Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (novel)/Nightmare Fuel


 * The only correct answer is Umbridge herself. If there is anything scarier than High Octane Nightmare Fuel, she would be it. "The Dementors are only afraid of one thing: Her."
 * Harry being forced to carve his own hand open with Umbridge's quill. Where's a child abuse hotline when you need one?
 * Child abuse hotline? What makes you think she doesn't own it? After all, in the book at least, she actually seemed to anticipate Harry telling on her. "Attention seeking stories" anyone?
 * The worst part is that it's so reminiscent of teenage self-harm (like cutting) and Harry was really so miserable in that book.
 * Watch that scene in the films. You wanna know how bad Umbridge is? You REALLY wanna know? She looks like she's having a tiny orgasm as Harry gasps in pain!
 * Note how in the book, Harry spends the first few nights of detention stubbornly refusing to react to the pain, then one night, he finally does due to his scar acting up... and Umbridge smiles and lets him go a little early. She wants to know that she's hurting him.
 * High Octane Nightmare Fuel, say hello to Writers Cannot Do Math. Umbridge is allowed to put Harry in detention for his entire free time from the end of school to midnight every day for two weeks. The other teachers' response? Sorry, Harry, you still have to do your homework for all your other subjects.
 * This is actually Truth in Television. Teachers rarely care about how much screwed you are from other subjects. Although taking the fact that Umbridge was not generally liked by anyone in the teacher room, they could cut him some slack.
 * The scene where Umbridge attempts to use the Cruciatus Curse on Harry. This is the wizarding version of Cold-Blooded Torture at its worst, only previously described as having been used by Death Eaters and Barty Crouch Sr's team of interrogators, and she's about to use it on a fifteen-year-old boy. Dear God. Did I mention that the Cruciatus Curse is capable of causing insanity, and is considered so horrible, its use is punishable by a life sentence in Azkaban?
 * Frankly, the Wizarding World seems to get away with a lot. Leave Umbridge and consider Snape for a minute: never fired, never reprimanded. Sure, Dumbledore wanted to keep him on board, but he had no good reason to knowingly let him cripple the teaching of students or play favorites.
 * Snape's classes are described as working beyond their level. He can be a dick, but he gets results. And at least he tries to protect his students.
 * By this stage, the Wizarding World was in the hands of corrupt cowards who had become aware of just how deeply they'd been consorting with the enemy, and were trying to cover their own tracks and weren't particularly mindful of (or interested in) what was being done in their name.
 * The Department of Mysteries, especially Made even worse by the fact that the heroes saw it in the middle of the night, when it was unoccupied.
 * Out of all the things in the Department of Mysteries, which ranged from the bizarre to the beautiful (the room full of planets, anyone?), when Harry met with Ron again and Ron is gibbering and blabbing like a baby or an idiot — what kind of spell did that?
 * The room with the dais. An enormous, rectangular room with a sunken pit twenty feet below in the center, with stone steps leading down to it and an old, crumbling archway in the middle. The fact that the veil of this dais is fluttering with no one being there to move it is frightening enough; when you learn that it is actually the ... EURGH.
 * So, what happens if only part of you goes through the veil? Say, your arm. Would the rest of your body get sucked in? Would your arm be stuck in the veil, leaving you no choice but to go in the rest of the way? Would your arm fall off, leaving you with only a stump? Or would your arm die, leaving you with a dead arm hanging off your shoulder, a la Tom Robinson from To Kill a Mockingbird? *shudder* Stupid overthinking!
 * Oh, and the whispering... my God, the whispering!
 * The love room in the Department of Mysteries. Out of all the many horrors in that place, the contents of this room is the one that they feel they need to keep behind a permanently locked door.
 * Fridge Brilliance/Fridge Horror. Remember what created Voldemort in the first place; conception via a love potion. The love room is locked because of the potential to create a TON more Voldemorts.
 * The powerful spell Dumbledore used against Voldemort. All we ever learn about it is that it would not have killed Voldemort, and Dumbledore simply responds, "There are other ways of destroying a man, Tom." The spell's horrifying effect is left up to the imagination of the reader.
 * Boggarts, generally all bark and no bite except for Harry and whoever's afraid of THAT MUTANT JACK-IN-THE-BOX, are given a Wham Moment when Mrs. Weasley, trying to get rid of one, is forced to see the dead bodies of her family (and Harry, in a darkly heartwarming moment). Adult Fears cannot be helped with the Ridikkulus spell. Moreover, how would it work in the first place?!