A Review on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

1. Orientation

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is a fantasy novel written by British author J.K.
Rowling and is the third in the Harry Potter series. The book was published in the United
Kingdom on 8 July 1999 by Bloomsbury and in the United States on 8 September 1999 by
Scholastic, Inc. It sold 68,000 copies in just three days after its release in the United Kingdom
and since has sold over three million in the country. The book won the 1999 Whitbread
Children's Book Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and the 2000 Locus Award for Best Fantasy
Novel and was short-listed for other awards, including the Hugo. The book follows Harry Potter,
a young wizard, in his third year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Along with
friends Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger, Harry investigates Sirius Black, an escaped
prisoner from Azkaban, the wizard prison, believed to be one of Lord Voldemort's old allies.

2. Interpretative recount

Harry is back at the Dursleys' for the summer holidays, where he sees on Muggle
television that a convict named Sirius Black has escaped from prison. After the Dursley’s Aunt
Marge personally insults Harry, Harry accidentally inflates her, then runs away from home,
fearing expulsion from school. After being picked up by the Knight Bus and meeting Stan
Shunpike, he travels to the Leaky Cauldron, where Cornelius Fudge, the Minister for Magic, asks
Harry to stay in Diagon Alley for his own protection. While there, he meets his best friends Ron
Weasley and Hermione Granger.

Before leaving for Hogwarts, Harry learns from Arthur Weasley that Sirius Black is a
convicted murderer from the wizarding world and that Black has escaped from the wizard prison
Azkaban to kill Harry. On the way to Hogwarts, a Dementor (an Azkaban prison guard that feeds
on positive thoughts) boards the train, causing Harry to relive his parents' deaths before fainting.
The new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Remus Lupin, protects Harry, Ron, and
Hermione from the Dementor. They later learn Dementors will be patrolling the school in an
attempt to catch Black. Although Professor Lupin is popular with his students, the Potions
master, Snape, seems to hate him.

During a Quidditch match, Harry faints and falls off his broomstick after Dementors
invade the field. His Nimbus 2000 is blown away and smashed by the Whomping Willow, a
violent tree in the grounds. Afterward, Professor Lupin teaches Harry how to defend himself
from Dementors using the Patronus charm.

Harry uses The Marauder's Map (a map of Hogwarts marking all its inhabitants and
secret tunnels given to him by Fred and George Weasley) for an unauthorised visit to the magical
village of Hogsmeade. Harry overhears some of his teachers and Fudge and learns Black was a
friend of Harry's parents, was made Harry's own godfather, and was entrusted with the secret of
the Potters' whereabouts when they hid from Voldemort. However, he betrayed the Potters,
leading to their murder by Voldemort's hand. Finally, Black killed twelve Muggles and his
former friend Peter Pettigrew before being taken to Azkaban.

Ron and Hermione's friendship later suffers when Ron believes Hermione's cat,
Crookshanks, to have eaten his rat, Scabbers. Hermione also gets Harry's new anonymously
given Christmas present, a top-of-the-range Firebolt broomstick, confiscated for fear it might be
jinxed by Sirius Black. Hermione becomes severely stressed by her many classes, some of which
seem to occur at the same time, a detail which she refuses to explain.

Throughout the year, Harry repeatedly sees a large black dog stalking him. His
Divination teacher, Professor Trelawney, informs him that this is the Grim, an omen of death.
During Harry's Divination exam at the end of the year, Trelawney goes into a trance and predicts
that Voldemort's servant will escape and return to him.

Meanwhile, Hagrid's hippogriff Buckbeak is in danger of being executed by the Ministry

of Magic after injuring Draco Malfoy, who provoked Buckbeak. Despite Hermione's and Ron's
efforts to defend the hippogriff, they and Harry seemingly hear Buckbeak executed as they leave
Hagrid's hut. While visiting Hagrid's, however, Hermione discovers Scabbers hiding there.

Scabbers escapes from Ron, who gives chase. The large black dog appears and attacks
Ron, then drags him into a tunnel under the Whomping Willow. Crookshanks (who seems to be
in league with the dog), Harry, and Hermione follow them through the tunnel and to the
Shrieking Shack, a haunted house in Hogsmeade. They discover that the dog is Sirius Black in
animal form. Harry disarms Black and intends to kill him but finds he cannot.

