(audiobook read by Stephen Fry, loved it. I listened to it while going to work ^_^ )
The story, in details, and I do mean Details:
Harry must do homework at night in secret so not to anger Vernon. For the first time he receives cards and gifts on his birthday, by Ron, Hermione and Hagrid. Ron tried to phone him once but not knowing how to use it he shouted into it and got him in trouble with Vernon.
A letter from Hogwarts says that the third years can have visits to Hogsmead village, but he should have his guardian sign a permission form…
Aunt Marge is coming to stay for a week. Harry tries to be good so Vernon will sign the form, but it’s hard because she’s a monster. He almost made it, until the last meal when she went on and on insulting his parents, so he exploded in rage defending them. Marge starts inflating and she floats to the ceiling. After something like that, he runs and takes all his stuff before going out.
He’s alone and with nowhere to go, both Hermione and Ron are abroad now, and he’s also worried that he’ll be expelled for that magic with Marge. The night bus appears, an emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard. The driver tells him all about escaped prisoner Sirius Black, a big supporter of Voldemort who killed a lot of people. Harry rides the bus to Diagon Alley, and meets Minister Fudge right away.
Harry is scared because he did magic while underage, and Fudge is scared because he ran away from home.
Fudge says the incident has been dealt with, and “no harm done”, and suggests he takes a room at the Leaky Cauldron. Harry asks about his punishment, and can’t understand why nothing is happening. Fudge refuses to sign his permission form for him, saying it’s best if he doesn’t go to Hogsmead.
Harry spends a few blessed weeks wandering Diagon Alley and doing homework freely, then meets Hermione and the Weasleys on the last day. Hermione buys Crookshanks, a huge cat nobody wanted.
Percy is the new Head Boy, and they all torment him. Percy is a 7 year student, the twins are in their 5th year, Ginny is in her second year.
Harry eavesdrops Molly and Arthur saying that Black is after Harry to kill him, but they don’t tell him. Molly says he’ll be perfectly safe at Hogwarts with Dumbledore… (really? where were they the last two years?)
Harry goes to the station with them all in a ministry car. Mr Weasley asks Harry to promise he won’t go looking for Sirius Black, after they discuss it…
On the train, Harry tells Ron and Hermione. Malfoy stops to make fun of them, but goes away when he sees there’s a professor in their compartment.
When the train stops early and a dementor checks the train, Harry feels weird and falls off his seat, and prof Lupin sends the dementor away and gives them chocolate. Malfoy makes fun of him, “you actually fainted?”
At their first ever divination class, she predicts that one of them will leave them forever at Easter, then tells harry there’s the grim in his teacup, an omen of death. It looks like the dog he keeps seeing around from time to time. Next class though, McGonagall says that Sybil Trewlaney predicts the death of one student every year, and nobody has died so far.
Then there’s their first Care of magical creatures lesson with prof Hagrid, with the Slytherins. Malfoy is upset, nobody has even managed to open the monster-books. Hagrid is surprised, and teaches them to stroke them, then he brings forth some hippogriffs. Harry volunteers to help Hagrid. The hippogriff bows back and Harry is forced to ride it. They all try, and even Malfoy is petting Buckbeack, but then he insults Harry and the hippogriff, and the animal takes offence and injures him, and they have to take him to the hospital wing.
In Potions, Malfoy has Ron and Harry cut his ingredients saying he can’t because his arm is on a sling.
In the Defence against the Dark Arts lesson, Lupin teaches about the boggart. Many students try but Lupin intervenes before Harry can have a go.
Quidditch. Oliver Wood is a seven year, and it’s his last chance for the quidditch cup. They start training.
There’s the first visit to Hogsmead, but Harry can’t go. He has tea with Lupin and asks why he didn’t face the boggart. Lupin answers very openly that he thought his fear would be Voldemort, and then praises his fear of fear (ie: dementors). Snape brings him a potion and Lupin drinks it, and Harry is suspicious of Snape wanting to poison him. Ron and Hermione had a fight because Crookshanks chases Scabbard the mouse, but they made peace for the trip and brought lots of sweets for Harry. Draco mocks him about his fear of dementors…
The fat lady is no more in her painting because scared by Sirius Black… apparently he got in the castle, so all Gryffindors sleep in sleeping bags. Hermione reminds all that he can’t have apparated in because it’s not possible to apparate in Hogswarts.
Lupin is absent and Snape gives them a lesson and homework about werewolves.
Their first match should be against Slytherin, but using Malfoy’s arm’s excuse, they don’t play so Harry is against Hufflepuff and their seeker Cedric Diggory. The weather’s awful, and while they’re playing 100 dementors appear. Harry hears his mother’s screams in his mind and faints falling off the broom. When he wakes up in the hospital wing, he learns that Cedric got the snitch before realising what had happened, and won. Dumbledore saved him and sent the dementors away (I now know he used a patronus). His broomsticks is broken.
For the second time he had seen the grim during the game, but he hasn’t told anyone.
