Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Chapter 7 Summary

The Boggart in the Wardrobe

• Malfoy milks his injury for all it's worth and doesn't go to class for a few days.
• The Gryffindors and Slytherins are in Potions today, with the dreaded Professor Snape.
• Snape forces Ron and Harry to help Malfoy prepare his potion.
• Meanwhile, Neville is botching yet another assignment due to his fear of Snape.
• Snape threatens to try Neville's Shrinking potion out on his toad, Trevor.
• Neville begs Hermione to help him, since his potion will likely kill poor Trevor.
• Meanwhile, the class begin to discuss Sirius Black.
• Malfoy goads Harry and drops hints about Sirius Black, which only confuse and annoy Harry: "But if it was me, I'd want revenge. I'd hunt him down myself" (7.1.51).
• Finally class is over and Snape tries Neville's potion out on the poor toad Trevor, which is some sort of animal rights violation. Watch your back, Snape, PETA might be coming for you.
• The potion works, and Snape docks points from Gryffindor since Hermione helped Neville after he told her not to.
• Ron is furious.
• Hermione suddenly disappears and then reappears at the bottom of the stairs. Huh? Ron and Harry are confused too.
• Hermione is vague about everything and then they're all distracted when Hermione's overloaded book bag busts open.
• The Gryffindors head to Defense Against the Dark Arts, with Professor Lupin.
• He tells them to put their books away and takes everyone to the staff room, where a boggart is lurking in a closet.
• Snape is in there and snarkily insults the entire class on his way out, especially poor Neville.
• Lupin tells Snape that Neville is going to help him out with the lesson. So there, Snape.
• During the class Q&A session, we learn that boggarts are shape-shifters that appear as the thing a person fears most.
• The spell to defeat a boggart is "Riddikulus." Basically, you have to think of something funny and force the boggart to change into something non-threatening.
• Lupin asks Neville what scares him most, and poor Neville answers Professor Snape.
• But Lupin instructs Neville to picture what his grandmother wears; he wants Neville to force the Snape-boggart to appear wearing Grandma Longbottom's clothes.
• We wish we had a camera.
• Neville manages to do it and the class laughs loudly, confusing the boggart.
• Lupin asks everyone to line up and have a turn at the boggart.
• Harry gets increasingly nervous, though, since he knows his boggart is going to turn into a Dementor. And how do you make a Dementor not scary?
• But Lupin jumps in front of Harry at the last minute and takes care of the boggart himself.
• Lupin's boggart appears as a silver orb. Curious.
• The class is psyched after the exciting lesson. "Harry, however, wasn't feeling cheerful. Professor Lupin had deliberately stopped him from tackling the boggart. Why?" (7.2.100).