HOL name: Lily Padfoot
Student ID: li409

November Project:

PoA Report



Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is by far my favorite book. There are various reasons why but I think I’ll start with a summary of the story before going into those reasons.

PoA starts out in what has become the typical way for Harry Potter. Harry is on summer holidays stuck with the Dursleys. He has to be careful about even doing his homework since the Dursleys want absolutely nothing to do with the magical world. Harry receives various birthday gifts from his friends, such as a pocket sneakoscope from Ron. He also gets to read about the Weasleys winning money and going on a trip to Egypt.

Of course, the wonderful events of that night are quickly deflated by the Dursleys soon after. Harry wakes up to the Dursleys watching a news report about an escaped prisoner, Vernon Dursley’s continuous complaints, and news that Vernon’s sister, Marge, would be coming for a visit. For Harry, the thought of Marge visiting is horrible since she treats Harry just as bad, if not worse, that the Dursleys already do. However, Harry knows he must be on his best behavior and take her constant insults towards him because he needs his uncle to sign a Hogwarts permission slip that would allow him to visit Hogsmeade with the other third years and above. Harry manages to put up with Marge quite well until her last night there. Marge made the unfortunate and stupid mistake of insulting Harry’s parents, this was more than Harry could take. Emotions got the better of him and he somehow caused Marge to inflate. When this started he quickly gathered his stuff, put it in his trunk, and left before he could get into trouble with his uncle. Running out so quickly and having to leave after such events of course left Harry with an unsigned permission slip, the very thing that kept him behaving for as long as he did.

Once Harry left he quickly realized his dilemma: He was alone, he had no where to go, he may very well be expelled from Hogwarts, and he had only wizard money. While thinking this over he sees a huge black dog nearby which scares him and causes him to fall down. This is when the Knight bus comes along. The Knight Bus is a high-speed wizard bus that can travel from one town to another in a matter of seconds. While on the bus he learns that the escaped prisoner shown on the muggle news is in fact a very infamous wizard named Sirius Black who had escaped from a high-security cell at the wizard prison, Azkaban. The Knight Bus took Harry to the Leaky Cauldron where Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic, is waiting for him. Harry assumes that this can only mean trouble and that he is about to be told that he is expelled. But Fudge makes out like blowing up a relative is no big deal and tells Harry he is certainly not going to be expelled. He then tells Harry that he is to stay at the Leaky Cauldron until he goes to Hogwarts.

Harry enjoys staying at the Leaky Cauldron and being able to explore Diagon alley throughout the day. He buys all his school supplies and manages to finish all of his summer homework. On the day before he is to go back to Hogwarts he meets up with Ron and Hermione, and learns that they are both going to be staying at the Leaky Cauldron that night, as is the rest of the Weasley family. They wonder around Diagon Alley together. They end up at the Magical Menagerie where Ron wanted to get Scabbers looked at since he had not been doing too good since the trip to Egypt. Hermione ends up buying a cat, Crookshanks, there as well. That night after dinner, Harry overhears Mr. and Mrs. Weasley arguing about whether or not to tell Harry that Sirius Black is after him. When Mr. Weasley approaches Harry the next morning to tell him, Harry admits that he overheard him and is already aware of the situation.

The trip to Hogwarts is more eventful than usual. For some reason, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Remus Lupin, is asleep on the train. And before reaching Hogwarts the train is stopped and dementors, the creatures that guard Azkaban, board the train apparently looking for Sirius Black. The dementors cause Harry to faint on the train, and his is awoken by his friends and Professor Lupin, who gives Harry and the others chocolate to combat the effect of the dementors. When they reach Hogwarts, Harry and Hermione are taken aside by Professor McGonagall who discusses the dementors with Harry and then talks to Hermione alone about her class schedule. Harry also learns that night that the old Care of Magical Creatures teacher, Professor Kettleburn, has resigned and that Rubeus Hagrid will be teaching the class this year.

Students then begin their classes and have a few very interesting first lessons. In divination, Professor Trelawney takes little time in predicting Harry’s death when she says she see the grim in his tea leaves, she describes the grim as a big black dog and Harry is reminded of the creature he saw when he ran away from the Dursleys. In Care of Magical Creatures, Hagrid brings 12 hipppogriffs to class. One of them ends up scratching Draco Malfoy, who played up the injury as well as he possibly could. In Defense Against the Dark Arts, the students have a practical lesson when Professor Lupin has each student in turn go up against a boggart. DADA soon becomes the favorite class among most students.

