Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

How it opens

Harry Potter turns thirteen at number four, Privet Drive, where the Dursleys have locked away his spellbooks and he does his holiday homework in secret, at night. Owls bring him birthday presents from Ron, Hermione and Hagrid, and a letter from Hogwarts with a permission form for visits to Hogsmeade. A television newsreader warns that an escaped convict called Black is armed and extremely dangerous, and Uncle Vernon, whose sister Aunt Marge is coming for a week, agrees to sign the form if Harry keeps to the story the Dursleys have told her about his school. On the last evening, Aunt Marge insults Harry's parents, then swells up like a balloon and rises towards the ceiling, and Harry leaves the house with his trunk.

Who you meet early

• Harry PotterHarry Potter has spent most of the last two years at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and is back with the Dursleys, his only living relatives, for the summer. After five weeks with no word from his wizarding friends, he gets birthday post by owl and hides it with his homework under a loose floorboard in his bedroom.
• Vernon DursleyVernon Dursley is Harry's uncle and the director of Grunnings, a firm that makes drills. He has a new company car this summer, and the Dursleys have told his sister Marge that Harry attends St Brutus's Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys.
• Petunia DursleyPetunia Dursley is Harry's aunt, the sister of his dead mother. Harry's parents are never mentioned under the Dursleys' roof, and Petunia hates animals.
• Dudley DursleyDudley Dursley, Harry's enormous cousin, has spent most of the summer in the kitchen watching a brand-new television. Watching his father bully Harry is his favourite entertainment.