Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban

Essay, Research Paper

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, is the third book in the trilogy of J. K. Rowlings other Harry Potter books, though she is coming out with four more books in the coming years.

Just to quickly run through the two previous books; Harry Potter is a wizard, who?s parents were killed by the worst dark wizard ever known. The reason why Harry Potter is still around, is because Lord Voldemort failed to kill Harry. His spell hit Harry, but then backfired on Voldemort taking all of his powers with him. Harry is so famous for two things. Withstanding the powers of Lord Voldemort, and, taking him back in to the underworld in hiding. In the first book, Harry receives a letter from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He?s eventually allowed to go, and spends the next six months there learning magic, getting into trouble, and trying to solve mysteries of his past, and the school. In the second book, Harry goes back to his second year at Hogwarts, and gets into more trouble, figures out many astonishing mysteries and learns loads more magic. His best friends in the two books consist of Ron and Hermione (two of his fellow wizard students) and Hagrid the gamekeeper who was expelled from Hogwarts but allowed a job as the gamekeeper.

Now to get to the Prisoner of Azkaban. Harry Potter is back for the summer at the Dursley?s home. The Dursley?s are his mothers sister, and that family detests Harry in every way possible. They keep him locked up in a cupboard in the basement, take his owl (used for delivering mail etc.) his wand, and his trunk of spell books and everything else he could use to do any bit of magic. Harry?s birthday again passes without being noticed by the Dursley?s, but Harry receives presents from Ron and Hermione and also Hagrid.

Over the summer the entire town was in shock for one afternoon when 13 people were harshly murdered by a man known only as Sirius Black, whom no one had seen before. The pursuit of Serious continues for a long time and doesn?t? end too soon.

Harry counts as the days pass by, waiting for the day when he travels out to catch the train "9 3/4", the train to Hogwarts hidden between trains 9 and 10.

There is a big problem now, though. Aunt Marge was coming over to visit, and this meant big trouble if Harry did anything wrong. When the "family" was gathered around the table to eat dinner that night, Aunt Marge was criticizing Harry for the entire time, how he looked bad in glasses, how his hair looked like crap and how he was a bad apple from when he was born and to top it off, how he shouldn?t have been born from his crappy parents. Harry couldn?t take it any more. He hauled off and yelled a stream of magic which sent aunt Marge into the air inflating like a balloon. At this Harry ran downstairs and grabbed Hedwig (his owl) and all of his other Magical things and ran out the door into the cold, dark streets. Harry knew that he was probably going to be expelled from Hogwarts for magic out side of school grounds is prohibited and he had been warned once before. He ran through the streets scared like never before what would happen to him if he got expelled and had to return to the Dursleys.

Later in the streets as Harry walked by there was a sudden large BANG and out of nowhere a big bus was sitting on the ground next to him. Harry walked in and found out that this was the night bus for stranded witches and wizards like him, and Harry could go anywhere he wanted for 10 shillings. Harry could easily say yes to this for his parents had left him a fortune in a vault at the Gringotts bank in London. He walked in and lay down in one of the dorms, but the next thing he knew he was right outside "The Leaky Cauldron" the center point between the "Muggle" (normal people) world and the Magical world. He thanked the bus driver and turned the brick in the Leaky Cauldron to go into the Magical world.

In a days time, he would be meeting his friends Ron, Hermione and Hagrid there. Harry bought his wizarding books and supply?s with the remainder of his pocket change.

Harry?s friends came, and before he knew it he was walking through the platform 9 and 3/4 to board the Hogwarts Express. The ride there was long and tiresome for everyone. Later on the train a black hooded figure walked into Harry?s cabin. At this, Harry felt cold and he started to fall apart. His friends started to get scared because it looked like Harry was having a heart attack. The sleeping man behind them woke up and saved Harry by making him eat chocolate which seemed to make him feel allot better.

When they finally got to Hogwarts, Harry was the laughing stock of Draco Malfoy and his friends because of his fainting from the Dementor that came into the train. Harry shook it all off and had a great first day feast with a good sleep thinking about what the rest of the year would be like. Over the next few weeks Harry was getting used to Hogwarts again for the third time, picking his magical subjects and getting into as much mischief as possible.

Back to Sirius Black. Information in the magical world has been gathered that he was a former team-mate of Lord Voldemort and when Voldemort lost him powers he was seeking to find him again and help him with the deals of dark magic, when he was caught by the guards called Dementors of the highest security prison in the world, but escaped, the only time in history. The Dementors are always set out to find Black and once came into the Hogwarts Express in search.

