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Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
In the summer before her third year at Hogwarts,[HP3] Hermione gets a pet cat-kneazle
mix named Crookshanks, which makes a habit out of chasing Ron's pet rat Scabbers.
Hermione takes so many classes this year she has to use a Time-Turner, a device
which enables her to go back in time, to fit in all her subjects, but which
quickly becomes consuming even for her.
Hermione is briefly estranged from her friends several times, first over the
extra school work she has taken on; later over a Firebolt broom Harry received
for Christmas, which she got Professor McGonagall to confiscate on suspicion of
it being sent by Sirius Black (proven correct, albeit with no jinxes as
initially feared), and most painfully when Ron accuses Crookshanks of killing
and eating Scabbers. She also is spearheading the defence of Hagrid's pet
Hippogriff, Buckbeak following Draco Malfoy's accident in Hagrid's class. After
Hermione confides in Hagrid over her frustrations, and is reported by Hagrid to
break down into tears more than one time while visiting him. Hagrid sternly
reproves Harry and Ron for their behaviour, and after the first defence fails
they reconcile and the boys promise to assist with the still unsuccessful
appeal.
Hermione also discovers that their Defense Against the Dark Art's teacher,
Professor Lupin, is a werewolf, when she does an essay on werewolves set to them
by Professor Snape. She realizes that Lupin is always sick, and absent from
class, around the full moon, and also notices how his boggart, a creature which
manifests itself as a persons worst fear) turns into a full moon. Believing
Lupin to be trustworthy, however, she keeps his secret until their encounter
with Sirius Black in the Shrieking Shack.
Hermione's Time-Turner is useful at the end of the book when she and Harry
travel back in time to rescue Sirius Black and Buckbeak the Hippogriff. During
end-of-the-year exams, Hermione's Boggart manifests itself as McGonagall,
informing her that she has failed all her classes; this frightens her, amuses
readers, and shows Hermione's great fear of failure. At the end of the book, she
drops Muggle Studies (despite the fact that she got 320% in it), enabling her to
have a less intensive schedule again. She had previously dropped Divination
believing the professor, Sybill Trelawney, is a fraud, though Trelawney later
redeems herself. In this instance, Hermione's logical side dominates her
thinking. Ron comments during the book that he believes her dislike of Trelawney
stems from Trelawney claiming she was bad at a subject for the first time since
entering Hogwarts: "You just don't like being bad at something for a change!";
the narrative claims that he indeed touched a nerve. This falls in line with her
insecurity and her fear of failure as seen elsewhere in the book.
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