☄Harry's History : Third Book
History: Harry's summer is yet again filled with boredom, this time at having all his belongings stashed once more in the closet he used to sleep in despite having homework over the holidays, and Ron's phone call didn't work out too well with yelling over the line "to be heard". But at least Hedwig got to fly at night and he snuck in doing his homework even on his birthday and for the first time he actually got presents delivered by owl. Ron - on vacation in Egypt with the family having won a Galleon drawing - sent him a Pocket Sneakoscope, Hermione sent him a Broomstick Servicing Kit, and Hagrid sent him a very dangerous and hungry book. There's also his usual school letter and included with it is a permission slip needing to be signed for admittance to Hogsmeade during the school year.
Later that morning there's something on the news briefly about a serial killer named Black having escaped from prison and then goes on to other news. Harry broaches the subject of getting his permission slip signed and uncle Vernon agrees but only if Harry agrees to keep to the made up story of going to St. Brutus's Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys while Aunt Marge is visiting. Even this deal is hard to keep what with her belittling Harry and revelling in the idea that they beat them at this school of his, but she tears the line one evening almost a week later when she begins to talk horribly about Harry's parents. Suddenly she's inflating like a balloon and floating just like one, while uncle Vernon attempts to keep her grounded Harry grabs his trunk and Hedwig's empty cage and leaves the house.
A few blocks later Harry stops to figure out how to do things now that he's left the house and finds himself staring at the shadow of a very huge dog. Backpedalling he falls over his trunk, his wand arm is flung out, and a double decker bus appears with a loud crack in the night. It's a Knight Bus dedicated to the service of witches and wizards in need of transportation, they get Harry - who introduces himself as Neville Longbottom - loaded up and continue on their route, the bus worming its way through tight traffic at incredible speeds. Harry sees Black's picture on The Daily Prophet, apparently Sirius Black is a wizard escaped from Azkaban and a secret supporter of Voldemort. The bus takes Harry to Diagon Alley where he is met by the Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge who blows Harry's cover but takes him into The Leaky Cauldron before the bus staff can make much fuss, insisting that Harry stay there until school starts. Well, that and Aunt Marge has been returned to her normal state and her memory modified but Harry won't be punished at all despite having performed magic underaged.
While in Diagon Alley, Harry finished up his homework, drooled over the new Firebolt broomstick, purchased his needed school supplies, and eventually ran into Ron and Hermione. Hermione has a lot of books seeing as she signed up for a ton of classes this term and wants to pick out an owl, she winds up instead with an orange cat named Crookshanks who has his eye on Ron's rat Scabbers it seems. Back at the Cauldron, Mr. Weasley informs Harry that Sirius Black is probably after Harry seeing as he was a supporter of Voldemort and he needs to be extra careful this year and not go looking for Black. The next morning they all leave for the train in cars provided by the Ministry of Magic for Harry's safety, get on the train and find themselves sitting with a sleeping Professor Remus J. Lupin; a lucky thing seeing as Draco and his goons move on after being told he's there.
The rest of the train ride goes on alright until it suddenly stops and the lights go off for no reason that the students can tell, Ginny and Neville join them as the Professor wakes up. As he goes to see what's up the compartment gets really cold with the appearance of a huge, cloaked figure in the cabin, Harry faints and as he does he hears a woman screaming. When he's awoken a short while later Professor Lupin gives him some chocolate informing everyone that it was a Dementor, a prison guard at Azkaban. Once at the school Malfoy takes great pleasure in hearing that Harry fainted but before they can do anything Harry and Hermione are called out by the head of their House, Professor McGonagall. Madam Pompfrey (the school nurse) sees to Harry while McGonagall has a word with Hermione, then all three head to the Great Hall to find the Sorting done. Headmaster Dumbledore gives his welcome speech, telling them that Dementors will be at school entrances for safety's sake, Professor Lupin is taking over Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Hagrid is now taking up Care of Magical Creatures.
The first class of the new semester is Divination, which is at the tallest tower in the school and takes forever to get to, it doesn't help they also get lost on the way but are helped by an odd portrait knight. Once there they meet Professor Trelawney - a crazy looking lady - who makes some predictions about the class: in February there will be a flu epidemic and she'll lose her own voice temporarily and around Easter one of them will leave. The lesson continues with reading the remains left in their tea cups and Harry apparently has the Grim when Professor Trelawney reads it, the omen of death. But when they reach Transfiguration with Professor McGonagall she informs them that Professor Trelawney predicts a death every year and it always fails to come true. Harry, however, is reminded of the great black dog he saw before he boarded the Knight Bus.
Later in Care of Magical Creatures, Hagrid leads them all out into the forest and informs them they can open their vicious books by stroking the spine of the book, that way it won't try to tear them apart. The creature they first learn about is called a hippogriff, an almost horse-like creature with wings and a feathered body, its head is that of a bird of prey and it has claws for the front feet. Harry volunteers to be the first to try and greet one of the big and dangerous creatures, bowing and keeping eye contact, barely blinking, and Buckbeak - the hippogriff he's trying this on - returns the bow, allowing Harry to touch him. But as soon as he's allowed to touch the creature, Hagrid lifts him up on its back and slaps its rump, sending Buckbeak up into the sky for a short ride. Once he lands again the rest of the class goes up to the other hippogriffs to try the same, except Malfoy and his lot go up to Buckbeak and gets too close without bowing.
Buckbeak scratches Malfoy's forearm and the Slytherin boy overreacts in his panic and pain, leaving Hagrid to take him off to the infirmary. Hagrid gets in a wee bit of trouble because of it, but doesn't get fired and Malfoy keeps overreacting with the "pain" of his injury. In Potions Malfoy complains he can't do some of his work because of it and Snape orders Ron and Harry to do it for him. After the class the boys think Hermione is behind them but she suddenly appears a little bit ahead of them and her bag bursts, there are books in that bag for classes that they (Harry and Ron) don't have that afternoon. She goes on saying it's nothing but they're getting...suspicious.
Professor Lupin takes them for a short trip during their Dark Arts class, telling them they'll need only their wands and leads them to the staffroom where there's a wardrobe that suddenly shakes. He informs them that there's a boggart in there - a shape-shifter that changes to whatever one fears the most - and they're going to learn how to defeat it. First they have to change it into something that amuses them with the word Riddikulus and the laughter will destroy the boggart. Neville gets to face it first and the boggart turns into Professor Snape, yet with the charm said Snape is suddenly wearing Neville's grandmother's clothes. Everything goes fine as the rest of the class take turns facing the monster until it reaches Harry, he gets ready to face it but Professor Lupin steps in and it changes to a full moon and after he uses the charm, Neville faces it once more and then it explodes. Professor Lupin's classes quickly become everyone's favorites.
Soon enough Quidditch practice starts up and the first Hogsmeade visit approaches on Halloween, but Harry can't go seeing as uncle Vernon didn't sign the slip and Professor McGonagall won't sign it for him either. Hermione and Ron leave with the promise of bringing things back for him and Harry goes back to the common room, quickly leaves when faced with Colin Creevey, heads to the library but changes his mind and instead heads to Owelry when Professor Lupin spots him. After joining his professor Harry asks why he wasn't allowed to face the boggart, the older man says that he figured it would have taken Lord Voldemort's form but Harry tells him he hadn't thought of the Dark Lord at all. Instead he had thought of the dementors, which apparently is a very good thing, what Harry fears most is fear itself. Snape then comes in with a smoking goblet filled with a potion for Lupin to take for his health.
Later that evening when everyone returns from Hogsmeade there's a ruckus in front of the entrance to the Griffindor common room, the Fat Lady's (common room/dormitory's portrait guardian) portrait is slashed and she herself is gone. Apparently Sirius Black had found a way into the school and attempted to get in to get at Harry. The Fat Lady refuses to return to her portrait and instead the knight that Harry, Ron, and Hermione asked directions from (Sir Gadogan) gets put in charge of it, constantly challenging Griffindors to duels and changing the password. In an effort to try and keep track of them Neville starts to make a list of them and Harry is almost denied Quidditch practice rights for his safety until Professor McGonagall declares that Madam Hooch shall oversee them.