Lupin enters and embraces Black as a friend. He explains that, although he believed
Black to have betrayed the Potters, he realises now that it was Peter Pettigrew. He admits he is a
werewolf and that, while at school, his friends (Black, Pettigrew, and Harry's father, James
Potter) learned to transform into animals to keep Lupin company during his transformations.
Lupin explains that Scabbers is Pettigrew in his animal form. Pettigrew faked his own death,
framing Black for the murders, and has been hiding from Black since his escape from Azkaban.

Snape, who still holds a childhood grudge against Lupin and his friends, arrives to
apprehend Black but is knocked unconscious by Harry, Ron, and Hermione, who now believe
Black to be innocent. Lupin and Black transform Pettigrew into human form and prepare to kill
him, but Harry stops them because he feels his father would not have wanted it. He convinces
Lupin and Black to send Pettigrew to Azkaban instead.

As they attempt to bring Pettigrew back to Hogwarts, the full moon transforms Lupin into
a wolf. Lupin, not in his own mind, attacks them. In the confusion, Pettigrew transforms into a
rat and escapes. Harry, Hermione, and Black are chased to the shore of the lake, where they are
set upon by Dementors. They are rescued by a Patronus cast by a figure on the opposite shore,
whom Harry thinks is his father.

Reawakening later in the hospital wing, Harry and Hermione are told that Black has been
sentenced to have his soul sucked out by Dementors, a fate worse than death known as the
Dementor's Kiss. Professor Dumbledore tells Harry and Hermione to use Hermione's time-turner,
a device she has been using to attend her simultaneous classes, to go back in time and save
Buckbeak and Sirius. They rescue Buckbeak from execution and later watch themselves attacked
by Dementors at the lake. Harry realises that the figure he saw was not his father but himself, and
he casts the Patronus charm that drives away the Dementors. Harry and Hermione ride Buckbeak
to the tower where Black is being held and break him out. Black escapes on Buckbeak.

Harry and Hermione return to the hospital wing to close the timeline. Enraged by the
escape of Black, Snape lets slip that Lupin is a werewolf, forcing him to resign. Harry returns to
Kings Cross with his friends and receives a letter from Black, giving him permission to visit
Hogsmeade next year.

3. Evaluation

This book is undoubtedly darker than the previous ones, as Harry learns more and more
about the sinister forces that threaten the wizarding world. This book marks the beginning for
Harry Potter to get grown up, not only does Harry find himself faced with true deceit and terror,
in a way that he never really has been before, he also begins to develop into a young man,
finding his feet socially and even starting to find girls attractive.

The dementors open up a new facet of darkness and horror to the magical world, which just
can’t be matched by the earlier incidents with the giant spiders and the basilisk. Rowling’s
description of the rotting hand that reaches toward their victim and the fate that greets you from
beneath a dementor’s hood is really quite haunting.

As ever, there are some excellent comedy moments between Ron and Hermione, who can’t
seem to stand one another. Whilst the stress of taking on too many classes drives Hermione to
breaking point; eventually slapping Draco Malfoy and storms out of their Divination class,
calling the professor a fraud. And, if we’re mentioning comedy, we cannot forget the brilliant
“blowing up my aunt” incident at the start of the book either.

The book’s biggest flaw is it’s ending, which although gripping and apt feels, in a lot of
ways, rushed. Harry is briefly reunited with his godfather and can feel a genuine family
connection for the very first time, yet this emotional connection isn’t backed up in anyway.
Every other relationship and emotional tie in the series are built up pretty much from the word
go, even the gentle and warm-hearted Remus Lupin – the most recent Defence Against the Dark
Arts teacher – has more of an opportunity to connect with Harry, and yet after no time at all
Harry and Sirius are behaving as if they have known each other their whole lives; it just seems a
little unbelievable, particularly when you compare to some of the other relationships in the
books.

4. Evaluative summation

Despite everything, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is an excellent children’s
fantasy novel. The book portrays interesting concepts about responsibility and growing up;
where Harry and his peers are faced with the kind of moments that seem so small but nonetheless
define who you are for the rest of your life. This is definitely one of those books that you have to
read at least once in your life.

Things to be reviewed

 The characters
 The whole storyline