Summary
The morning finally arrives for Harry, Hermione, and the Weasleys to catch the Hogwarts Express to school. The Leaky Cauldron buzzes with anticipation as everyone finishes their last-minute packing. Then, they all pile into two long, green cars sent by the Ministry of Magic to take them to King's Cross Station. Once at the station, Mr. Weasley pulls Harry aside, obviously tense about whatever he is about to share with Harry; however, before Mr. Weasley can say a word, Harry tells him that he already knows Sirius Black may be after him. He admits to having overheard Mr. and Mrs. Weasley's argument the night before. Mr. Weasley, though upset that Harry had to find out that way, is reassured by Harry's confidence and courage. He warns him not to leave Hogwarts castle and to stay constantly on his guard. Right before the train leaves, Mr. Weasley makes Harry promise he won't go looking for Black. Harry doesn't understand why he would ever seek out someone who wants to kill him, but there isn't time to ask for clarification.
Once they're all in the train, Harry, Ron, and Hermione find an almost empty compartment. The only other person in the compartment with them is an adult, likely a professor, and he appears to be fast asleep. According to the embroidery on his briefcase, his name is R.J. Lupin. But given his unconscious state, the three friends speak freely. Harry tells Ron and Hermione about the conversation he overheard at the Weasleys', about how Sirius Black is likely out to find Harry. At one point in their conversation, Harry's Sneakoscope goes off, but Ron dismisses it as a malfunction due to it being a rather cheap Sneakoscope. Ron suggests they get it checked out at the wizard supplies shop in Hogsmeade.
Harry then explains that the Dursleys refused to sign his Hogsmeade permission slip, so he will unfortunately not be able to join them in the village. Ron is devastated by this news, but Hermione takes it rather approvingly. She doesn't think Harry should be leaving the castle with Black on the loose. In the midst of their conversation, the train halts for no apparent reason. The lights go out in all the compartments, and the air turns freezing cold. In the confusion, Neville Longbottom and Ginny Weasley stumble into the compartment, too. Professor Lupin wakes up from his nap and asks them all to quiet down. He illuminates the cabin with a small fire ball, and in doing so, reveals a tall, cloaked figure looming over their compartment with long, black hands that look like they're entirely scabbed over. The figure takes long, rattling breaths, and sucks the life out of the air around it. Faced with this creature, Harry's eyes roll back in his head. Right before he passes out, he hears a bloodcurdling scream...
Upon waking, Lupin informs Harry that the creature was a Dementor, one of the guards of Azkaban. Lupin feeds them all chocolate, a widely known remedy for encounters with Dementors, and they pass the rest of their journey to Hogwarts in tense silence. Once they arrive at Hogwarts, Harry and Hermione are immediately separated from the pack by Professor Minerva McGonagall, head of Gryffindor. McGonagall sends Harry to Madame Pomfrey, who runs the infirmary, and discusses with Hermione mysterious details about her course schedule that are not made clear to the reader. When Harry and Hermione finally arrive at the feast, the new students have already been sorted and Dumbledore is announcing two new professors. The first is Lupin, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. The second is Hagrid, who is taking over the Care of Magical Creatures class.
At breakfast the next day, fellow Gryffindors commiserate with Harry over the horror of the Dementors while the Slytherins hurl insults across the Great Hall. Malfoy, in particular, enjoys imitating Harry fainting on the train. Harry, Ron, and Hermione prepare to attend their first class of the year, Divination with Sybill Trelawney, when Ron notices the impossible timing of Hermione's classes, many of which seem to take place at the same time. Hermione changes the subject, and they set out for the top of the North Tower, where they find a strange, attic-like classroom full of incense clouds and plush, bohemian armchairs. Once they are seated, Professor Trelawney emerges from the smoke, described as looking like "a large, glittering insect" (102). The first class pertains to reading and interpreting tea leaves. Some students immediately trust and admire Trelawney for her unorthodox methods while others, like Hermione, are highly skeptical. Class ends when Trelawney reads a death omen in Harry's teacup, an omen which she calls "The Grim." The Grim manifests as a large, black dog, the same omen Harry saw on the cover of the book in Flourish and Blotts.
The death omen makes Harry uneasy, despite Hermione's assurance that Divination is not to be trusted. After lunch, the three of them head to Hagrid's first Care of Magical Creatures class, where he tries to teach them the proper way to interact with Hippogriffs, animals that have the body of a horse and the head and wings of an eagle. Hagrid explains that Hippogriffs are proud animals, and they must be approached with respect. Harry successfully rides a Hippogriff named Buckbeak. When he lands, Malfoy wants a try, but when he taunts the animal it attacks him. Class abruptly ends and Malfoy is brought to the infirmary, where he exaggerates his injury in an attempt to have Hagrid fired. Later that evening, Harry, Ron, and Hermione sneak out to Hagrid's cabin to console him and assure him that they will testify on his behalf if there is any sort of hearing. Hagrid appreciates their support and gives them a "bone-breaking hug" (121) until he suddenly realizes that they're breaking the rules by coming to see him after hours. He scolds them and sends them back to the castle.