Professor Snape covers their next Dark Arts class, Professor Lupin being indisposed, and has them cover werewolves, asking for an essay on how one would identify and kill them, two rolls of parchment due by next class. The day of the first Quidditch match it's storming like crazy and they can barely see anything on the field. During a timeout Hermione uses a charm to keep the rain from messing up his glasses and it makes playing a little bit easier in the storm. The game against the Hufflepuffs continue and Harry spots the large, black dog in the stands, watching the game. Then several things happen at once, the Snitch flies by and while Harry goes after it Dementors close in, the last thing he knows is a woman pleading for someone to spare Harry's life until he wakes up in the infirmary with the Griffindor Quidditch team surrounding his bed with Ron and Hermione. They lost the match and Harry's broom - the Nimbus Two Thousand - is broken into pieces by none other than the Whomping Willow.
Once out of the infirmary Malfoy once again taunts Harry about the dementors which he ignores and they find Professor Lupin once more teaching Dark Arts and he tells them they don't have to do the essay that Snape assigned. He holds Harry back after class to talk about his broom and tells him that the Willow had been planted the year he had started at Hogwarts. And that the dementors affect Harry the way they do because he had seen horrors that others hadn't, if they feed on you long enough then all you're left with is something almost as soulless and evil as they. Harry asks Professor Lupin to teach him the spell used on the train to keep the dementors away, he doesn't want to hear those memories of Voldemort killing his mother, and Professor Lupin agrees.
Christmas rolls around and with it another Hogsmeade visit that Harry can't go to until Fred and George pull him aside after he sees Ron and Hermione off. They give him a parchment as an early Christmas present, a bespelled parchment that when tapped with a wand and "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good" is said it reveals a map showing the school grounds and where everyone is every moment of the day. It's a map they snitched out of Filch's office made by Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs, The Marauder's Map; the twins show him which paths to take to appear in Hogsmeade and remind him to wipe it clean with "Mischief managed" so no one else can read it. Harry follows the passage that leads to Honeydukes and after a long while climbs out, moving behind Ron and Hermione who are trying to decide what to get Harry.
Hermione - of course - wants Harry to turn it over to the teachers but Ron wonders why he hadn't gotten it. But because it's Christmas she lets it slide and they go on to enjoy what Hogsmeade has to offer students at Three Broomsticks, that is until they run into Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, and Hagrid followed by Cornelius Fudge, and the owner of Three Broomsticks, Rosmerta, joined them. Harry ducks down under the table the trio are sitting at so he won't be spotted and they all listen in on the conversation concerning Sirius Black. In that time they learn that Black was a friend of James Potter, as thick as thieves, Black was named Harry's godfather at his birth, and that he was their Secret Keeper of their home's location once Voldemort put out for their deaths. This was apparently even news to Hagrid who had comforted Black and used his motorcycle to take Harry to the Dursley's house because the giant raged at this information. Peter Pettigrew - Black and James' friend - confronted Black the next day about his betrayal, but was killed in front of a huge crowd of Muggles, blown to smithereens. Laughed at it all while covered and blood and some Muggle bodies lay nearby but when Fudge last visited Black in Azkaban he seemed almost normal. They all leave the pub a few moments later and Harry continues to sit under the table, shocked.
Somehow Harry gets back to the castle and has nightmares about the new information just learned and wakes at noon during the first day of holidays, the three of them soon after go to visit Hagrid after Harry promises them he won't go looking for Black. Once at Hagrid's they find that Buckbeak is going to have to have a hearing for the incident involving Malfoy and at once they all set out to the library to see if they can help Hagrid with previous cases similar in nature. Christmas finally comes and Harry finds a Firebolt left to him without a sender on the card, after some debate it's not from Dumbledore or Lupin...Hermione suspects that it might be from Black but before she can do anything Crookshanks goes after Scabbers again. The poor, old rat is looking rather horrible from the stress of being chased by the orange tom. However after dinner that night she does have Professor McGonagall take the broom to have it inspected for spells much to Ron and Harry's angry shock.
After the holidays Professor Lupin starts up Harry's lessons to learn how to defend against dementors using a boggart instead of the real thing, his lessons are filled with many failures of trying to get expecto patronum to work correctly. Harry's happy memories needed to fuel the charm are very few and aren't powerful enough, eventually he begins to hear his father's voice as well as the dementor!boggart brings more of his memories as a baby to the surface. When he mentions this to Professor Lupin, the older man mentions that he was friends with James (and Black after the lesson) back when he was a student. Finally Harry settles on the memory of finding out he was going to be a wizard and he could leave the Dursley's place, that memory lets him get a silvery wisp to hold the dementor!boggart off until Lupin uses the riddikulus charm.
While Harry continues with the lessons with Professor Lupin, Wood (Quidditch captain) has them practicing five nights a week and leaves Harry with one night to do his homework. The same kind of stress to do it all is getting to Hermione as well with all of her classes that she's got loaded up, leaving them once more to wonder how she's going to all of them. The Firebolt is still not in Harry's hands and his Patronus charm lessons are still just producing enough wisp to keep the "dementor" at bay but not enough to banish it so it still drains him. He asks what's under the hood one night and finds that they only lower it to deliver the Dementor's Kiss when the ghoul sucks out a person's soul. But when he leaves, Harry gets a surprise stopping in the hall by Professor McGonagall who returns his Firebolt to him, it had no spells.
Returning to the common room entrance Ron and Harry find Neville has lost his list of passwords and once they all go in and the Firebolt is passed around the room. Ron offers to take it up to their dorm and finds a bloody bed sheet covered in orange cat fur, Crookshanks - it seems - has finally gotten Scabbers or at least wounded the poor rat. It ruins Ron and Hermione's friendship for a while but it's pushed from Harry's mind with the first practice with the Firebolt that rides like a dream. The match with Ravenclaw comes up quickly after, giving Harry his first run in with their Seeker, Cho Chang, and he gets the first stirrings of puppy love. The match has her cutting in front of Harry a lot in order to distract him but he still manages to keep looking for the Snitch, only momentarily distracted by dementors down on the field.
Without thinking he uses the Patronus charm on them and something huge shoots out to attack them, Harry moves on and captures the golden ball to the cheers of his teammates and housemates. It turns out though that the "dementors" Harry fought off weren't really the real thing, they were just Draco and his goons dressed up to "scare" Harry. They get detention for it and fifty points removed from their house points but the Griffindors head back to their common room to celebrate into the wee hours of the morning before Professor McGonagall finally breaks them up. Harry has odd dreams when he finally sleeps and is woken by Ron's screaming that he saw Sirius Black with a knife in the room, swearing it wasn't a dream, and the loony knight confirms the story. Apparently Black had a list of passwords and read them off before striking upon the right one, which gets Neville in trouble for writing them down in the first place.
The next day security in the school is tightened and the Fat Lady is returned as their dorm's guardian with guards of her own, great trolls. Neville was given detention, banned from future Hogsmeade visits, and denied the password and had to wait until someone came along to let him in; and if that wasn't bad enough he got a Howler from his grandmother to boot. Harry gets a letter himself, an invitation to tea from Hagrid though he has to wait for Hagrid to pick him up because of Black. They talk about Buckbeak's approaching hearing and of Hermione's loneliness at her friends not talking to her (first from the Firebolt and now from Scabbers), the stress of all that she's taken on in classes, yet still finds time to help Hagrid. The boys feel a little bit guilty but the feeling fades as soon as Hermione says that if Harry uses the map next time there's a Hogsmeade trip she'll tell on him.