A Hogsmeade visit quickly approaches and Harry tries to get permission to go but because Black is after him it is impossible to get approval. While everyone else is in Hogsmeade, Harry has a discussion with Professor Lupin about why he wasn’t allowed to face the boggart and admits that his biggest fear is dementors. During their discussion Professor Snape comes in with a potion for Professor Lupin, Harry assumes it must be poison, but Professor Lupin drinks it still. When the students get back from Hogsmeade they have the Halloween feast. While the feast is going on, Black tries to get into the Gryffindor common room and when he can’t, he cuts the Fat Lady’s canvas and she flees to another portrait. After this event all the students are forced to sleep in the great hall while the castle is searched.

During Harry’s first Quidditch match of the season things went horrible wrong. First he saw what he thought was the grim in the stands. Then, he feels a horrible cold come over him and when he looks down there are a ton of dementors on the quidditch pitch even though Dumbledore had demanded they not come onto the grounds. Harry once again fainted, Gryffindor lost the game and Harry’s Nimbus 2000 broomstick was destroyed by the Whomping Willow.

Harry later talk about the dementors with Professor Lupin who says he will try to teach Harry a way to fight them off so they don’t effect him so much. There is yet another Hogsmeade visit, but this time Harry sneaks there with the help of Fred and George. They give Harry the Marauder’s Map, a magical map of the school with a bunch of secret passage ways out and one in particular that will take him to the sweets shop in Hogsmeade. While in Hogsmeade, Harry, Ron, and Hermione overhear a conversation between a few professors about Black. They discuss how Black had been best friends with Harry’s father, how he became their secret keeper when Voldemort was trying to find the Potters, and how he had betrayed them by telling Voldemort their location. This new information is quite a shock for Harry and thinks it over constantly for awhile.

Soon after Harry, Ron, and Hermione talk with Hagrid and find out that Buckbeak, the hippogriff that injured Malfoy, will have a hearing in front of the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures. They decide to help Hagrid and begin looking in books for anything that could help at the hearing.

For Christmas Harry receives a brand new Firebolt from an anonymous sender. Hermione secretly goes to talk about Professor McGonagall about it because she is worried it may have come from Black and could possibly have jinxes and such. Harry and Ron are absolutely furious about Hermione’s actions. After various tests are done on the firebolt, Professor McGonagall returns it to Harry. Tension between Harry, Ron, and Hermione start to ease afterwards, but then thing get even worse between Ron and Hermione when Ron finds Scabbers blood on his bed sheets and immediately assumes that Crookshanks killed him. After Christmas break, Harry begins having lessons about fighting off dementors with Professor Lupin. He is trying to learn how to do the patronus charm, the only thing to fight off dementors.

Gryffindor wins its second quidditch match. During the game a few slytherins tried to scare Harry by dressing up as dementors and Harry aimed a patronus charm right at them and knocked them all over. There is celebrating about the win late into the night. When they finally go to bed, Ron is awoken by Black cutting apart his bed curtains and his screams wake everyone in the dorms.

Harry once again sneaks to Hogsmeade with Ron and while playing a practical joke on Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle, he is seen and rushes back to the castle. Professor Snape questions him about Hogsmeade when he gets back and he finds the Marauder’s Map, but is unable to operate it. Professor Lupin saves Harry, but takes the Marauder’s Map from him.

Hagrid goes to the hearing in London, but loses the case and Buckbeak is to be executed. After this announcement, Ron and Hermione make up and begin working on an appeal case for Buckbeak. With Hermione stressed out about being overloaded with work, her emotions take over and she takes actions that seem very unlike herself. She slaps Malfoy when he begins joking about Buckbeak’s execution, she misses a charms class, and she walks right out of divinations.

In the last Quidditch match of the season, Gryffindor and Slytherin play a very rough match. Gryffindor pulls off a win and wins the Quidditch Cup.

End of year exams are quickly approaching and everyone is studying hard for them. Harry, Ron, and Hermione find out that Buckbeak’s appeal is set for June 6th, the last day of exams. During Harry’s divination exam, Professor Trelawney went into a strange, trance-like state and predicted that a servant of Lord Voldemort would return to him and that Voldemort would rise again.

After exams are over Harry, Ron, and Hermione go to visit Hagrid before Buckbeak’s appeal. While there, Hermione finds Scabbers hiding, which is a huge shock since they all thought he was dead. Then they sneak out of the hut when the committee members were on their way to Hagrid’s.

While walking back to the castle, Scabbers gets away from Ron, who chases after him. Crookshanks begins going after Scabbers. Ron is then attacked by a big, black dog and Harry and Hermione are attacked by the Whomping Willow. There is a tunnel near the trunk of the tree and the dog drags Ron through it, then Crookshanks leads Harry and Hermione through the tunnel. At the end of the tunnel they realize they have reached the Shrieking Shack. Harry and Hermione find Ron and discover that the big, black dog had been Sirius Black, who as it turns out was an animagi. Harry attacks Black, but Professor Lupin gets there in time to stop Harry from killing Black. Professor Lupin admits that he is actually a werewolf and he had been friends with Black, James Potter, and Peter Pettigrew (a wizard Black had been accused of killing).

