Karine Montuelle ~ ka405 ~ Slytherin


NOVEMBER PROJECT

Harry Potter and the Prisonner of Azkaban (PoA) is the third novel of the Harry Potter series. It’s quite different from the two former books. The reader is getting used with the wizarding world as Harry is. We’re still discovering things from page to page but it’s not the same kind of things as before. The purpose is different. In Philosopher’s Stone (PS), we discovered the wizarding world, neither us, readers, nor Harry knew that such things were possible out of « our » Muggle world. With Chamber of Secrets (CoS) we learn more about the Dark Lord and his followers. At the same time of this process of discovery, danger intrudes each year under a slightly different form inside Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. That’s why we can say that in PS and CoS, the plots are somehow alike. Their constructions are similar. The hero has to deal with a dark force whose aim is to regain its power and master the whole world. This kind of story thread is very common, most of the adventure books are following this scheme.
It’s quite different in PoA. In fact we can say that in some manner PoA catches us in a trap the first time we open it. I must explain myself : We are used to the plot scheme the author created before. In the very beginning of PoA we build a scheme in our minds which is formed on that first plot system. It’s undoubtedly the author’s aim.

A usually, the third novel opens at the end of the summer holiday. Harry is at his aunt and uncle’s house in Little Winging. He waits with a really great eagerness that September 1st comes at last. He had had a very dull summer. His uncle had, at the very beginning of the holiday, locked all his wizard’s belongings in the cupboard under the stairs. In the muggle news on television he hears about an escaped prisoner called Black. This man is said to be armed and very dangerous.
Then comes his thirteenth birthday. He received postcards and presents from Hagrid, Hermione and Ron. In Ron’s is enclosed a cut from the Daily Prophet showing the whole Weasley family on holiday in Egypt. He also got a letter from school which says that if he wants to be allowed to visit Hogsmeade on the weekends he has to get a form signed from his guardian. The question is then : How to get that form signed from uncle Vernon ?
The answer is quickly found : Aunt Marge is coming to spend a whole week at the Dursleys’. Harry makes an arrangement with Uncle Vernon that says that if everything goes right between Harry and Marge, he will sign the form. Unfortunately Aunt Marge is hardly bearable. She’s always bullying Harry about his parents, she is so rude that he can’t control. He happens to blow her up on the last evening. Harry knows that he had broken the underage wizardry Decree, he escapes. When he finds himself alone in the street, he feels as if he was observed and he sees what looks like a great black dog… He has the idea of flying to London on his Nimbus 2000 but at the same time comes a big purple bus called the Knight Bus.
The name of this bus is interesting, it is said to come when a wizard needs to go somewhere as an emergency. The name « Knight bus » is not only a word game on the sounds of « night » and « knight », we could perhaps say that as a « knight » this bus has the duty to save widows and orphans (Harry is one) in need as a medieval knight has to do. In the bus, everyone is talking about Sirius black, who happens to have escaped from the wizard prison of Azkaban, he is researched by both wizards and muggles of the whole country. When he arrives in London, in Diagon Alley, he is awaited by Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic who looks relieved to have found Harry. Harry is surprised, he was thinking he was an outlaw now but Fudge doesn’t even want to punish him. Harry is not expelled from Hogwarts ! He just have to spend his last holiday week at the Leaky Cauldron. Here is the first step of the story, we don’t really understand the reasons of Fudge kindness and disregard of the rules.
Therefore Harry spends the week in Diagon Alley. He has a great time wandering in the shops. On the day before the beginning of term, he meets Hermione, Ron and the whole Weasley family at the Leaky Cauldron. They’re spending the night there and they will be all going to King Cross Station together. The Ministry have provided two cars to get them to the station. After having dinner all together that night, Harry overhears a conversation between Mr and Mrs Weasley. He learns that Black has escaped from Azkaban to kill him ! This wizard was a deatheater, one of most powerful follower of the Dark Lord. That’s why everybody wants to keep an eye on him and why they all look odd and anxious.
September 1st comes at last and Harry, Ron and Hermione get on the Hogwarts Express. Harry tells them about Black’s aim. They’re both much more frightened than he is. They take place in a compartment where a man is sleeping. As they guess he must be their new DADA teacher, his name is Professor Remus Lupin. Suddenly the train stops in the middle of nowhere. Some people get on the train and search it all. They’re the Azkaban guards, the Dementors. Those creatures have the power to suck the happiness out of people. When they enter Harry’s compartment he faints, hearing crying in his head. Fortunately Professor Lupin knows what to do in such cases and Harry feels quickly much better.
On the first school day, both Ron and Harry notice something strange about Hermione. She takes much more subjects than they do, and it seems impossible, she can’t be in three classes at the same time ! They have their first Divination lesson with Professor Trelawney, she predicts Harry’s death, in his tea leaves she sees a death omen, a great black dog, just like the one he saw in the street the night he escaped from the Durleys’. Harry is a bit anxious about it.
In the afternoon, they have their first Care of magical creatures lesson, with Hagrid as a teacher ! As he wants everything to be ideal for his first ever lesson, Hagrid chose a very impressing creature : the Hippogriff, half horse, half eagle. Everything was going all right since Malfoy insults one of the hippogriff called Buckbeack. He’s injured at the arm.
On Halloween night, when everyone is at the feast, Black tries to enter Gryffindor common room but the Fat lady doesn’t let him in because he doesn’t have the password. All the professors search the castle but they don’t find him.