But the next trip rolls around and Harry decides to use the Invisibility Cloak yet has trouble even getting to do it as he runs into Neville and then Snape. Eventually he gets to Hogsmeade and Ron, making a trip to Zonko's Joke Shop, then to the Shrieking Shack - the most haunted place in Britain apparently - and run into Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle. They begin to taunt Ron who appears to be alone and Harry uses the opportunity to throw mud first at Draco and then his goons but when one of them falls they land on Harry's Cloak and his head appears without a body. They set off running and screaming, Harry hurries back to the school himself to keep them from blowing his cover but still gets caught by Snape. In the Potions master's office Snape begins to say that Harry is just like his father, strutting around the place with a big head.
Harry gets as angry as he had that night he blew Aunt Marge up and tells his professor to shut up, he hated James Potter simply because he saved Snape's life. However, Snape tells him that it was a joke that James and his friends had set up that could have killed Snape and James changed his mind last minute, saving him and keeping himself from being expelled from Hogwarts. He has Harry turn out his pockets, a Zonko's bag (which Harry claims Ron gave to him before this trip) and the map (plain parchment at the moment) get placed on the table. When Harry stops him from throwing it in the fire Snape uses his wand to command it to show its secrets. Words appear on the parchment from Messrs. Moony, Prongs, Padfoot, and Wormtail, each of them writing very...nasty things about Snape and bidding him to mind his business.
Infuriated Snape calls Lupin to his office and shows him the map, saying it's full of Dark Magic - the area of his expertise - and asks if Lupin thinks Harry got it from the source. But Lupin and Ron, who comes in his office saying everything was from Zonko's ages ago, say that it's nothing more than a joke parchment and the three of them leave Snape's office. And while he can't give the map back, Lupin warns him against using such things again to leave the school, the makers of the map (whom he met) would have wanted to lure him out for their enjoyment. He sends them off to their dorm and they run into Hermione in tears, Buckbeak is going to be executed, there will be an appeal and Ron offers to help her with it. They make up for the fighting they've been doing and just in time for the coming events.
Malfoy and his goons are laughing as Hagrid goes off in tears after telling them what happened at the hearing, Hermione goes right up to him and slaps him, but she suddenly disappears right before they're scheduled for Charms. Afterward they find her in the Griffindor common room sound asleep though she had intended to go to Charms, she goes to see the professor and joins them for Divination. They're starting on crystal ball gazing and see nothing but fog, however Trelawney sees the Grim and is interrupted by the disbelieving Hermione. Hermione then leaves the class and thus one of Trelawney's predictions in the beginning of the school year comes true; one of their number leaves them around Easter.
The Easter Holiday itself is filled with nothing but homework, Hermione overworking herself with all her classes, Ron taking over looking for information for Buckbeak's appeal, and Harry trying to do homework between Quidditch practice. Relations between Griffindors and Slytherins were the worst right before the last match of the season, leading to fights in the hall, and Harry himself got nightmares. He woke up the day of the match and looked out the window, spying Crookshanks in company with the giant, black dog he had seen constantly. He wakes Ron but before the redhead wakes up the duo are gone and Ron has...fallen back to sleep.
The match itself is filled with Slytherin purposely running into Chasers, and then the Slytherin Beaters aiming to smash Harry between them though he quickly escapes last minute on his speedy Firebolt. They then go after the Keeper, and Griffindor keeps getting penalty goal after penalty goal for all of these dirty plays being pulled on them. Even Malfoy sticks to Harry long enough to catch the end of his broomstick and keep him from grabbing the Snitch, however Harry does stop them from blocking a Chaser from scoring. Finally the Snitch is spotted and Malfoy's already heading after it but on the Firebolt Harry streaks towards it and catches it after knocking Draco's hand out of the way. His teammates surrounded him as the whole Griffindor house yelled in joy for winning the Quidditch Cup.
But after the joy fades up comes exams and no one is more stressed out than Percy (aiming for top grades to get into the Ministry) and Hermione (with all their classes). Even in this time comes news of Buckbeak's appeal set for the day their exams are finished, and after the second to last exam Cornelius Fudge appears to get ready for the appeal. The axe is all ready to be dropped despite not having yet had the appeal but they can't do anything about it as Ron and Harry head off to Divination exams and Hermione to Muggle Studies. As Harry leaves after attempting to see things in the crystal ball and fails, Professor Trelawney goes into a trance, saying in a voice not her own that it will happen tonight. Tonight before midnight a follower of Lord Voldemort will break free and return to his master, who will rise again with his servant's aid greater than he was before.
However when Trelawney breaks out of this trance she simply thinks she's fallen asleep, Harry tells Ron about this or attempts to as he's interrupted with the news that Hagrid lost the appeal. Hermione goes to get the left behind Invisibility Cloak from the statue - Harry left it there when he got caught by Snape - and they head down to Hagrid's hut before sunset. They all want to stay with Hagrid during the execution but Hagrid wants them back to the castle, further talk of this is disrupted with the discovery of Scabbers in Hagrid's hut, safe and sound. Still they leave out the back way and just before they reach the castle Scabbers starts scrambling to get free, and they're too late to escape hearing the thud of the axe hit.
As they try to continue to the castle Scabbers attempts to escape again, having seen Crookshanks, and bites Ron in order to escape. Ron darts off out from under the Cloak to chase after the two pets and the other two are left to follow him, he manages to catch the rat and hide him in his pocket just as that large dog makes another appearance. But instead of going after Harry, the dog just uses him as a stepping stone, instead grabbing Ron's arm in its mouth and tugging him through the roots of the Whomping Willow breaking his leg as he pulls him through. For a while Harry and Hermione are delayed by the almost sentient tree swinging its limbs at them until Crookshanks gets to the trunk and pushes on a special knot on it. Suddenly the Whomping Willow stills and they can make their way after Ron and the dog, Harry explaining to Hermione he's seen Crookshanks with the dog.
They find themselves in the Shrieking Shack once they climb through the passageway, a dusty and trashed house to find Ron upstairs with his leg at an awkward angle. It's all a trap of Sirius Black to get Harry in the shack, just like his father would have, and disarms them of their wands. He was the black dog the entire time, Sirius Black is an Animagus, a person who willingly changes into an animal unlike a werewolf who has no choice. Harry is hit with the urge to physically attack Sirius for killing his parents and lands a few hits before Sirius' free hand gets around the young teen's throat. Another scramble and Harry comes up with his wand, pointing it at the escaped prisoner. But Black asks that Harry listen to the whole story before the teen kills him for killing his parents.
But before Harry can make a decision Professor Lupin shows up and disarms his student of his wand and embraces the fugitive like a brother. All at once the trio erupt in anger, Harry the most having put the most trust in Lupin but finds that their professor was Black's friend and a werewolf to boot. Lupin hands back their wands and puts his own away as he explains that he knew Black was there because of the Marauder's Map, he knew how to use it because he was Messr. Moony. Watching them from his office, Lupin watched as they went to Hagrid's hut as three and left it as four but the fourth shouldn't have been there, should have be dead. He then watched as Black dragged Ron and the fourth to the willow and to the shack. Scabbers is another Animagus named Peter Pettigrew, which explains his long life.
Lupin was Moony, Black was Padfoot (dog), James was Prongs (stag), and Pettigrew was Wormtail (rat); and despite knowing that Black was around Lupin kept the fact he was an Animagus secret from Dumbledore. Snape thought Lupin's monthly disappearances were interesting and sought to follow him after finding he went to the Whomping Willow and seemed to disappear. So Sirius told Snape the knothole secret and Snape went to follow while Lupin was a werewolf but James stopped him after Snape caught but a glimpse of Lupin. Speak of the devil and he shall appear behind you, Snape pulls off the Invisibility Cloak Harry left outside the willow after having taken Lupin's potion to his quarters to find it empty and the Map showing where he was heading. He binds Lupin before he can try and talk sense into Snape for sending an innocent man back to Azkaban.
