An Order-Of-The Phoenix

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The **Order of the Phoenix** was a secret society founded by Albus Dumbledore to oppose Lord Voldemort and his ***Death Eaters***. The original Order was created in the ***1970***s. It was constructed after Voldemort returned to ***England*** from abroad and started his campaign to take over the ***Ministry of Magic*** and persecute ***Muggle-born***s.Template:Organisation
The Order worked with the Ministry to oppose the Dark Lord and his followers, and played a crucial role in the First Wizarding War. Their first victory came in 1981, with Voldemort's first defeat at the hands of Harry Potter. The victory came with the high cost of many of their members. Their casualties were overwhelming when compared to the Death Eaters.
The Order disbanded but was reconvened in ***1995*** after Harry Potter informed Dumbledore of ***Lord Voldemort's return***. The Ministry **refused to admit** that the Dark Lord had returned, thus the Order alone worked to protect Harry Potter and the prophecy concerning him and Voldemort in the Department of Mysteries.

## History

### First Wizarding War

#### Origin

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The Order of the Phoenix was founded by Albus Dumbledore during Lord Voldemort's first rise to power in the 1970s. Dumbledore formed the Order to combat Voldemort's increasing threat and power. ***Auror***s from the ***Ministry of Magic*** also joined the Order to participate in more secretive, sudden assaults aimed to crush the Dark Rebellion. Dumbledore created a method of communication among Order members by inventing a way to make Patronuses speak.
Although the ***Death Eaters*** had been attacking mostly ***Muggles*** and ***Muggle-born***s to spread terror, they soon turned to attacking "***blood traitor***s*" such as Order members as well. The Order had to work hard, as they were outnumbered by a ratio of 20:1 by the Death Eaters.* **Fabian** *and* **Gideon Prewett** *were murdered by a group of five Death Eaters led by* **Antonin Dolohov***.* **Caradoc Dearborn** *disappeared, the* **Bones family** *was almost completely destroyed,* **Benjy Fenwick** *was brutally murdered, and* **Marlene McKinnon** *and her family were murdered by Death Eaters, including* **Travers***. Even as the Order suffered great losses, they continued to fight, and four of their members — James Potter, Lily Potter,* **Frank Longbottom***, and* **Alice Longbottom** *— defied Voldemort himself three times.*

#### 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 his 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....
>
> Sybill Trelawney's first prophecy, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

 File:Trelawney first prophecy.jpg
This defiance made the two couples and their infant sons Harry Potter and ***Neville Longbottom*** targets of a prophecy concerning a child with the power to defeat the Dark Lord. Death Eater Severus Snape heard part of the prophecy and reported it to Voldemort, who believed it referred to Harry Potter. He decided to hunt down the Potters, choosing the half-blood Harry, like Voldemort himself, as opposed to the pure-blood, Neville. The Potters, who were in hiding under the Fidelius Charm, caused Snape to change his side since he had always been in love with Lily Potter and felt the need to give her something in return for the friendship the two had shared years before.
It was not enough to save them, however; Dumbledore offered to be the Potters' Secret-Keeper in suspicion that a member of the Order who was a very close friend to the family has turned spy for the Death Eaters. James, however, insisted that Harry's godfather Sirius Black was a better candidate for the role, but Black had a different plan; he secretly suggested to James and Lily to use him as a decoy while another Order member among their closest friends, Peter Pettigrew, took the Secret-Keeper position instead.

Since he was the Death Eater spy Dumbledore was suspicious of, Pettigrew betrayed the Potters a week after the Fidelius Charm was performed, and Voldemort came to their home in Godric's Hollow on 31 October 1981. He summarily murdered James, but offered Lily a chance to live, as requested by Severus Snape. She rejected the offer, begging for her son's life in return for her's, and Voldemort used the Killing Curse against her and then on Harry.
Because Lily had willingly sacrificed herself out of love for her son, Harry was shielded from the spell, and the curse backfired. Because Voldemort made Horcruxes, he did not die, but he lost his own physical form. He also inadvertently made Harry himself a Horcrux, as a piece of his soul embedded itself into a scar on Harry's forehead.

