“Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” is the 3rd Harry Potter book out of the total 7. Written by J.K. Rowling in mid-1999 the book is regarded to be one of the better books in the series. The book begins with Harry at the Dursleys, during the school year to go to the nearby town he needs them to sign a permission slip. The Dursleys agree as long as he is good when their aunt visits. He is unable to do this though, and she ends up as a big balloon going off into the sky. This isn’t the only consequence though because it’s likely he’ll face further repercussions for showing magic to muggles and for making his aunt go into the stratosphere. In fear of going to Azkaban for his actions, he runs away where he is then found by a bus that helps witches and wizards in need. The bus takes him over to the Leaky Cauldron where he spends the rest of his time before the summer is shortly over. He talks with his friends a little before heading onto the train to Hogwarts. During said train ride, the train is stopped by a group of soul-sucking dementors. One attempts to suck the literal happiness out of Harry but he is saved by a hooded figure in the same compartment. The figure explains what a dementor was to him and why it probably tried to attack him specifically. This is likely because the dementor thought he was Sirius Black, an escaped prisoner of Azkaban, the worst wizarding prison in the world. He went to Azkaban because he was believed to have helped Voldemort kill Harry’s parents. He then introduces himself as Professor Lupin, their new defense against the dark arts teacher. After arriving at Hogwarts, Dumbledore tells everyone that Dementors will be guarding the school from Sirius Black. A little later on Harry is playing a quidditch match and as Harry is about to get the snitch he is attacked by a dementor. He falls off his balloon and Dumbledoor has to save him from falling to his death. Further on students are allowed to go to Hogsmeade, which is the town that you need a permission slip to go to. Due to Harry’s utter lack of said slip, he is unable to go. Luckily Ron’s twin brothers provide him with the Marauders Map, a map that displays where everyone is in Hogwarts and all the secret passageways. One of these passageways leads to Hogsmead where he can then hang out with his friends as long as he isn’t seen. He has an invisibility cloak which allows him to negate the only downside being that he can’t be seen. Also a quick side note, why couldn’t he just sneak out with the invisibility cloak in the first place? Anyway, Harry asks Lupin to teach him the anti-dementor spell since they have such a keen liking for Harry in particular. Harry fails at first but after some practice gets it down. Now nearing the end of the school year Ron sees his pet rat go into the Whomping Willow. Ron instinctively follows it and so do his friends. Inside the Willow Harry and his friends meet Snape, Sirius Black, Lupin, and who Scabbers actually is, Peter Pettigrew. Ron is distraught at the fact that his family’s pet rat is a person and I mean who wouldn’t be? As that’s happening Lupin explains that Sirius wasn’t the one to sell out Harry’s parents but it was Peter. Snape doesn’t care though and wants to detain Sirius either way. Harry knocks Snape unconscious allowing the others to flee and regroup. Tonight is a full moon though which causes Lupin to turn into a werewolf. Sirius decides to turn into a dog so he can go fight Lupin in the woods so no one else gets hurt. Harry runs after Sirius and when he finds him he is being attacked by a dementor. Before he can do anything to help he is also attacked by a dementor. It’s looking grim but a figure in the distance casts a patronus charm of such magnitude that it saves them both. Harry believes it was his father and asks Hermonie to use her time turner. This is a device that allows the user to turn back time for themselves and is perfectly safe to use as long as they and their past self don’t interact. They get back to the forest and Harry watches as his past self is murdered by the dementor from earlier but he doesn’t do anything. He just waits but after enough waiting, he realizes that if he doesn’t do anything he will die. So he casts a patronus charm to save himself and Sirius. He then realizes that it was him who cast the charm in the first place. Overall I thought the book was great and the best one by far of the ones I’ve read. I would’ve given it a 5 but I like Sirius as a character and didn’t want my bias to affect the overall rating. I thought the ending plot twist kept readers on their toes and left for a cool ending. Having him save himself with a charm he didn’t believe he could even cast shows a lot about his doubts about his self-worth. I would definitely recommend reading this book.
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