However as Snape makes to drag Black out to the willow to receive the Dementor's Kiss, Harry steps in front of the doorway, wanting to hear the story. But when Snape declines Harry disarms him and the blast actually sends him into a wall, knocked out. Black reveals how he knew Pettigrew was still alive, the picture of the Weasley family in Egypt over the summer, a rat missing a claw. Pettigrew had cut it off before he blew up the street and killed the Muggles, pinning the murders on Black. He faked his death then like he faked it back when Ron had discovered the bloodied sheets, Crookshanks knew Pettigrew and Black weren't what they appeared to be and attempted to help Black. But as Harry once more begins to accuse Black of being the one to kill his parents the real truth comes out about the Secret Keeper.
It was to have been Black, but he persuaded them to use Pettigrew instead, and the night of the murders he'd gone to Pettigrew's house to find it empty and void of a struggle. Pettigrew had "ratted" them out and ran away to the Dark Lord's side, leaving Black to hunt him down. Ron finally hands Scabbers over to Lupin and with Blacks help they reversed the charm on Scabbers, revealing a rather rat-like man who was none other than Peter Pettigrew. He tries to plead with everyone to spare him from being turned in but it's of no use at all and keeps trying to pin Black as a supporter of Voldemort. Tries to say that Black was a spy but it all gets turned back around on Pettigrew who was hiding all these years from Voldemort's true supporters who would punish him for staying hidden. It was no Dark Magic trick learned from Voldemort that got Black out of Azkaban like Pettigrew tries to get them to believe but simply Black turning into his Animagus form and walking out, dementors couldn't tell he was there.
But even as Black and Lupin make to kill Pettigrew Harry gets in front, saying instead that it would be better to let the dementors in Azkaban have him. Simply because his father wouldn't have wanted Black and Lupin to become killers. They tie up Pettigrew, bind Ron's broken leg, levitate Snape's unconscious body, and chain Pettigrew to Lupin and Ron so there will be no escape. On the way back to the surface Black tells Harry that his parents made him his guardian should anything happen to them and that Harry can move in with him, leave the Dursley's for good. But as soon as they get out from under the willow the moonlight decides to make an appearance, a full moon. Lupin transforms and without his potion he's not at all tame like he had been for the whole school year, and as soon as he's transformed Black tackles him to keep him from attacking the others. Pettigrew, now free, grabs a dropped wand and transforms himself back into a rat, Ron knocked out.
Hermione and Harry run after the sound of a wounded dog, Lupin and Black having disappeared, and find him in his human form along a lake shore, surrounded by dementors. Desperately he tries to perform the Patronus charm and tries to get Hermione to do it as well, but all he can do is produce a wisp and watches helplessly as a dementor pulls back its hood. It began to suck out his soul as it performed the kiss but suddenly a bright light and a warmth covers the area, banishing the dementors. Harry's last conscious view is that of a bright animal standing next to someone who was vaguely familiar patting it, a unicorn or something, and then he knew no more until he awoke in the infirmary. It was Snape delivering some bullshit story to Fudge about the night's events, saying that the trio were under some spell of Black's, confunded.
Dumbledore comes along to hear their story, though Snape tries to convince him that they've been confunded as well as he has Fudge believing the story. Once alone with them, however, Dumbledore tells them that he does believe the story told to him by Black but there's nothing to be done with the evidence against him, Pettigrew gone and Lupin stuck as a werewolf for the night. Though Dumbledore says something that sets off a lightbulb in Hermione's head and he reminds her that they mustn't be seen, they can save more than one innocent life tonight, and three turns should do it. Hermione beckons Harry over and throws a golden chain around his neck as well as her own, pulling out a small hourglass, and gives it three turns. Time around them blurs and it's suddenly a few minutes before sunset and they hear themselves walking out to Hagrid's hut under the Invisibility Cloak. Hermione tells Harry that the hourglass is a Time-Turner, it's how she's been getting to all her classes and disappearing in halls.
Their first stop is to Hagrid's hut to rescue Buckbeak from his execution, they watch themselves leave and as Dumbledore delays the proceedings they lead the hippogriff away. After that they wait until they see themselves chase after Ron and the animals in order to get to the Whomping Willow to have some idea of what's going on. Helplessly they watch as Dumbledore, Fudge, and the executioner enter the castle just as they themselves have gone into the willow, soon followed by Lupin. Hagrid makes his drunken way up to the school and Snape heads out to the willow, picking up Harry's cloak; while they wait for everyone to exit again Hermione asks if Harry remembers who cast the Patronus. It wasn't a teacher and Harry thinks that it was his father, despite the man having been dead for so long, if Pettigrew could return, why not he?
Soon enough everyone exits the willow and Lupin begins to transform, heading straight for where Hermione and Harry are hiding with Buckbeak. They head back to Hagrid's empty hut and hide in there with Fang for a few moments and when Harry checks on what's happening he sees the dementors circling the lake. He races down there in hopes of catching sight of whomever cast the Patronus charm but they don't appear until it clicks that Harry hadn't seen his father, he had seen himself. Yelling out the charm the stag appears and chases away the dementors and as soon as it reached his side once more he realized what his father's Animagus form was, "prongs" stood for the antlers the stag had. Hermione joins him with Buckbeak in tow and they watch as Snape floats all the unconscious bodies to the castle.
When they see Macnair (the executioner) leave the castle to fetch the dementors to perform the kiss they move, getting on Buckbeak's back to fly up to the tower where they're keeping Sirius. Once there they knock on the glass to get his attention and trade places with Harry's godfather who flies off on the innocent hippogriff to freedom. They hurry back to the infirmary, barely escaping being seen by Snape and Fudge, getting caught by Peeves the Poltergeist, and run into Dumbledore locking their past selves in. He waits until they've gone and then locks the now Hermione and Harry in the infirmary as well to cement the story that they couldn't have done anything to aid in Sirius' escape locked in there. Madam Pomfrey comes out to take charge of her patients once more and moments later Snape barges in in a furious rage. But Dumbledore coolly defuses the situation and gets Fudge to remove the dementors from the school as Ron wakes up, Harry leaves Hermione to explain what happened once they're all alone again.
When they leave the ward the next day it's to an almost deserted castle with most of the occupants in Hogsmeade to enjoy the end of exams. Instead of joining everyone else they wander the grounds and come upon an ecstatic Hagrid who's still celebrating Buckbeak's "clever escaping skills" and get news of Lupin packing his bags up, having resigned from his post. Harry races to Professor Lupin's office to indeed find him packing up in order to get ready to leave but asks Harry what form his Patronus took, confirming that James' Animagus form was that of a stag. He returns Harry's Invisibility Cloak and the Marauder's Map without qualms since he's no longer Harry's teacher and leaves. Dumbledore, having informed Lupin the carriage was there, tells Harry that he made a difference in it all even if Pettigrew got away: the truth was revealed and an innocent man's life was spared, not to mention an innocent hippogriff's.
It's then that Harry recalls Professor Trelawney's prediction and tells the Headmaster of it and Dumbledore lets it slip that it brings her real predictions up to two. Pettigrew now owes Harry for saving his life, something that now forms a bond between them and is certain to anger Lord Voldemort for having a servant in debt to his mortal enemy. James would have saved Pettigrew from death as well, if it had been he in Harry's shoes, and he still lives on through Harry in the way he outwardly resembles his father and his Patronus' form of a stag. No one at all knew of what had happened the night before, only that Buckbeak had some how escaped and there was speculation as to what kind of teacher they'd get next year for Defense Against the Dark Arts, perhaps a vampire?
