Summary
With all the evidence pointing toward Crookshanks having eaten Ron's rat Scabbers, Hermione and Ron's friendship seems all but over. But with the Ravenclaw match around the corner, Harry barely has time for his studies, let alone for acting as a counselor for his friends. He's practicing on his Firebolt every chance he gets. The day of the match, Harry finds himself facing a new Seeker for the Ravenclaw team, a girl named Cho Chang, with whom Harry immediately becomes smitten. Before long, Harry has his eyes on the Golden Snitch, but as he approaches it, he spots several cloaked figures flying below him. Instead of fainting at the sight of Dementors, he deploys a successful Patronus Charm and catches the Snitch, winning the match for Gryffindor. When he lands, he learns that the "Dementors" were not, in fact, Dementors, but Malfoy and his cronies attempting to sabotage him.
When they return to the Gryffindor common room, a huge celebration awaits. Every Gryffindor (except for Hermione, who is buried in a book called Home Life and Social Habits of British Muggles) parties until 1 AM, at which point Professor McGonagall tells them to settle down and head to bed. Upon falling asleep, Harry dreams that he is following a silvery-white orb through the forest. His chase intensifies as the orb speeds up, and he hears galloping somewhere nearby. Suddenly, Harry jolts awake to the sound of Ron screaming. Ron says that he woke up to Sirius Black standing over him with a knife. All the Gryffindors gather in the common room, joined by McGonagall, who upon hearing Ron's story, asks Sir Cadogan, the guard-portrait, whether he let a man into the dorms. Sir Cadogan says that he did, because the man had a slip of paper with a whole week's worth of passwords on it. Furious, McGonagall demands to know who was foolish enough to write all of the passwords down and then lose the piece of paper. Neville timidly raises his hand.
The morning after Black's second infiltration, Harry and Ron receive a letter from Hagrid asking them to come over for tea. He meets them in the entrance hall and walks them to his cabin, where he expresses his concern for Hermione. Hagrid says she's been visiting him a lot since Christmas, because she feels lonely and overwhelmed by school. Hagrid expresses disappointment in Harry and Ron for shunning Hermione over a broom and a rat. He says that she's a good friend, and despite all her schoolwork, has still found time to help with Buckbeak's defense. Harry and Ron are ashamed that they all but forgot about Buckbeak's trial. When they arrive back at the castle, the bulletin is up for the next Hogsmeade visit. Hermione overhears Harry and Ron conspiring to meet in the village and threatens to tell McGonagall about the map if Harry goes this time. She is shocked that Harry would even consider going after Black infiltrated the castle a second time. Ron shames Hermione, telling her she's done enough damage already.
On the morning of the Hogsmeade trip, Harry pretends to go back to the common room, for Hermione's sake. After they all leave, he sneaks down to the statue of the one-eyed witch and throws his bag down the chute. Before he can climb through, Neville turns the corner and jovially asks Harry to hang out (part of Neville's punishment for supplying Black the dorm passwords is being banned from Hogsmeade trips). While Harry is thinking of an excuse to ditch Neville, Snape discovers them in the hallway and orders them to return to the Gryffindor common room. Harry lets Neville into the common room and doubles back to the statue, goes down the chute, throws on his invisibility cloak, and meets Ron in town.
While in the Village, Harry and Ron visit a haunted landmark called The Shrieking Shack, with Harry remaining invisible. When they reach the Shack, they find Malfoy and his cronies already up there, Malfoy in the process of bragging about his role in the execution of Hagrid's beloved hippogriff. Harry, taking advantage of his invisibility, slings handfuls of mud at Malfoy and his friends' heads. He trips them and torments them in various ways from the safety of invisibility. As they're running away, one of them trips on Harry's invisibility cloak, uncovering Harry's head, which Malfoy sees floating disembodied over the snow. Malfoy clearly registers that he saw Harry's head and sprints away. Harry makes a run for Honeydukes, hoping to return to the castle before Malfoy can tell Snape what he saw, but by the time he climbs out of the one-eyed witch's back, Snape is rounding the corner.