The following chapter finds Harry, Ron, and Hermione in the dreaded Professor Snape's potions class towards the end of their first week of classes. They are attempting to brew a shrinking potion. It also happens to be the first class Draco Malfoy has attended since his brush with Hagrid's hippogriff, and he's continuing to exaggerate the injury for dramatic effect. At one point in the middle of class, Malfoy knowingly harasses Harry about Sirius Black being on the loose. Malfoy cryptically suggests that Harry has a reason to seek revenge against Sirius Black, saying, "If it was me, I'd have something before now. I wouldn't be staying in school like a good boy, I'd be out there looking for him" (127). Harry has no idea what Malfoy is talking about, but before he can attempt to clarify, Snape butts in and forces Neville to demonstrate his shrinking potion in front of the entire class.
Later that day they attend their first Defense Against the Dark Arts class with Professor Lupin and are pleasantly surprised to find that it is "practical class," meaning no books, just wands. In that first class, Lupin has arranged for them to fight a Boggart, a shapeshifting creature that takes the form of whatever its beholder fears the most. When it isn't trying to scare people, it lives hidden in confined spaces—this particular Boggart lives in a wardrobe, which Lupin had moved to the staff hall. The only way to defeat a Boggart is with a spell called riddikulus, which turns the caster's greatest fear into something comical. One by one, Harry's classmates face the Boggart, and their fears; but once it's Harry's turn, Lupin steps in. When he faces the Boggart, it becomes "a silvery-white orb hanging in the air" (138). Neville finishes the Boggart off by putting his greatest fear (Professor Snape) into a lace gown, which causes it to "burst into a thousand tiny wisps of smoke" (139).
Before long, Lupin becomes most of the students' favorite professor. Harry likes him too, but is frustrated and confused about why Lupin hadn't given him a chance to face the Boggart. Harry guessed that if he had faced it, it would've turned into a Dementor. But thankfully, the Quidditch season is right around the corner and will provide Harry with a much-needed distraction from classes and the Sirius Black problem. It's been seven years since Gryffindor has won a Quidditch cup, and with the team captain Oliver Wood in his final year at Hogwarts, the pressure is on to take the title. At their first practice, Oliver gives a bracing and mildly desperate speech about their need to win.
When Harry returns to his dorm from practice, the Gryffindor common room is buzzing with excitement because the first Hogsmeade weekend has been officially scheduled for Halloween. Ron convinces Harry to ask Professor McGonagall at the end of their next Transfiguration class, but much to Harry's dismay, McGonagall firmly denies his request. So that Halloween, while all of the upperclassmen are off enjoying the Village, Harry stays behind and wanders the halls of Hogwarts. He tries to do homework but can't focus; he tries to lounge in the common room but is hounded by eager underclassmen. Just as Harry is being scolded by the caretaker Filch for wandering the halls for no reason, Professor Lupin invites Harry into his office for a chat. There, Lupin confesses that he did willfully prevent Harry from facing the Boggart, not because he thought Harry was incapable of defeating it, but because he assumed that in front of Harry, the Boggart would have taken the form of Lord Voldemort. Harry tells Lupin that he thought it might turn into Voldemort at first, but then he thought he was more afraid of the Dementor. Lupin commends Harry for this, saying it suggests that the thing he fears most is fear itself.
In the middle of their chat, Snape strides into Lupin's office with a cup of potion for Lupin to drink. Lupin explains to Harry that he's been feeling unwell, and that Professor Snape is the only wizard in the building capable of making such a complicated potion, but he never says what the potion is. Once he's alone again with Lupin, Harry suggests that Snape would go to any lengths to be able to teach the Defense Against the Dark Arts class, but Lupin seems uninterested in Harry's accusations.
When everyone returns from Hogsmeade, Harry joins Ron and Hermione at the Halloween Feast in the Great Hall. The food is, as usual, delicious, and all of the third years are glowing from their first excursion to Hogsmeade. Ron and Hermione have brought back a haul of treats from Honeydukes to share with Harry. Over dinner, Harry tells his friends about his curious visit with Professor Lupin and the mysterious potion that he drank from Snape. Harry and Ron seem convinced that Snape is poisoning Lupin, but Hermione has her doubts. After a great feast, Harry, Ron, and Hermione walk back to the Gryffindor dorms with the rest of their house, but when they arrive at the portal into their dorm—a painting of "The Fat Lady"—they find the painting slashed and The Fat Lady nowhere to be found. Alarmed, the head boy Percy Weasley calls for Albus Dumbledore to assess the situation. When Dumbledore arrives, Peeves, the mischievous poltergeist, informs them all that the person who slashed the painting is none other than Sirius Black.
