The Order of Prophecies

I had been re-reading The Order of the Phoenix, and I finally finished it late last Friday night. Late it was. And once I fell asleep I had dreams about dark and spinning grey and black spirals, about "saving something or someone", and of course Harry Potter walked into my dreams. Not Harry from The Order. It was my Professor Harry Potter, whom I once told in real life "You don't look like Harry Potter, Prof. You look like Dumbledore". He had considered my observation in his serious way, and not without the sudden twinkle in his eyes he had replied with a "That is a good thing, isn't it?" So Professor Harry Potter visited my dreams saying something about reality. And I kept saying, "Reality is all very fine, but I bloody well wish that I could see something." So the dreams irritated me on the whole more than anything else. Everything seemed just beyond reach. Everything was just a dark liquidy swirling pool. People I desperately wanted to see - I could. But only in vague photographs...I could hear their voices even, or so I think. But I could make out nothing else. Everything just kept moving in slow motion and visibility was very low.

This time I took my time (and an inordinate amount of time at that!) to swim through the deep darkness. Not the darkness of the disturbing dreams. I mean of The Order...This book is dark. Not just in terms of all that happens. But in terms of everything (even in terms of time and place). There was just a dense black liquid that seemed to be spilling all over me - both this time and the last time that I read it. The last time (and the only time) I read The Order was almost exactly 5 years ago, which is rather disturbing to ponder upon for different reasons. This time I started re-reading it because of some recurrent conversations that I kept having with Guha and Pupu.
I wasn't so sure that I wanted to read it though. Sirius whom I fell in love with a little loonily (although a lot less loonily than other times vis-a-vis other characters from other books) the very first time I read Prisoner of Azkaban slips through the veil, and never does return, and even though I absolutely knew towards the end of The Prisoner...that Sirius was indeed going to slip away for good - it didn't make me any less sad when that did happen. The thing is though - maybe that's why I paid very little attention to certain parts of The Order the first time I read it. Like for instance the Prophecy. For some reason the first time around - it didn't seem to be anything that I didn't already know about. I was quite convinced that I'd known all along that only Voldemort or Harry could live - so I didn't see what the big deal was.

But I guess in my hurry I'd probably not let the bit about the prophecy linger or settle or even register in my bone-head. In fact I had completely clean forgotten what Voldemort so desperately had wanted Harry to get for him from the Ministry of Magic. I had forgotten all about the prophecy.

This time around Sirius' death did leave the clench in my tum'. I walked around with Harry at Grimmauld's Place when Harry is quite convinced that he is losing his mind. I kept muttering under my breath "Oh just learn occlumency and stop being angry with everyone around you." I felt the hollow pitty feeling when Harry tries to find McGonnagal right after he "sees" Sirius being tortured but learns that she's been taken to St. Mungo's. I remembered while reading through why I had been doubly furious with Harry. It's because of the way he yells and screams at Dumbledore and I remembered all over again why I had been so furious with Dumbledore for not having told Harry - some months earlier - what he had to in the end. And there was that bit about "the single teardrop...." (something Pupu also brought up yester') - and my heart and my silent gulp went out for Dumbledore and I gave Harry one resounding whack all over again.
But this time I was quite cheesed off with Sirius. I don't see why he had to get into a stupid and silly confrontation with Snape right in front of Harry when he knew how important it was for Harry to learn occlumency (and somebody should have told Harry why it was so terribly important!).
Ah well.

Time for some points that crossed my head this time around...
Point 1) The prophecy. That was rather interesting. Who knows what might have happened if The prophecy had never been made.
The next day eve' when I was yabbling about The Order and the prophecy with rather wide eyes, Guha remarked that the prophecy was somehow very similar to a scene out of the Matrix, where the oracle says, "Don't worry about it."
And Neo breaks the vase, and splutters, "sorry."
"Would you have broken it if I hadn't said anything...?" quizzes the oracle with a smile and a sweep.
That's a rather haunting thought actually ('course the Oracle too makes a prophecy about Neo, and Neo acts accordingly, which makes the prophecy come true - but not to digress). And to think of what might have happened had Voldemort been able to hear the prophecy all the way through.
There are other thoughts too related with the same but they can sit and simmer for some seconds in the cauldron of infinite eternity.
Guha finished re-reading The Lord of the Rings (A book I have tried to read thrice and failed all three times.) some hours after I finished The Order...and so we were talking furiously about fantasy and reality and infinity for some reason before he went back to editing a paper on parasites, and I went back to the painstaking and mind numbing job of finding and filling up a reference list.

2) I thought it amusing that Rowling took us through that whole agonising week when the kids were having their OWL exams...

3) I thought it sort of one-eyebrow-raising-worthy (meaning in this specific instance "Odusing": odd+amusing) that Voldemort "waited" for almost all of Harry's exams to get over before sneaking into Harry's mind to plant the image of Sirius being tortured.

4) Just imagine if Neville Longbottom had been "The Chosen One". Quite a thought, huhn?!...Would he then have been Neville or would he then have been Harry?...