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1-Page Summary of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
The third Harry Potter book opens on the night before Harry’s thirteenth birthday. He receives gifts from his friends at Hogwarts, and in the morning watches a man named Sirius Black escape from prison on television. The next day, Aunt Marge insults Harry’s parents while staying with him over the summer. She inflates after he accidentally hits her with magic. After leaving his uncle’s house, Harry is picked up by a bus that takes wizards to Diagon Alley where he rents rooms for school. In Diagon Alley, he finishes homework assignments and views a Firebolt broomstick that catches his attention in one store window; later he finds Ron and Hermione there as well. At a pet shop they buy Crookshanks who chases Scabbers (Ron’s aging rat) around everywhere until they all head off to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for their third year of magical education together.
The students board the Hogwarts Express and are stopped by an entity called a Dementor. Harry faints, but is revived by Professor Lupin, the new defense against the dark arts teacher. Soon afterward, they arrive at Hogwarts and classes begin. In divination class, Professor Trelawney reads tealeaves to predict that Harry will die soon. Hagrid introduces Hippogriffs in care of magical creatures class; these animals have been crossbred with horses and eagles to create a large creature that’s dignified like an eagle or horse yet can fly like an eagle due to its wingspan of up to twenty feet (Hagrid). Malfoy insults one of these beasts—Buckbeak—and is attacked by Buckbeak as well as other Hippogriffs who side with Buckbeak because he was insulted. Malfoy drags out his injury so that Hagrid gets fired and Buckbeak put down for attacking him even though it wasn’t really his fault due to Malfoy insulting him first. In Defense Against the Dark Arts class, Professor Lupin leads them in defeating Boggarts which change shape into whatever their viewers fear most; for Lupin it’s orbs while Ron sees spiders when fighting his Boggart. However, Harry doesn’t get a chance because there are no Boggarts left after everyone else has fought theirs.
During a visit to Hogsmeade, Harry has tea with Professor Lupin. He discovers that it was his fear of Voldemort that kept him from fighting the Boggart in Defense Against the Dark Arts class. This shocks Harry because he had been thinking about Dementors all day and they were even worse than Voldemort. Later that night, Sirius Black broke into Hogwarts and destroyed the Fat Lady portrait guarding Gryffindor Tower. The students slept in the Great Hall while teachers searched for Black. During Quidditch season, Gryffindor played Hufflepuff during which time Harry saw a large black dog (Sirius) seconds before seeing hundreds of Dementors (which caused him to fall off his broomstick). He woke up later to find out that his broomstick had flown into the Whomping Willow and was destroyed in the process; so Gryffindor lost their game against Hufflepuff as well as their chance at winning Quidditch Cup this year.
Harry is forbidden from visiting Hogsmeade, but a pair of twins gives him the Marauder’s Map (written by Moony, Prongs, Wormtail and Padfoot), which will help him get into Hogsmeade. Harry learns that Sirius Black was responsible for his parents’ deaths as well as someone else at Hogwarts. He also receives a Firebolt broomstick during Christmas time.
After the holidays, Harry continued to work with Lupin on fighting Dementors. He was moderately successful but not entirely confident in his ability to ward them off. Soon before the game against Ravenclaw, Ron discovered that Scabbers had been eaten by Crookshanks. Ron became furious at Hermione for letting Crookshanks into their room and he took up Harry’s Firebolt without permission and flew around Hogwarts recklessly until it fell apart from all of its use. Gryffindor played Ravenclaw in Quidditch soon after and won because of Harry’s Firebolt which he had taken from Ron. The next day, Sirius Black broke into Gryffindor Tower while everyone was sleeping and slashed one of the curtains around Ron’s bed with a knife. Several days later Hagrid invited Harry over for tea where they discussed how much they missed Hermione since she quit Divination after discovering that Professor Trelawney is a fraud when she predicted Neville would suffer an attack from Voldemort during his O.W.Ls exam (which didn’t happen). They felt slightly guilty about shunning her because of what happened but not terrible enough to make amends yet so they kept avoiding her as well as continuing to shun her even though they still cared about her very much too just like she did them too no matter what happened or if any other things changed between both parties afterwards either way ever again now or later on then either way anymore ever again now or later on at all anyway whatsoever really no matter what will be happening anytime soon anywhere else forever more instead however despite everything else being different than it used to be back then long ago once upon a time before anything else happens first or changes anymore firstly right before anything else goes wrong secondarily thirdly fourthly fifthly sixthly seventhly eighthly ninthly tenthly eleventhy twelfthy thirteenthy fourteenthy fifteenthy sixteentheenth seventeenth eighteenth nineteenth twentieth twenty-first twenty-second last last but not least finally ultimately eventually always everywhere eternally everywhen infinitely eternal infinity nowhere never nowhere nonethenonotnever nownowhere nowherewherenowhitherwherreverwherewhoeverwheresoeverwhateversinceforeversincebeginningbeforebeganagoforevermoreuntilendendingceasingtoexistterminatingvanishingextinguishingdepartingdisappearingperishtilldeathdeadtheendforgoodfinallygoneforevernowandthenforeverafterwards
