Buckle up kids it’s that time of year again

So this year marks the 20th anniversary of the publication of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and, as has become custom on this blog, I thought we could do a celebratory group reread

Rules and general info:

The pace set for the reread will be one chapter a day during the week and two chapters a day at the weekend. You are obviously allowed to read at whatever pace you want but I’ve found it works best to set a slow pace so people with hectic lives can still get involved

This means the reread will be happening from the 8th-25th of July with the 8th marking the actual 20th anniversary

On this blog I’ll be posting my thoughts on each chapter, artwork, and a discussion question for each chapter so feel free to get involved with that!

However you are obviously allowed to get involved in this reread however you want- art, videos, your thoughts throughout the reread, reading in a new language; there are loads of great ways to get involved!

Just make sure to use the tag #hogwartsreread so we can all join in on each other’s discussions and hopefully make some new friends! 

Okay, but Ron’s 13-year-old-boy “Ew, girlfriend” thing is so cute, though.

*******

Harry, of course, persists in his pattern of, “Must Immediately Tell Ron and Hermione.” Adorable.

There’s something profoundly sad about Dudley having no genuine connection to either his father or his aunt even as they want to engage with him...it’s like Dumbledore says in HBP, isn’t it? They’ve succeeded in just totally warping how he relates to other people. It’s awful, and it says a lot about Dudley that he finds a new way to relate to the world later on. It’s not easy to do that, especially when your parents have always Loved You. 

The glimpses we get into Harry’s childhood through his memories of Aunt Marge...Petunia and Vernon Drop Dead Challenge.

Who takes the Azkaban photos and do they need to be replaced every year because it’s the Worst Job in the world? 

“He had never been in a worse fix.” Okay Harry, you’ve literally faced death twice now. Seriously though, Harry being able to face Voldemort but not running away and being expelled is truly a mood.

Also he’s right, he should probably have at least spotted an owl by now but I guess the ministry isn’t really too concerned about it.

Harry just assuming that he’ll have to live the life rest of his life as a fugitive, hiding under the Cloak is also a mood.

Woah, Harry cast Lumos and I was immediately thrown back to the movie when he was just using that spell willy-nilly at the Dursleys and nothing happened. Let’s go movies, A+ consistency there. Underage magic is a problem in Chamber of Secrets and Order of the Phoenix but not in Prisoner of Askaban according to the movies. (Actually, I might be remembering that scene wrong because it’s been awhile, but there was something like that, right?)

Sirius is such a freaking drama queen, showing up like that to Harry. He wasn’t really just trying to hide himself, he’s like “I am a big black dog and that is scary, let’s go see my godson, I am smart and not dramatic at all.” Whatever. He could have hidden better or something, but that was mostly on purpose, I think.

For some reason I always think that Stan is really old, but he’s really not.

“Muggles are just dumb” is the explanation Harry gets for the Knight Bus when things like disillusionment charms exist and they have like magic.

Where the heck did Sirius get his hands on a gun?

Oh wait never mind, he doesn’t have one, the muggles just think he does, whoops

“You outta your tree?” Is a saying I have never heard before

People really are thinking the absolute worst about Sirius, other death-eaters? Nah, Sirius was the worst of the bunch when others have definitely killed more than he supposedly did.

Still thinking about you the fact that Sirius never got a trial, that’s messed up, reeeeaaaaally messed up. Like really, what was going on with that?

Harry comparing himself to a supposed mass-murderer for blowing up Marge is another mood and something I would do.

Also Stan and Ernie pretending they had Harry on the bus.

Hey there, Fudge, it’s never really a pleasure to see you but, uh, hi.

If I’m being honest, I’m not 100% sure how I feel about the whole ministry and blowing up Marge thing. Like yay for no punishment but they really shouldn’t just brush it off like that. It’s vaguely concerning.

I mean, I know that Remus gets really caught up when he sees Peter's name on the Map, so I can understand how he might forget about his potion. But Lupin is so conscientious that it seems really unlikely that he would forget about the full moon when they decided to whom Pettigrew would be chained and then left the Shack

This also raises some questions about how the werewolf transformation works. All other evidence suggests that the transformation occurs on the full moon even if the werewolf does not see the moon or feel the moonlight; Remus transforms in his office, and as a student is smuggled out before moonrise and then transforms in the shack. Both would put him out of the path of moonlight. But here he does not transform until the moon comes out from behind a cloud. There is no sense that this is the moment the moon is fully risen or anything, because it's late at night. It just comes out, and that appears to be the cause of the transformation. What's that about?

Also, when is Remus supposed to take his potion? Earlier in the book Snape takes it to him in the afternoon. It's evening when Remus sees Peter on the Map and runs out. Why hadn't he already taken it? Is it timed according to moonrise?

What do werewolves look like? Here it's not described very well, we can't tell if Remus looks more like a real wolf or more like the weird creature from the movies. When Tonks's patronus changes it's described as a weird creature, not as reminiscent of a wolf, but when Harry sees the memory we learn that the differences between wolves and werewolves seem minor enough to be tricky. What is the truth

I just want this book to have ended with Remus staying to teach, Pettigrew being imprisoned, and Sirius taking Harry from the Dursleys so that he and Remus can raise him together (I love Sirius but the man should not be solely responsible for an already reckless teenager). This cannot happen which I guess is what fanfic is for.

Sirius, breaking my heart every second of the day

Despite it literally leading to Voldemort rising again, Dumbledore probably thinks of Pettigrew getting away as a narrow escape. If they had got Pettigrew back, either Dumbledore would have had to show his manipulative side and refuse to believe Sirius' innocence (losing Harry's trust as well as Remus' and probably some others if they started telling people), or let Pettigrew stand as evidence and let Sirius be exonerated, therefore meaning that Harry moves out of the Dursleys' house early and breaks the ward that hides him there. It's already pretty clear that Dumbledore probably didn't bother to push for a trial for Sirius or to even try to check if he was guilty because if Sirius was free he would take Harry and Dumbledore couldn't allow that.

How is Snape still knocked out? That must have been a very powerful spell.

I reiterate that Dementors are clearly not suitable guards for a prison as they try to give the Kiss to someone they have not been sent after even to arrest and bring back. They aren't sentient enough to distinguish it, they're just looking for food. I feel like, when Voldemort recruits them, it's less like recruiting groups of sentient creatures like giants and more like 'recruiting' a pack of wild dogs-- they follow because you feed them and let them run wild.