Analysis
In these chapters, Rowling introduces more clues pointing towards major revelations about Harry Potter's relationship with Sirius Black; these revelations, known by others, for example Arthur Weasley and Draco Malfoy, remain a mystery to both Harry and the reader, but create tension by simmering just under the surface. An early instance of this occurs right before Harry boards the Hogwarts Express; Arthur makes Harry swear he won't go looking for Black. Harry asks, "Why would I go looking for someone I know wants to kill me?" (73), and thus triggers the same question in the reader's mind. Why would Harry go looking for Black?
Then later on, in Snape's potions class, Draco Malfoy taunts Harry on the subject of Black. He says, "Thinking of trying to catch Black single-handed, Potter?" (127). Of course, Harry doesn't know what Malfoy is talking about, but he resists engaging him. Then Malfoy suggests that if he were in Harry's situation, he would've already taken his revenge on Sirius Black. Still oblivious to what Draco is talking about, Draco says to Harry, "Don't you know, Potter?" (127). Harry asks him, now with more urgency, what he could possibly be talking about, but Snape interrupts before any answers are revealed. Once again, Harry and the reader remain in the dark when it seems obvious that there is a major omission staring us in the face that has a significant bearing on the plot. Obviously there is a secret waiting to be revealed, something that explains how Harry's past collides in a significant way with Black's.
One way Rowling achieves this shared consciousness between Harry and the reader is by maintaining a close-third-person perspective on Harry, meaning that though the book is narrated in the third-person, the narration is closest to Harry's mind and slips at times into "free indirect discourse" and rhetorical questioning that makes it seem like we have entered the live consciousness of Harry Potter. For example, at the end of their first lively Defense Against the Dark Arts class with Professor Lupin, everyone in the class is excitedly discussing the lesson, but Harry is obviously disappointed that he wasn't given a chance to fend off the Boggart. He's even more upset by the idea that Lupin doesn't think he has the constitution to face his greatest fear. But instead of simply reporting his feelings through a distanced, omniscient third-person narrator, Rowling writes: "Harry, however, wasn't feeling cheerful. Professor Lupin had deliberately stopped him from tackling the Boggart. Why? Was it because he'd seen Harry collapse on the train, and thought he wasn't up to much? Had he thought Harry would pass out again?" (139). Over time, this pattern of free indirect discourse and rhetorical questioning allows the reader to accept that the narration can, at times, be limited to Harry's mind and the scope of his knowledge. At other times, the narration possesses history, exposition, and world-building capabilities that Harry would not himself have.
Another point of interest slipped into the Defense Against the Dark Arts class is that Lupin, himself, faced the Boggart. When he stood in front of it, it took the form of "a silvery-white orb hanging in the air" (138), but there is no further explanation of what this might mean for Lupin's character. Later on, during Harry and Lupin's chat in his office, Snape delivers a "particularly complex" (157) potion for Lupin to take, of which he has prepared an entire cauldron for Lupin's continued use. Lupin dismisses whatever mystery ailment he has by simply saying he's "been feeling a bit off-color," (157) but odds are this chronic need for a complex potion will figure into a significant revelation about Lupin's character.
Harry's encounters with images and visions of large, black dogs continue in his first Divination class with Professor Trelawney, who reads a death omen in Harry's tea leaves. She refers to the omen as "the grim." Trelawney also makes several other predictions throughout the course of the class, firing off significant dates and portentous claims about the wellbeing of people's family members. But Divination is met with skepticism by some of the more "serious" wizards, including Hermione and Professor McGonagall, who both doubt Trelawney's ability to actually tell the future and scorn her willingness to fill students' minds with fear. This dichotomy of skepticism and, for some students, full acceptance of Divination, introduces a new ambiguity about what we can consider "real" in a world already steeped in fantasy. There is a situational irony about witches and wizards calling Divination and fortune-telling a hack profession when, for the reader, wizardry and magic are already so far beyond the pale of what we consider normal reality. The students' questioning of Trelawney's credibility also puts the reader on guard to validate or disprove her predictions. For example, when Lavender Brown's rabbit dies on the sixteenth of October, it recalls us to that first Divination class when Trelawney told Lavender that something she's been dreading will happen on that date. But Hermione is quick to poke holes in Trelawney's vision, even as Lavender weeps for her dead pet. This scene demonstrates the difficulty of verifying whether a vision has been fulfilled; there may be a certain amount of faith and narrativizing required to believe in Divination, but does that make it false?
