Fantastic Fantastic stories

J. K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban opens on the night before Harry's thirteenth birthday, when he receives gifts by Owl Post from his friends at school. The next morning at breakfast, Harry sees on television that a man named Black is on the loose from prison. At this time, Aunt Marge comes to stay with the Dursleys, and she insults Harry's parents numerous times. Harry accidentally causes her to inflate. Harry leaves the Dursley's house and is picked up by the Knight Bus, but only after an alarming sighting of a large, black dog. The Knight Bus drops Harry off at Diagon Alley, where he is greeted by Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic. He rents a room and awaits the start of school. In Diagon Alley, Harry finishes his schoolwork, admires a Firebolt broomstick in the window of a shop, and after some time, finds his friends Ron and Hermione. At a pet shop, Hermione buys a cat named Crookshanks, who chases Scabbers, Ron's aging pet rat. Ron is most displeased. The night before they all head off to Hogwarts, Harry overhears Ron's parents discussing the fact that Sirius Black is after Harry.

The Prisoner of Azkaban

Harry Potter

Following another deeply troubled year at Hogwarts, described in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, at the end of which Dumbledore is killed by the ever-deceptive Severus Snape, Harry begins the final volume of the series in hiding. When the spell that has kept him safe until his seventeenth birthday expires, he and his helpers are immediately attacked by Voldemort, suffering casualties. Unable to return to Hogwarts, Harry is forced to go on the run with Ron and Hermione, hunting desperately for the "horcruxes" that contain fragments of Voldemort's soul and thus maintain his invulnerability. The search for the horcruxes is complicated when Harry learns of the existence of another set of magical objects-the "deathly hallows"-which might also be vital to the settlement of the final battle. Voldemort is unable to give his complete attention to the quest to kill Harry because he is searching for one of the hallows: an undefeatable wand. Uncertain as to whether to give priority to the remaining horcruxes or the hallows, Harry continues to evade death, albeit narrowly, until he is forced to return to Hogwarts in order to complete his search. The castle housing Hogwarts Academy then becomes the last fortress holding out against Voldemort's rise to power, subject to intensive siege and violent bombardment. The remnants of Dumbledore's Army and the Order of the Phoenix mount a heroic defense of Hogwarts in the attempt to win Harry enough time to finish his quest, suffering heavy casualties in the process. The conflict reaches the limit of desperation when it becomes evident that Harry harbors one of the fragments of Voldemort's soul in his own flesh. It appears that Harry cannot kill his enemy without sacrificing himself in the process, but that sacrifice might also make Voldemort invincible.

Harry Potter The Deathly Hallows

The paperback edition of the legendary, record-breaking, best-selling fourth Harry Potter novel.Harry Potter is midway through his training as a wizard and his coming of age. Harry wants to get away from the pernicious Dursleys and go to the International Quidditch Cup. He wants to find out about the mysterious event that's supposed to take place at Hogwarts this year, an event involving two other rival schools of magic, and a competition that hasn't happened for a hundred years. He wants to be a normal, fourteen-year-old wizard. But unfortunately for Harry Potter, he's not normal - even by wizarding standards. And in his case, different can be deadly.

Harry Potter: the Goblet of Fire

As the reviews started to appear after J.K. Rowling's publication of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on June 21, 2003, they all commented on the same thing: Harry Potter is getting darker. We found these reviews a little surprising before we read the book: after all, Book 4, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, is pretty dark, what with Voldemort's murder of Cedric Diggory at the end. How much darker could Book 5 really be? But Order of the Phoenix is a whole new level of grim: Harry is angry for pretty much the whole book, which is both (a) understandable, given what's happened to him over the past four years, and (b) kind of hard to read. The whole idea behind the Harry Potter series is that the novels are aging along with the characters. And of course, the whole world knows that the teenage years can get pretty angsty, somewhat self-involved, and difficult to be around. In Book 5, Harry Potter has all of those traits: he spends a lot of time hurting his closest friends, flaring up at imagined insults, and generally being brooding and emo. When asked about her inspiration for making Harry so very grouchy in Book 5, Rowling replied: Well, I taught teenagers for a while. They were my favourite age group to teach in fact. So I think I drew a bit on that, and I drew on memories of how grumpy we all were when we were teenagers. [...] My sister's here to watch this and she was very grumpy so I drew a lot on her. (source) So Harry is angry because J.K. Rowling has known a lot of teenagers (and has been one herself) and she knows that teens can get that way. It's a tough time, filled with hormones and confusion and changes - enough to make anyone grouchy. But of course, Harry's anger isn't just aimless brooding. He's got a lot on his plate: much of the plot of Book 5 focuses on an evil government bureaucracy targeting Harry with a coordinated smear campaign that destroys his credibility within wizarding society. You know how it's easy to feel isolated and lonely in high school? Well, add to that the Ministry of Magic forces that are actively trying to separate Harry from his friends and supporters and you'll get a sense of how conflicted and miserable he must feel. What's more, Harry has witnessed the death of a schoolmate and the rise of Voldemort - enough to stress anyone out. Harry's rage is understandable, which is what makes us stick by him even when he's at his most stubborn and difficult. Rowling comments: He's a lot, lot, lot angrier in this book. He really is quite angry a lot of the time and I think justifiably so, look at what he has gone through. It is about time he started feeling a little bit miffed at the hand life has dealt him. (source) Harry's prolonged emotional breakdown in Book 5 is a necessary part of his character development: since he's been systematically targeted by a deranged murderer his whole life, we think we can give Harry a pass for one book full of conflicting emotions. Still, note that we say his breakdown is "prolonged" that's the other thing that nearly every reviewer mentions about Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It's dark. And it's long. The Scholastic edition of the novel is nearly nine hundred pages - pretty intense for a young adult novel!

The Order of the Phoenix

The Dursleys were so mean and hideous that summer that all Harry Potter wanted was to get back to the Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. But just as he's packing his bags, Harry receives a warning from a strange, impish creature named Dobby who says that if Harry Potter returns to Hogwarts, disaster will strike. And strike it does. For in Harry's second year at Hogwarts, fresh torments and horrors arise, including an outrageously stuck-up new professor, Gilderoy Lockheart, a spirit named Moaning Myrtle who haunts the girls' bathroom, and the unwanted attentions of Ron Weasley's younger sister, Ginny. But each of these seem minor annoyances when the real trouble begins, and someone - or something - starts turning Hogwarts students to stone. Could it be Draco Malfoy, a more poisonous rival than ever? Could it possibly be Hagrid, whose mysterious past is finally told? Or could it be the one everyone at Hogwarts most suspects...Harry Potter himself! When the Chamber of Secrets is opened again at the Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, second-year student Harry Potter finds himself in danger from a dark power that has once more been released on the school.

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