Heads up, wizards and muggles all! Famed author J. K. Rowling desperately needs the other half of the world’s money, so ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’ will be hitting local bookstores Saturday, June 21. Special arrangements have already been made to keep the Halifax Medical Center trauma center fully staffed during the debut.
It’s been three years since the last Harry Potter book came out, and devoted readers of these tales of the magical university of Hogwarts are frantic to know what happens next to their favorite wizard-in-training. It is impossible to underestimate the desire for this book, the fifth in the internationally popular series. Last December, an American bidder plunked down $45,000 for an index card that contained 93 single-word clues to the plot. At roughly $480 a word, this is not the action of a casual reader, especially when you consider that some of those enigmatic words were ‘the,’ ‘Rowling,’ ‘copyright,’ and ‘waffle.’
But fear not! Our intrepid ‘Twenty-four/Seven’ staff has managed to get a look at the newest opus. After three months of careful strategy involving corporate espionage, agents dangling from wires and lots of unnecessary explosives, we finally received our battered copy during an exchange at an abandoned parking garage (the one by Ocean Walk, at noon). It’s an impressive thing all by itself. At 768 pages, 38 chapters, and 255,000 words, it’s just over a third of the size of ‘War and Peace’ and heavy enough to require an OSHA label (‘Read with your legs, not with your back!’). But millions of adoring fans of all ages know that the real attraction is the ongoing adventures of Harry and his friends Ron and Hermione, their massive friend Hagrid, and their battle against the powerful evil wizard He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, whose real name is, of course, Jesse Helms.
I don’t want to give away some of the most exciting and breathtaking secrets, like the one about Harry’s long-lost twin sister (hoo hoo, you won’t see that one coming!), but here’s a taste of some of the wonders in store for you. Warning: spoilers!
— Harry, Ron, and Hermione overhear someone talking and, misunderstanding what is said, act on that misunderstanding, with hilarious results.
— Forced to reduce class sizes, adminstrators at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry drop the ‘Defence Against the Dark Arts’ course for students in the first four years and simply hand out government surplus flyers titled ‘Duck and Cover.’
— Harry, now 15, begins to break out with acne and talk in a squeaky voice, obviously the results of a sinister spell from the despicable Lord Voldemort. He also becomes sullen and depressed, skipping meals and baths to stay in his chamber and play video games for weeks while listening to ‘White Stripes’ CDs over and over. Ron and Hermione search in vain for the counterspell.
— An innovative method of ‘cliffhanger page locking’ prevents readers from accessing any chapters after the third one unless they use a credit card to immediately pay a nominal fee, to be repeated every few chapters right at the exciting bits.
— During a late night investigation Harry and Ron are forced to hide underneath Professor Snape’s desk, where they discover a rather startling taste in footwear.
— Headmaster Dumbledore seems shorter now, and looks like Lt. General Zevo from the movie ‘Toys.’
— Pranksters from the Hufflepuff house manage to surreptitiously catch and hide the Golden Snitch immediately after the final Quidditch game (Gryffindor v. Ravenclaw) begins. According to the rules, the game continues until the Snitch is caught. Harry passes out halfway through the fourth straight day of play and spirals down to crash headfirst into the snack bar.
— An ancient and tattered book teaches Harry that the efficacy of any spell can be doubled by ending it with ‘bibbity boppity boo.’
— The portions of the book’s plot that won’t be in the inevitable movie version are clearly marked, allowing the confused reader to skip them with ease.
— Harry discovers a new spell or book or doodad or something that, despite its seeming inconsequentiality, turns out to be instrumental in the final climactic scene.
— Wicked house elves, acting on orders from the dark and dreaded Lord Voldemort, short-sheet Harry’s bed.
— Ron must go and get help from untrusting townsfolk while Harry and Hermione are trapped in Injun Joe’s cave.
— The new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor starts out good, then turns evil, then goes all ‘relative ethics’ on everybody, then becomes a bit addled. Oh, and it’s a woman this time, I think.
— Ron’s low score on the WCAT (Wizard College Aptitude Test) forces him to redo his fourth year.
— Hagrid delightedly shows off his new beast, the incredibly rare holeintheplotasaurus, which seems to be making a comeback in a big way.
— A secret cadre of dark wizards, carrying out the devastatingly naughty commands of a book of arcane and heckish spells, unscrews the top of the salt shaker on the Gryffindor table so that it will fall off as soon as the salt shaker is overturned. The nefarious and vile Lord Voldemort laughs maniacally in the misty background as his diabolical schemes reach fruition.
— The last third of the book, for those hardy and determined readers who last that long, possibly by reading in shifts, turns out to be the complete text of ‘Jane Eyre.’
— In a surprise twist ending Harry is revealed to be a super-powered mutant living in a virtual computer program, trying to find an animated fish that possesses the powers of God while avoiding a cybernetic killer from the future, with the help of extraordinary gamma-irradiated gentlemen pirates of the Caribbean. In space.
Exciting stuff! And there’s even more I don’t dare hint at without legal representation. ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’ is on sale Saturday, June 21. Reserve your copy today!