TL;DR Five-Minute Harry Potter, part 2
Here we are again with TL;DR Five-Minute Harry Potter, part 2. Here’s the warning: this guide is nothing but spoilers. Ready? Let’s begin.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Dark Mark in the sky
Harry’s seeing Voldemort kill people in nightmares. But that won’t stop him from enjoying the Quidditch World Cup! However, the Death Eaters show up and they ruin it. Harry loses his wand, and it does some dirty magic, making the Dark Mark in the sky.
The Triwizard Tournament is going to happen at Hogwarts! This should be called “The Book of Awesome Magical Games”. Professor Moody shows up with his creepy eye. He shows the students the three unforgivable curses: Imperio, Crucio, and Avada Kedavra.
The Beauxbatons and the Durmstrang students arrive. Nobody under the age of 17 is allowed to participate in the Triwizard Tournament, but Harry is picked anyway by the Goblet of Fire. Foul play is afoot. Ron is jealous of Harry. Harry is interviewed by Rita Skeeter, who writes smarmy tabloid articles about him.
Harry finds out that the first Triwizard challenge involves dragons, and he tips off Cedric Diggory, the other Hogwarts champion. Harry ends up having to defeat the dragon, a Hungarian Horntail, and wins by summoning his broom and kicking ass. His prize is a golden egg that screeches loudly.
Nothing is funnier/sadder than teenagers trying to find a date for the prom. In this case, it’s the Yule Ball, and Harry and Ron can’t find dates. Finally, they find some twin sisters to take some pity on them. Hermione goes to the Yule Ball with Viktor Krum, a Hungarian Quidditch star, and Ron hangs onto that piece of butthurt for the next few books. Harry’s jealous of Cedric, who gets to go with his crush, Cho Chang.
Harry opens the screechy egg underwater, and it sings to him what he needs to do during the next task. Dobby gives him some gillyweed so that he can breathe underwater. During the quest, Harry swims to the Merpeople’s town and finds Ron, Hermione, Cho, and Gabrielle Delacour tied up. He rescues Ron, but notices that Fleur Delacour doesn’t show up to get her sister. Despite the Merpeople trying to stop him, he saves both Ron and Gabrielle and gets bonus points.
Rita Skeeter writes an article making Hermione sound like a hoochie, and Hermione starts getting hate mail. Harry’s scar starts hurting again, and he goes to Dumbledore’s office. Dumbledore’s gone, and Harry uses the Pensieve to see some of Dumbledore’s memories. He watches three trials regarding the Death Eaters. Harry finds out that Snape is a former Death Eater.
Harry makes it through the third Triwizard task, a magical maze, and gets to the center at the same time as Cedric. They work together to defeat a huge spider, and they both grab the Triwizard Cup at the same time. It is a Portkey that takes them to Voldemort and Peter Pettigrew (Wormtail, also shown in the last book to be hiding out as Ron’s pet rat).
Wormtail kills Cedric and ties Harry up. He uses some of Harry’s blood and cuts off his own hand to bring back Voldemort. Voldemort gives Wormtail a sweet silver hand. As it turns out, now that Voldemort has Harry’s blood, the magical protection that Harry once had is now gone.
Harry and Voldemort duel, and Harry manages to escape back to Hogwarts with Cedric’s body. He’s taken away by Moody, who isn’t Moody at all. It’s Barty Crouch, Jr. (played in the movie by Doctor Who’s David Tennant), who escaped from Azkaban, killed his father, and had been disguising himself at Moody in order to get Harry back to Voldemort. The Minister for Magic shows up with a Dementor, and it sucks out Crouch’s soul.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione head back home for the summer break from school, and Hermione shows the guys how Rita Skeeter is an animagus, and she has her trapped in a jar in revenge for the nasty things she wrote about Hermione. (This isn’t in the movie.) Harry gives Fred and George his winnings from the Triwizard Tournament so they can start a joke shop.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
The original Order of the Phoenix
With 870 pages in the U.S. version, this is the longest book in the series. Ironically, it’s also the easiest to summarize (so far), and the second-shortest movie. (The Deathly Hallows, part 2 is 8 minutes shorter, but, considering that it is the second half of the last book, that really doesn’t count.)
Harry is out late and runs into his cousin, Dudley. They are attacked by Dementors, and Harry fights them off. The Ministry of Magic expels Harry from Hogwarts for doing underage magic, but Dumbledore fights for Harry to have a hearing.
Harry is locked in his room by his uncle and aunt, but the Order of the Phoenix shows up to rescue Harry. They take him to 12 Grimmauld Place, which is their headquarters and Sirius Black’s house. Arthur Weasley takes Harry to his hearing, and Harry is cleared of charges and allowed to return to school.
Ron and Hermione become prefects at school. Dolores Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister (and who was at Harry’s hearing) is the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Umbridge won’t let anyone actually learn anything, and just makes the class read all of the time.
Eventually, Umbridge becomes the High Inquisitor, and starts imposing “Educational Decrees” that severely limit what the students and school can do.
Dumbledore's Army
Harry has a dream of Arthur Weasley being attacked by a snake, and it turns out to be true. Harry might be possessed by Voldemort. Dumbledore makes Snape teach Harry Occlumency. Everyone thinks that Harry is crazy for thinking the Voldemort is back, and Hermione blackmails Rita Skeeter into writing an article saying that Harry is right.
Harry starts Dumbledore’s Army and teaches the group of students the Defense Against the Dark Arts that Umbridge refuses to teach, against the Educational Decree against student organizations. She finds out, and Dumbledore claims that he started the group. Aurors show up, and Dumbledore manages to escape.
Umbridge becomes headmistress. Fred and George Weasley start creating havoc around the school, and end up leaving. Harry tries to contact Sirius, but Umbridge catches him, and tells him that she was the one who sent the Dementors to his house. Hermione tells Umbridge that Dumbledore has a hidden weapon in the forest, and she manages to get Umbridge taken prisoner by the centaurs.
Harry, Ron, Hermione, Luna, Ginny, and Neville go to the Ministry of Magic. They have to fight off Death Eaters, who are looking for a prophecy regarding Harry and Voldemort. The Order of the Phoenix shows up to fight as well. Bellatix Lestrange kills Sirius Black. Dumbledore appears and fights Voldemort.
Dumbledore shows Harry the prophecy:
The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches … born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies … and the Dark Lord will mark him as equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not … and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives … the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies …
While Neville Longbottom could have been the child in the prophecy, Voldemort chose to attack Harry, making him “The Chosen One”.
Check back next week for books 6 and 7.
