Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Chapter Ten:
Luna Lovegood

Synopsis by Maureen Knight
Notes and links by Steve Vander Ark and Michele L. Worley

U.S. hardcover edition: pages 179 - 199
U.K. hardcover edition: pages 163 - 180
U.K. paperback edition: pages 201 - 222
Timeframe: 1 September, 1995 [Y15]

In which Harry and the Weasleys are late for the Hogwarts Express (again), Harry and Ginny encounter Neville on the train, and they are introduced to Luna Lovegood and her father's magazine, The Quibbler. Cho Chang makes a brief appearance, and Harry sees what actually pulls the school carriages.

Interesting facts and notes about the text of this chapter:

September 1 is a magical day for young people in the Wizarding World. From all over Britain, they arrive at Kings Cross station to embark on the Hogwarts Express and begin their school year with a day-long train ride. Only once have we seen the train stop, in 1993 [Y13] when the Dementors came aboard to search the train. Normally, this journey takes about nine hours and ends at Hogsmeade Station in the Scottish highlands.

Several questions come up frequently about the Hogwarts Express. One is a question of geography. Why do students come to London to travel to Scotland? What if they live in Scotland already? Surely it would make more sense for many of the students to either travel directly to Hogwarts or at least to catch the train along the route. Yes, that would make more sense... for a Muggle. The fact is, when you live in a world of Floo Powder and Apparation, distance isn't really much of a factor. Students go to Kings Cross at eleven on September 1 because that's where the train leaves from. It's no more difficult for them to make that trip than it would for them to visit the next village.

This brings up the next question that's often asked...why take a train at all? If, as we've just said, Floo powder and Apparation make the distance immaterial, why not just have everyone meet in Hogsmeade and be done with it? There are two answers to this question, both important. First of all, a day-long trip on the train is important for the students to form a bond as a group "set apart" for the task of learning. Since their parents and home are just a pinch of Floo Powder away, it's necessary for the students to have a sense of being separated. After all, theoretically, their moms could just step out of a fireplace at any moment delivering anything from a reprimand to a clean pair of socks. It's important for the identity of the students as Hogwarts students that they feel that they are far away from their homes. The parents accept this unusual separation, as evidenced by the fact that they send things by owl and don't turn up every once in a while to check up on things.

The second reason for taking the train is a bit more speculative. There is some evidence that Hogwarts is NOT simply a big old castle in Scotland that's hidden by charms from Muggle eyes. Hogwarts exists in an alternate reality, sort of like Platform Nine and Three-Quarters and Diagon Alley. When you're inside that reality (the "Hogwarts grounds," perhaps) you are actually someplace else. Even time works differently there, as evidenced by the fact that within the confines of the castle, every September 2 is a Monday. One function of the train then could be to transport students between alternate realities: from Platform Nine and Three Quarters to Hogwarts.

The train is certainly visible between the two locations, of course, at least to wizard eyes. Ron and Harry were able to follow it in the flying Anglia, after all. But even that trip wasn't "normal," as we see when we locate the Muggles who saw the flying car, according to the Prophet. One of the two was from Norfolk, which is many miles from the route between London and Scotland. Either Ron was dramatically off course or the train doesn't always stay on the same tracks as it heads north. It's pretty easy to imagine the train squeezing by Muggle trains by jumping from track to track when necessary, like the Knight Bus.

Harry had a troubled night's sleep.

His parents wove in and out of his dreams, never speaking;

Mrs Weasley sobbed over Kreacher's dead body,

watched by Ron and Hermione who were wearing crowns,

and yet again Harry found himself walking down a corridor ending in a locked door.

Fred and George had bewitched their trunks to fly downstairs

"But now Mad-Eye's complaining that we can't leave unless Sturgis Podmore's here, otherwise the guard will be one short."

'Why? I thought Voldemort was supposed to be lying low, or are you telling me he's going to jump out from behind a dustbin to try to do me in?'

It took them twenty minutes to reach King's Cross on foot

"We're - well - Ron and I are supposed to go into the prefect carriage," Hermione said awkwardly.

Luna watched them over her upside-down magazine, which was called The Quibbler.

"I'm nobody," said Neville hurriedly.
"No you're not," said Ginny sharply.

"Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure," said Luna in a singsong voice.

She raised her upside-down magazine enough to hide her face and fell silent. Harry and Neville looked at each other with their eyebrows raised. Ginny surpressed a giggle.

It was an odd, unsettled sort of day; one moment the carriage was full of sunlight and the next they were passing beneath ominously grey clouds.

This unsettled-ness is particularly keen in Harry's life. Where the drought in Privet Drive accentuates his lack of contact with the Wizarding World, the changing weather on train symbolizes the turbulence of Harry's feelings as he regains contact with the Wizarding World only to find it bittersweet and changed.

'Mimbulus mimbletonia,' he said proudly.

There is no actual plant called the Mimbulus mimbletonia, although there is a variety called the Mimulus. The term 'mimble' is used sometimes to indicate an indecisive sound someone might make when they don't know what to say or their courage has failed them. Uncle Vernon says something that sounds like "Mimblewimble" when faced with the giant Hagrid breaking in the door of the Hut on the Rock.

My Great Uncle Algie got it for me in Assyria.

He would have liked Cho to discover him sitting with a group of very cool people laughing their heads off at a joke he had just told; he would not have chosen to be sitting with Neville and Loony Lovegood, clutching a toad and dripping in Stinksap.

