Harry Potter: Why I found Order of the Phoenix Relatable

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Despite its fantastic setting, mind-blowing world-building and dynamic characters, at its heart, Harry Potter is a coming-of-age story about a student and his school life. While re-reading the fifth instalment, Order of the Phoenix, I couldn’t help but deeply relate to Harry. I was a 15-year old just like him at the time. His feelings and situation hit too close to home, hence I decided to make this post.

Harry had witnessed the death of a friend for the first time in his life. Moreover, the whole world had turned its back on him, believing him to be a liar. The people he could confide in were unreachable. At school, he had to deal with Umbridge who quickly became the bane of his existence. Throughout the book, he is in a turbulent state of mind; like a ticking bomb that went off quite often. Harry’s reactions and reflections of the situations were comprehensible and I felt like I would have reacted similarly in those situations. So here are some things that I found very relatable in the book -

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Harry gets jealous when Ron becomes prefect and he doesn’t

Before the fifth year starts the Weasley kids, Hermione and Harry get letters about the new supplies that year. Enclosed, comes a shiny new Gryffindor prefect badge for two of them, Hermione (duh!) and to everyone’s surprise, Ron. Harry can’t help but feel jealous. He congratulates his best friends but with bittersweet feelings. Instead of projecting his resentment outwards, he reflects on himself: whether he had done more or less to be deemed worthy of the badge than any of his friends, especially Ron.

“ He could not lie to himself; if he had known the prefect badge was on its way, he would have expected it to come to him, not Ron. Did this make him as arrogant as Draco Malfoy? Did he think himself superior to everyone else? Did he really believe he was better than Ron? ”

We see that Harry feels incredibly guilty for feeling the way he did.

“ Was he, Harry, Ron’s best friend in the world, going to sulk because he didn’t have a badge, laugh with the twins behind Ron’s back, ruin this for Ron when, for the first time he had beaten Harry at something? ”

Later in the same chapter, Harry completely forgets about the affair and finds it silly that he pondered so much on it. The incident reveals our thought process when we lose something we want to someone close to us. We do not wish ill for them, hence we tend to look inward and point out our own mistakes. But time allows us to see the bigger picture and forget about these minute things (pun intended).

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O.W.Ls (Ordinary Wizarding Level)

At the time I re-read the book, My 10th standard academic year had just begun. As we all know in the 10th year we have to give the board exam which is one of the two major exams we must give. The 12th board is the second major exam after which students enter colleges and universities for undergraduate studies. Much like the 10+2 system in India and many other countries, the wizarding world also has two major exams at the end of the 5th year and 7th year. They are the O.W.Ls and N.E.W.Ts respectively. O.W.L. stands for Ordinary Wizarding Level, and the name itself suggests that it's the basic degree of education required by wizards and witches.

The similarities between the 10th board and O.W.L. are apparent, hence I felt I could empathise on a deeper level with Harry and his friends. Like when teachers repeatedly emphasised the importance of the exam. Teachers are the first set of people who will pressurise you and warn you to take your studies seriously from now. Real-life teachers and Hogwarts teachers don’t differ in this aspect. They will make sure you are intimidated enough throughout the year to keep up your enthusiasm to study.

“ What you must remember is that these examinations may influence your futures for many years to come! If you have not already given serious thought to your careers, now is the time to do so. And in the meantime, I’m afraid, we shall be working harder than ever to ensure that you all do yourselves justice. ” - Professor Flitwick

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HOMEWORK!!

Ever felt like as the years go by, the burden of homework, assignments, modules and other schoolwork just keeps increasing till you feel like you will burst? Harry Potter does a good job of accurately depicting the overwhelming amount of homework assigned to students. We often find ourselves lagging in these aspects due to procrastination or simply over-burdening of responsibilities. One can easily understand the agony and turmoil felt by the Hogwarts students.

“ ‘D’you realise how much homework we’ve got already? Binns set us a foot-and-a-half long on giant wars, Snape wants a foot on the use of moonstones, and now we’ve got a month’s dream diary from Trelawney!’” -Ron, on the first day of school

Harry and Ron have spent many sleepless nights trying to complete all the homework, dozing off several times and making up facts (like we all do).

“ ‘Shall we do Snape’s stuff first?’ Said Ron, dipping his quill into his ink.

‘“The Properties…of Moonstone… and its uses… in potion-making…”’ he muttered, writing the words across the top of his parchment as he spoke them. ‘There.’ He underlined the title, then looked up expectantly at Hermione.

‘So, what are the properties of moonstone and its uses in potion-making?’”

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Just school things!

There are just things we do as students that are hilarious to read through these characters. Online classes were prevalent when I read this book, hence the shenanigans reminded me of things we did/do in school. Like when the trio are attending the ever-so-boring History of Magic class taught by a ghost teacher, Professor Binns, whose ‘wheezy, droning voice’ was sure put everyone to sleep. They later beg Hermione for her notes, which she denies at first but is too kind-hearted to watch them fail at the subject.

“ Harry heard just enough within the first ten minutes to appreciate dimly that in another teacher’s hands this subject might have been mildly interesting, but then his brain disengaged, and he spent the remaining thirty-five minutes playing hangman on a corner of his parchment with Ron, while Hermione shot them filthy looks out of the corner of her eye.”

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There are a few more miscellaneous moments like Fred and George creating the Skiving Snack boxes to make you temporarily sick and skip classes. And the trio discussing future career prospects was a conversation I had to ponder on this year.

You can find that almost every book in the series has some or the other moments that invoke the nostalgia of the school days. Harry’s thought process is something almost every teenager can relate to or empathise with. There are so many more humorous situations in the book and I cannot possibly list them all out, so let me know in the comments of any other moments that you can think of. Also feel free to describe any other movie, show or book that produced the same effect as produced by Order of the Phoenix.

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