Fiction: “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” by J.K. Rowling

I will probably be unable to pin down exactly why this entry in the Harry Potter series is, quite possibly, my favorite. Maybe it was because it introduced a character that loved Harry for who he is, and was going to eventually rescue him from his existence with the Dursleys. Maybe it’s that we start to see Dumbledore truly intervening and manipulating how events happen. Maybe it’s because there’s absolutely no tension between Ron, Harry, or Hermione (except for the part where Harry and Ron are confused as to how she’s taking so many classes).

Actually, I think what I love about it is that it lets us see a glimpse of Harry’s parents as they lived. With the introduction of Remus Lupin and Sirius Black, we are now able to see a fuller, rounder version of James and Lily. Well, James, anyway. Because up until now, it’s been all about how Harry looks like his father, but has his mother’s eyes. But we don’t know what that means. We’ve known that James and Lily were both in Gryffindor, and that James played Quidditch, and that James and Lily were loved by everybody except Severus Snape.

But now, we learn that James had three close friends in Sirius, Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew. We are led to believe that Sirius betrayed the Potters, but of course it turns out to be the one nicknamed Wormtail. We learn that James, Sirius and Lupin were so loyal to each other, that James and Sirius became Animagi to stay close to Lupin during his transformations. (We also learn that Pettigrew masters this trick as well, but we learn he does it to remain close to powerful people, not out of the love that James and Sirius have.) We learn that James is honorable, in that when Sirius decided to play a prank on Snape, James saves Snape’s life.

And I love that they were, essentially, merry pranksters. When Snape tries to get the Marauder’s Map to reveal itself, their sense of humor shines. Of course they would be making a map of all the hidden stuff in Hogwarts. And, as Lupin says:

“I have no hesitation in saying that James would have been highly disappointed if his son had never found any of the secret passages out of the castle.” [424-425]

And in that moment, I take a second and imagine what Harry’s life could have been if James and Lily hadn’t been murdered. To be honest, probably not all that interesting. [I'll revisit this theory in a later post.]

So at this point in the series, we are starting to learn some of the personalities that fought in the original Wizarding war. Of course, some of it is all going to get blown to hell when I reread Order of the Phoenix, but let’s leave it at this nice place for now and move on to other things.

Let’s see, what else … well, let’s talk about the movie. This is the HP movie I have seen the most. I saw it three times when it was in theatres, and then I bought my own copy (my sister currently has all … six out of seven? I think we owe her Deathly Hallows Pt. 1 for something). In my last year of college, I was taking a lot of arty project-style classes — Costuming and Makeup. So there were many a night where I was staying up late to complete homework. And Prisoner of Azkaban and Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy were my go-to background noise movies. I think there was one project where I watched both of them twice. Alfonso Cuaron took the first step towards the dark series it was about to become, and I can’t thank him enough.

Steve Kloves, however … I don’t want to get into it too much, because I’m pretty sure all the HP freaks like me are following the same news, but, dude — stop giving Ron’s lines to Hermione. Because here’s how it’s written in the book:

[...] Ron, however, spoke to Black.

“If you want to kill Harry, you’ll have to kill us too!” he said fiercely, though the effort of standing upright was draining him of still more color, and he swayed slightly as he spoke. [339]

And here’s how it ended up in the movie (just watch the first minute, that’s all you need):

STOP GIVING HERMIONE RON’S LINES, RON IS IMPORTANT TOO

Other things of note from Prisoner of Azkaban:

If I haven’t mentioned it before, one of my favorite characters is Lee Jordan. He doesn’t show up much, but he’s always hilarious when he does. Especially when he commentates for the school Quidditch matches. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the great comedic team of Jordan and McGonagall could rival that of Fozzie the Bear and Statler & Waldorf:

“They’re off, and the big excitement this match is the Firebolt that Harry Potter is flying for Gryffindor. According to Which Broomstick, the Firebolt’s going to be the broom of choice for the national teams at this year’s World Championship –”

“Jordan, would you mind telling us what’s going on in the match?” interrupted Professor McGonagall’s voice.

