The Prisoner of Azkaban is the third installment of the best-selling Harry Potter series by the British author J.K. Rowling. The highly successful fantasy series was adapted into film beginning in 2001, and in 2004 the film adaptation of The Prisoner of Azkaban was released. The story takes place during Harry Potter’s third year as a student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry is forced to uncover painful and complex secrets of the past, including the details of the night when his parents were murdered by the evil Lord Voldemort. Rowling uses this fantastical world to explore themes of forgiveness, captivity, truth, personal growth, adolescence, independence, and empowerment. The version used for this guide is the paperback of the Arthur A. Levine imprint of Scholastic Press.

Plot Summary

Thirteen-year-old wizard Harry Potter lives with his non-magical relatives, the Dursleys, during his summer holiday. Harry longs to return to his wizarding school, Hogwarts, and he especially misses his friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. When his terrible Aunt Marge comes to visit, Harry loses his temper and leaves the Dursleys’ house in the middle of the night. Although he arrives safely in the wizarding part of London, Diagon Alley, he is firmly told by the adult wizards in his life that he must not wander off again.

Meanwhile, a man named Sirius Black has escaped from the wizarding prison Azkaban, and everyone believes that he is after Harry. Harry, whose parents were murdered by the evil Lord Voldemort 12 years ago, believes that Sirius Black has set out to finish the job and kill Harry for Lord Voldemort. However, Harry resents the fact that the adults in his life are constantly trying to protect him to the point of controlling his every move.

Harry reunites with his friends, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley. Hermione buys a cat who unfortunately seems determined to attack Ron’s pet rat, Scabbers. On the journey to Hogwarts, the train is boarded and searched by terrifying creatures called dementors, which cause Harry to faint and relive the night his parents were murdered. The dementors are the guards of Azkaban, and until Sirius Black is caught, Hogwarts will be playing host to them. As Harry dives into his third year at Hogwarts, he takes Divination lessons from Professor Sybill Trelawney, a dramatic teacher who is determined to predict his death. His good friend Hagrid is teaching Care of Magical Creatures but finds himself in legal trouble after his pet hippogriff Buckbeak attacks Harry’s enemy, Draco Malfoy. Harry’s new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Lupin, turns out to be a wonderful teacher. However, Lupin is often ill and takes many unexplained absences.

Sirius Black breaks into Hogwarts and tries to force his way into Gryffindor Tower, where Harry and his fellow Gryffindors sleep. Months later, Black successfully breaks into the Tower and frightens Ron before fleeing. As security tightens around the school, no one seems to know how Black is getting in or how to stop him. Harry learns that Black was directly responsible for the death of his parents, and that the Potters and Black used to be friends until Black betrayed them to Lord Voldemort. Sirius Black is also Harry’s godfather.

Harry begins to take more risks. Ron’s older brothers, Fred and George, give Harry the Marauder’s Map, which shows Hogwarts’ secret entrances and the locations of everyone in the castle. Harry uses it to start sneaking into and out of the nearby wizarding village, Hogsmeade. However, Lupin discovers that Harry is using the map and confiscates it, telling him that he is behaving very recklessly despite the great sacrifice Harry’s parents made to protect him.

After a terrifying Quidditch game in which dementors appear and cause Harry to faint in mid-air, Professor Lupin agrees to teach Harry an anti-dementor spell called the Patronus Charm. Tensions mount between Hermione and Ron, and when Ron believes that Hermione’s cat has eaten Scabbers, they stop speaking for a while. Hagrid tries to fight the case against Buckbeak but loses despite Harry, Ron, and Hermione’s help, and Buckbeak is sentenced to death. Ron discovers that Scabbers is alive, and on the night that Buckbeak is executed, Ron and Scabbers are abducted by a large black dog, who drags them into a secret tunnel on the Hogwarts grounds. Harry and Hermione follow and discover that the dog is actually Sirius Black, and as Lupin joins them, the story of what happened the night the Potters died comes out.

Black and Lupin were friends with Harry’s father, James, along with a boy named Peter Pettigrew. Black wasn’t the one who betrayed Harry’s parents to Voldemort: Pettigrew was. For the past 12 years, Pettigrew has been disguising himself as a rat: Ron’s rat, Scabbers. Harry, Lupin, and Black agree to turn Pettigrew into the authorities so Black can be a free man. Professor Lupin, however, is a werewolf who transforms into a monster, and chaos breaks out. Pettigrew escapes, Lupin runs into the forest, and Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Black end up facing a horde of dementors. An unknown person who looks a lot like Harry’s father casts a Patronus spell to drive the dementors away in the nick of time, and Harry passes out.

When Harry and Hermione wake up in the hospital wing at Hogwarts, they learn that Sirius has been taken into custody and will receive his punishment soon: the Dementor’s Kiss, which will suck out his soul. The headmaster of Hogwarts, Dumbledore, tells Harry and Hermione to go back in time using Hermione’s Time-Turner and rescue Sirius. They stop Buckbeak from being executed, and Harry realizes that he was the one who cast the Patronus that rescued him and his friends from the dementors. He casts the spell once again, and he and Hermione bring Buckbeak to Black and help him escape.

Professor Lupin resigns from his position as Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher when word gets out that he is a werewolf. He returns the Marauder’s Map to Harry, and on the train ride home at the end of the school year, Sirius gives Harry written permission to go to Hogsmeade next year. Harry is optimistic that this summer will be much better than the last.