Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, book three in the series of seven, is arguably the best. It is full of wonderful magic, exciting incident and breath-taking escapes. It also deepens the story into the past by introducing two important characters who provide a fuller account of Harry’s parents. And, for the first time, we begin to see Harry not just as a magical kid but as a young man whose friendship with Hermione might develop into love.
In Book 1, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Rowling set the stage and introduced us to Harry, The Boy Who Lived despite Voldemort’s attempt to kill him. Even more important: we came to understand, with Harry, that he must learn much more about who he is in order to survive when the Dark Lord returns for a second try.
Book 2, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, deepened the imminent danger by showing us a world in which evil can be embedded in the apparently innocuous and familiar. The plans of such evil were also made clear: to create a world in which the privileged few have total authority over the enslaved majority, a group that would include all Muggles, even magical ones such as Hermione.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban directly confronts authority. It begins with Harry running away from the Dursley house on Privet Lane because he can no longer submit to Uncle Vernon unfair rules. Harry risks expulsion from Hogwarts and, as he later finds out, he risks death because a murderer has escaped from the great and fearsome prison of the magical world, Azkaban, and this homicidal maniac wants to kill Harry. The man has a name worthy of a Dickens character – Sirius Black – and this is what Harry is told about him:
- » Sirius Black is a vicious murderer who killed a dozen Muggles with one curse.
- » He helped to kill Harry’s parents, James and Lily, on the same night Voldemort tried to kill Harry.
- » He is now out of prison and desperately trying to track Harry down and kill him.
- » Sirius Black has done all this evil in the service of the Dark Lord.
It will take half the book for Harry to learn that all of this information is completely false.
Sirius Black is actually Harry’s godfather and he was one of his parents’ closest friends. His crimes were fabricated when Sirius tried to save James and Lily from Voldemort, who is Sirius’ sworn enemy. The escapee is indeed trying to reach Harry: to save him. The world, it seems, is upside down – a common feeling for many kids Harry’s age (and a few others). Even the guards chasing Sirius will be revealed as soul-destroying monsters, much closer in allegiance to the Dark Lord than to Dumbledore.
As in Books 1 and 2, Book 3 is full of fantastic, often funny, incident: the Knight Bus arrives out of nowhere to save a bereft Harry, only to make him think that he will be killed in the ensuing wild ride; the wonderful Weasley twins, George and Fred, give Harry the Marauder’s Map, a kind of secret key to Hogwarts that enables its possessor to see exactly where everyone is; and Hagrid introduces Harry to Buckbeak, the Hippogriff, a monstrous mix of eagle and horse that could just as easily kill Harry as help him.
From Sirius, Harry will learn precious background on the lives of his parents and their magical friends. In their time, they stood up against an earlier attempt by Voldemort to seize power. One of those friends is Remus Lupin, who is a werewolf and at Hogwarts as Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts only as long as his health will hold. Lupin teaches Harry how to cast a Patronus, a magic spell that is the ultimate positive force – as Lupin says, “…of hope, happiness and the drive to survive.” Harry struggles with the difficult spell, always dragged down by the flashing memories of the death of his parents. In a scene wonderfully described by Rowling, Harry manages to create a Patronus and save the injured Sirius in the nick of time. By saving his godfather from the soul-sucking Dementors, Harry begins to assume his own authority and develop the level of power he will need to fight Voldemort.
Time is the ultimate authority but even the linear progress of hours gets challenged by Harry and, more precisely, by Hermione. Dumbledore has provided some clues for them; only Hermione is clever enough to decode them and make it possible for Harry to go back in time – a few precious hours but enough - to save Sirius. Imagining that it is his farther returned from the dead to save them, Harry performs the magic and seizes the authority of the patriarch, a power he will need later when he confronts the Dark Lord.