Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Books/Order of the Phoenix/Chapter 23
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Chapter 23 of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: Christmas on the Closed Ward
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[edit] Synopsis
Harry is consumed by the fear that Voldemort is possessing him. He is worried he will start attacking Order members, and afraid that Voldemort can see into Order headquarters. To protect everyone, Harry decides he should permanently leave Hogwarts, and return to the Dursleys. As he starts dragging out his trunk, Phineas Nigellus' portrait appears with a message from Dumbledore: "Stay where you are." Harry is upset by the message's brevity, as it was also all he was told after the Dementor attack. Having not slept the night before for fear of turning into a snake, Harry falls asleep against his will and again dreams of the stone hallway and the black door, and thinks how much he would like it to open. His dream is ended by Ron's voice telling him dinner is ready, but when he opens his eyes, Ron has already left. Harry decides Ron does not want to be in the same room with him.
Depressed, confused, and convinced everyone is avoiding him, Harry isolates himself. Hermione arrives at Grimmauld Place, hauls Harry from Buckbeak's room, and scolds him for his behavior. When Harry says he does not want to talk to anyone, Ginny reminds Harry that she knows what it is like to be possessed by Voldemort. After Harry apologizes, Ginny describes her experiences. Harry is relieved that his experience is nothing like Ginny's, and he is finally convinced he has not been possessed.
Christmas is coming; Sirius is overjoyed to have a full house for the holidays, and his joy seems infectious. Everyone expends great effort, and the house is decorated from top to bottom. At Christmas, Sirius and Lupin give Harry a set of books on jinxes and counter-jinxes. They will be useful for teaching Dumbledore's Army. Fred and George tell Ron and Harry to wait awhile before going downstairs; Mrs. Weasley is in tears because Percy returned his Christmas gift, unopened, and without a note.
When they head downstairs, they meet Hermione, who has a gift for Kreacher. It is a patchwork quilt, and Hermione says it should brighten up his sleeping space. Ron opens a cupboard door in the kitchen, and Harry sees what looks like a nest under an old-fashioned boiler (US: furnace). Scattered in the corners are items Sirius discarded, including many old Black family portraits, including one of Bellatrix Lestrange. Hermione leaves the gift. Sirius asks if anyone has seen Kreacher, and Harry says he has not seen him since Sirius ordered him out when they arrived. Sirius says that a house-elf cannot leave a residence without permission. Harry points out that Dobby did exactly that three years before. Sirius is briefly disconcerted, but brushes it off.
After lunch, Mundungus arrives with a borrowed car to drive the family, plus Mad-Eye Moody and Lupin, to St. Mungo's to visit Mr. Weasley. While at St. Mungo's, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny go for tea. Getting lost on the way to the cafeteria, they run into Gilderoy Lockhart, who still has extreme memory loss. Between Gilderoy's pleasure at seeing them, and his Healer's assumption that they are visitors, they spend time in the locked ward talking to him. While there, they see another patient, Broderick Bode, who received a potted plant as a Christmas gift. They also meet Neville and his grandmother, who are visiting Neville's parents, Frank and Alice, who, Harry knows, were once Aurors and former Order of the Phoenix members. Both were tortured into insanity with the Cruciatus curse by Sirius' Death Eater cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange. They are permanently hospitalized at St. Mungo's. Neville is embarrassed that his classmates now know about his parents, the more so when his mother shambles over and grandly gives him a wrapper from a pack of Drooble's Best Blowing Gum. Mrs. Longbottom says that Neville should be proud of how his parents defended themselves against their attackers. After Neville and his grandmother depart, Harry admits to the others that he knew about Neville's parents, but that Dumbledore had asked him to say nothing.
