Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
I have always been a fan of both the Harry Potter movies and the books. One of the reasons I like the movies so much was the curiosity to compare the pictures I created in my head with what was shown in the movies. No doubt, WB did a great job. I recently read the third part again and I could not help summarizing some of the details of the storyline:
- Harry’s staycation in Leaky cauldron and The Firebolt:
Harry spends his summer vacations with the Dursleys. His uncle’s sister, Marge, comes to stay with them for sometime. She hates the very guts of Harry. She speaks about him in front of him in a manner that he doesn’t exist. During her stay she keeps pushing Harry by speaking foul of him. It is at a point that she speaks the most bitter words for Harry’s parents that Harry breaks down and leaves the home. The extent of cruelty and bitterness of Aunt Marge results in Harry accidentally performing magic on her, causing her to float like a helium balloon in the room. In the book she is confined by the ceiling of the house but in the movies she floats away.
When Harry leaves Dursleys house he has nowhere to go. To his surprise, help comes in the form of a magical bus, the Knight’s Bus, the mode of transport for stranded witches and wizards. Interestingly, the extent of Knight’s bus’s features shown in the movies are not all that is. The most remarkable part was the fact that Knight’s bus can drive anywhere or can come very close to physical objects, instead of collisions and accidents, the object would step back and make way for the bus.
Knight’s bus drops Harry in London, where he is greeted by the Minister of Magic, Fudge, who is relieved to see him safe, given the escape of Sirius Black. Harry has the last week of summer holidays remaining, which Fudge suggests he can spend at Leaky Cauldron. For the first time in his life he is living on his own. This was the happiest part of his summer vacation. It is the most freedom he has ever received. He can roam as much as he likes in Diagon Alley, shop for this upcoming term and work on his homeworks sitting in a cafe. Most notably, he devotedly visits the Broomstick shop everyday just to see the ravishing model of a newly released broom called the Firebolt. Firebolt outruns the Nimbus series in most aspects along with the cost. It is mentioned that one Firebolt would have cost more than the combined price of 7 Nimbus 2001s (owned by the entire Slytherin team).
Later in the book, Harry loses his beloved Nimbus 2000. For quite some time he practices on school’s brooms, it is not until Christmas that he finds to his surprise there is brand new Firebolt brought in by the owls. The gift did not come with a card, there was no way to know who sent it. Ron and Harry are super excited by this. Unfortunately, within a few hours of receiving the gift, Prof Mcgonagall confisticates the broom under suspicion of it being jinxed by Sirius Black. Ofcourse, it was Hermione who ran to McGonagall since she had the same suspicion herself. It is after weeks of testing Mcgonagall returns the broom to Harry. Firebolt costs a fortune and every kid in the school knows what it means to own a Firebolt. The gryffindor house table gets crazy to see Firebolt. People keep coming to Harry to get a sight or a touch of it.
It is only after Harry saves Black and when he is returning to the Dursleys in the Hogwarts express, he receives an owl from Black containing a letter where Black confesses it was he who sent him the Firebolt. He sweetly mentions how he wanted to make up for the last 13 birthday gifts. He even mentions that he visited the Hogwarts grounds on the day of the Quidditch Match to see Harry play. In my opinion, little things like these show Black’s love and care for Harry, which is a very important part of the storyline.
2. Quidditch Matches:It was not just the detailed story of Firebolt which was missed in the movie. One of my personal favorite parts, the Quidditch matches were also missed.
There were three Quidditch matches which Harry played.The first match against the Hufflepuff was not originally scheduled. Gryffindors were supposed to play the Slytherins. But because Malfoy has a bad hand, he excused the whole team to not play the first match.This was the most troublesome match weather wise. Harry’s glasses didn’t help his visibility in the fierce rain, it is not until Hermione does a charm to repel water on his glasses that he is able to see properly. Not just this, the match is disrupted by the Dementors. They came to the grounds to feed on the happiness of the excited and cheerful students. The movies haven’t emphasized on how Dumbledore was against the presence of Dementors in and around the Campus. Dumbledore would not want any of the students to get affected by the Dementors, it is at that moment when Harry falls off his broom from a great height and hurts himself. His broom flies off to the Whomping Willow and is shattered to pieces.
In the second match with Ravenclaws, Harry now has a Firebolt which is the best broomstick existing at that time in the whole world. Harry notices a Dementor in the ground and performs a Patronus charm. Thanks to Professor Lupin teaching him defense against Dementors, Harry was not affected by the Dementors this time. After the Gryffindor had won the match, his friends reveal it wasn’t a real Dementor but Malfoy and friends dressed up as one, to distract Harry. Ofcourse, Mcgonagall took away points from Slytherin for this cheap trick.
The most interesting match was with the Slytherins. It was the last match of the year and would decide the winner of the House Cup, which Gryffindor hasn’t won in the last 8 years, they needed to win the match by atleast 200 points to win the House Cup. Catching a snitch scores the team 150 points, this means Harry should wait for Gryffindor to lead by 50 points before he can catch the snitch. It was a rough game, the Slytherin team was in for winning at any cost. At one point when Harry was almost going to catch the Snitch when Malfoy held his broom pulling him backwards, this is the worst type of foul play ever. Regardless of all the misplays and penalties, Gryffindors win by more than 200 points and hence the house cup.
3. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs: Professor Lupin was a werewolf from a young age and no magical school was willing to admit him. No one would want the complications of having to deal with a wolf who can harm the fellow students or the teachers. It was only because of Dumbledore’s kindness Lupin was able to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Dumbledore made special accommodations for Lupin’s condition.
