why the order?

[kiricat2001]

No: HPFGUIDX 89269

> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "spang_b" <spang_b at y...> 
wrote:
>  Dumbledore starts the order of phoenix the second time in the 
> > fifth book. But what was the reason for starting it the first 
time? The 
> > ministry then was fully involved in resisting Voldemort so why 
the 
> > need to start a secret group in the first place?


Sophierom replied:
> 
> I could be wrong about this, but I think the Order of the Phoenix 
as 
> a secret society is something unique to this second wizard war.  At 
> the end of GOF, Dumbledore asks Sirius to alert "the old crowd" 
> (US ed., p713). He does not say, the old "order" or the "Order of 
> the Phoenix." 

> And in OOTP, when Hermionie is explaining to Harry 
> exactly what the Order is, she says, "It's a secret society ... 
> Dumbledore's in charge, he founded it.  It's the people who fought 
> against You-Know-Who last time." (UK ed., p.65).  This seems to 
> suggest that the Order as a secret society is new, and it doesn't 
> seem to me that those who fought the first time around had to do so 
> in secret.  Instead, the "old crowd" was probably a group of people 
> whom Dumbledore came to trust in the last war; unlike the Crouchs 
of 
> the WW, the "old crowd" probably fought LV in a way that Dumbledore 
> found ethically acceptable.  
> 

Now me, Marianne:

In Chapter Nine, when Mad-Eye shows Harry a picture of these folks, 
he calls them "Original Order of the Phoenix."  So,I think OoP 
existed during Vmort War I.  And, later in the same chapter Lupin, in 
trying to reassure Molly about her family's situation, says something 
to the effect that this time, they are much better prepared or 
forewarned or something.  

Which doesn't answer the original question of why there was a need 
for OoP originally.  The only thing I can come up with is that the 
Ministry was caught so flat-footed that it couldn't get its 
bureaucratic power in gear fast enough.  Plus, I wonder how many DEs 
or Voldemort supporters were in key positions in the Minstry, thereby 
hampering whatever actions the MoM sought to take?  

Marianne