“Harry Potter was a highly unusual boy in many ways. For one thing, he hated the summer holidays more than any other time of year [...] And he also happened to be a wizard.”

The opening lines of the novel remind the reader that Harry is a “highly unusual” person, which brings the reader into the wizarding world. Harry spends his summers with the Dursleys, who are non-magical and deeply terrified of anything unusual, and therefore they are frightened and disgusted by Harry. This description also reminds the reader that Harry is different in “many ways,” and some of those other ways will be explored in the opening chapter with regard to his family history.

“I swear I’ll remember where I’m supposed to go to school, and I’ll act like a Mug— like I’m normal and everything.”

Harry despises his non-magical relatives just as much as they despise him. Harry must be cunning and crafty to get what he wants, and whereas the first novels in the Harry Potter series show Harry largely being compliant and keeping his head down, The Prisoner of Azkaban shows that Harry is beginning to test the limits of what he can and cannot do in the Dursley household. Here, he manages to successfully blackmail his uncle into a deal: He will “act normal” if his uncle signs his permission form for school.

“I don’t want you wandering off into Muggle London, all right? Keep to Diagon Alley.”

The conversation with Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic, hints that there is something going on that Harry is unaware of. Fudge doesn’t want Harry wandering off because