When Harry Potter receives The Marauder’s map from the twin brothers, they point out the four different routes to Hogsmeade from Hogwarts castle. They further mention that Flinch is aware only of the two routes, which leaves two routes for Harry to reach Hogsmeade. Fred and George make it clear to Harry that one of the routes is unusable since the Whomping Willow is planted at it’s Hogwarts end.
Lupin reveals that the Whomping Willow was planted the year when he joined school. The passage from it to the Shrieking Shack(in Hogsmeade) was paved for Lupin to use on the nights he turned into a werewolf. The cries which the villagers heard from the Shrieking Shack were Lupin’s painful cries on the full moon nights. Shrieking Shack was never haunted; it was a safe house for Lupin to transform.
In his school days, Lupin never revealed a soul of his secret. He was afraid to lose his friends, but his friends loved him more than he imagined. Instead of deserting him, they each learned to convert into an animagus, which is a human transformed into an animal. The four of them would go on adventures on the full moon nights. It was during these expeditions they learned all the routes of the Hogwarts castle and ended up creating the Marauder’s Map. The four names represent the animagus of each of the friends.
4. Crookshanks: Crookshanks was a birthday gift to Hermione from her parents. She buys her with Ron and Harry before the beginning of the term when they are shopping in London. Ron disapproves of the cat from day one.
The book unfolds to show Crookshanks as a very smart animal which plays a crucial role in some of the events. It becomes friends with the animagus of Sirius Black and realizes the truth of Scrabbers. One night Harry is looking out of the window when he sees Crookshanks with a black dog.
Crookshanks was the reason Black was able to enter the Gryffindor dormitory. It steals the list of passwords Neville wrote for the week and hands it to Black. Black must be searching for Scrabbers when Ron wakes up and sees him by his bedside. The entire Gryffindor house is awoken by Ron’s scream. They collect in the common room, given the severity of Ron’s claims. Hearing the noise, Professor Mcgonagall comes down to shout at them. Ron persistently claims that he saw Black, Mcgonagall refuses to believe it, it is only when she asks the portrait and it accepts that it allowed a man inside because he had passwords for the whole week and was reading from a piece of paper, that she is shook to her core.
Towards the climax of the novel, Black drags Ron and Scrabbers inside the roots of the Whomping Willow, Harry and Hermione are struggling with following Black’s path since the tree is attacking them. It is at this moment when Crookshanks comes and taps a knot on the tree which calms the tree and the three of them are able to follow Black and Ron. Once the three friends, Scabbers, Crookshanks and Black reach the Shrieking Shack and Harry meets Black for the first time, Harry is agitated by the thought that Black betrayed his parents which resulted in their deaths. Harry attacks Black with his bare hands and it is Crookshanks that comes and sits on top of Black to prevent Harry from doing any magic on him. Throughout the book, Crookshanks has been attacking Scrabbers which results in Ron’s frustration with Hermione. They keep fighting over it to a point that they don’t speak for some time. Furthermore, when Hermione tells Mcgonagall about the Firebolt, even Harry gets upset with her resulting in Hermione getting further lonely.
There is a point in the story when Hagrid reckons Harry and Ron to his hut and tells them how foolish they had been to avoid Hermione, he goes to telling them how she had been helping him with Buckbeak’s case and how lonely she had been in the past some time.
Crookshanks was also the reason, Black was able to give Harry the Firebolt. It was Crookshanks who took the order to the owls with specific instructions of the broom and the source of payment.
5. Care of Magical Creatures
A very important progress in this book was Hagrid’s promotion from the Gamekeeper to the Professor of Magical Creatures. Hagrid is a very innocent, kind and loving character in the story. He has a special love towards magical creatures. As a kid he tamed a giant scorpion and now was friends with most abnormal creatures found in the forbidden forest. This term, Professor Dumbledore appoints him as the new Care of Magical creatures professor. He is super excited yet nervous about his role. The Gryffindor house students are even more excited to see their beloved Hagrid in this role. Hagrid starts off his lessons with introducing a ravishing creature. The lower body resembles a horse but with strong wings like an eagle, a Hippogriff is a beautiful creature. Hagrid warns everyone about the pride of any Hippogriff, whatever you do, never insult a Hippogriff, he says. Yet Malfoy is too proud to heed to any warning and he goes on speaking fouly with the Hippogriff. This results in Malfoy getting hurt and Hagrid getting really demotivated on his very first day. In the subsequent lessons Hagrid introduces mild creatures and all the students have to do is either feed them or do not disturb them at all.
Unfortunately, as a consequence of the little accident Malfoy faces, his father goes behind the Ministry of Magic to take some action against the Hippogriff. A case is started in the Ministry of Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Hagrid visits London for the first hearing. It breaks my heart when Hagrid is telling the story of the case to Harry and friends on how Hagrid got nervous and could not present his case properly. Hagrid is in tears when he is telling the same. The ministry announces the execution of the Hippogriff, Hagrid appeals against their decision. The appeal is supposed to take place in Hagrid’s hut. Yet the ministry of magic comes with an executioner with them. In reality, the appeal was just for the namesake, the ministry had already made up their minds since they were being pursued by Malfoy’s father. Hagrid’s pain and misery in the execution is not highlighted in the movie as much as it could be felt in reading the book. The happiest part of both the movie and the book is the fact that Harry and Hermoine are able to save the innocent life of Buckbeak.
An exciting part of Hagrid’s curriculum, is the Monster book of Monsters, which Harry receives as a birthday gift from Hagrid but all the other students have to buy it from the bookstore in London. The manager of the store is panicked everytime he has to take out one of the books. The book is characterized by monster teeths ready to attack anyone who is reaching for it. It is funny how Hagrid assumes everyone would already know how to tame it. It was simply by stroking it at the edge.
