Prisoner of Azkaban: Chapters 3 & 4

Wizard Rock of the Week: "Get on the Bus" by Oliver Boyd and the Remembralls

Hello again! This post officially puts us back on schedule, and I’m so glad! There’s a lot to cover this week in PoA chapters three and four. We get to spend time at one of my favorite places: The Leaky Cauldron. No, not that Leaky Cauldron, silly, the one in London! Grab a butterbeer and have a sit.

(I’m currently packing in order to move to a new apartment. This weekend I found a binder full of re-read notes… from my last great (unpublished) re-read effort, prior to the release of Deathly Hallows back in 2007. The binder also contained the 400+ questions and my answers to Leaky’s pre-release prediction quiz, on which I scored a 65%. It was quite the trip down memory lane, let me tell you!)

Chapter Three: The Knight Bus

What Happens:

Moments after his angry exit from the Dursleys, reality dawns on Harry: he’s in quite the pickle. He’s temporarily homeless, has no Muggle money or way to communicate, and is probably expelled for his magic use. He’s just about to try flying to London when he sees a dark shadow in the corner. In his shock Harry trips and falls into the street. A huge triple-decker bus pulls up and its adolescent conductor, Stan Shunpike, invites Harry aboard. Harry lies about his name and climbs aboard, heading to London.

En route, the bus careens around the British countryside and Harry happens to notice the Daily Prophet’s article about Black, whom he’d seen on the Muggle news earlier. Stan and Ernie are incredulous that Harry doesn’t know about Black and quickly fill him in on the whole story. Black, of course, in an infamous murderer and big Voldemort supporter.

Once they pull up at the Leaky Cauldron, the surprises continue. Cornelius Fudge himself is waiting to greet Harry. Much to Harry’s surprise, Fudge appears to be personally involved in the search for Harry and insists that Harry won’t be punished for his loss of control back at the Dursley’s. Fudge will not, however, sign Harry’s Hogsmeade form. He orders Harry to stay at the inn or in Diagon Alley for the remainder of the holidays and bids Harry good night.

Commentary:

Fudge, you’re so very tricksy. At this point we really don’t know how big of an ass he’ll turn out to be; a bit bumbling, perhaps, but not nearly the sort of jerk he’ll devolve into within two books. Ugh. I’ll save most of my “boo-hiss Ministry” ranting for later books, but even at this early stage, it’s important to note that the Ministry is woefully inconsistent and willing to play favorites. Fudge, after all, is probably more concerned about Harry because of how things would look, not out of actual concern for Harry’s well-being. There’s a smidgen of elitism there too; Fudge is not quite polite to Stan or Tom the bartender, practically ignoring both of them. I mean, he could have at least been nice to them. I believe this demonstrates that in the Ministry (or Fudge’s head, at least) elitism isn’t just defined by one’s heritage, but by one’s socioeconomic class, too. I suppose Jo gets the credit for creating a believably unpleasant government system for the Wizarding World. Very often in fantasy literature (epic fantasy, especially) the author portrays the noble/ruling class as very nice and kind to the poor peasants beneath them, all the while acting as though feudalism as a legitimate form of government. As annoying as it is, this portrayal of a corrupt government in the MoM is, unfortunately, more realistic.

Harry is rather lucky that the Knight bus came zooming by. What would he have done? I suppose his plan of flying to London might have worked out, but how, exactly would he know how to get there?

And Stan! He’s going to get such a rough deal pretty soon and I feel so sorry for him. It is nice, I think, that Rowling follows the Law of Conservation of Characters; we’ll see Stan again at the Quidditch World Cup and hear of him again several times in HBP until finally, in DH, he’s Imperiused.

I won’t rant about those ridiculous shrunken heads in the film; I’ll just upset myself otherwise.

As Tom the bartender notes, Hedwig is an exceptionally smart owl. Owls in the Potter world are very smart creatures, and I can’t decide if it’s awesome or a little creepy how your owl knows your whereabouts almost before you do. Have owls ever been bewitched by Dark wizards to stalk people, like wire-tapping for wizards? Do owls have unions?

Chapter Four: The Leaky Cauldron

(This chapter gets its own song because the perfect one was so conveniently available.) Presenting: “Two Weeks to Myself” by Harry and the Potters

What Happens:

Harry enjoys his summer holidays more than he’d ever believed possible. He has loads of free time to explore Diagon Alley and finish his summer homework. Wandering around the shops he discovers the newly-released Firebolt broomstick and has to exercise a lot of self-control not to buy it.

While buying books at Flourish and Blotts, Harry notices a book about omens which mentions the Grim, a mysterious dog that indicates death is coming. The store manager urges Harry to ignore the book, and Harry does his best. A few days later he meets up with Hermione and who have come to do their school shopping. Hermione can’t stop chattering about all the new classes she’ll get to take this year. She decides to buy an owl and heads to the magical pet shop. Ron needs pet tonic for Scabbers, who’s looking ill, so he and Harry come along too.

Ron buys some medicine for Scabbers and Hermione, much to Ron’s horror, buys a huge ginger cat called Crookshanks. Crookshanks is antagonistic to Scabbers right away.

Back at the Leaky Cauldron everyone enjoys a lovely meal. Fred and George cause mischief, of course, stealing Percy’s Head Boy badge. Later in the evening Harry overhears Mr. and Mrs. Weasley arguing about whether or not to tell Harry something about Black. Mrs. Weasley is nearly panicked about Harry’s safety, but Arthur reassures her, arguing that Harry will be safest near Albus Dumbledore. Harry creeps back upstairs unheard and tries not to worry about Black.

Commentary:

There’s just so much to love about this chapter, mostly because I freaking love the Weasley family. This is one of the last times we’ll get to see them all together and all happy before things begin getting serious. Fred and George are harassing Percy, Molly is puffed up with pride for her children and worrying about their safety… it’s just lovely and normal for them.

This is, I believe, the only time we ever really hear anything about Florean Fortescue (of the ice cream parlor) before his murder in HBP. But even though poor Florean isn't a major character, we know that he's kind to Harry and runs a great store. So, when he's taken by Death Eaters, we're actually a little attached to him and it makes us more upset than the other random people they harm. Sad pandas.

In other news, there’s quite a bit of foreshadowing & set-up in this chapter (the Firebolt, the Grim, Hermione’s ridiculous class load, Scabbers’ ailing health, Crookshanks and Scabbers’ animosity) and some info-dumping about Black. Retrospectively, all the things we “know” about Black prior to this book’s climax are wrong, which really makes me feel terribly sorry for Sirius and the undue burden of guilt and shame he’s been carrying. Even after escaping in this book he’s not free to live a great life; he’ll always be in hiding. Even when the Order re-forms and he has comrades and visitors, things don’t get much better. Poor guy. Sirius’s story is probably one of the saddest in the series, eclipsed only by Neville.

Harry gets some mad props, I think, for not buying the Firebolt straight away. For a thirteen year old boy, he shows great maturity and foresight by not spending tons of money on something he doesn’t need. Well done, Harry!

This is a tiny thing, but remember that Percy owned Scabbers before Ron did. I can’t help but note the similarities between Peter Pettigrew and Percy Weasley; both them have dubious loyalty. Both are looking out only for themselves, which others around them step up and do the right thing… so it’s rather appropriate that they were together, perhaps.

That’s all for now! Make sure you bring some chocolate next week because we’re going to need it. Until then, stay warm!