Chapter Twenty: The Dementor’s Kiss
In chapter twenty of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Harry and Sirius have a really touching moment together, Peter gets away, and the dementors try to destroy the souls of innocent schoolchildren.
(Please be advised that this is a reread and I will be discussing book and movie spoilers.)
Last we left off Ron, Lupin, and PetePetz are doing field day games with the weirdest three legged race entry of all time, Snape’s getting his head smashed on the ceiling because Sirius is my type of petty, and Crookshanks is super smug about being right about Scabbers all along.
Harry and Sirius have this wonderfully funny and touching book exchange, the funny part of course cut from the movie, where they discuss Sirius being Harry’s godfather and what that means.
“I’ll understand, of course, if you want to stay with your aunt and uncle,’ said Sirius. ‘But…well…think about it. Once my name’s cleared…if you wanted a…a different home…’
Some sort of explosion took place in the pit of Harry’s stomach. “What – live with you?” he said, accidentally cracking his head on a bit of rock protruding from the ceiling. ‘”Leave the Dursleys?”
‘”Of course. I thought you wouldn’t want to,” said Sirius quickly. “I understand. I just thought I’d -‘”
‘”Are you mad?” said Harry, his voice easily as croaky as Sirius. ‘”Of course I want to leave the Dursleys! Have you got a house? When can I move in?”
Sirius turned right around to look at him; Snape’s head was scraping the ceiling but Sirius didn’t seem to care. “You want to?” he said. “You mean it?”
“Yeah, I mean it!” said Harry.
Sirius’s gaunt face broke into the first true smile Harry had seen upon it. The difference it made was startling, as though a person ten years younger were shining through the starved mask; for a moment, he was recognizable as the man who had laughed at Harry’s parents’ wedding.
But enough of me being happy, because I’ve got to point out that the movie got Sirius so wrong here. Part 2 of my “the movie Marauder casting was a mistake” rant is forthcoming, ye be warned. A huge portion of the tragedy behind what happened to the Marauders, Lily, and Snape in my opinion, is their age. When Snape turns spy, Pettigrew betrays everyone, Sirius goes to prison, James and Lily die, and Remus loses all of his friends, they are all twenty-one to twenty-two years old. That’s it! They are so young, it makes more sense why Snape is compelled to be a Death Eater, Peter is weak willed, Sirius is reckless, and it makes it so much sadder that James and Lily die so young, and that Sirius has his youth stolen from him in prison.
Now obviously what happened is that they cast the glorious Alan Rickman as Snape. I adore Alan Rickman, he’s a fabulous actor, yet in the events of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Snape, Pettigrew, Remus, and Sirius are only thirty-three/thirty-four years old, and Alan is in his fifties. So, they had to cast older actors to play the Marauders and Lily. It’s a shame, because Alan is perfect, but it did remove one of the important tragedies of the Marauders to me.
So we’re supposed to have a Sirius who looks crazy and hungry and filthy and is only thirty-four but looks older due to Azkaban, and instead all they do is make Gary Oldman wear some weird tattoos and look like he hasn’t bathed for a week or so. Again, not Gary’s fault! He acted the hell out of his scenes. But, take this one for me, Gary?
Our group gets out of the tunnels only for Remus to be like “oh yeah oh shit I didn’t take my potion, like Snape directly told me half an hour ago whoops” and he turns into a werewolf, and ok, I’ve got to steal another joke about this part in the movie from Moves in 15 Minutes:
A FULL MOON: *rises*
HERMIONE: Oh, shit.
SIRIUS: Remus! This is not you! This is not your heart! I’LL MAKE OUT WITH YOU IF I HAVE TO!
LUPIN: *turns into Lupinwolf*
I would highly recommend reading these movie recaps because they are hilarious!
Pettigrew gets away after hurting Ron because no one thought to stupefy him
and Harry makes Sirius do freaking everything by fighting Remuswolf and chasing after Pettigrew, until he hears Sirius screaming and runs after him too. The dementors have closed in on Sirius, and while Hermione and Harry try their best to ward off the dementors, they can’t, and the dementors attempt to remove their souls and–wtf, wizarding world! Maybe don’t let loose dementors on a school for children, when they can suck people’s souls out of their mouths all willy nilly? Just a thought?
Right when Harry’s sassy soul is about to leave his body, he sees his dad come to save them all.
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Have you ever run a three legged race?
Are you upset like I am that the Marauders are too “old” for their characters?
When you originally read the story, did you think James had reappeared at the end?
Remind me how Hogwarts is the safest place on Earth again?
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