The Dementor
chapter five of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Just before boarding the Hogwarts Express, Harry is pulled aside by Mr. Weasley who urges him to avoid Sirius Black. Then on the trip, dementors stop the train and search it, causing Harry to pass out. Finally the students arrive at Hogwarts, Lupin and Hagrid are introduced as new teachers, and the school year officially begins.
This had only one occupant, a man sitting fast asleep next to the window.
(by Jenny Dolfen)
Standing in the doorway, illuminated by the shivering flames in Lupin’s hand, was a cloaked figure that towered to the ceiling.
(by deeterhi)
There was a hand protruding from the cloak and it was glistening, grayish, slimy-looking, and scabbed….
(by Helene Sirois)
Hermione was leaning out of the tiny window, watching the many turrets and towers draw nearer.
(by Snapesforte)
It was common knowledge that Snape wanted the Defense Against the Dark Arts job, but even Harry, who hated Snape, was startled at the expression twisting his thin, sallow face.
(by Tealin Raintree)
They reached their familiar, circular dormitory with its five four-poster beds, and Harry, looking around, felt he was home at last.
(by NicoPony)
about the chapter
Something You May Not Have Noticed
It’s pretty clear this is the first day Lupin has ever served as a professor. Yet the title is stamped on his bag in peeling letters, indicating it’s been there a while. This doesn’t make a lot of sense, unless for some reason Lupin is deliberately showing off his shabbiness (after all, couldn’t he have performed a simple sticking charm to keep the letters on his case?). This is certainly possible, though I can’t think what it would accomplish for him. I think it’s probably more likely that Rowling simply wrote this as an indication of his poverty, getting the information she needed across without stopping to really think through the implications.
The Power of Magic
I absolutely love that the remedy for the cold clamminess induced by a dementor is chocolate. Sometimes I really envy Rowling for what some of her brainstorming sessions must have been like: “Let’s see… dementors suck all the happiness out of you, so I need a remedy that has the exact opposite effect… something simple… I know, chocolate!”
Life at Hogwarts
We start to get a hint right away from Madame Pomfrey that Lupin is probably a more knowledgeable, and better, teacher than his immediate predecessor, Lockhart. In fact as the year goes on, it will become clear that the two are the exact opposites of each other: Lockhart is all show with no substance at all, and Lupin is a smart, capable wizard and teacher who seems not to give a second thought to his outward appearance. I know which one I’d rather have teaching my Defense Against the Dark Arts class.
Something to Remember
There are several looming, unanswered questions in this chapter that bear a bit of closer reflection. Some will be answered in a few chapters, but other things we won’t know for years. For instance, what was Hermione so happy about after she met privately with McGonagall? Why did Harry (and, to a lesser extent, Ginny) react so strongly to the dementor? And finally, why do the dementors seem to single Harry out in the first place?
The Final Word
(Rowling is asked about dementors being “a description of depression”):
“Yes. That is exactly what they are. It was entirely conscious. And entirely from my own experience. Depression is the most unpleasant thing I have ever experienced. It is that absence of being able to envisage that you will ever be cheerful again. The absence of hope. That very deadened feeling, which is so very different from feeling sad. Sad hurts but it’s a healthy feeling. It’s a necessary thing to feel. Depression is very different.”
“I think [dementors] are the scariest things I’ve written.”
–J.K. Rowling, June 2000 & July 2007
Finally the Dementors are actually called Dementors. Before this everybody kept saying “the guards of Askaban”. That seems weird when you re-read the book, because everybody knows what creatures they are. It’s similar to Mrs. Weasly asking “Which gate?” in the first book: It’s necessary for the reader’s sake. The Dementors are introduced in this chapter. Before this other stuff was more important.
Kim said this on June 10, 2009 at 2:50 pm
You know I’ve always been curious as to why the Dementors seem to be so attracted to Harry. They keep trying to “kiss” him! I mean, if a Dementor feeds on happy feelings, wouldn’t it prefer to go for very happy people? More happiness to suck, right? Harry barely has any happy feelings at all, then why go for him?
Lola said this on June 10, 2009 at 6:05 pm
Perhaps Lupin was a professor in the muggle world… and as we all know they don’t make that much. I can imagine him teaching Classic Literature and/or algebra in (perhaps in America
That would explain not only his laying low, but also his shabby appearance and his title.
Amy Darlene said this on June 10, 2009 at 8:59 pm
I never thought of it as being the dementors being particularly attracted to Harry, but Harry just being more susceptible in the first place. I may be wrong, but I always thought Dementors weren’t actually “picking” him to suck happiness from, he just reacted stronger than anyone else, so it appeared that way. Because, if you think about it, they really don’t. In the train they are looking for Sirius, in the Quidditch match it’s the emotion’s in general they are there for, and at the end, Harry is with Sirius, so naturally they’d be around. Only in Book 5 is he singled out. I may be totally off though.