Professor Lupin explains to them how when he was in school his three friends would turn into animals once a month when he transformed into a werewolf and they would wonder around the grounds. Then him and Black go on to explain about Peter Pettigrew. They tell how he would transform into a rat, and that they thought Scabbers was actually Pettigrew. They explain to Harry that Pettigrew was actually the Potters secret keeper and that he’s the one that betrayed them, not Black. At this point Professor Snape shows up and threatens Lupin and Black. Harry, Ron, and Hermione all hit Professor Snape with the disarming spell and knocked him out. At this point, Lupin and Black force Scabbers back into his human form of Pettigrew, who immediately begins pleading for his life. Lupin and Black are ready to kill Pettigrew but Harry stops them.

They head back out of the tunnel and then things go horribly wrong all at once. Lupin sees the full moon and transforms into a werewolf, Black transforms into a dog to stop Lupin from accidentally attacking Harry, Ron, or Hermione, and while all of this is going on, Pettigrew transforms back into a rat and runs into the forest. Black chasers after him but is trapped by dementors. Harry and Hermione run after Black to save him and are also surrounded by dementors. Harry tries to perform the patronus charm but there are to many dementors and then an unknown person produces a patronus that saves them all.

Harry wakes up in the hospital and tries to explain what happened to the Minister of Magic, who doesn’t believe him at all. At this point Dumbledore shows up, informs Harry and Hermione that he has spoken with Black and believes him, but he needs their help in saving him. He tells them to use Hermione’s time turner (the magical time device Hermione had been using all year so she could attend multiple classes at the same time) and to save both Buckbeak and Black. Harry and Hermione travel back in time and actually manage to pull it all off. They just barely save Buckbeak from execution, and then while waiting for time to pass, Harry goes to get a better view for when the dementors attack, but what he really wanted to see was who sent the patronus. When he sees the dementors approaching, he suddenly realized that it was actually him who had performed the patronus charm, so he did once again to save himself, Hermione, and Black. A little while later they fly Buckbeak up to where Black is being held and tells him to escape on Buckbeak.

Harry and Hermione arrive back at the hospital wing just in time. Professor Snape goes crazy when he finds out Black has escaped and immediately blames Harry, put he has no proof of anything.

Then the story winds down quickly. Lupin resigns after Professor Snape reveals to the school that he is a werewolf. As Lupin is packing, Harry visits him to say goodbye and Lupin returns the Marauder’s Map and invisibility cloak to Harry. Term ends and everyone heads back on the Hogwarts Express. Black sends Harry a letter while he is on the train letting him no that he is okay and that the owl delivering the letter is for Ron to replace Scabbers. And that is basically the end.

I think the reason why PoA is my favorite book is because it has so many storylines going on at once, wonderful new characters are introduced, and I think this book was in a way a turning point for the series.

There are at times too many storylines to even keep up with. You have Hagrid and his case with Buckbeak. You have to keep up with all Ron and Hermione’s arguing, and kind of going along with that Crookshanks vs. Scabbers. Then there is of course Harry vs. Sirius Black, as well as Harry vs. the dementors, and even at times Harry fighting with himself, such as when he wants to stop the dementors from effecting him, but in a way also wants to hear his parents since he has no memory of them.

The main characters introduced in this book: Remus Lupin and Sirius Black. In my opinion these are two of the best characters. And I think the reason I like them so much is they are such outcasts. Lupin is shunned away by many because he is a werewolf. Black is a complete rebel. And then there is the sympathy factor. The feeling that they can never get a break. For example, with Lupin before this book, of his best friends, he believed Black had betrayed James, that Black had killed Peter, and then Black went to prison. His best friends were gone. That’s what I mean by the sympathy factor, neither one of them really has anyone, they are alone.

I say this book is a big turning point because I guess I feel like this is where Voldemort is given support to come back, by one of his death eaters returning to him at the end. The series would not have gone the way that it has without Pettigrew returning to help Voldemort. It’s kind of ironic that Harry, the person that turned Voldemort into something so weak, is in a way the one that allows him to come back. He doesn’t kill Pettigrew when he has the chance. Of course if Pettigrew would have died, it wouldn’t have made for such an interesting series, as it seems crucial for Voldemort to return.

The thing I find most interesting and different about Prisoner of Azkaban is that it is the only book so far where Harry hasn’t faced Voldemort in some form. It still involved Voldemort in a way but nothing like the other books. He didn’t have to fight against him, no overcoming him. In a way this makes it almost not seem to fit into the series, but at the same time, I find this book to be essential to the series. I’m not exactly sure how it is possible to feel both ways about the book, I can’t quite explain that.

Good Summery of the book. shows some knowlege...

I will award you 45 point (5 for your opinion which is good to wrap the essay up)