Hermione drops Muggle Studies and turns in her Time-Turner to have a normal schedule once more, Gryffindor had once more won the House Cup, and Ron invites both Harry and Hermione to the Quidditch World Cup over the summer. On the train ride back they notice a very small owl trying to keep pace and get into their compartment, window opened the small thing flies in and delivers a letter from Sirius. In the letter he tells Harry that the Firebolt was indeed from him, ordered in Harry's name but bought with Sirius' money, a signed permission slip for Harry to legally enter Hogsmeade next year, and Ron gets to keep the owl since Sirius robbed him of Scabbers. Harry takes glee in informing the Dursley's that he has a godfather that's a convicted murderer that will be checking in on him periodically to make sure he's doing alright. Maybe the best summer yet, this time around~
Later that morning there's something on the news briefly about a serial killer named Black having escaped from prison and then goes on to other news. Harry broaches the subject of getting his permission slip signed and uncle Vernon agrees but only if Harry agrees to keep to the made up story of going to St. Brutus's Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys while Aunt Marge is visiting. Even this deal is hard to keep what with her belittling Harry and revelling in the idea that they beat them at this school of his, but she tears the line one evening almost a week later when she begins to talk horribly about Harry's parents. Suddenly she's inflating like a balloon and floating just like one, while uncle Vernon attempts to keep her grounded Harry grabs his trunk and Hedwig's empty cage and leaves the house.
A few blocks later Harry stops to figure out how to do things now that he's left the house and finds himself staring at the shadow of a very huge dog. Backpedalling he falls over his trunk, his wand arm is flung out, and a double decker bus appears with a loud crack in the night. It's a Knight Bus dedicated to the service of witches and wizards in need of transportation, they get Harry - who introduces himself as Neville Longbottom - loaded up and continue on their route, the bus worming its way through tight traffic at incredible speeds. Harry sees Black's picture on The Daily Prophet, apparently Sirius Black is a wizard escaped from Azkaban and a secret supporter of Voldemort. The bus takes Harry to Diagon Alley where he is met by the Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge who blows Harry's cover but takes him into The Leaky Cauldron before the bus staff can make much fuss, insisting that Harry stay there until school starts. Well, that and Aunt Marge has been returned to her normal state and her memory modified but Harry won't be punished at all despite having performed magic underaged.
While in Diagon Alley, Harry finished up his homework, drooled over the new Firebolt broomstick, purchased his needed school supplies, and eventually ran into Ron and Hermione. Hermione has a lot of books seeing as she signed up for a ton of classes this term and wants to pick out an owl, she winds up instead with an orange cat named Crookshanks who has his eye on Ron's rat Scabbers it seems. Back at the Cauldron, Mr. Weasley informs Harry that Sirius Black is probably after Harry seeing as he was a supporter of Voldemort and he needs to be extra careful this year and not go looking for Black. The next morning they all leave for the train in cars provided by the Ministry of Magic for Harry's safety, get on the train and find themselves sitting with a sleeping Professor Remus J. Lupin; a lucky thing seeing as Draco and his goons move on after being told he's there.
The rest of the train ride goes on alright until it suddenly stops and the lights go off for no reason that the students can tell, Ginny and Neville join them as the Professor wakes up. As he goes to see what's up the compartment gets really cold with the appearance of a huge, cloaked figure in the cabin, Harry faints and as he does he hears a woman screaming. When he's awoken a short while later Professor Lupin gives him some chocolate informing everyone that it was a Dementor, a prison guard at Azkaban. Once at the school Malfoy takes great pleasure in hearing that Harry fainted but before they can do anything Harry and Hermione are called out by the head of their House, Professor McGonagall. Madam Pompfrey (the school nurse) sees to Harry while McGonagall has a word with Hermione, then all three head to the Great Hall to find the Sorting done. Headmaster Dumbledore gives his welcome speech, telling them that Dementors will be at school entrances for safety's sake, Professor Lupin is taking over Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Hagrid is now taking up Care of Magical Creatures.
The first class of the new semester is Divination, which is at the tallest tower in the school and takes forever to get to, it doesn't help they also get lost on the way but are helped by an odd portrait knight. Once there they meet Professor Trelawney - a crazy looking lady - who makes some predictions about the class: in February there will be a flu epidemic and she'll lose her own voice temporarily and around Easter one of them will leave. The lesson continues with reading the remains left in their tea cups and Harry apparently has the Grim when Professor Trelawney reads it, the omen of death. But when they reach Transfiguration with Professor McGonagall she informs them that Professor Trelawney predicts a death every year and it always fails to come true. Harry, however, is reminded of the great black dog he saw before he boarded the Knight Bus.
Later in Care of Magical Creatures, Hagrid leads them all out into the forest and informs them they can open their vicious books by stroking the spine of the book, that way it won't try to tear them apart. The creature they first learn about is called a hippogriff, an almost horse-like creature with wings and a feathered body, its head is that of a bird of prey and it has claws for the front feet. Harry volunteers to be the first to try and greet one of the big and dangerous creatures, bowing and keeping eye contact, barely blinking, and Buckbeak - the hippogriff he's trying this on - returns the bow, allowing Harry to touch him. But as soon as he's allowed to touch the creature, Hagrid lifts him up on its back and slaps its rump, sending Buckbeak up into the sky for a short ride. Once he lands again the rest of the class goes up to the other hippogriffs to try the same, except Malfoy and his lot go up to Buckbeak and gets too close without bowing.
Buckbeak scratches Malfoy's forearm and the Slytherin boy overreacts in his panic and pain, leaving Hagrid to take him off to the infirmary. Hagrid gets in a wee bit of trouble because of it, but doesn't get fired and Malfoy keeps overreacting with the "pain" of his injury. In Potions Malfoy complains he can't do some of his work because of it and Snape orders Ron and Harry to do it for him. After the class the boys think Hermione is behind them but she suddenly appears a little bit ahead of them and her bag bursts, there are books in that bag for classes that they (Harry and Ron) don't have that afternoon. She goes on saying it's nothing but they're getting...suspicious.
Professor Lupin takes them for a short trip during their Dark Arts class, telling them they'll need only their wands and leads them to the staffroom where there's a wardrobe that suddenly shakes. He informs them that there's a boggart in there - a shape-shifter that changes to whatever one fears the most - and they're going to learn how to defeat it. First they have to change it into something that amuses them with the word Riddikulus and the laughter will destroy the boggart. Neville gets to face it first and the boggart turns into Professor Snape, yet with the charm said Snape is suddenly wearing Neville's grandmother's clothes. Everything goes fine as the rest of the class take turns facing the monster until it reaches Harry, he gets ready to face it but Professor Lupin steps in and it changes to a full moon and after he uses the charm, Neville faces it once more and then it explodes. Professor Lupin's classes quickly become everyone's favorites.
Soon enough Quidditch practice starts up and the first Hogsmeade visit approaches on Halloween, but Harry can't go seeing as uncle Vernon didn't sign the slip and Professor McGonagall won't sign it for him either. Hermione and Ron leave with the promise of bringing things back for him and Harry goes back to the common room, quickly leaves when faced with Colin Creevey, heads to the library but changes his mind and instead heads to Owelry when Professor Lupin spots him. After joining his professor Harry asks why he wasn't allowed to face the boggart, the older man says that he figured it would have taken Lord Voldemort's form but Harry tells him he hadn't thought of the Dark Lord at all. Instead he had thought of the dementors, which apparently is a very good thing, what Harry fears most is fear itself. Snape then comes in with a smoking goblet filled with a potion for Lupin to take for his health.
Later that evening when everyone returns from Hogsmeade there's a ruckus in front of the entrance to the Griffindor common room, the Fat Lady's (common room/dormitory's portrait guardian) portrait is slashed and she herself is gone. Apparently Sirius Black had found a way into the school and attempted to get in to get at Harry. The Fat Lady refuses to return to her portrait and instead the knight that Harry, Ron, and Hermione asked directions from (Sir Gadogan) gets put in charge of it, constantly challenging Griffindors to duels and changing the password. In an effort to try and keep track of them Neville starts to make a list of them and Harry is almost denied Quidditch practice rights for his safety until Professor McGonagall declares that Madam Hooch shall oversee them.