Riley said this on June 11, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Lola and Riley, you both have me torn on this – and I’m realizing I may be thinking too much of the movies (where Harry is definitely singled out in PA).
I’ve always thought it would make *sense* for Harry to be singled out, because although he doesn’t realize it, his scar is hiding something the dementors are certainly looking for. But now that I look back (at least at the times Harry encounters the dementors in PA), they don’t really seem to be singling him out – or at least we can’t definitively say that they are. And now that I think about it, can dementors differentiate between the outlaws they’re searching for and anybody else anyway? Am I just forgetting a reference to that?
Hmm. Guess I haven’t resolved anything at all in this post. ;) But I’d love some more thoughts.
John Kearns said this on June 11, 2009 at 1:49 pm
I haven’t commented yet, but I am really enjoying this website and all the art and comments! I had to make a quick note here and say that I absolutely love Jenny Dolfen’s depiction of Lupin above, I think it’s wonderful!
Jamie said this on June 12, 2009 at 11:34 am
I have to agree with Lola and Riley on the Dementors thing. And I can see Lupin having thaught somewhere else, perhaps in Durmstrang or something. At the end of PA, when he leaves, he says to Harry that by tomorrow morning the owls would swoop in from parents who don’t want to have their children thaught by a werewolf… you could see that scene as if he’s talking from experience….
kim said this on June 14, 2009 at 1:26 am
I can’t make up my mind about the Dementors and Harry, either. They might want what’s hidden behind the scar. OR it’s the opposite and they are still loyal to Voldemort and want to get rid of Harry.
Something to remember:
This is the first time we (well, don’t, actually) see the invisible horses which Harry presumes pull the carriages.
Kim said this on June 14, 2009 at 10:26 am
Riley has a very good point, we may be projecting a lot of intentions on the Dementors when there is none, but I still think they do tend to go for Harry. Maybe not as directly as the Dementor does in the PoA movie, but more subtly. For example, when the Dementors “invade” the Quidditch pitch, JRK says that “their hidden faces [are] pointing up at [Harry]” which kind of makes you think that they are aware of him more than the rest. And when they get to Sirius, Hermione and Harry, a Dementor actually tries to kiss Harry, which is apparently quite shocking. The Minister himself says “Never dreamed they’d attempt to administer the Kiss on an innocent boy!”. They try to Kiss him even before Sirius, which I always thought was weird. I mean, the should first go for Sirius and then the others, right? Harry sees the whole thing from across the lake… So I think they don’t go for him as much as I first though before I read what Riley wrote, but they do seem to have a preference for him nonetheless.
Lola said this on June 15, 2009 at 5:23 am
Lola, I love your train of thought. I guess the big thing I’m curious about is which people dementors *prefer* to go after (at least while they’re still under Ministry control). Is it the outlaws they’re searching for? Is it happy people, with lots of memories for them to feed on? Is it people with horrors in their past, on whom they can have the greatest effect? Harry fits either the first or the third category pretty well. And given Sirius’s equally dicey past, if the dementors seem to prefer Harry to Sirius, the first explanation may make the most sense. But I’m still not sure.
John Kearns said this on June 15, 2009 at 9:42 pm
Lupin’s case is very old, but though he could fix it, he doesn’t. Perhaps this is his first teaching job (though he’s so brilliant at it, you wouldn’t think he was a beginner), but someone in his family, like a grandfather he loved and admired and was named after, might have once owned the case and when he needed it, there it was in the attic. Then he would want to keep it exactly as it was, for emotional reasons. I can imagine Grandfather Lupin telling tales out of school: ‘When I taught at Hogwarts, my boy, this is how I controlled my classes …’
Deborah Hubbard said this on August 13, 2009 at 8:10 am
I can see Lupin being a professor in a Muggle university, seeing as no-one in the wizarding world would hire him. That would also (kind of) explain why he fixed his case the Muggle way rather than with magic. *shrug* Who knows?
Phoebe said this on August 17, 2009 at 7:54 am
Dementors: they’d naturally be attracted not only to positive emotions but also to the focal point of evil in the wizarding world: Voldemort. What a wiz of a wiz! Giving them constant supplies of exactly what they want …
Ginny and Harry had very close encounters with young Tom Riddle in CoS, which may well have left emotional scars on their memories; in fact we know it did. Ginny remembers exactly what it’s like to be possessed by TR, much later. And Harry not only had that experience too; he actually contains a soul fragment from Lord V himself. I think that could make him very attractive to Dementors indeed.
