Introducing Sirius Black!

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling

This is the third book in the Harry Potter series, as with my other blogs so far for Harry Potter, if you have not read the series and do not enjoy SPOILERS then don’t read this blog. I have written these blogs more for people who have read the series and love them or people who will never read them (what a sad existence).

This is my absolute favorite book in the series. There is just something special about the new found relationship between Harry and Sirius. I love that he has someone in his life that doesn’t want to be around him because he’s the famous Harry Potter, the boy who lived. It’s more of a family love; Sirius loves him like he would love a nephew. It’s hard for me to put into words exactly why I love this relationship so much, but if I had to sum it up, it would be in the last couple of pages. Harry, Ron and Hermione are on their way to King’s Cross from Hogwarts and Harry receives an owl. When he opens it up, it’s a letter from Sirius with an extra letter giving him permission to go to Hogsmeade next term. When I finished the book for the first time, I remember running into the living room of our apartment at the time and squealing to Simon how wonderful the book was and how much I loved Sirius Black. Memories…

Sirius Black is my all time favorite Harry Potter character (If I can’t pick Harry himself). I love that he is very much the dark wizard that is after Harry during this entire book. This is the only book of the series that Voldemort doesn’t make a physical appearance and therefore Sirius is the scapegoat for the bad-guy of this book. The reason I love Sirius is that after 13 years of prison and quite frankly, hell. He still wants to get to know Harry. The example of this is that he immediately invites Harry to live with him, which of course makes the audience’s heart happy. Knowing how happy it makes Harry is a great feeling, “Some sort of explosion took place in the pit of Harry’s stomach.” The poor kid had never experienced happiness in this way that he couldn’t even think of how to describe it. I love it!

Another character that must be mentioned is the headmaster. Dumbledore is not all knowing, but he sure knows a lot. An enjoyable factor for me is that he knew exactly what was going on the entire time Hermione and Harry were going back in time to save Buckbeak and Sirius, but had no idea that Sirius, James Potter, and Peter Pettigrew had turned themselves into Animagus’ when they were under his supervision at Hogwarts. Within the first three books, it just doesn’t seem like much get’s by him. He always seemed to know when things were going on with any of the given characters. Of course the biggest example of this in Prisoner of Azkaban is mentioned above when he tells Hermione to turn back time and save 2 innocent lives.

I’ll end with this thought. The first time I read this series, I sat on the edge of my seat. Literally I was scared to death that Harry was going to get caught in one of his many rule breaking adventures, but I still kept reading. It’s funny how I am definitely not usually up for adventures, but I am so into the many adventures of Harry, Ron and Hermione. Harry gets into so much trouble it’s hard to even believe he gets away with it all, but he does. Professor Snape of course is very hard on Harry. He is overly harsh with him in class, he’s so stern with him when he meets him in hallways and anywhere Harry’s not supposed to be. Although I am not a Snape fan, I almost have to agree with Snape as an adult that follows the rules. Harry is always out of bounds, going in areas he’s not allowed, breaking the rules or just an overall disregard for authority. But I still love Harry like he’s my BFF.

Well that’s it literary friends. I hope you enjoyed! Keep Reading my friends!

"ssss ssss ssss" I can speak Parseltongue

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

(Spoiler Alert- I have the liberty to talk about any of the HP books in this blog, if you have not read all 7 novels and get sort of mad when endings or major events are ruined, do not read this blog, if you don’t care, read on)

Random Question for my readers, have you ever watched The Simpson’s? Settle down, just listen to where my thought process is going with this. Let’s say you have watched the Simpson’s. Have you then noticed a theme with the show? For instance, when the show starts, there is something that happens, Homer gets stung by a bee, something of that nature, that first action always has a reaction. Because Homer got stung by a bee, he did a certain action that had another reaction and by the end of the episode, you can’t really remember why he’s in court on trial and if you do look back, it’s all because he got stung by a bee.

Here’s where I’m going with this. In Chamber of Secrets, Harry starts his second year of Hogwarts, but before he leaves the Dursley’s he is visited by a strange creature, a house elf named Dobby, this first action has a ton of reactions. Dobby had been intercepting Harry’s mail in order to stop him from going back to Hogwarts, because dangerous things are going to happen at Hogwarts this year. When the letters do not have the outcome that Dobby had hoped for, the entrance to Platform 9 ¾ is blocked and Harry and Ron can’t get through to catch the train to Hogwarts. This action has the reaction of Ron and Harry stealing the Weasley’s enchanted car, this reaction gets them in trouble and instead of expelling them, Dumbledore gives them detention where Harry first hears the bodiless voice and Ron polishes the trophy with the initials T.M. Riddle. So, therefore when Harry ends up with a diary with those initials, they know that T.M. Riddle was at school at the time that the Chamber was opened the first time fifty years ago. Do you see what I’m saying about the chain reactions? It’s hard for us to remember that all of this started with a house elf ruining Aunt Petunia’s pudding for her guests.