Professor Snape covers their next Dark Arts class, Professor Lupin being indisposed, and has them cover werewolves, asking for an essay on how one would identify and kill them, two rolls of parchment due by next class. The day of the first Quidditch match it's storming like crazy and they can barely see anything on the field. During a timeout Hermione uses a charm to keep the rain from messing up his glasses and it makes playing a little bit easier in the storm. The game against the Hufflepuffs continue and Harry spots the large, black dog in the stands, watching the game. Then several things happen at once, the Snitch flies by and while Harry goes after it Dementors close in, the last thing he knows is a woman pleading for someone to spare Harry's life until he wakes up in the infirmary with the Griffindor Quidditch team surrounding his bed with Ron and Hermione. They lost the match and Harry's broom - the Nimbus Two Thousand - is broken into pieces by none other than the Whomping Willow.
Once out of the infirmary Malfoy once again taunts Harry about the dementors which he ignores and they find Professor Lupin once more teaching Dark Arts and he tells them they don't have to do the essay that Snape assigned. He holds Harry back after class to talk about his broom and tells him that the Willow had been planted the year he had started at Hogwarts. And that the dementors affect Harry the way they do because he had seen horrors that others hadn't, if they feed on you long enough then all you're left with is something almost as soulless and evil as they. Harry asks Professor Lupin to teach him the spell used on the train to keep the dementors away, he doesn't want to hear those memories of Voldemort killing his mother, and Professor Lupin agrees.
Christmas rolls around and with it another Hogsmeade visit that Harry can't go to until Fred and George pull him aside after he sees Ron and Hermione off. They give him a parchment as an early Christmas present, a bespelled parchment that when tapped with a wand and "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good" is said it reveals a map showing the school grounds and where everyone is every moment of the day. It's a map they snitched out of Filch's office made by Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs, The Marauder's Map; the twins show him which paths to take to appear in Hogsmeade and remind him to wipe it clean with "Mischief managed" so no one else can read it. Harry follows the passage that leads to Honeydukes and after a long while climbs out, moving behind Ron and Hermione who are trying to decide what to get Harry.
Hermione - of course - wants Harry to turn it over to the teachers but Ron wonders why he hadn't gotten it. But because it's Christmas she lets it slide and they go on to enjoy what Hogsmeade has to offer students at Three Broomsticks, that is until they run into Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, and Hagrid followed by Cornelius Fudge, and the owner of Three Broomsticks, Rosmerta, joined them. Harry ducks down under the table the trio are sitting at so he won't be spotted and they all listen in on the conversation concerning Sirius Black. In that time they learn that Black was a friend of James Potter, as thick as thieves, Black was named Harry's godfather at his birth, and that he was their Secret Keeper of their home's location once Voldemort put out for their deaths. This was apparently even news to Hagrid who had comforted Black and used his motorcycle to take Harry to the Dursley's house because the giant raged at this information. Peter Pettigrew - Black and James' friend - confronted Black the next day about his betrayal, but was killed in front of a huge crowd of Muggles, blown to smithereens. Laughed at it all while covered and blood and some Muggle bodies lay nearby but when Fudge last visited Black in Azkaban he seemed almost normal. They all leave the pub a few moments later and Harry continues to sit under the table, shocked.
Somehow Harry gets back to the castle and has nightmares about the new information just learned and wakes at noon during the first day of holidays, the three of them soon after go to visit Hagrid after Harry promises them he won't go looking for Black. Once at Hagrid's they find that Buckbeak is going to have to have a hearing for the incident involving Malfoy and at once they all set out to the library to see if they can help Hagrid with previous cases similar in nature. Christmas finally comes and Harry finds a Firebolt left to him without a sender on the card, after some debate it's not from Dumbledore or Lupin...Hermione suspects that it might be from Black but before she can do anything Crookshanks goes after Scabbers again. The poor, old rat is looking rather horrible from the stress of being chased by the orange tom. However after dinner that night she does have Professor McGonagall take the broom to have it inspected for spells much to Ron and Harry's angry shock.
After the holidays Professor Lupin starts up Harry's lessons to learn how to defend against dementors using a boggart instead of the real thing, his lessons are filled with many failures of trying to get expecto patronum to work correctly. Harry's happy memories needed to fuel the charm are very few and aren't powerful enough, eventually he begins to hear his father's voice as well as the dementor!boggart brings more of his memories as a baby to the surface. When he mentions this to Professor Lupin, the older man mentions that he was friends with James (and Black after the lesson) back when he was a student. Finally Harry settles on the memory of finding out he was going to be a wizard and he could leave the Dursley's place, that memory lets him get a silvery wisp to hold the dementor!boggart off until Lupin uses the riddikulus charm.
While Harry continues with the lessons with Professor Lupin, Wood (Quidditch captain) has them practicing five nights a week and leaves Harry with one night to do his homework. The same kind of stress to do it all is getting to Hermione as well with all of her classes that she's got loaded up, leaving them once more to wonder how she's going to all of them. The Firebolt is still not in Harry's hands and his Patronus charm lessons are still just producing enough wisp to keep the "dementor" at bay but not enough to banish it so it still drains him. He asks what's under the hood one night and finds that they only lower it to deliver the Dementor's Kiss when the ghoul sucks out a person's soul. But when he leaves, Harry gets a surprise stopping in the hall by Professor McGonagall who returns his Firebolt to him, it had no spells.
Returning to the common room entrance Ron and Harry find Neville has lost his list of passwords and once they all go in and the Firebolt is passed around the room. Ron offers to take it up to their dorm and finds a bloody bed sheet covered in orange cat fur, Crookshanks - it seems - has finally gotten Scabbers or at least wounded the poor rat. It ruins Ron and Hermione's friendship for a while but it's pushed from Harry's mind with the first practice with the Firebolt that rides like a dream. The match with Ravenclaw comes up quickly after, giving Harry his first run in with their Seeker, Cho Chang, and he gets the first stirrings of puppy love. The match has her cutting in front of Harry a lot in order to distract him but he still manages to keep looking for the Snitch, only momentarily distracted by dementors down on the field.
Without thinking he uses the Patronus charm on them and something huge shoots out to attack them, Harry moves on and captures the golden ball to the cheers of his teammates and housemates. It turns out though that the "dementors" Harry fought off weren't really the real thing, they were just Draco and his goons dressed up to "scare" Harry. They get detention for it and fifty points removed from their house points but the Griffindors head back to their common room to celebrate into the wee hours of the morning before Professor McGonagall finally breaks them up. Harry has odd dreams when he finally sleeps and is woken by Ron's screaming that he saw Sirius Black with a knife in the room, swearing it wasn't a dream, and the loony knight confirms the story. Apparently Black had a list of passwords and read them off before striking upon the right one, which gets Neville in trouble for writing them down in the first place.
The next day security in the school is tightened and the Fat Lady is returned as their dorm's guardian with guards of her own, great trolls. Neville was given detention, banned from future Hogsmeade visits, and denied the password and had to wait until someone came along to let him in; and if that wasn't bad enough he got a Howler from his grandmother to boot. Harry gets a letter himself, an invitation to tea from Hagrid though he has to wait for Hagrid to pick him up because of Black. They talk about Buckbeak's approaching hearing and of Hermione's loneliness at her friends not talking to her (first from the Firebolt and now from Scabbers), the stress of all that she's taken on in classes, yet still finds time to help Hagrid. The boys feel a little bit guilty but the feeling fades as soon as Hermione says that if Harry uses the map next time there's a Hogsmeade trip she'll tell on him.
But the next trip rolls around and Harry decides to use the Invisibility Cloak yet has trouble even getting to do it as he runs into Neville and then Snape. Eventually he gets to Hogsmeade and Ron, making a trip to Zonko's Joke Shop, then to the Shrieking Shack - the most haunted place in Britain apparently - and run into Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle. They begin to taunt Ron who appears to be alone and Harry uses the opportunity to throw mud first at Draco and then his goons but when one of them falls they land on Harry's Cloak and his head appears without a body. They set off running and screaming, Harry hurries back to the school himself to keep them from blowing his cover but still gets caught by Snape. In the Potions master's office Snape begins to say that Harry is just like his father, strutting around the place with a big head.