She pulled out her wand. 'Scourgify!'
The Stinksap vanished.

"I'll make Goyle do lines, it'll kill him, he hates writing," said Ron happily.

'Are you taking the mickey?' said Ron, frowning at her.

The Quibbler

Fudge's dearest ambition is to seize control of the goblin gold supplies and that he will not hesitate to use force if need be.

an accusation that the Tutshill Tornados were winning the Quidditch League by a combination of blackmail, illegal broom-tampering and torture;
an interview with a wizard who claimed to have flown to the moon on a Cleansweep Six and brought back a bag of moon frogs to prove it;
an article on ancient runes which at least explained why Luna had been reading The Quibbler upside-down. According to the magazine, if you turned the runes on their heads they revealed a spell to make your enemy's ears turn into kumquats.

'You see, I, unlike you, have been made a prefect, which means that I, unlike you, have the power to hand out punishments.'

'We'd better change,' said Hermione at last, and all of them opened their trunks with difficulty and pulled on their school robes.

Jostled by the crowd, Harry squinted through the darkness for a glimpse of Hagrid; he had to be here, Harry had been relying on it - seeing Hagrid again was one of the things he'd been looking forward to most. But there was no sign of him.

The coaches were no longer horseless. There were creatures standing between the carriage shafts.

Second, didn't Harry see Quirrell die in the Chamber of the Philosopher's Stone? No, he didn't, although the film version incorrectly shows that he did. In the books, Harry has passed out and he doesn't find out until later that Quirrell has died. The third objection is that if Harry saw Cedric die, he would have seen the thestrals at the end of the last school year when he boarded the carriages for the trip back to the station. Rowling has answered this question:

From a story point of view, the sudden appearance of the thestrals shows once again how things at Hogwarts which were once benign and pleasant are now given a sinister twist.

"Don't worry. You're just as sane as I am."

Characters introduced in this chapter:

• Lovegood, Luna

Characters returning in this chapter:

• Black, Mrs.

• Black, Sirius

• Chang, Cho

• Crabbe, Vincent

• Crookshanks

• Goyle, Gregory

• Granger, Hermione

• Hedwig

• Jordan, Lee

• Longbottom, Neville

• Lupin, Remus

• Malfoy, Draco

• Moody, Alastor (Mad-Eye)

• Potter, Harry

• Tonks, Nymphadora

• Trevor

• Weasley, Arthur

• Weasley, Fred

• Weasley, Ginny

• Weasley, George

• Weasley, Molly

• Weasley, Ron

Characters mentioned in this chapter:

• Abbott, Hannah

• Algie, Great Uncle

• Boardman, Stubby

• Dumbledore, Albus

• Dursley, Petunia

• Fletcher, Mundungus

• Fudge, Cornelius (as 'Goblin-Crusher')

• Goldstein, Anthony

• Granger, Dr. and Dr.

• Grubbly-Plank, Wilhelmina

• Hagrid, Rubeus

• Kreacher

• Lovegood, Mr.

• Macmillan, Ernie

• Malfoy, Lucius

• Parkinson, Pansy

• Patil, Padma

• Pigwidgeon

• Podmore, Sturgis

• Purkiss, Doris

• Riddle, Tom Marvolo (as Voldemort)

• Shacklebolt, Kingsley

• Sprout, Pomona

• Weasley, Percy

• (unnamed) wizard who claimed to fly to the moon on a Cleansweep Six

Settings and locations introduced or returning in this chapter:

• Hogwarts Express

• King's Cross Station

• number twelve, Grimmauld Place

  • entrance hall

  • Harry and Ron's bedroom

Settings and locations mentioned in this chapter:

• Assyria

• Azkaban

• Gringotts Wizarding Bank

• number eighteen Acanthia Way, Little Norton

• Little Norton Church Hall

Exceptional character moments:

• Still to come...

Spells:

• Scourgify

• (unnamed) spell that proports to turn your enemy's ears into kumquats

Links and Resources:

• Bestiary

  • goblin

  • thestral

• British and Irish Quidditch League

• Chocolate Frog Cards

• Daily Prophet, the

• food and drink

• Harry's dreams

• Remembrall

• Mimbulus mimbletonia

• Quibbler, the

• types of magical people

  • Animagi

  • Metamorphmagi

Memorable lines:

• The girl gave off an aura of distinct dottiness. Perhaps it was the fact that she had stuck her wand behind her left ear for safekeeping, or that she had chosen to wear a necklace of butterbeer caps, or that she was reading a magazine upside down.

• "That was funny!" Her prominent eyes swam with tears as she gasped for breath, staring at Ron. Utterly nonplussed, he looked around at the others, who were now laughing at the expression on Ron's face and at the ludicrously prolonged laughter of Luna Lovegood, who was rocking backward and forward, clutching her sides. "Are you taking the mickey?" said Ron, frowning at her.

• Harry had to read this sentence several times before he was convinced that he had not misunderstood it. Since when had Sirius been a singing sensation?

Strictly British:

• prefect

• wotcher

Timeline/Calendar of the Chapter

Here we encounter an example of the impossiblility of the dates in this book. Since we know from chapter 8 that August 12 was a Thursday, August 31 has to be a Tuesday. September 1, then, is a Wednesday, but we will discover in the next chapter that September 2 is not a Thursday, as one might expect after a Wednesday, but a Monday.