#### Disbandment

> The Longbottoms were very popular. The attacks on them came after Voldemort's fall from power, just when everyone thought they were safe. Those attacks caused a wave of fury such as I have never known. The Ministry was under great pressure to catch those who had done it. Unfortunately, the Longbottoms' evidence was — given their condition — none too reliable.
>
> The attack that caused the Longbottoms' insanity, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

 File:Sirius black in azkaban pm.jpg
The First Wizarding War ended with a victory for the Order and the Ministry, but the Death Eaters were still a danger. Black attempted to apprehend Pettigrew on a London street after the latter fled the scene at Godric's Hollow with his master's wand, but Pettigrew faked his own death by murdering many ***innocent Muggles*** with one Blasting Curse and cutting off his own finger, then escaped in his Animagus form (a rat) to hide with the Weasley family under the name "Scabbers". As a result, Black was permanently made the scapegoat for his friend's crimes and thrown into Azkaban without a trial.
Other actual Death Eaters, such as Travers, Mulciber and the three who helped with the Bones murders, were likewise captured and imprisoned. Four of them — the Lestrange brothers; Rabastan and Rodolphus, Rodolphus' wife Bellatrix, and Barty Crouch Jnr — attacked the Longbottoms shortly after their master's defeat. They attacked the Longbottoms seeking information about their master's downfall. The Death Eaters drove Alice and Frank insane with the Cruciatus Curse. The Longbottoms never recovered, becoming permanent residents of the Janus Thickey Ward at St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries.

 File:B4C30M1 Wizengamot trial Pensieve memory.png
The Death Eaters and many of their comrades were caught and sentenced to Azkaban, some of them turned in by Igor Karkaroff, who was released in exchange for information. Others, such as Lucius Malfoy, managed to avoid prison by claiming to have only served Voldemort under the Imperius Curse, though Order members were sceptical of such claims. Rabastan Lestrange, Rodolphus Lestrange, and Bellatrix Lestrange were all sentenced to life in Azkaban for their crimes.

Albus Dumbledore and Severus Snape, who had turned spy for the Order "*at great personal risk*" prior to Voldemort's fall, suspected that Voldemort would return, and they determined that Harry Potter had to be protected, having Order members such as Minerva McGonagall, ***Arabella Figg***, and ***Dedalus Diggle*** keep a discreet eye on him throughout his childhood.
However, the war was over, and the Order was disbanded. The members were, for the most part, powerful witches and wizards with many other demands on their time and if the second incarnation of the Order is indicative, there may well have been internal pressures and uncertainties which, in the absence of a clear, external threat, would make it inadvisable to attempt to maintain the group.

### The Calamity

Several of the surviving members of the Order were involved in helping members of the ***Statute of Secrecy Task Force*** in various ways to prepare for the difficult task of containing ***The Calamity***, including Arthur, Minerva McGonagall, Rubeus Hagrid, though the latter only indirectly.
This might imply that the Order were reconstituted, at least partially, in order to help coordinate the collaborated efforts made to address the ***Calamity***. Given the Order's activities and how the Calamity was believed to be closely linked to the ***London Five***, it is possible that the Order was involved in Harry Potter's continued, off-the-record search for the missing individuals after the Ministry formally closed the case.

## Affiliates of the Order

### Members

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 Sirius Black †
 Severus Snape †
 James Potter †
 Lily Potter †
 Peter Pettigrew †
 Minerva McGonagall | Did not join the Order during the First Wizarding War, preferring to work instead as a spy for the Ministry of Magic.

### Allies

> Still... the prudent wizard keeps his head down in such times. All very well for Dumbledore to talk, but taking up a post at Hogwarts just now would be tantamount to declaring my public allegiance to the Order of the Phoenix! And while I'm sure they're very admirable and brave and all the rest of it, I don't personally fancy the mortality rate —
>
> ***Horace Slughorn'***s reluctance to show his support for the Order, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

During the First Wizarding War, the Order was allied with the ***Ministry of Magic***. During the ***Second Wizarding War***, however, the Ministry was at times sceptical of Lord Voldemort's return and later ***taken over*** by Voldemort's followers. The Order was allied with ***Dumbledore's Army***, as well as various individuals, during that conflict and though many of them did not officially join the Order, many of the wizards and witches that believed Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore gave the anti-Voldemort movement their full support.