The novel moves onwards with almost deadly and mysterious attacks from whom thought to be Sirius Black, which leads to the reason why Dementors come to guard the school which means trouble for Harry and the rest of the students. The Quidditch finals are coming up and Gryffindor has a good chance of winning. Harry receives a large parcel one day, to reveal a fine broomstick, the Firebolt. No one knows who sent it to him and Dumbledore takes it from him to inspect it for a few weeks.

In a class tought by Hagrid who was given new rights, he brought out his Hypoggrifs to show to the class on how to act near them and make them fly. During the class Draco Malfoy insults the Hypoggrif which can understand different things which resulted in a slash on the arm, and an uproar from the Ministry of Magic, because of Malfoy?s dad forces the rest of the ministry into signing a form which entitles the Hypoggrif to be decapitated.

In the following days, Harry finds a map called "The Marauders Map" showing every possible movement of all the teachers, every hidden passageway and every secret about Hogwarts. On the bottom are four names; Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs. The Dursley?s were so mad during the previous summer that they didn?t give him permission to go to Hogsmeade, a small place full of many shops and eateries which the school goes to during certain weekends of the term. With this map Harry would be able to take a hidden passage that lead right into Hogsmeade and use the invisibility cloak from his father.

Professor Lupin catches Harry with the Marauders Map but only smiles, because he explains who the four names were at the bottom; Moony was himself, Wormtail was a close friends of his Peter Pettigrew, Padfoot was Sirius Black, and Prongs was James Potter, Harry?s father. Those people were the creators of the map.

The Quidditch finals arrive and Gryffindor ends up in a final match against Slytherin. After a long stretched out game Gryffindor ends up winning the Quidditch Cup for the first time in seven years.

Days later Hagrid?s Hyppogrif was decapitated. Later that night Sirius Black was caught coming out of the secret passage of the Whomping Willow and was taken up to stay in Hogwarts so the Dementors could perform the Kiss of Death; A Dementor takes off its hood and kisses the victim, sucking the life and happy memories out of it, worse than death. Professor Dumbledore (the head of Hogwarts) knew it was the wrong choice to kill the Hyppogrif and wanted to take action on it. She gave to Hermione a while back a time capsule that lets her go back in time so she could get extra classes finished in half the time. She was only to use it for school, but this was serious. They were to turn back the time by 2 hours and unleash the Hyppogrif and it would fly up and save serious from the Dementors. There was obviously something else that Dumbleodre knew there. The mass murderer was not Sirius Black, it was the now known traitor, Peter Pettigrew.

The plan worked out and Buckbeak the Hyppogrif and Sirius Black flew away into the night. The Dementors didn?t know this and were very mad with rage and hundreds of them were flowing on to the field where Harry and his friends stood. Earlier in the term, Professer Lupin taught Harry the spell that made the Dementors leave, a patronous. Harry in his state was so happy and spellbound of the previous episode he felt he could cast the best patronous ever. "Expecto-Patronum!!!!" out of Harry?s wand galloped a horse with a rider, Padfoot. The Dementors fled in all directions and Harry succeeded.

Peter Pettigrew (Scabbers) was found out by everyone and was relieved of his transforming powers and told to run away and threatened to be killed, but Harry felt opposite so Peter was gone and never to be seen again.

On the Hogwarts Express home that year, an Owl flew in the window and dropped a package on Harry?s lap. Harry opened it and it was a letter from his God Father, Sirius Black.

Dear Harry,

I hope this finds you before you reach your aunt and uncle. I don?t whether they?re used to owl post.

Buckbeak and I are hiding. I wont tell you where, in case this falls into the wrong hands. I have some doubt about the owl?s reliability, but he is the best I could find and he did seem eager for the job.

I believe the Dementors are still searching for me, but they haven?t a hope of finding me here. I am planning to allow some Muggles to glimpse me soon, a long way from Hogwarts, so that the security on the castle will be lifted.

There is something I never got around to telling you during our brief meeting. It was I who sent you the Firebolt.

The letter goes on and Black gives Ron his Owl because of Scabbers and Explains that the Firebolt was a present from him for his previous thirteen birthdays on which he missed.

I would give this book, the third J. K. Rowling book a definite 110%. There was no parts in the book where I got bored or skipped and it was another one of those rare books that get me hooked and I can never put them down until I read 50-100 pages at a time. I certainly recommend J. K. Rowling?s novels to all readers for a fantastic read. Joanne K. Rowling is by far my favorite author ever and I can?t wait until she comes out with the next four sequels to Harry Potter.