Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Books/Prisoner of Azkaban/Chapter 3
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Chapter 3 of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: The Knight Bus
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[edit] Synopsis
Harry finds himself, with his possessions but no Muggle money, on a dark deserted street. Fearing Ministry officials are searching for him and will expel him from the Wizarding community, Harry figures that using more magic could not worsen his situation. He intends to magically lighten his trunk, and, hidden under his Invisibility cloak, fly to London on his broom to retrieve his Wizarding fortune from Gringotts. While rummaging through his trunk, he has an uneasy feeling eyes are upon him. Flashing his wand-light at a dark corner, he sees a huge dog; recoiling, he trips over his trunk and falls into the street. He is almost run over by a purple triple-decker bus that suddenly appears from nowhere.
A conductor in an equally purple outfit hops out and introduces himself as Stan Shunpike, conductor for the Knight Bus. Only after he partially gets through his spiel does Stan realize that the person who "flagged" the bus is lying on the ground. Helping him up, Stan asks Harry his name. Figuring he is by now a wanted fugitive, Harry identifies himself as his Hogwarts' classmate, Neville Longbottom. Stan tells him the Knight Bus will take him to London for eleven sickles; for thirteen, he gets hot chocolate, and for fifteen, a hot water bottle and a toothbrush. Harry climbs on board, while Ernie, the driver, manhandles his trunk into the bus. Inside, the bus is furnished with four-poster beds rather than chairs.
The ride is very bumpy, and Harry is unable to sleep. Stan is reading The Daily Prophet. On the front page, Harry sees a picture of Sirius Black, the same fugitive that was on Muggle TV. The story says Black killed thirteen people with a single curse, and it is believed he was a strong supporter of Voldemort.
The Knight Bus arrives at The Leaky Cauldron the next morning—Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge greets Harry. Stan Shunpike is astounded that Fudge wants to talk to his passenger and that he addresses him as "Harry". Stan is in awe of "The Boy Who Lived". Fudge escorts Harry to a private parlor in the Leaky Cauldron and informs him that his Aunt Marge has been punctured and her memory altered. He also says that his Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia are willing to take him back next summer if he stays at Hogwarts for Christmas and Easter. And, most puzzling, given what happened when Dobby the house elf used magic at his home last year, Harry learns there will be no consequences for having performed under-age wizardry.
Harry is to stay at the Leaky Cauldron until school starts, and Fudge requests that he confine his travels to within Diagon Alley and to not venture into Muggle London. Harry asks Fudge if he will sign his Hogsmeade permission slip, but Fudge seems very disconcerted by this and refuses. Harry finds Hedwig inside his room, where he promptly falls asleep.
[edit] Analysis
Harry, thrown into a panic, is thinking and acting irrationally, and, in what becomes a typical behavioral pattern, packs his trunk and runs away. Although his reaction is childish, he also knows from his own past experience the harsh penalty for using underage magic; he expects only the worst: expulsion from Hogwarts and having his wand snapped in two. His brief foray into the nighttime Muggle world is frightening, and however unhappy he was at the Dursleys, he was at least safe and comforted by knowing he would always return to Hogwarts. Now everything he holds dear seems to have vanished, and Harry is too used to unfair treatment to expect the incident to be resolved favorably. He is unsure what to do next, but decides his only option is to become an outcast living clandestinely on the wizarding world's fringe. Fortunately, his faulty plan is derailed by a scary large dog and the Knight Bus' timely arrival. Stan Shunpike, a rather comical and ineffectual character, represents Harry's lifeline back into the Wizarding world, although the return trip is bumpy, both literally and figuratively. Along the way, Harry learns about the escaped fugitive, Sirius Black, though he only briefly takes notice. It seems that Harry's concern and panicked reaction over the episode with Aunt Marge was unnecessary— Fudge, surprisingly, brushes off the entire incident and arranges for Harry to stay in Diagon Alley until school starts.
As a minor aside, there is a small numerical discrepancy here. Harry's birthday, and the start of Aunt Marge's visit, fall on the 31st of July; Aunt Marge's visit is only one week long, and Harry leaves on her last night there, which should be August 6. The next day, Fudge twice remarks that Harry will be staying in the Leaky Cauldron for the last two weeks of his vacation; but if school starts on 1 September, Harry's stay in the Leaky Cauldron should be closer to three and a half weeks rather than two.
[edit] Questions
[edit] Review
- What does Harry see when he is on the dark street?
- What is the Knight Bus and how did it know where to find Harry?
[edit] Further Study
- Why does Fudge brush off the incident involving Harry's aunt?
- Why would Fudge refuse to sign Harry's permission slip?
[edit] Greater Picture
Throughout the year, Harry repeatedly sees the same black dog that he observed moments before accidentally hailing the Knight Bus. At first, he believes it is the Grim, a magical creature believed to be an omen of death. The first few times Harry sees it, he finds himself in a possible mortal situation. However, before one Quidditch match, he sees Crookshanks and the dog together, which reassures him that the canine cannot be supernatural. Ironically, although Harry initially considered it a death omen, the dog's first appearance actually aids Harry by causing him to stumble backwards and raising his wand arm, thus hailing the Knight Bus that carries him to safety. Harry finally learns that the dog is actually Sirius Black, who is an Animagus (a wizard that can transform himself into an animal), and the reason they have continually encountered each other is because Sirius wants to see Harry, who is his godson.
At this point in the story, Harry is still a hero: "The Boy Who Lived," who is widely believed to have been the reason for the downfall of Voldemort some twelve years earlier. As such, the fact that Fudge wants to be perceived as being "on Harry's side" is unsurprising. Add to that the belief in the Wizarding community at large that Sirius Black is (or was) Voldemort's right-hand man, and that he is trying to kill Harry, and we can quickly see that it would be political suicide for Fudge to be identified as the head of a government that had stripped the hero, Harry, of his only defences against Black. Mystifying as it may be for Harry, this forgiveness of his magical misbehaviour is the only course that the politically-driven Fudge can possibly follow.
By the same token, of course, Fudge can neither allow Harry out into London proper, or into Hogsmeade village, both places where he would be relatively unprotected from attacks by Black. It is a little surprising that Fudge waffles at the prospect of signing Harry's permission form; one would expect that he would have an excuse at the ready.
Stan Shunpike reappears throughout the series, although he remains a minor character. While he occasionally engages in petty mischief, Shunpike will represent how easily innocents can become the hapless pawns and scapegoats of a corrupt institution.