Harry gets as angry as he had that night he blew Aunt Marge up and tells his professor to shut up, he hated James Potter simply because he saved Snape's life. However, Snape tells him that it was a joke that James and his friends had set up that could have killed Snape and James changed his mind last minute, saving him and keeping himself from being expelled from Hogwarts. He has Harry turn out his pockets, a Zonko's bag (which Harry claims Ron gave to him before this trip) and the map (plain parchment at the moment) get placed on the table. When Harry stops him from throwing it in the fire Snape uses his wand to command it to show its secrets. Words appear on the parchment from Messrs. Moony, Prongs, Padfoot, and Wormtail, each of them writing very...nasty things about Snape and bidding him to mind his business.
Infuriated Snape calls Lupin to his office and shows him the map, saying it's full of Dark Magic - the area of his expertise - and asks if Lupin thinks Harry got it from the source. But Lupin and Ron, who comes in his office saying everything was from Zonko's ages ago, say that it's nothing more than a joke parchment and the three of them leave Snape's office. And while he can't give the map back, Lupin warns him against using such things again to leave the school, the makers of the map (whom he met) would have wanted to lure him out for their enjoyment. He sends them off to their dorm and they run into Hermione in tears, Buckbeak is going to be executed, there will be an appeal and Ron offers to help her with it. They make up for the fighting they've been doing and just in time for the coming events.
Malfoy and his goons are laughing as Hagrid goes off in tears after telling them what happened at the hearing, Hermione goes right up to him and slaps him, but she suddenly disappears right before they're scheduled for Charms. Afterward they find her in the Griffindor common room sound asleep though she had intended to go to Charms, she goes to see the professor and joins them for Divination. They're starting on crystal ball gazing and see nothing but fog, however Trelawney sees the Grim and is interrupted by the disbelieving Hermione. Hermione then leaves the class and thus one of Trelawney's predictions in the beginning of the school year comes true; one of their number leaves them around Easter.
The Easter Holiday itself is filled with nothing but homework, Hermione overworking herself with all her classes, Ron taking over looking for information for Buckbeak's appeal, and Harry trying to do homework between Quidditch practice. Relations between Griffindors and Slytherins were the worst right before the last match of the season, leading to fights in the hall, and Harry himself got nightmares. He woke up the day of the match and looked out the window, spying Crookshanks in company with the giant, black dog he had seen constantly. He wakes Ron but before the redhead wakes up the duo are gone and Ron has...fallen back to sleep.
The match itself is filled with Slytherin purposely running into Chasers, and then the Slytherin Beaters aiming to smash Harry between them though he quickly escapes last minute on his speedy Firebolt. They then go after the Keeper, and Griffindor keeps getting penalty goal after penalty goal for all of these dirty plays being pulled on them. Even Malfoy sticks to Harry long enough to catch the end of his broomstick and keep him from grabbing the Snitch, however Harry does stop them from blocking a Chaser from scoring. Finally the Snitch is spotted and Malfoy's already heading after it but on the Firebolt Harry streaks towards it and catches it after knocking Draco's hand out of the way. His teammates surrounded him as the whole Griffindor house yelled in joy for winning the Quidditch Cup.
But after the joy fades up comes exams and no one is more stressed out than Percy (aiming for top grades to get into the Ministry) and Hermione (with all their classes). Even in this time comes news of Buckbeak's appeal set for the day their exams are finished, and after the second to last exam Cornelius Fudge appears to get ready for the appeal. The axe is all ready to be dropped despite not having yet had the appeal but they can't do anything about it as Ron and Harry head off to Divination exams and Hermione to Muggle Studies. As Harry leaves after attempting to see things in the crystal ball and fails, Professor Trelawney goes into a trance, saying in a voice not her own that it will happen tonight. Tonight before midnight a follower of Lord Voldemort will break free and return to his master, who will rise again with his servant's aid greater than he was before.
However when Trelawney breaks out of this trance she simply thinks she's fallen asleep, Harry tells Ron about this or attempts to as he's interrupted with the news that Hagrid lost the appeal. Hermione goes to get the left behind Invisibility Cloak from the statue - Harry left it there when he got caught by Snape - and they head down to Hagrid's hut before sunset. They all want to stay with Hagrid during the execution but Hagrid wants them back to the castle, further talk of this is disrupted with the discovery of Scabbers in Hagrid's hut, safe and sound. Still they leave out the back way and just before they reach the castle Scabbers starts scrambling to get free, and they're too late to escape hearing the thud of the axe hit.
As they try to continue to the castle Scabbers attempts to escape again, having seen Crookshanks, and bites Ron in order to escape. Ron darts off out from under the Cloak to chase after the two pets and the other two are left to follow him, he manages to catch the rat and hide him in his pocket just as that large dog makes another appearance. But instead of going after Harry, the dog just uses him as a stepping stone, instead grabbing Ron's arm in its mouth and tugging him through the roots of the Whomping Willow breaking his leg as he pulls him through. For a while Harry and Hermione are delayed by the almost sentient tree swinging its limbs at them until Crookshanks gets to the trunk and pushes on a special knot on it. Suddenly the Whomping Willow stills and they can make their way after Ron and the dog, Harry explaining to Hermione he's seen Crookshanks with the dog.
They find themselves in the Shrieking Shack once they climb through the passageway, a dusty and trashed house to find Ron upstairs with his leg at an awkward angle. It's all a trap of Sirius Black to get Harry in the shack, just like his father would have, and disarms them of their wands. He was the black dog the entire time, Sirius Black is an Animagus, a person who willingly changes into an animal unlike a werewolf who has no choice. Harry is hit with the urge to physically attack Sirius for killing his parents and lands a few hits before Sirius' free hand gets around the young teen's throat. Another scramble and Harry comes up with his wand, pointing it at the escaped prisoner. But Black asks that Harry listen to the whole story before the teen kills him for killing his parents.
But before Harry can make a decision Professor Lupin shows up and disarms his student of his wand and embraces the fugitive like a brother. All at once the trio erupt in anger, Harry the most having put the most trust in Lupin but finds that their professor was Black's friend and a werewolf to boot. Lupin hands back their wands and puts his own away as he explains that he knew Black was there because of the Marauder's Map, he knew how to use it because he was Messr. Moony. Watching them from his office, Lupin watched as they went to Hagrid's hut as three and left it as four but the fourth shouldn't have been there, should have be dead. He then watched as Black dragged Ron and the fourth to the willow and to the shack. Scabbers is another Animagus named Peter Pettigrew, which explains his long life.
Lupin was Moony, Black was Padfoot (dog), James was Prongs (stag), and Pettigrew was Wormtail (rat); and despite knowing that Black was around Lupin kept the fact he was an Animagus secret from Dumbledore. Snape thought Lupin's monthly disappearances were interesting and sought to follow him after finding he went to the Whomping Willow and seemed to disappear. So Sirius told Snape the knothole secret and Snape went to follow while Lupin was a werewolf but James stopped him after Snape caught but a glimpse of Lupin. Speak of the devil and he shall appear behind you, Snape pulls off the Invisibility Cloak Harry left outside the willow after having taken Lupin's potion to his quarters to find it empty and the Map showing where he was heading. He binds Lupin before he can try and talk sense into Snape for sending an innocent man back to Azkaban.
However as Snape makes to drag Black out to the willow to receive the Dementor's Kiss, Harry steps in front of the doorway, wanting to hear the story. But when Snape declines Harry disarms him and the blast actually sends him into a wall, knocked out. Black reveals how he knew Pettigrew was still alive, the picture of the Weasley family in Egypt over the summer, a rat missing a claw. Pettigrew had cut it off before he blew up the street and killed the Muggles, pinning the murders on Black. He faked his death then like he faked it back when Ron had discovered the bloodied sheets, Crookshanks knew Pettigrew and Black weren't what they appeared to be and attempted to help Black. But as Harry once more begins to accuse Black of being the one to kill his parents the real truth comes out about the Secret Keeper.
