Mark Reads ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’: Chapter 18

In the eighteenth chapter of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry utilizes Dobby’s help to find a room to teach his friends and fellow students about the Dark Arts and, in the process, we finally feel hope for the first time. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to read Harry Potter.

CHAPTER 18: DUMBLEDORE’S ARMY

Allow me to have a momentary reprieve from the madness.

Chapter 18 provides the first moment where I didn’t feel as if the entire weight of this imagined world was going to crumbling down on me. That first bit of hope came in the form of Dobby, but first, let’s talk about the only real shitty thing in this part of the book.

Post Quidditch practice, while Harry’s drying off after a rather defeating session, his scar suddenly seared with pain, much more sharply than it had in a long time. This in and of itself isn’t a big deal, but Harry has a revelation regarding what these flashes might actually mean:

• ”No,” Harry muttered, sinking onto a bench and rubbing his forehead. “He’s probably miles away. It hurt because…he’s…angry.”

  Harry had not meant to say that at all, and he heard the words as though a stranger had spoken them—yet he knew at once they were true. He did not know how he knew it, but he did; Voldemort, wherever he was, whatever he was doing, was in a towering temper.

And while we’ve known for a quite a few books that Harry and Voldemort were connected, there wasn’t any sense to the madness. Even weirder, Harry can actually read Voldemort’s moods.

• Harry was thinking himself back. He had been looking into Umbridge’s face….His scar had hurt…and he had had that odd feeling in his stomach…a strange, leaping feeling…a happy feeling….But, of course, he had not recognized it for what it was, as he had been feeling so miserable himself….

  “Last time, it was because he was pleased,” he said. “Really pleased. He thought…something good was going to happen. And the night before we came back to Hogwarts…” He thought back to the moment when his scar had hurt so badly in his and Ron’s bedroom in Grimmauld Place. “He was furious….”

I can’t even begin to guess what this means. At all. And look, I’m not ALL THAT EMBARRASSED by my Umbridge prediction, but I seriously don’t have a single clue what this might mean. Maybe…Harry and Voldemort should be best friends or something?

Anyway, on to Dobby. We find exactly what’s been happening to all the hats that Hermione had ever knitted: Dobby has been collecting them for himself. (And some for Winky.)

We learn the affects of Hermione’s privilege in this case: the house elves are so offended by Hermione’s actions that they have outright refused to clean Gryffindor Tower.

Serves her right, honestly. How on earth can she pretend to know, at this point, what’s best for the house elves?

Dobby, though, is pretty stoked on his freedom and seems to be making the most of it. And that’s why he doesn’t hesitate at all when Harry asks if he knows where he could practice without Dolores Umbridge finding him.

The Room of Requirement.

• ”Because it is a room that a person can only enter,” said Dobby seriously, “when they have real need of it. Sometimes it is there, and sometimes it is not, but when it appears, it is always equipped for the seeker’s needs. Dobby has used it, sir,” said the elf, dropping his voice and looking guilty, “when Winky has been very drunk. He has hidden her in the Room of Requirement and he has found antidotes to butterbeer there, and a nice elf-sized bed to settle her on while she sleeps it off, sir….And Dobby knows Mr. Filch has found extra cleaning materials there when he has run short, sir, and –“

  “—and if you really needed a bathroom,” said Harry, suddenly remembering something Dumbledore had said at the Yule Ball the previous Christmas, “would it fill itself with chamber pots?”

WAIT. WHAT. WHAT. WHAT.

I had to go pull out my copy of Goblet of Fire to jar my memory. And there it was, on page 417:

• ”Oh I would never dream of assuming I know all Hogwarts’ secrets, Igor,” said Dumbledore amicably. “Only this morning, for instance, I took a wrong turning on the way to the bathroom and found myself in a beautifully proportioned room I have never seen before, containing a really rather magnificent collection of chamber pots. When I went back to investigate it more closely, I discovered that the room had vanished. But I must keep an eye out for it. Perhaps it is only accessible at five-thirty in the morning. Or it may only appear at quarter moon—or when the seeker has an exceptionally full bladder.”

SADLKFASDJKLASDFJ ASFDJ;DFSA JAHSDF ;LKASDFDFJKLS ASDFKL; HOLY SHIT! Not gonna lie: completely disposed of this part of the book and did not remember it. Amazing!

Ron, Hermione, and Harry find out that Dobby and Dumbledore were both telling the truth when they find the Requirement, stocked with just enough cushions for 25 students and just the right books they’ll need to learn about curses, counter-curses, jinxes, and self-defense.

What really makes me feel like this book is finally heading in a positive direction is the scene where Harry starts the meeting, but Hermione insists on naming the group. Cho suggests the “Defense Association,” the D.A. for code purposes. And Hermione does something that makes me love her even more than I already did.

• ”All in favor of the D.A.?” said Hermione bossily, kneeling up on her cushion to count. “That’s a majority—motion passed!”

  She pinned the piece of paper with all their names on it on the wall and wrote DUMBLEDORE’S ARMY across the top in large letters.

Oh god I love you so much Hermione.

Harry jumps right into teaching, announcing that in the first meeting, they’ll tackle the Expelliarmus curse:

• ”Oh, please,” said Zacharias Smith, rolling his eyes and folding his arms. “I don’t think Expelliarmus is exactly going to help us against You-Know-Who, do you?”

  “I’ve used it against him,” Harry said quietly. “It saved my life last June.”

  Smith opened his mouth stupidly. The rest of the room was very quiet.

  “But if you think that’s beneath you, you can leave,” Harry said.

  Smith did not move. Nor did anybody else.

Oh, Harry, I’m so glad you’ve stopped whining and instead chose to be a complete badass. I much prefer this.

Turns out that Harry’s also a pretty decent teacher. He’s involved in the lessons, pairing himself with Neville and giving him the appropriate praise to boost his self-confidence. When the class quickly turns a bit chaotic, he knows when to stop things and re-focus. And he knows when bullshitting isn’t going to work, either.

• ”You made me nervous, I was doing all right before then!” Cho told Harry ruefully.

  “That was quite good,” Harry lied, but when she raised her eyebrows, he said, “Well, no, it was lousy, but I know you can do it properly, I was watching from over there….”

Oh god, Harry you are such a teenage boy.

I’m ok with it, though, because for this brief moment in this book, Harry feels accomplished and…well…happy. And I don’t want to take that feeling away.