“Right you are, Professor — just giving a bit of background information — the Firebolt, incidentally, has a built-in auto-brake and –”

“Jordan!”

“Okay, okay, Gryffindor in possession …” [259-260]

“Gryffindor leads by eighty points to zero, and look at that Firebolt go! Potter’s really putting it through its paces now, see it turn — Chang’s Comet is just no match for it, the Firebolt’s precision-balance is really noticeable in these long –”

“JORDAN! ARE YOU BEING PAID TO ADVERTISE FIREBOLTS? GET ON WITH THE COMMENTARY!” [260-261]

Foreshadowing Fun: Harry is reading A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot in the first chapter.

More Foreshadowing Fun: Our first introduction to Cedric Diggory:

“[The Hufflepuff Team's] got a new Captain and Seeker, Cedric Diggory –”

Angelina, Alicia, and Katie suddenly giggled.

“What?” said Wood, frowning at this lighthearted behavior.

“He’s that tall, good-looking one, isn’t he?” said Angelina.

“Strong and silent,” said Katie, and they started to giggle again.

“He’s only silent because he’s too thick to string two words together,” said Fred impatiently.” [168-169]

The only reason this is so freaking funny to be is because in Goblet of Fire, Cedric Diggory is played by … Robert Pattinson. And he is too thick to string two words together. Look, I’ve sat through two Twilight movies, and while Goblet of Fire is my least-favorite Harry Potter movie, I will gladly sit through that a hundred times before being forced to watch Twilight again.

And finally, I leave you with this, the (second) best thing to come out of the internets where Harry Potter is concerned [warning for language!]:

Grade for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: 5 stars

Fiction: “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” by J.K. Rowling

I think this one is my least favorite in the series. And I’m not sure if it’s because everything seems to go wrong for Harry throughout the book, from Dobby and the pudding, to Malfoy and Quidditch, to fricking Gilderoy Lockhart, or if it’s because the movie has now overshadowed the reading of the book. I’m not sure.

I do have to say that, as much as I adore Kenneth Branaugh, I just want to punch Gilderoy Lockhart in the face. A lot. Like, just having his memory erased was too good for that smug sonofabitch. In fact, it’s only the fact that Kenneth Branaugh was in the movie in the first place that Chamber of Secrets is my second-to-least favorite movie. (Stay tuned two books later for why I’ve never rewatched Goblet of Fire.)

But seriously, let’s look at Harry in this one. He’s behaving as well as he possibly can, and then Dobby, who has absolutely no inkling of how tough it is to be a boy wizard in a crazy normal world, goes and mucks everything up because Harry wants to return to the wizarding world. Repeatedly. And when Dobby isn’t mucking things up, or when he mucks it up just enough to make it through, Lockhart comes along with all his idiocracy and doesn’t just muck it up, but fucks it up. Dude, if you don’t know how to fix broken bones, then don’t do it. Just run away and modify everyone’s memory later, okay? Stick to what you’re good at, asshat.

And, sidenote, is it ever explicitly stated why Dobby wreaks havoc in Harry’s life? I mean, I know that Lucius* is planning to cause chaos at Hogwarts this year, using Riddle’s Diary, but does Lucius Malfoy explicitly tell Dobby, “Hey, Dobs, make sure Harry doesn’t come back to Hogwarts this year”? Because honestly, that just shows how completely stupid Malfoy is. If I were Malfoy, I’d want to make sure that my plan uses Harry as a scapegoat. And while Harry is almost always in the wrong place at the wrong time (even Snape says so!), he always gets out of the punishment and away from the blame. If I were a criminal mastermind in the employ of You-Know-Who, I’d freaking have my scapegoat locked up so fingers don’t come back to point at me. Lucius, that’s just shoddy workmanship!

To get back to Dobby and his involvement: again, unless Malfoy Sr. said to Dobby offline, “I need to make sure that Harry doesn’t survive the plan,” and sent Dobby to Privet Drive and to the Quidditch field and King’s Cross, I don’t understand what the point of it is. Because I’m pretty sure that a house-elf under such strict rule as the Malfoy household would be allowed to act on his own. I mean, yeah, sure, Dobby explains that house-elfs look upon Harry as a hero (and honestly, who doesn’t in the non-evil wizarding world?), but would Dobby be allowed to leave Malfoy Manor and “help” Harry? I don’t think so.