Harry left his cloak in the tunnel, in case he was stopped on the way back to his dorm, but Snape finds the blank sheet of parchment in his pocket. Though Snape is unable to reveal the contents of the Marauder's Map, he is immediately suspicious of it. He demands the map reveal itself to him, but instead, the map insults him. Phrases appear on the parchment that say things like, "Mr. Moony presents his compliments to Professor Snape, and begs him to keep his abnormally large nose out of other people's business," and "Mr. Padfoot would like to register his astonishment that an idiot like that ever became a professor" (287). Snape summons Lupin, claiming that there is obviously dark magic behind this piece of parchment in Harry's pocket, but Lupin assures him that it is just a prank toy that insults its users. However, when Lupin has Harry alone, he reveals that he knows what the Marauder's Map is, and he is deeply disappointed in Harry for continuing to put himself in danger when so many people are trying to keep him safe.
Hermione shows Harry and Ron a tear-soaked letter she received from Hagrid reporting that Buckbeak lost his case. After their next Care of Magical Creatures class, Malfoy calls Hagrid pathetic, and Hermione smacks him across the face. Thoroughly impressed, Ron and Harry continue to their Charms class, but when they turn around, Hermione is gone. She reappears after class on their way to Divination, and Ron asks her why she wasn't in Charms. Hermione says, "What? Oh no! I forgot to go to Charms!" (295). Neither Harry nor Ron understand how she could forget to go to Charms when she was with them during Care of Magical Creatures, but Hermione swiftly changes the subject. Once they're in Divination, Professor Trelawney continues to harbor fear among her students. When she claims to see a Grim in Harry's crystal ball, Hermione loses it. She makes it clear that she thinks Trelawney can't actually predict the future and storms out of the class.
Harry spends the whole Easter holiday studying for finals and preparing for the last Quidditch match of the season, against Slytherin. Throughout the break, Harry has terrible Quidditch-related dreams. One night, he wakes up and thinks he sees a big, black dog lurking in the Forbidden Forest, but it's just Crookshanks. Then, moments later, an actual black dog emerges from the trees and joins Crookshanks in a walk across the grounds. This is the third time Harry has encountered the black, Grim-looking dog from afar, and it makes him very nervous.
The match against Slytherin finally arrives, and it is brutal. Fouls left and right, especially from the Slytherin team, result in an inordinate amount of penalty shots. Harry is operating on strict orders to only catch the Snitch if they're leading 50 points or more over Slytherin, so his job for the first part of the game is to keep Malfoy from catching it, which he manages successfully. Once Gryffindor is firmly leading by 60 points, Harry begins his hunt for the Snitch. He sees Malfoy dive for it first, but Malfoy's broom is no match for Harry's Firebolt. Harry catches the Snitch and wins the match. When he sees Dumbledore awaiting the Gryffindor team on the ground holding the massive Quidditch Cup, Harry is the happiest he's been perhaps in his entire life.
Harry's elation at winning the Cup lasts about a week, up until the beginning of finals. The perfect weather outside seems to be mocking them for having to hunker down indoors and focus on their books. Harry and Ron are thoroughly confused by Hermione's exam schedule, which includes several exams at the same exact time. But, one by one, the students get through their exams. The first is Care of Magical Creatures, which is excessively easy due to Hagrid's inability to function with Buckbeak's execution around the corner. Then there is Transfiguration and Charms, which goes off without a hitch. Harry scores perfect marks on the Defense Against the Dark Arts final, for which Lupin designed an obstacle course of magical creatures for the students to combat. For the Divination final, Professor Trelawney conferences with her students one on one, asking them to look into a crystal ball and tell her what they see. During Harry's conference, Trelawney seems to have some sort of seizure. Her eyes roll back, her voices darkens and changes, and she emits the following prophecy:
The Dark Lord lies alone and friendless, abandoned by his followers. His servant has been chained these twelve years. Tonight, before midnight ... the servant will break free and rejoin his master. The Dark Lord will rise again with his servant's aid, greater and more terrible than ever before. Tonight ... before midnight ... the servant ... will set out ... to rejoin ... his master ..." (324).