It was to have been Black, but he persuaded them to use Pettigrew instead, and the night of the murders he'd gone to Pettigrew's house to find it empty and void of a struggle. Pettigrew had "ratted" them out and ran away to the Dark Lord's side, leaving Black to hunt him down. Ron finally hands Scabbers over to Lupin and with Blacks help they reversed the charm on Scabbers, revealing a rather rat-like man who was none other than Peter Pettigrew. He tries to plead with everyone to spare him from being turned in but it's of no use at all and keeps trying to pin Black as a supporter of Voldemort. Tries to say that Black was a spy but it all gets turned back around on Pettigrew who was hiding all these years from Voldemort's true supporters who would punish him for staying hidden. It was no Dark Magic trick learned from Voldemort that got Black out of Azkaban like Pettigrew tries to get them to believe but simply Black turning into his Animagus form and walking out, dementors couldn't tell he was there.
But even as Black and Lupin make to kill Pettigrew Harry gets in front, saying instead that it would be better to let the dementors in Azkaban have him. Simply because his father wouldn't have wanted Black and Lupin to become killers. They tie up Pettigrew, bind Ron's broken leg, levitate Snape's unconscious body, and chain Pettigrew to Lupin and Ron so there will be no escape. On the way back to the surface Black tells Harry that his parents made him his guardian should anything happen to them and that Harry can move in with him, leave the Dursley's for good. But as soon as they get out from under the willow the moonlight decides to make an appearance, a full moon. Lupin transforms and without his potion he's not at all tame like he had been for the whole school year, and as soon as he's transformed Black tackles him to keep him from attacking the others. Pettigrew, now free, grabs a dropped wand and transforms himself back into a rat, Ron knocked out.
Hermione and Harry run after the sound of a wounded dog, Lupin and Black having disappeared, and find him in his human form along a lake shore, surrounded by dementors. Desperately he tries to perform the Patronus charm and tries to get Hermione to do it as well, but all he can do is produce a wisp and watches helplessly as a dementor pulls back its hood. It began to suck out his soul as it performed the kiss but suddenly a bright light and a warmth covers the area, banishing the dementors. Harry's last conscious view is that of a bright animal standing next to someone who was vaguely familiar patting it, a unicorn or something, and then he knew no more until he awoke in the infirmary. It was Snape delivering some bullshit story to Fudge about the night's events, saying that the trio were under some spell of Black's, confunded.
Dumbledore comes along to hear their story, though Snape tries to convince him that they've been confunded as well as he has Fudge believing the story. Once alone with them, however, Dumbledore tells them that he does believe the story told to him by Black but there's nothing to be done with the evidence against him, Pettigrew gone and Lupin stuck as a werewolf for the night. Though Dumbledore says something that sets off a lightbulb in Hermione's head and he reminds her that they mustn't be seen, they can save more than one innocent life tonight, and three turns should do it. Hermione beckons Harry over and throws a golden chain around his neck as well as her own, pulling out a small hourglass, and gives it three turns. Time around them blurs and it's suddenly a few minutes before sunset and they hear themselves walking out to Hagrid's hut under the Invisibility Cloak. Hermione tells Harry that the hourglass is a Time-Turner, it's how she's been getting to all her classes and disappearing in halls.
Their first stop is to Hagrid's hut to rescue Buckbeak from his execution, they watch themselves leave and as Dumbledore delays the proceedings they lead the hippogriff away. After that they wait until they see themselves chase after Ron and the animals in order to get to the Whomping Willow to have some idea of what's going on. Helplessly they watch as Dumbledore, Fudge, and the executioner enter the castle just as they themselves have gone into the willow, soon followed by Lupin. Hagrid makes his drunken way up to the school and Snape heads out to the willow, picking up Harry's cloak; while they wait for everyone to exit again Hermione asks if Harry remembers who cast the Patronus. It wasn't a teacher and Harry thinks that it was his father, despite the man having been dead for so long, if Pettigrew could return, why not he?
Soon enough everyone exits the willow and Lupin begins to transform, heading straight for where Hermione and Harry are hiding with Buckbeak. They head back to Hagrid's empty hut and hide in there with Fang for a few moments and when Harry checks on what's happening he sees the dementors circling the lake. He races down there in hopes of catching sight of whomever cast the Patronus charm but they don't appear until it clicks that Harry hadn't seen his father, he had seen himself. Yelling out the charm the stag appears and chases away the dementors and as soon as it reached his side once more he realized what his father's Animagus form was, "prongs" stood for the antlers the stag had. Hermione joins him with Buckbeak in tow and they watch as Snape floats all the unconscious bodies to the castle.
When they see Macnair (the executioner) leave the castle to fetch the dementors to perform the kiss they move, getting on Buckbeak's back to fly up to the tower where they're keeping Sirius. Once there they knock on the glass to get his attention and trade places with Harry's godfather who flies off on the innocent hippogriff to freedom. They hurry back to the infirmary, barely escaping being seen by Snape and Fudge, getting caught by Peeves the Poltergeist, and run into Dumbledore locking their past selves in. He waits until they've gone and then locks the now Hermione and Harry in the infirmary as well to cement the story that they couldn't have done anything to aid in Sirius' escape locked in there. Madam Pomfrey comes out to take charge of her patients once more and moments later Snape barges in in a furious rage. But Dumbledore coolly defuses the situation and gets Fudge to remove the dementors from the school as Ron wakes up, Harry leaves Hermione to explain what happened once they're all alone again.
When they leave the ward the next day it's to an almost deserted castle with most of the occupants in Hogsmeade to enjoy the end of exams. Instead of joining everyone else they wander the grounds and come upon an ecstatic Hagrid who's still celebrating Buckbeak's "clever escaping skills" and get news of Lupin packing his bags up, having resigned from his post. Harry races to Professor Lupin's office to indeed find him packing up in order to get ready to leave but asks Harry what form his Patronus took, confirming that James' Animagus form was that of a stag. He returns Harry's Invisibility Cloak and the Marauder's Map without qualms since he's no longer Harry's teacher and leaves. Dumbledore, having informed Lupin the carriage was there, tells Harry that he made a difference in it all even if Pettigrew got away: the truth was revealed and an innocent man's life was spared, not to mention an innocent hippogriff's.
It's then that Harry recalls Professor Trelawney's prediction and tells the Headmaster of it and Dumbledore lets it slip that it brings her real predictions up to two. Pettigrew now owes Harry for saving his life, something that now forms a bond between them and is certain to anger Lord Voldemort for having a servant in debt to his mortal enemy. James would have saved Pettigrew from death as well, if it had been he in Harry's shoes, and he still lives on through Harry in the way he outwardly resembles his father and his Patronus' form of a stag. No one at all knew of what had happened the night before, only that Buckbeak had some how escaped and there was speculation as to what kind of teacher they'd get next year for Defense Against the Dark Arts, perhaps a vampire?
Hermione drops Muggle Studies and turns in her Time-Turner to have a normal schedule once more, Gryffindor had once more won the House Cup, and Ron invites both Harry and Hermione to the Quidditch World Cup over the summer. On the train ride back they notice a very small owl trying to keep pace and get into their compartment, window opened the small thing flies in and delivers a letter from Sirius. In the letter he tells Harry that the Firebolt was indeed from him, ordered in Harry's name but bought with Sirius' money, a signed permission slip for Harry to legally enter Hogsmeade next year, and Ron gets to keep the owl since Sirius robbed him of Scabbers. Harry takes glee in informing the Dursley's that he has a godfather that's a convicted murderer that will be checking in on him periodically to make sure he's doing alright. Maybe the best summer yet, this time around~