Deborah Hubbard said this on September 18, 2009 at 7:00 am
What is Hermione so happy about after meeting with McGonagall? She’s been given the time-turner, and the chance to take more classes than any sane person would want to.
TS said this on September 24, 2009 at 10:18 am
I thought some of the points seemed a little off here. I think Hermione was so happy when she left from seeing McGonagall because she had just gotten her Time Turner. Harry reacted so strongly to the Dementors because he has so worse of memories from every one else. And the Dementors don’t really single Harry out, they just don’t distinguish between people and will go after whoever interests them. He’s just unlucky.
Austin said this on September 26, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Welcome, Austin!
I should clarify that I write these pages spoiler-free, so to those of you who have pointed out why Hermione was so happy – I’m aware of this, I just try to write things like these (most of the “Something to Remember” comments are this way) so that readers familiar with later books will know what I’m talking about.
I also think there may be another reason Harry reacts to the dementors so strongly, namely the portion of someone else’s soul that’s residing in his head. But I see I had a hard time getting that across when writing this bit. :)
John Kearns said this on September 26, 2009 at 11:16 pm
I like the thought that Lupin’s case was a gift from James, Sirius, and Peter, maybe his eighteenth birthday or something. Even though Remus is probably seeing his future life as bleak (how many jobs would accept a werewolf?), the other three are sure that their bookish friend will be able to do anything, including coming back to Hogwarts (Dumbledore likes werewolves, after all!) as a professor. So it’s a kind of ‘chin up, Moony, we know you can do it!’ sort of thing. And then Remus would treasure it now because it was a gift from them before their lives all fell apart.
And he probably wouldn’t fix it magically because it was a gift from Potter and Black, and who knows what sort of magic they themselves put on it or how it would react if you tried anything magical.
Spider said this on October 8, 2009 at 9:20 am
Spider, what a wonderful idea. I LOVE that, and of course it totally fits.
John Kearns said this on October 8, 2009 at 10:15 am
i see the dementors as sucking happiness because what they want is for people to wallow in misery i’m not quoting exactly but doesn’t lupin make a comment about becoming like a dementor if your around them enough
Tammy said this on October 20, 2009 at 11:05 pm
Yes, I love Spider’s comment. And I also thought it came very natural to Lupin to stand in front of class and prepare a lesson, so I always believed he had taught before somewhere before Hogwarts.
Paula said this on October 27, 2009 at 10:07 am
I think I read somewhere… maybe an interview with JKR… students don’t go to Hogwarts until they would be done with primary school, and they don’t learn the primary school stuff at Hogwarts, they learn it a primary schools. So there must be other schools for “young” wizards, where Lupin may have taught.
Or did I just dream the interview up? I’ll have to try to find it and post a link to it if I do.
Sheri said this on January 14, 2010 at 3:50 pm
Sheri – There was indeed an interview in which Rowling discussed primary schools, but I think you’re remembering it backwards. Here’s the quote, from an online chat she did in March 2004:
kai: Where do wizarding children go to school before Hogwarts?
JK Rowling replies -> They can either go to a Muggle primary school or they are educated at home. The Weasleys were taught by Mrs. Weasley.
The full text of that interview is here. There was also an earlier chat in which she said there are no wizarding universities, this one from February 2000:
Q. Do you think that you will write about Harry after he graduates from Hogwarts? Isn’t there a University of Wizardry?
A. No, there’s no University for Wizards. At the moment I’m only planning to write seven Harry Potter books. I won’t say “never,” but I have no plans to write an eighth book.
So it’s hard for me to imagine Lupin has taught elsewhere, unless it was in another country and the folks running that school were even more tolerant of werewolves than Dumbledore, which strikes me as exceedingly unlikely.
John Kearns said this on January 14, 2010 at 4:11 pm
I had always assumed the Dementors were keen on Harry due to him being followed by Sirius. A scent dog might be able to pick up traces of him on Harry.. likewise wouldn’t Dementors be able to pick up a trace of Sirius in a similar magical fashion? Then after that other dementors might go for him since he had already been vaguely touched by another. Since they will definatly go for anyone they presume to get in the way of their duties, perhaps they are under an influence of sorts. Mentally pushed/pulled towards Harry by someone or also by the ‘hidden marks’ on him. When he was with Sirius and was ‘kissed’ at that point he was definatly in their way and would have been dispatched of first so as to more easily get to the original target. Its just a thought.. :)
Sarah 'LeStrange' said this on January 15, 2010 at 6:18 pm