speak against Fred and George, yet alone to tell Harry what to do. And look, he is the most supportive friend ever, but it is good Harry has a friend as Hermione as well, someone who is not afraid to disagree with him and to tell him what she thinks.

• “He was not sure what Sirius could possibly say to him that would make up for what he had seen in the Pensieve, but he was desperate to hear Sirius’s own account of what had happened, to know of any mitigating factors there might have been, any excuse at all for his father’s behaviour …” – It is never a good sign if you try to justify anyone’s behaviour, if you try to think of excuses. Even if there are any, it doesn’t justify if someone acts like a jerk, and deep down Harry knows this.

• “He had just turned away when he heard a smashing noise. Malfoy gave a gleeful yell of laughter. Harry whipped around. His potion sample lay in pieces on the floor and Snape was watching him with a look of gloating pleasure. ‘Whoops,’ he said softly. ‘Another zero, then, Potter.’” – Snape again proves how responsible and mature he is as a teacher.

• “‘You’d need top grades for that,’ said Professor McGonagall, extracting a small, dark leaflet from under the mass on her desk and opening it. ‘They ask for a minimum of five N.E.W.T.s, and nothing under “Exceeds Expectations” grade, I see. Then you would be required to undergo a stringent series of character and aptitude tests at the Auror office. It’s a difficult career path, Potter, they only take the best. In fact, I don’t think anybody has been taken on in the last three years.’” – Or you could just kill Voldemort and it won’t even matter that you never finished school, so whatever.

• “When he had finished, neither Sirius nor Lupin spoke for a moment. Then Lupin said quietly, ‘I wouldn’t like you to judge your father on what you saw there, Harry. He was only fifteen –’ ‘I’m fifteen!’ said Harry heatedly.” – Ironically Harry does act like a jerk quite often in this book, letting out his anger towards Hermione and Ron, being rather insensitive when it comes to Cho etc. A lot of people dislike Harry’s characterization in this book. I personally like it because it shows us the growth he makes, and well a lot of people are jerks when they are 15. And of course Harry’s behaviour and the reasons for it are different then how his father has acted. They had very different upbringings and of course a lot of Harry’s behaviour is caused by the trauma of witnessing Cedric’s death and Voldemort’s return. Compared to him James seems like an arrogant spoiled brat. But I think once Harry is an adult himself he will look back and see his own flaws, and how limited his perception was.