## Etymology

 File:Phoenix.jpg
The Order of the Phoenix is named for the magical bird. The Order's founder and original leader, Albus Dumbledore, had a phoenix named Fawkes for a pet, and his Patronus also took the form of a phoenix. Fawkes gave two feathers to comprise the ***cores*** of the wands of Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort, key figures in the conflict between the Order and the ***Death Eaters***. Fawkes also participated in the conflict at least twice: he came to Harry's aid against Slytherin's Basilisk, and later at the Battle of the Department of Mysteries to intercept a Killing Curse Voldemort aimed at Dumbledore.
In mythology, the Template:W often represents resurrection and life after death. This could allude to how the Order of the Phoenix was reborn after Voldemort returned to power, and how Harry Potter survived two Killing Curses. The Order's name thus symbolises their opposition to an organisation focused on causing death and finding unnatural, Dark methods of achieving immortality.

## Behind the scenes

* While not confirmed, it is likely that the surviving members of the Order got celebrity status of sorts, just like the members of the, as of 2014, 'legendary' Dumbledore's Army, considering their considerably greater contributions to fighting Lord Voldemort and his forces than the aforementioned DADA club.
* It's implied that as with the Death Eaters, there are more members that haven't been seen. Ron and Hermione inform Harry that they believe there to be more than the twenty-something members that they've met, and Moody tells Harry of a rear Advance Guard that was to take over if the initial group were to be attacked, although more or less every identified member of the Order save Sirius Black and the extended Weasley family were in it. Furthermore, there are a few unknown members seen in the photograph of the original Order in the *Order of the Phoenix* film. Still, their numbers are significantly fewer than those of the Death Eaters.
* In the film adaptation of the Battle of the Department of Mysteries, which differs significantly from the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (film) version, the Order of the Phoenix members Apparate into the ***Department of Mysteries*** and save the ***Dumbledore's Army*** members by Apparating directly into the area where the ***Death Eaters*** holding them at wand-point.
* Also in the films, Order members are shown as Apparating in clouds of white smoke, while the Death Eaters Apparate in clouds of black smoke. This may be a reference to the Death Eaters' use and corruption by Dark Magic, causing them to apparate in black smoke, as opposed to the white smoke of the Order members.
* Molly Weasley is not stated to have been a member of the original Order, despite her brothers being members. This is likely due to the fact that she gave birth to, and took care of, ***seven*** children during the course of the First Wizarding War.
* If the list of members of the Order of the Phoenix, above, is complete, then the mortality rate (including permanent incapacitation) of members, during the First and Second Wizarding Wars combined, rivals that of the Black Death in fourteenth-century Europe. About 44% of members died during the First Wizarding War, and 26% were killed by Death Eaters during the course of the ***Second Wizarding War***. ***Horace Slughorn*** refers to this in Half-Blood Prince movie.
* Given the phoenix embossed on ***book***, the Order of the Phoenix may actually go back to the fight against ***Gellert Grindelwald*** and the book may represent one of the other ways the Order had to communicate with one another.
* It may be that the Order of the Phoenix was inspired by the Template:W, where one of J.K. Rowling's professed favourite authors, Template:W, was a member. The argument is made more likely by the fact that several original members of the Order of the Phoenix seem to be named after members of the Fabian Society: ***Emmeline Vance*** for Template:W, ***Fabian Prewett*** for the Fabian Society itself, ***Sturgis Podmore*** for Template:W, and ***Kingsley Shacklebolt*** for Template:W. The Fabian Society's members were also closely associated with a magical association called the Template:W.
* In J. K. Rowling's early plot outlines of *Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix* (see here), it seems that the titles of the Order of the Phoenix and Dumbledore's Army were swapped - the Order of the Phoenix being the group Harry, Ron and Hermione set up at Hogwarts, whilst Dumbledore's Army being Dumbledore's original army in the First Wizarding War.

## Notes and references

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1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `OTP`
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `DH`
3. ↑ Template:POA
4. ↑ Template:WU (Registry: Mysteries - Chapter 1: The Foundable Spell - Grim Fawley's Journal)
5. ↑ Template:PS
6. ↑ Template:COS
7. ↑ Bill was born in ***1970***, which is approximately when the war began, and Ginny was born in 1981, two months before the end of the war.