As Malfoy is faking his arm injury, Gryffindor has to play Hufflepuff instead of Slytherin for the first match of the Quidditch season. The weather is horrible, it rains a lot and there is thunder and lightning.
As Harry didn’t get his form signed from uncle Vernon, he is not allowed to go to Hogsmeade with the others. He missed the Hogsmeade weekend on Halloween but for Christmas, Fred and George Weasley give him their Marauder’s map. This map is very special, it shows the whole castle (and its secret passages) and the people who are inside are visible, they’re tiny labelled dots moving on the map. With this map, Harry is able to go to Hogsmeade without go past the dementors who could have seen him hidden under his invisibility cloak. He meets Hermione and Ron at Honeydukes and they decide to have a butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks. Once in there, enter Professor Mc Gonnagal, Professor Flitwick, Hagrid and Fudge. Hidden under a table, Harry overhears their conversation with Madam Rosmerta. They’re talking about Sirius Black. Harry is very confused by what he hears : Black was his father’s best friend, and Harry’s godfather. But James didn’t know that Black was on Voldemort’s side. Black betrayed Lily and James, he told Voldemort where to find them. An other bad news happen this day. Hagrid, though cleared of the responsibility of Malfoy’s injury, has to face an inquiry of the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures. He fears that they’re going to kill Buckbeak.
As a Christmas present, Harry receives a Firebolt. The Firebolt is the best broomstick ever, but as Harry doesn’t know who send it to him, Professor Mc Gonnagal who has been told by Hermione confiscates it to have it checked before Harry can have a go on it. At the same time, Scabbers, Ron’s pet rat, disappears leaving just a little blood. Ron is convinced that Hermione’s cat, Crookshanks ate Scabbers. The cas chased the rat ever since Hermione bought it. These two facts make that Ron and Hermione don’t talk to each other any more.
After a quidditch match Griffindor won, all the students have a party in the common room. At one o’cock in the morning everyone goes to bed but they’re soon awaken by Ron screaming ! He just saw Black in front of him in the dorm handing a big knife ! In fact, Neville wrote down the passwords of the Gryffindor tower but lost the sheet of paper so Black entered the tower without a problem ! This is a bit of a shock for all, the school is searched again, but again Black escapes.
A little time before Gryffindor wins the quidditch cup, Ron and Harry learned from Hermione that Hagrid lost his trial and that Buckbeack will be certainly executed. It’s a second shock for the friends, they realised how sad end lonely Hermione is and they make it all up with her. It’s time for the end of term exams, all the students sit their exams with more or less success. But on the last exam day, Hagrid sends to the three friends a note saying the he lost the appeal and that Buckbeack will indeed be executed at sunset. Another event happens that afternoon, Professor Trewlawney had a kind of trance while Harry was sitting his Divination exam, she said that the most faithful servant of the Dark lord will rejoin his Master at midnight that very day.
A little while before sunset the three of them go to see Hagrid and stay with him for the execution. When they arrive at his hut Hermione finds Scabbers hiding in a cupboard, Ron catches him. But he tells them to go because of the Minister. They go with Scabbers. He can’t stay put in Ron’s pocket and he flees. Ron runs after him followed by Harry and Hermione. But suddenly comes the big black dog Harry thought to be a death omen. The dog catches Ron and takes him into a passage way under the Whooping Willow. Harry and Hermione follow the dog and they arrive inside the Shrieking Shack in Hogsmeade. Then they discover that the dog is in fact Sirius Black, Black is an Animagus. Professor Lupin comes a little after as Harry is threatening Black with his wand. He tells him the story of him being a werewolf and being friend at school with Black, Pettigrew and James Potter. But unfortunately comes Professor Snape too who followed them into the passageway. He tries to get hand on both Black and Lupin but they all with the help of Harry Ron and Hermione knocked him out. In fact Scabbers is no other than Peter Pettigrew himself as an Animagus. When Professor Dumbledore performed the Secret Keeper Charm to protect Lily and James Potter from Voldemort, Pettigrew took Sirius’ place as the secret keeper and was able to betray them to the Dark Lord. He faked his death by cutting himself a finger in order to get Sirius trapped and jailed in Azkaban at his place. Everyone thought Sirius betrayed the Potters. When they all get on the outside, it was full moon. Professor Lupin who didn’t take his wolfsbane potion turns into a werewolf. Sirius as a dog manages to get him into the forest, for him not to bite anyone. But at that moment, Pettigrew escapes as a rat and Sirius Ron, Hermione and Harry are crowded with dementors. Harry in unable to perform a Patronus in front of such a group of dementors. Exactly when a dementor was about to kiss Harry, a silvery animal stops the dementors. When Harry and Hermione wake up, they’re in the hospital wing. They hear Snape get some congratulations from the Minister, they believe him ! Professor Dumbledore alone knows that Sirius’ story is the truth but nobody can unfortunately prove it. Therefore he gives Harry and Hermione some tips to recscue their friends. If Hermione was able to attend all her lesson everyday, she could do it because Professor Mc Gonnagal gave her a watch which can make people travel in the time. With this watch Harry and Hermione are able to save both Buckbeack and Sirius by coming back three hours before : they first save Buckbeack from his execution, then Harry performs the Patronus which save them all from the dementors. And at last they make Sirius escape on the flying Buckbeack !
At the end Harry gets a letter from Sirius which says that he is in hiding with Buckbeack and that they’re both right, he also says that it was indeed him who send Harry the Firebolt for Christmas and he encloses a signed form to allow Harry to visit Hogsmeade at weekends next year.