Malfoy keeps taunting him. Lupin is back in class, and they tell him all about Snape. Harry asks why he’s the only one so affected by the dementors and Lupin explains that he’s not weaker than everybody else, but that the dementors affect him more because nobody else has such horrors in their past. After his pleas, Lupin agrees to teach him to fight dementors after the holidays.
This year, Ron and Hermione stay at school to be with him.
Another Hogsmead trip. Secretely, Fred and George give Harry a present, the marauder’s map, “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good” and the map appears. “Moony, Padfoot, Wormtail and Prongs”. There are also secret passages to go to Hogsmead. Harry goes and finds Ron and Hermione and tells them about the map, and she says he should give the map to McGonagall… hah!
They buy sweets then go to the Three Broomsticks where Ron fancies Madam Rosmerta, and they drink butterbeers. McGonagall, Flitwick, Hagrid and Fudge enter and chat at a near table, and Harry hears them say that Black and his dad were best friends, that he was his best man at the wedding and godfather of the baby. Dumbledore warned the Potters that Voldemort was after them and advised to use the Fidelium charm to hide, but then Black betrayed them and got them killed.
After the deaths, Sirius wanted Harry, but Hagrid had orders from Dumbledore to take him to the relatives. His friend Peter Pettigrew got killed when he confronted him, and Black got arrested.
Harry wants revenge, and remembers Malfoy’s words about wanting revenge, but back then he had not understood, not knowing.
Hagrid is desperate because there will be a hearing for Buckbeack to see if he’s to be killed.
Hagrid is very down, and the Flobberworms he had for a lesson time ago died for too much lettuce (not much care for creatures… I don’t like this, does he care only for some animals but not all of them? Only for the big ones, the scary ones, but not smaller, ordinary ones?)
Harry gets a Christmas gift, a new broomstick, the new Firebolt. Crookshanks keeps hunting Scabbers making them fight.
Hermione tells McGonagall about the Firebolt, and the prof takes it away for checking, because Hermione thinks Sirius sent it.
Ron and Harry don’t speak to Hermione now.
Lupin teaches Harry the patronus charm against the dementors, and they use a new boggart to practice. On his third attempt he makes it. Lupin says he was friends with James Potter after Harry heard his voice because of the dementor.
Ravenclaw beats Hufflepuff, but Slytherin beats Ravenclaw, so if Gryffindor beats Ravenclaw they’ll be second.
Some lessons later, he still has a too feeble patronus, not enough.
Harry get his broom back.
Scabbers disappears, there’s blood on a sheet, so Ron thinks it’s dead and blames the cat.
The Ravenclaw seeker is Cho Chang.
Everyone admires the new Firebolt, Malfoy is his usual self.
Harry notices that Cho is very pretty. They play, then Harry sees three dementors so he casts the patronus then catches the snitch and wins. Lupin comes to him and reveals that it was in fact Malfoy and Goyle and Crabbe dressed as dementors, and they get detention, to Harry’s happiness.
Hermione is super-tired from all her work, and it hurts that Ron is still angry at her.
At night, Ron wakes everyone up screaming that Sirius Black was in the room with a knife, he entered because he found Neville’s paper with all the passwords…
Now everyone is around Ron to hear the story, and he enjoys the popularity.
The kids don’t get, though, why Sirius went away, if he had killed so many people in the past, why would he run when confronted with four asleep boys and Ron.
Hagrid scolds Ron and Harry for valuing broomsticks and rats over their friendship for Hermione.
At the next Hogsmead trip, Hermione doesn’t want Harry to go and threatens to tell on him, and Ron shouts at her. Harry goes with the invisibility cloak.
When they meet Malfoy who talks about the imminent death of the hippogriff, invisible Harry throws mud at him, pretending it’s because of the haunted Shrieking Shrak. Then Malfoy sees part of him and runs to the school, and Harry runs too. Malfoy told Snape he saw his head.
Snape talks to Harry, saying that he is unconcerned with rules like his father.
Snape tells him that James and his friends pulled a trick on him that would have killed him, and that it was only then that James saved him.
Snape finds his map and tries to find its secret but some writing appears insulting him, so he calls Lupin and then Ron arrives and gives him an alibi. Lupin takes the map, then makes him feel guilty for risking the life his parents died to protect.
Back to Gryffindor tower, Hermione is waiting for them, but she didn’t tell on them, she has a letter from Hagrid, he lost the battle and now Buckbeat awaits execution.
Malfoy is cheering and mocking, says Hagrid is pathetic and Hermione rounds on him and slaps his face, “you foul, you evil!” and would have slapped him again but Ron stopped her and Malfoy went away. Ron now wants to help Hagrid, Hermione is beyond exhausted with too many subjects, and drops divination after a confrontation with the prof, when she saw once again the grim for Harry.
The whole school wants Gryffindor to win the cup and beat Slytherin (Gryffindor hasn’t won the cup since Charlie Weasley was seeker). The Slytherin play a dirty game, but at the end Gryffindor wins!!!!!!!
It’s exams time, everyone is very tense in school for Owls and Newts. The appeal for Buckbeak will be at Hogswarts, but an executioner will come too… already decided huh?… Malfoy is all cocky again.