With this being the second book of seven, the audience is still new to this magical world and therefore there are several very important introductions in this book that Harry and the audience did not know about or had not met in the first book. The first important introduction is to Dobby. If you have only watched the movies and not read the books you will have no idea how large of a character Dobby is. He loves Harry Potter very much and would do anything for him. That’s all I’m going to say about the subject because this is only book two and we’ll see more adventures with Dobby as I continue the series. The second introduction is to Polyjuice Potion.

The idea of Polyjuice Potion is a novel concept. How often as a young adult did I want to be someone else? Just to walk in someone else’s shoes to see how they fit, maybe only for a day. The Polyjuice Potion was a very complex Potion that took quite a bit of time to make, therefore it was not an off the cuff sort of plan. As a rule of thumb, second years should not be able to make this potion, although Hermione is not a regular second year witch, she is constantly known as the smartest witch of her age throughout the books and that is why it is not surprising that she is able to make such a complex potion for extracurricular activities. To use this particular potion, one would need to put a lot of plan and thought into it in order for it to work. By using this potion, Harry and Ron sneak into Slytherin house and find out a bit of information that gets them closer to know who has opened the Chamber of Secrets.

The last introduction is to Ginny. We shortly meet Ginny in The Sorcerer’s Stone, but Ginny is a Hogwart’s student in Chamber of Secrets and we get to see her interacting, even though strangely, with other characters and it’s very cute how she interacts or doesn’t interact with Harry.

It cracks me up that in these books, these school age children are able to do things and figure things out that adults with more training and magical powers cannot get done. The Chamber of Secrets was lost for thousands of years and all of a sudden, 3 school age children crack where it is, how to open it and what dangerous creature has lived in it all of this time. Just shows what a sense of adventure and love for each other will do.

Well I could go on for pages, but I won’t. What did you think about Chamber of Secrets? How many times have you read it? Do you think this story is important to the whole series? Leave a comment!

The Beginning

Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter has become more than a story, more than a book or movie, it has become a pop-culture phenomenon. Never before had I heard of stores opening their doors at midnight to release a book. Never before had a child of age eleven wanted to read a 400 page book, let alone thousands of young children. Not only have the books rocked the nations, but the movies are hugely popular. Over 6 Billion dollars grossed in the theaters worldwide for the first 7 movies. And of course the books have sold millions of copies in many different languages.

Besides the world loving Harry Potter, I, Charity Knighten, love Harry Potter. He’s just a wonderful character. He’s not someone that the reader will fall in love with, or someone that will give you obsessive thoughts. He’s almost like a best friend. The audience meets Harry (of course we’re on a first name basis) when he is ten years old and knows as much about magic as the audience does. He receives his letter to Hogwarts: School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, much to his aunt and uncle’s chagrin, and his world is changed in such a huge way that in seven years it will be hard for him to recall a life without magic.

I’m not going to recap the book, this blog is more for the Harry Potter lover’s, not someone looking to see if they should read it or not, you just should read it. Consider this your spoiler alert as well, you have been warned.

While reading this book for the third time (yes, you read that correctly, the third time) I came across 3ideas that I wanted to discuss in this blog. First, Rowling drops these tiny hints that you would not be able to pick up the first time you read the book. In chapter seven, Harry is at the start-of-term banquet and he is looking around the Great Hall with great wonder. His eyes land on Professor Snape, their eyes meet and suddenly there is a searing hot pain in Harry’s scar. Because of the way Rowling tells us what happened, we have no other reason to believe that it was anybody else causing him pain besides Snape. We have already forgotten that he’s speaking with Professor Quirrell.

Next, I love the way Rowling brings ideas back to our memory. At the train station back in London, we hear a joke between the Weasley twins and their mother about blowing up a toilet and sending her the toilet seat. During the last chapter the Dumbledore tells Harry that the twins had tried to give him a toilet seat as a get well soon present. I think its genius how she interweaves jokes, relationships, and ideas throughout the book so the audience looks back and think, “Wow, really? I should have seen that coming, but I didn’t.”

Lastly, Rowling introduces what seems to be an insignificant idea into the story and later it becomes one of the most important parts of the book. One example of this is when Harry and Ron are stuffing themselves with sweets on the train ride to Hogwarts and Harry is introduced to his first Chocolate Frog with trading card. This card just happens to be the card that solves the mystery of the Sorcerer’s Stone. I know the first time I read this I had no idea that this card was going to be so important. This is just a treat in Rowling’s writing.

Well that is all for right now. I don’t want to dive too deep in the series, I just wanted to talk about The Sorcerer’s Stone. Stay tuned, I’m going to complete the entire series, it may take me some time, but I’m looking forward to it.