[edit] Analysis
Harry believes he is being possessed by Voldemort, and, as is usual for Harry when he is faced with a stressful situation, his initial response is to run away, this time convincing himself it will protect his friends. Harry is also angry, particularly at Dumbledore for ignoring him, and feels he is being treated like a small child again. Believing everyone is avoiding him, he becomes increasingly paranoid until Hermione scolds him for his childish behavior. Ginny, who actually was possessed by Voldemort, describes her own experience to him, finally convincing Harry that he is still his own man. Although Harry now believes he has not been possessed, it is strange that Dumbledore has provided him such sketchy information. Even though Dumbledore prevented Harry from leaving Grimmauld Place, he did so in a rather abrupt and distant manner that only fuels Harry's confusion and anger.
Hermione continues her quest for House-elves rights, and shows kindness to Kreacher by giving him a Christmas present, although her gesture is probably unappreciated by him. His sleeping space is revealing in that it shows he remains staunchly loyal to the Black family.
The trip to St. Mungo's Hospital is insightful for Harry and shows a significant step in his maturity. Even though he has endured much sorrow over his lost parents, he is becoming acutely aware that others, such as Neville Longbottom, have also suffered terribly under Voldemort's reign of terror. Harry has kept what he knows about Neville secret, as Dumbledore requested, to respect Neville's privacy, but seeing the Longbottom family in person has a profound effect on him. And although the Longbottoms are still alive, Harry realizes that they are as lost to Neville as James and Lily Potter are to him. This must also serve as a painful reminder to the Weasley children how vulnerable their own family is.
[edit] Questions
[edit] Review
- Why does Harry fear he is being possessed? Who convinces him otherwise?
- Why does Harry feel he should leave Hogwarts?
- What does Percy Weasley do that upsets Mrs. Weasley? Why does he do this?
- What happened to Frank and Alice Longbottom?
- Why is Neville embarrassed when he runs into Harry and the Weasley children? What does his grandmother have to say?
- Why did Harry never tell anyone, not even Neville, what he knew about the Longbottoms?
[edit] Further Study
- Harry unexpectedly runs into Gilderoy Lockhart, Broderick Bode, Neville, his grandmother, and his parents while at St. Mungo's Hospital. Briefly describe each person's significance to the story.
- Why has Kreacher saved the Black family objects that Sirius had tossed out?
- Why does Hermione give Kreacher a Christmas gift? What is his likely reaction?
[edit] Greater Picture
Dumbledore's failure to explain his instructions is probably part of his ongoing attempts to prevent Voldemort recognizing that there is more to the relationship between himself and Harry than there is between himself and any other student. In this particular instance, it is exacerbated by Phineas Nigellus and his general disdain for everyone who is not a Black. His snide comments about how students should know their place and not question the headmaster does not help matters, only making Harry angrier.
Kreacher's absence is because he is off visiting Narcissa Malfoy. It is true that Dobby had left his master's house to warn Harry about the coming school year, and he apparently did so repeatedly during the year to try and convince Harry to return home, but he did have significant reason for doing so. Kreacher has no such reason; what he does have is the ability to interpret Sirius' forceful command "Get OUT!", uttered when the Weasley children and Harry arrived at Grimmauld Place, as an order to leave the house. It is never explained why he fails to respond to Sirius' summons; he certainly appears rapidly enough when Harry summons him in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
At St. Mungo's, a wizard portrait in the stairwell that the Trio are climbing seems to believe that Ron is inflicted with Spattergroit. Ron's response, that what he has is merely freckles, leads us to believe that this may be a fictional ailment that, as medicine advanced, proved to be like "the vapours" in the Muggle world. It will turn out later that there actually is such a disease, and that it is contagious, although Ron does not have it. This particular disease will be a minor plot point in the final book.
We will find out in a later chapter that Bode's continuing inability to speak is due to his having touched the Prophecy, while under the Imperius curse, to try and retrieve it for Voldemort. We will also discover that the potted plant that Healer Strout says someone has sent him is actually a Devil's Snare, which will later strangle him when he is tending it. One wonders why neither Strout, nor the Trio who have experienced the effects of this plant themselves, recognize the plant for what it is. The Trio's experience, of course, was in near darkness, so they can be forgiven for not recognizing the plant by daylight, but a Healer's education must concentrate on Herbology, so one would expect Strout to be aware of what the plant's characteristics are.