*I can never not type that as Lucious first. I don’t know why; it’s the same reason I always spell marriage wrong on first blush. Lucious Malfoy. Oh god. And I’m not one of those weird Malfoy fangirls, either. I mean, I love Jason Isaacs in the role of Malfoy, but I’m a Snape girl through and through. Shut up, all of you.

Other things: Yeah, Gilderoy Lockhart is a smug asshat. And I still don’t see why he’s Hermione’s first crush. You’d think she’d be smarter than that. I don’t recall that they played that up in the movies, though, which is good. Again, I think I’ve rewatched Chamber of Secrets once, because it wasn’t that great.

What else… oh, right, the foreshadowing! I’m going to mention two things that were seen in first Borgin and Burkes, and secondly over Filch’s office, and then I won’t say anything more about them until later: opal necklace, and vanishing cabinet.

So in this book, Harry meets Voldemort for the second time — only this time, it’s a shadow of His Evilness’s former self. And Harry is finally able to realize that, though the Sorting Hat wanted to put him into Slytherin, it is the choices he made and the loyalty he showed that proved he belonged to Gryffindor. I’ve been saying that a lot recently, in my real life: the choices one makes directly affect any consequences or rewards that are due to you. And I think that’s an important lesson to be aware of.

And Gilderoy Lockhart’s consequence is total memory loss as a result of being a vain dick. I heart symmetry.

Grade for Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: 2.5 stars

Fiction: “Seduced by His Touch” by Tracy Anne Warren

I actually started reading this before both starting and completing Sorcerer’s Stone — I love being on vacation, I get so much reading done! After reading my super-depressing and/or super-heavy books from the library (The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, The Late Hector Kipling, and the awful Solar), my brain needed a break. Actually, I think I started reading this one before I finished Solar. It sounds like something I’d do.

Anyway. Here’s why I picked the book up from Border’s in the first place: the quote on the back. “Marry a young woman because he lost a bet?”

Arranged marraige by gambling? Okay, sure. I had to see how this one ended.

Jack Byron (no relation to the poet) is gambling, and he loses a ton of money to one Ezra Danvers. Knowing that Byron can’t pay back the debt, Danvers agrees to not only forgive the debt, but bestow Byron with 120,000 pounds should he agree to marry Danvers’s daughter. But only if Grace believes the marraige to be a love match. Byron, seeing no way out, agrees.

Expecting a horrible, ugly spinster, he is pleasantly surprised when Grace Danvers turns out to be a beautiful, tall redhead. He doesn’t realize it at the time, but as he courts her, he actually begins to fall in love with her.

Of course, just before they are about to be married, Grace finds the copies of the settlement between Byron and her father. She realizes she was just a pawn to wealth for Byron, and she creates a settlement of her own: she will marry him, and they will go through the Season in London, but afterwards, they will separate. He will buy her a house, and he will also give her half of the money. Ashamed, Jack agrees to the settlement.

But when they move to London, they begin to bridge the gap they’ve created. And just when it looks like they’re truly falling in love in spite of everything, Jack’s former mistress kisses him in front of Grace, leading Grace to believe that he’d been cheating on her all this time. She demands the house and the settlement, and they separate.

They come back together when Grace a) realizes that she’s pregnant, and b) realizes that the house he bought for her, he planned the garden for her all on his own (oh right, the garden thing. See, he first begins to court her in a garden in Bath. She’s an artist, creating a folio of flowers and plantlife to be published. So one of the things she shouted at him when she first found out about the settlement was that he was a poser in the realm of botany). The book doesn’t actually end with the birth of the baby, which was one of the only things that surprised me about the book — usually, tawdry historical romances end with either a reconciliation or a birth.

