Each student will need a copy of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling

The Order of the Phoenix starts out with Harry Potter feeling deeply angry at having been almost completely cut off from the magical world and stuck once more on Privet Drive. Reduced to hiding in the flower bed outside a window to hear any Muggle news which may reveal Voldemort’s actions or whereabouts, Harry’s anxiety is clear: Ongoing nightmares about his own torture and a schoolmate’s murder by Voldemort plague him, as do feelings of betrayal by his wizarding friends who have kept him in the dark throughout the summer. Harry and Dudley are attacked by Dementors and Harry is forced to use magic to save them. Harry gets called to a hearing at the Ministry of Magic and risks being expelled from school. Harry is taken to the new hiding place for the Order of the Phoenix (the return of the ‘good guys’ working with Dumbledore against Voldemort) where he learns that they were all trying to protect him. His anger and resentment of Dumbledore grows throughout the book as the headmaster distances himself from Harry under confusing circumstances. The sociopolitical climate of the wizarding world has changed over the summer, and Dumbledore has come under great persecution for saying that Voldemort has returned, a fact that Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic, adamantly denies. Harry deals with visions of what Voldemort is doing and seeing, like a time when Mr. Weasley was attacked by a giant snake. Voldemort uses this against Harry to try and get Harry to save Sirius Black and in the end when the adults go to save the teens Sirius is hit with a spell and falls into a vile and dies. In between magical missions and battles, Harry spends his school days learning to relate to a girlfriend, handling his own pride when Ron begins to gain special honors, and finding out who he is apart from Quidditch, his parents and the professors who have guided him all his wizarding life. The story ends with a stunning, full revelation of a heretofore half-expressed prophecy. And Harry returns to Privet Drive with assurances that The Order of the Phoenix will be watching over him during holiday.