Upon snapping out of her trance, Trelawney has zero recollection of making this prophecy. When Harry tries to alert his friends to what happened during his Divination final, they are already preoccupied with the news that Buckbeak will be executed in front of Hagrid's cabin at sundown. Against Hagrid's wishes, Harry, Ron, and Hermione throw on Harry's invisibility cloak and visit him at his cabin to console him. While there, Ron spots his rat Scabbers, now emaciated, on the floor of Hagrid's cabin. Ron takes Scabbers into his pocket on their way out of the cabin; several men from the ministry approach to get on with the execution. The three friends are still within earshot, walking back to the castle under Harry's cloak, when they hear the swing of the executioner's axe.
Analysis
As we move deeper into the second half of the novel, we learn more about Harry's father's past, which in turn elucidates Harry's current situation. For example, in Chapter 14, entitled "Snape's Grudge," Harry defends his father's memory against Snape, who says to Harry, "How extraordinarily like your father you are, Potter. He too was exceedingly arrogant" (284). Harry tells Snape to "shut up," and claims he knows the truth about his relationship with his father—"He saved your life!" Harry says to Snape, "Dumbledore told me! You wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for my dad!" (285). Snape sets the record straight for Harry, assuring him that the only reason his life needed saving was as a result of a prank that James Potter played on him with his friends. James only saved Snape's life because he got cold feet, and in saving Snape's life he was also saving himself from grave consequences.
Continuing in the vein of false accusations and revisionist history, Snape's story calls into question Harry's whole perception of his father, who was killed before Harry could really develop any sort of meaningful memory of him. For Harry, the characters and personalities of his parents are merely a sum of the anecdotes and impressions told to him by the people who knew them. Harry is finding out that these impressions may not contain the entire truth, and people like Snape, who Harry has assumed to be a motiveless villain for his entire time at Hogwarts, provide different perspectives on what Harry's parents were actually like. As the title of the chapter suggests, Snape's animosity towards Harry finally makes sense; it is a response to the anger and frustration that Snape has harbored after years of being bullied by Harry's father.
Another character about whom we gain insight during these chapters is Professor Trelawney, who has a spontaneous prophetic event while conducting Harry's Divination final. For the duration of the book, Rowling obviously portrays Trelawney as a bit of a hack, and leads to the reader to the assumption that she lacks any true powers of Divination. Arguably the most reliable figure at Hogwarts, Professor McGonagall, whose word is synonymous with the truth, frequently belittles Trelawney and regards her with disdain and suspicion. So, of course, as readers, we go along with what the narrative and the most trustworthy voices in the book signal to us as the truth. But then, in Chapter 16, Trelawney appears to have an actual prophecy that bears real importance on the plot of the novel and the fate of the wizarding world. The irony of her prophecy is that she doesn't even remember making it. This also reveals a truth about Divination: that perhaps it cannot be taught, but is something uncontrollable even for those who possess the "inner eye."
If we explicate the contents of Trelawney's prophecy, it seems to point to Sirius Black as the "servant" of the Dark Lord. The most obvious interpretation of the statement that this person has been "chained" for twelve years would be to Black's imprisonment in Azkaban; but if this novel has told us anything about obvious truths, it is that they require deeper investigation before they can be accepted. For example, Ron's rat Scabbers appears behind Hagrid's cupboard right before Buckbeak's execution, when all evidence pointed to Crookshanks eating him. At least one thing seems clear: at midnight, the night of Buckbeak's execution, someone will try to revive the Dark Lord. Only time will tell the true identity of his servant...
