Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

The third novel, in which Harry learns the truth about the escaped prisoner Sirius Black.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is the third novel in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, following the young wizard through his third year at Hogwarts. With Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, Harry investigates Sirius Black, an escaped prisoner everyone believes to be one of Lord Voldemort's allies.

Bloomsbury published it in the United Kingdom on 8 July 1999 and Scholastic in the United States on 8 September 1999. It sold 64,000 copies in its first three days in the UK.

Quick Facts

Author: J. K. Rowling
Country: United Kingdom
Language: English
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Bloomsbury (UK)
Illustrator: Cliff Wright (first edition)
Series: Harry Potter
Release number: 3 in series

Facts from the source article.

Background

With Black at large, Dementors are posted at Hogwarts, and Harry keeps fainting near them until Professor Lupin teaches him the Patronus Charm. Fred and George give Harry a magical map that reveals a secret passage to Hogsmeade, where he overhears that Black is his godfather and supposedly betrayed his parents.

In the Shrieking Shack the large black dog turns out to be Black in his Animagus form. He and Lupin reveal that Ron's rat Scabbers is Peter Pettigrew, the real traitor who framed Black. Pettigrew escapes when Lupin becomes a werewolf, and Harry and Hermione use her Time Turner to save both Black and the hippogriff Buckbeak.

The book took Rowling a year to write and won the 1999 Whitbread Children's Book Award, the Bram Stoker Award and the 2000 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel. The 2004 film adaptation grossed more than $810 million.