Now that I’m finished with the novel, I’m actually contemplating whether to sell it back or not. I mean, there are some that, as soon as I hit “post,” I send back to Annie’s Book Stop because the thought of having them in the apartment any longer drives me batty. But … I may actually read this again, a few years down the road? I thought it was kind of sweet? I don’t know. Maybe I’m getting sappy in my old age.

Shut up, all of you.

Grade for Seduced by His Touch: 2.5 stars.

Fiction: “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” by J.K. Rowling

How do I even attempt to talk about Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone? I mean, first of all, this is at least the fourth time I’ve read this title, possibly the fifth. And as if that weren’t enough, I would estimate that the majority of the modern world has at least seen the movie, if not read the book as well. Heck, even my mother got through this one before giving up (she’s not one to read about fantastical stuff).

So to me, it’s not even worth it at this point to talk about the plot — everyone knows about the plot. And it’s not worth it to talk about the characters — everyone knows the characters, too, and in some cases on the Internets, you can’t get them to shut up about the characters.

So I guess, let’s look at the book this way: through my memories of it.

My sister had read up through, Prisoner of Azkaban, I believe? when she made me sign a contract that I would at least read Sorcerer’s Stone before graduating high school. I was, well, in high school when the books started coming out and gaining in popularity, and I have to thank this series because it turned my sister into a reader. Not a reader like me, where I am an older version of Rory Gilmore, always carrying a book in my purse; but Missy tore through the Harry Potter books whenever a new one came out, and this was the first (and possibly only) time she forced me to read a book.

No, wait — she made me read Twilight, too. Thanks, Kid.

Anyway. I had postponed reading it — I was rereading the Sue Grafton series, or I was just being difficult, or whatever. But the fact remains that I kept putting it off. And before I knew it, I was coming back from Six Flags Massachusetts with the rest of my senior class, and this was the book in my backpack to read on the ride back. And my sister’s contract rang in the back of my head, and dudes, you don’t know my sister, okay, but she can be scary at times. And she was scary back when she was in eighth grade and I was graduating high school. So I figured, ‘hey, I had better read this quick before she pummels me.’

And I did. And it took me two days. And then, the epic sister vs. sister fight began.

“Snape’s a good guy.”

“No he isn’t, Alaina — he hates Harry!”

“If he truly hated Harry, he would have let Quirrell kill him in Quidditch.”

“He had a life debt with Harry’s father — oh, you don’t know what that means yet.”

“Okay, but still, he’s going to be a good guy, you just watch.”

“What do you know, Alaina.”

“I WATCH ENTIRELY TOO MUCH TV. IT’S CALLED A TROPE.” (PS, this may have been before TV Tropes? DUDES, DON’T CLICK THERE UNLESS YOU HAVE LIKE, HOURS TO WASTE, you will get SUCKED IN)

Okay, and to prove the above point about TV Tropes, TWENTY MINUTES LATER, let me CONTINUE to describe how I feel about Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. God. (seriously, here was my path: Home Page >> Love Tropes >> Belligerent Sexual Tension >> The Zeroeth Law of Trope Examples >> Out, Out Damned Spot >> A Tree Grows in Brooklyn >> Officer O’Hara >> Psych >> Lassiter’s Facebook Page AND THEN I WAS FREE)

ANYWAY. AS I WAS SAYING. GOD.

I knew way back then that Snape was good. And Missy had two extra books on me at the time. This fight lasted approximately six years, because it didn’t end until we read Deathly Hallows. As I continue to reread the series (leading up to the last movie), I will describe more and more the fights my sister and I had on this subject.

An interesting thing to me as I read this book for the at least fourth time was seeing all the hints Ms. Rowling drops along the way of what will come. I mean, you don’t know when you first read it how the series will end, but now that you know the roles that everyone plays …

I have read this book four times (at least). This was the first time I got choked up when Dumbledore awarded Neville Longbottom those pivotal 10 points for standing up to his friends, thereby winning Gryffindor the House Cup. I mean … *sniff*

So. That was a ramble and a half. I apologize. But it’s hard to put into coherent thoughts your feelings about a book that everyone else has read. We’ll see how this reread goes.

Grade for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone: 3.5 stars