Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Books/Prisoner of Azkaban/Chapter 17
From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection
Chapter 17 of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: Cat, Rat and Dog
Contents |
[edit] Synopsis
Still hiding under the Invisibility Cloak, Harry, Ron, and Hermione debate whether to return to comfort Hagrid, eventually deciding to proceed to the castle. Scabbers bites Ron, who is struggling to hold on to him. Harry spots Crookshanks approaching, apparently homing in on Scabbers' squeaks. Scabbers escapes and runs off, with Crookshanks in hot pursuit. Ron takes off after Scabbers. Harry and Hermione fling off the cloak and chase after him. Ron catches Scabbers, but before they can get under the cloak again, a black dog appears, knocking Harry aside and grabbing Ron. Something strikes Harry's face as the dog drags Ron under the Whomping Willow, breaking Ron's leg as he is dragged through a hole.
Crookshanks dives under the branches and presses his paws against a knot in the tree trunk. The flailing branches fall still; following Ron and the black dog, Harry and Hermione enter a tunnel that leads to the Shrieking Shack. Upstairs, Ron is lying beside a decrepit four-poster bed. He warns them it is a trap; the dog is Sirius Black, an Animagus. Black disarms Harry and Hermione with Ron's wand.
Sirius remarks he is glad Harry acted like his father, coming to save his friend rather than running for a teacher; that will make things easier. Ron says that if Black is going to kill Harry, he will have to kill them all, but Black tells him to lie down so he does not injure his leg further. There will only be one murder tonight. Harry demands to know if killing twelve Muggles plus Peter Pettigrew were not enough and lunges at the visibly weakened Black, grabbing his wand wrist. Black chokes Harry with his free hand. Hermione kicks Black while Ron grabs his wand hand. Harry breaks away and as he grabs his wand, Crookshanks claws his hand. Defenseless, Black asks if Harry is going to kill him. Harry tells Black he knows that he betrayed his parents to Voldemort. Black admits he was responsible but says there is more to the story. While Harry decides whether or not to hear him out, Crookshanks deliberately sits on Black's chest, resisting Black's efforts to shift him off.
Professor Lupin suddenly bursts in and disarms Harry, Ron and Hermione. He asks Black, "Where is he?" and Black points at Ron. Lupin asks, "Why hasn't he shown himself? Unless...you switched...and didn't tell me?" Black nods. Lupin pulls Black to his feet, embracing him. Hermione, sounding betrayed, tells Lupin that she trusted him and protected his secret that he is is a werewolf. Lupin admits that he is, but that he has not been helping Black, nor does he want Harry dead. The Hogwarts staff knows he is a werewolf; Professor Dumbledore convinced them he was trustworthy. Professor Snape set the werewolf assignment with the expectation that a student would detect Lupin and give away his secret.
When challenged by Harry that he was helping Black, Lupin denies it, and returns the Trio's wands, placing his own wand in his belt. He then asks the Trio to listen, as they now hold the advantage. Lupin explains he saw Black on the Marauder's Map, a map he helped create when he was a student. He is "Moony." When he saw the three returning from Hagrid's on the map, he saw someone else - Sirius Black. He also one other. He asks Ron's to hand over Scabbers, who Lupin and Black claim is actually a wizard Animagus named Peter Pettigrew.
[edit] Analysis
Harry is shocked by Lupin's apparent betrayal, and, overwhelmed by extreme emotions, is thinking and reacting illogically. He initially wants to execute Black, who even admits he was responsible for the Potters' deaths, although Black's demeanor and concern over Ron's injury belies his supposedly murderous intent. However, nothing is as it seems, and Lupin's timely and surprising arrival prevents Harry from inflicting any serious harm to Sirius, although it is doubtful whether Harry would intentionally kill him. His underlying humanity ultimately prohibits him from committing violence. Only after Harry has been forced to calm down is he willing to hear out Lupin, although his explanation that Scabbers is actually an Animagus wizard seems incredible.
Hermione is also feeling betrayed by Lupin, having trusted him and protected his secret. If Lupin is lying and was actually aiding Black, by remaining silent, Hermione may have unwittingly doomed Harry. Lupin, of course, has denied this, but given what we have been told about Sirius to date, we are having as hard a time believing this as Hermione, Harry, and Ron are.
Now that we know that Sirius' Animagus form is a large black dog, we may also wonder if he was the dog that Harry had seen in Privet Drive and in the Quidditch match against Hufflepuff, that he took for a Grim. If he was, and the author's economical writing style would seem to imply that, what was Sirius interested in if he was not in fact planning to murder Harry?
[edit] Questions
[edit] Review
- What does Black mean when he says he is glad Harry acted like his father?
- Why did Hermione never reveal Lupin's secret? How did she figure it out?
- What did Lupin, Pettigrew, and Black keep secret about themselves? Why?
- Lupin knew Black and Pettigrew were in the Shrieking Shack by using the Marauder's Map. How could he know how to use it?
[edit] Further Study
- Why would Crookshanks attack Harry when he reaches for his wand?
- How does Crookshanks know how to still the Whomping Willow?
- What might Lupin mean when he asks if Black "switched?"
[edit] Greater Picture
As is usual in the Potter books, the end of the book contains a series of revelations that explain much of what has gone before, but leave questions open for the future. In this book, we are faced with a significant number of revelations, so we cannot get everything wrapped up in a single chapter. The story-closing revelations thus span three chapters, and the resulting activities on the part of the principals take three more. The necessary revelations appear so densely that these final six chapters, about one third of the 22-chapter book, actually cover only about four hours of the school year.
In this chapter, we have learned that Sirius does not intend to murder Harry, as we had been led to believe, although we still doubt this; that Lupin does not believe Sirius has evil intent towards Harry; that Lupin is a werewolf and that Hermione knew this; and that Peter Pettigrew, who we had thought long dead, is actually still alive in the form of Scabbers. We also learn that Lupin, under his nickname Moony, was one of the Marauders, leading us to believe that possibly Sirius, Harry's father, and Pettigrew were the other three. At this point, we can see that things are not as we had been led to believe, but we are not yet sure what the truth is. Over the next two chapters, we will be given corroboration, not only by Sirius and Lupin, but also inadvertently by Snape, that Sirius is, in fact, blameless of the crime for which he was imprisoned, and that Sirius feels responsible for Harry's parents' deaths, though he did not betray them. We will also receive proof, in the form of Pettigrew being forced to take his human shape, that Sirius' murder of Pettigrew had not happened.
We learned, back at Christmas, that Sirius was Harry's godfather. Sirius has retained affection for Harry, and has been trying to see how Harry had grown up while he was imprisoned. Sirius will tell us later that he had visited Privet Drive to see Harry, and had been present at the Quidditch match to see how well he could fly.
