Throughout the summer before his fifth year, Harry is haunted by the dreams of Cedric Diggory's death. Hogwarts becomes, in the final weeks of the term, a place of constant rebellion against Umbridge and her tyrannical decrees. They wreak havoc through the halls as an act of resistance and inspire their fellow students to do the same in their absence. For example, when Fred and George leave Hogwarts, they do so with a bang. Rebellion also permeates the text in smaller ways. The book takes its title from the original model for Dumbledore's Army, the Order of the Phoenix, which operates in secrecy to subvert the efforts of Voldemort and the Death Eaters. As a result, Umbridge leaves Hogwarts, and the wizarding world finally accepts Voldemort's return.ĭumbledore's Army is not the only instance of rebellion in the book. When Umbridge takes over the school and replaces Dumbledore, Harry leads his rebellion army to the Ministry where they succeed in preventing Voldemort from attaining the prophecy. As the lessons progress, Umbridge creates new tactics and continues punishing Harry, only fueling him to rebel against her even more. This prompts him to start a secret defense association, Dumbledore's Army, where he teaches his classmates to stand up to Umbridge and prepare themselves for battle. Harry and his classmates learn only defensive magic theory, and when he insists that they need to learn real spells to protect themselves from Voldemort, he is tortured by Professor Umbridge. When the Ministry denies Voldemort's return, it forbids the instruction of practical defense against the Dark arts.
Fate, in Harry Potter's world, is still subject to a degree of free will that shapes the way prophecies manifest. Voldemort had to choose between attacking Harry or Neville, and thus he chose which boy would become "The Boy Who Lived." Rowling introduces an element of choice in fate, complicating the notion that everything is predetermined. Having only heard the beginning of the prophecy, Voldemort believes that he can avoid the rise of a sworn enemy by killing Harry while he's still an infant. Rowling intertwines notions of fate and choice, most notably by demonstrating how Voldemort completes Trelawney's prophecy by making a choice. This points out once again the fundamental difference between Harry and Voldemort, both ambitious, orphaned children able to choose between darkness or light. However, it is his godfather, Sirius, who points out that no person is only definitely good or definitely bad, echoing Dumbledore's wisdom from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets that he must choose whether to act on negative impulses or to strive for the light. As he feels the wizarding community turn its back on him, he begins to wonder if he himself is actually becoming evil. Harry often finds himself slipping into Voldemort's thoughts. Similar to Macbeth fulfilling the prophecy that he will be king by killing Duncan, Voldemort sets in place the final showdown between him and Harry, in which only one of them will live, with one killed by the other. As is the nature of prophecies in literature, it is necessary for the prophecy to be heard and recognized for those about whom they are written in order for them come true. When he tries to kill Harry, Lily stands in between, and he transfers some of his powers to Harry, therefore marking him as his equal. Having only been made aware of half of the prophecy, Voldemort attempts to prevent it from coming true, not realizing that in doing so, he only solidifies it. However, the prophecy also indicates that Voldemort will mark this boy as his equal, which he does by choosing Harry Potter, a half-blood like himself, over Neville, a pure-blood born the day before Harry. Throughout the novel, the goal of the Order is to stop Voldemort from attaining the record of the prophecy made by Professor Trelawney, which predicts that a boy born at the end of July will defeat Voldemort. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix draws many similarities with William Shakespeare's Macbeth.