Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is the third installment in the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling. The book was published on 8 July 1999. The novel won the 1999 Whitbread Book Award, the Bram Stoker Award, the 2000 Locus Award,[1] and was short-listed for other awards, including the Hugo.[1] This placed the novel among the most-honoured works of fantasy in recent history.[2] A film based on the book was released on 31 May 2004, in the United Kingdom and 4 June 2004 in the U.S. and many other countries. This is the only novel in the series that does not feature Lord Voldemort in some form.
Plot:
J.K. Rowling's third book opens with Harry Potter enduring another unhappy summer at the Dursleys'. When Uncle Vernon's visiting sister, Marge, viciously abuses Harry and insults hisparents, Harry loses his temper, inadvertently causing Marge to inflate and float into the air. Harry runs away, finally unable to tolerate living with the Dursleys. He fears he will be expelled from Hogwarts for using magic out of school.
Harry is picked up by the Knight Bus that takes him to Leaky Cauldron, but not before he glimpses a dangerous-looking creature lurking in the nearby bushes. While on the Knight Bus, Harry learns about Sirius Black, a wizard convict who murdered thirteen people with one curse and escaped from the wizard prison Azkaban. Reaching Diagon Alley, he is met by Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge, who surprisingly assures Harry that the matter involving Marge is resolved. Fudge then insists that Harry spend the rest of the holiday in Diagon Alley, not wanting to lose track of him again.
Harry spends the next two weeks in Diagon Alley, where he buys school supplies and meets up with his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. To Ron's disapproval, Hermione buys a pet cat, called Crookshanks, who frequently harasses Ron's pet rat, Scabbers. The night before their return to Hogwarts, Harry and Hermione have dinner with Ron and his family at the Leaky Cauldron. That night, Harry overhears Ron's parents arguing over whether to tell Harry about Black, and learns that Black is possibly after him. Harry realises that Fudge had been lenient with him because he was relieved to find him alive, and had made him stay in Diagon Alley so there would be wizards to keep an eye on him.
Before Harry boards the train to Hogwarts, Mr Weasley takes him aside to warn him about Black, not knowing that Harry overheard him and Mrs Weasley last night. He also tells Harry not to go looking for Black, whatever he might hear. On the train journey, the train is searched by Dementors, dark, sinister beings that drain the happiness of anyone nearby. Harry passes out from a Dementor's presence, but he is saved by the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Remus Lupin.
At Hogwarts, there are two new teachers: Lupin and, to Harry, Ron, and Hermione's delight, Hagrid for Care of Magical Creatures. With Black still at large, Dementors patrol the school. Harry is particularly vulnerable to their presence because of his unhappy past, prompting Lupin to teach him the Patronus charm to repel them.
While all this is happening, tension builds as Buckbeak, Hagrid's Hippogriff is sentenced to execution.
Unable to witness the execution, Harry, Ron, and Hermione walk away towards the castle. However, Scabbers, Ron's rat, escapes from his pocket and they chase it to the Whomping Willow, an aggressive tree that attacks anyone who goes near it. Just as Ron catches Scabbers, a huge black dog appears and starts attacking Harry. Ron tries to help Harry, and the dog attacks him instead, dragging him to a tunnel under the Whomping Willow, and breaking his leg in the process. Harry and Hermione follow the dog in the hope of rescuing Ron.
The tunnel leads to the Shrieking Shack where Harry confronts Sirius Black, an Animagus who is able to transform into an animal at will. Lupin, who spotted the group on the Marauder's Map, suddenly bursts in and embraces his old friend Black. Confronted by Hermione, Lupin admits to being a werewolf and the Map's creator, along with Black, Pettigrew, and James Potter, the latter two also being illegal Animagi (a rat and a stag, respectively). Lupin and Black explain that Scabbers is actually Peter Pettigrew in his Animagus form. Pettigrew is Voldemort's servant, and it was he who betrayed the Potters, framing Black for the crimes. Black escaped Azkaban seeking revenge and to stop Pettigrew murdering Harry. Harry halts Black and Lupin from executing Pettigrew, preventing his father's two best friends from becoming killers.
As they escort Pettigrew back to the castle, Black invites Harry to stay with him, allowing Harry to leave the Dursleys forever. However, this hope is quickly dashed as the full moon rises and Lupin transforms into a werewolf. During the ensuing commotion, Pettigrew escapes in his animagus rat form while Black transforms into a dog to protect the others from Lupin, who eventually runs off. Black is badly injured, however, and as Dementors move in to attack him, Harry sees a mysterious figure in the distance who casts a powerful, stag-shaped Patronus, scattering the vicious creatures. Before passing out, Harry becomes convinced it was his late father who produced the Patronus.
In the hospital wing, Harrylearns that he and Hermione have to go back in time using Hermione's Time Turner. They go to the time when Buckbeak is being executed, and lure him out of Hagrid's hut. After freeing Buckbeak, Harry and Hermione head back to the Whomping Willow. But Harry, who realized that Lupin could be headed there suggested that they go to Hagrid's Hut. After going to Hagrid's Hut, Harry, against Hermione's wishes, hurries down to the lake to try and see his father. The Dementors attack, but no one comes, and Harry then realises that he saw himself conjure the Patronus. With this knowledge, he is able to save his past self and Sirius. After saving and releasing Sirius, they give Buckbeak to Sirius so he won't be discovered.
Harry and Hermione later inform Ron what occurred earlier that day. The trio runs into Hagrid, who says that Lupin resigned after Snape, incensed over Sirius's escape, revealed to the students that Lupin is a werewolf. Harry went to stop him, but Lupin just returned the Map to Harry, and left. Then, after a few comforting words from Albus Dumbledore, Harry left school, on the train, where Sirius sent Ron an owl called Pigwidgeon. Later, at King's Cross Station, Harry scared the Dursleys by saying that he was in contact with a full-grown wizard that they thought was anevil convict.
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