I don’t really know why I prefer this book to the others. It is perhaps due to its construction, the way the plot is developed and perhaps that in fact it has an unexpected happy ending. It’s true that the Dark Lord will be helped by the escaping Wormtail and that Sirius’ name is not cleared but at least Buckbeack and him are alive and safe. It’s a less happy end than the former ones, and it opens to some much more dark events for the following years.
The two former novels didn’t give us so much about what really happens that night when Lily and James Potter were murdered. We see here Harry growing up. He learns loads. We also have a different point of view on Hermione, not only the clever girl shown in the other books but also a true and faithful friend. I admire that kind of behaviour, doing whatever you can to protect your friends even if they don’t see it at first, even if they argue with you for it. Something else makes me say that this book is better than the others, it is the presence of Professor Remus Lupin, I don’t know if I can say he’s my favourite character of the series but he has something the others don’t. It has certainly something to do with friendship too and his trusting Sirius at the end where hardly anyone would have trusted him. The fact he’s a werewolf must have something to do with it too. Professor Dumbledore wouldn’t have done all these efforts for him if he wasn’t someone special and talented. He’s the first positive figure of the series of a DADA teacher, the one from whom Harry learns lots of useful things including the Patronus charm which will be of some help for the next years. In Goblet of Fire, Mad Eye Moody won’t be that positive, there’s something odd, strange about him we can feel at the very beginning and in Order of the Phoenix we perhaps have the worst ever DADA teacher in Dolores Umbridge !

Good essay, I can see that you have added some analysis to it and not only that, you also added some comparison which also makes it good... I liked it where you added some thoughts to blend in with your essay...
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