The Order of the Phoenix Re-Read: Chapter 25

[slowfox]

Fandom aside, I'd never really registered that Sirius was supposed to be good looking:

Like Sirius, she retained vestiges of great good looks, but something - perhaps Azkaban - had taken most of her beauty.

It's quite apparent that Harry feels some kind of ... not connection, perhaps, but something significant whenever he's presented with reminders of Bellatrix. Couple this with his concern for Sirius' rashness, and perhaps one might be able to guess where the whole tale could be headed...

To be fair to Fudge (which rankles, I assure you), Sirius would seem the obvious suspect, if you accept the whole Sirius-was-Voldemort's-right-hand-man argument.

Does the number ten 'swell' an army's ranks?

There they all were, talking about homework and Quidditch and who knew what other rubbish, when outside these walls ten more Death Eaters had swollen Voldemort's ranks.

Surely that would imply that ten was a significant number in proportion to the existing ranks of Death Eaters...

This is the chapter where we learn of Bode's death, in the hospital, with the pot plant</Cluedo>. Harry's memory is pretty good in this book - he remembers meeting Bode the Unspeakable on the day of his Hearing at the Ministry.

And we get further bad news when Hagrid tells Ron and Harry that he's been put on probation. It's not a great start to the chapter, from Harry's perspective.

So, in addition to her duties as Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher (seven years, each with four houses, makes a minimum of 28 classes per week, if they only have one lesson a week, which is doubtful), Umbridge is also inspecting every single Divination and Care of Magical Creatures lesson. I assume we can take that as shorthand for 'every single fifth-year Gryffindor' incarnation of said, since otherwise she'd have another 40 classes to keep on top of (Divination and Care of Magical Creatures {which I always mentally abbreviate to COMIC} being third year and up only).

It seemed to Harry that Umbridge was steadily depriving him of everything that made his life at Hogwarts worth living; visits to Hagrid's house, letters from Sirius, his Firebolt and Quidditch. He took his revenge the only way he could - by redoubling his efforts for the DA.

Which is good, but sadly the Occlumency is getting worse and worse for him. Is Snape really on Harry's side here?

Nowadays, however, his scar hardly ever stopped prickling, and he often felt lurches of annoyance or cheerfulness that were unrelated to what was happening to him at the time, which were always accompanied by a particularly painful twinge from his scar.

Cho, of all people, is the one to point out that when Sirius escaped, Hogsmeade was crawling with Dementors looking for him, whilst now that they have a whole gang pride herd murder^* gaggle of Death Eaters on the loose, Dementors are nowhere to be seen. Strange indeed.

Y'know, previous comments to other chapters in this series notwithstanding, you have to concede that Hermione's certainly embracing her Inner Slytherin in OotP. She not only brings Rita Skeeter in from the cold, but also talks to Luna's dad (either via Luna or directly, it's not clear) and gets a deal that he'll run Rita's interview before even mentioning it to Harry. She was a bit like that with the DA, too.

And, y'know, if you'd told Harry at the outset that the way to get his message to The People™ was to have Rita Skeeter interview him for The Quibbler, I'm sure that he'd have had some choice words, sorry, WORDS, to say about such a prospect...



* a murder of Death Eaters could work, actually...