At dada exams, Hermione breaks because her boggart is McGonagall saying she failed everything…
The appeal is of course lost, so Hermione retrieves Harry’s invisibility cloak for him to go to Hagrid. Hermione cries, then she sees Scabbers there, he was not eaten after all…
Ron takes Scabbers and they go away, and they hear the execution… but don’t see it.
They try to go away, but Scabbers runs, Ron follows and grabs it but the huge black dog arrives, grabs Ron and carries him under the Womping Willow. Crookshanks somehow stops the tree moving and they crawl forward… they arrive at the Shrieking shack, and discover that the dog is an animagus. Sirius, who uses an expelliarmus on them. The kids stay with Harry in defence. Harry hates Sirius so much he launches at him. The three kids battle the man, and Harry gets his wand, but Crookshanks goes between them. Then Lupin arrives and expelliarmus them again. Lupin helps Sirius up and they think he’s a traitor, and Hermione regrets hiding her discovery that he is a werewolf. Lupin says she really is the smartest witch of her age he ever met, then he gives back their wands, and says that he saw on the map that they were there, he is Moony and he helped make it, so he knows how it works, and he saw Oeter Pettigrew ’s name, he was Scabbers.
Peter should be dead. Nobody knew Sirius, Peter and James were animagi. Before the Wolfbane potion was discovered, Lupin had troubles, but Dumbledore let him go study there, and they planted the tree because of him, once a month he could go through the tree to the shrieking shack to transform. His friends found out and became animagi to help him, in three years, in 5 year they did it, and kept him company as animals.
Sirius is Padfoot, Peter is Wormtail, James was Prongs. They were in the same year as Snape, and Snape wanted to find out where he went every month, so Sirius tricked him and told him how to get past the tree. He would have been alone with a dangerous werewolf, but James stopped him and brought him back, but Snape had seen Lupin and knew what he was.
Snape is there now with the invisibility cloak.
Snape wants to give Black and Lupin to the dementors, and won’t listen to anyone, he wants revenge. The 3 kids use expelliarmus at the same time and he’s knocked unconscious. Sirius recognised Peter in the picture of when Ron’s family won some money in the summer.
It turns out that Sirius convinced the Potters to change the secret keeper at the last moment, to fool Voldemort into going after himself for nothing, not knowing that Peter was already his spy.
Lupin and Black are about to kill Peter when Harry stops them, not wanting them to become killers, and says that Peter will go to Azkaban (Black escaped as a dog under the dementors nose, swimming away, do rats swim?). Black also says Crookshanks is very intelligent, the cat recognised what Scabbers really was immediately, and helped dog-Sirius.
Lupin bandages Ron’s broken leg and levitates Snape, while Peter is bound in ropes.
Sirius doesn’t care that Snape’s head bumps on the ceiling. Sirius tells Harry that he’s his godfather, his appointed guardian, and after his name is cleared he could stay live with him.
Remus had not taken his potion tonight (that’s why Snape went looking for him, to give it to him), and now transforms and is dangerous. Peter gets Remus’ wand and frees himself and escapes as a rat, then 100 dementors attack them, Harry tries to cast a patronus but he can’t manage, it’s all going bad, he’s alone… then they leave.
Sirius is still thought as guilty. Snape brought everyone to Hogwarts, but is set on Sirius’ guilt. Harry is frantic to have people understand, finally dumbledore comes to the hospital wing to see them and he says that there’s no evidence of Sirius’ innocence and there’s no time for that. Hermione says Snape hates him for a stupid prank when they were young (stupid prank… could have been fatal though…)
“What we need is more time” he says, and Hermione understands, then he says they could be able to save more than one innocent life tonight. Hermione explains about the time-turner and uses it now with Harry: it’s three turns, and they go three hours back in time. McGonagall gave it to her to get to her lessons.
They plan to rescue Buckbeak, then fly it to Sirius and let them escape together. They save Buckbeak, then Harry casts the patronus that saved his own life before - he had thought he saw his dad but it was he himself - and then fly to Sirius and get him out, and fly him to the tower. Harry and Hermione hurry back to the infirmary just in time. When Sirius’ absence is found, Harry has always been under someone’s eye, Dumbledore and then Pomfrey.
Snape told the Slytherin that Lupin is a werewolf so now he resignes, and after the night before when he forgot his potion, he agrees to do it.
Harry tells Dumbledore about Trelawey’s prophecy, Voldemort’s servant escaped and will bring him back… Dumbledore says that it’s her second prophecy.
Harry is very sorry that he won’t get to live with Sirius… :(
Harry is so down when they take the train but Ron says he should go stay with them, so they’ll go to the Quidditch world cup together, then an owl arrives, by Sirius who says he sent the Firebolt, and he gives him permission to visit Hogsmead, and that Ron can keep the owl since he has no pet anymore. Ron has Crookshanks sniff the owl to be certain it’s okay, then keeps it happily.
Vernon is waiting for him at the station, and Harry says the letter is from his godfather, a convicted criminal on the run who likes to check on him :-p
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