"Prisoner of Azkaban" would end up being my favorite Harry Potter book for years. It wasn't until the sixth book was released and spoke to my romantic tendencies that another one of Harry's adventures would overtake the book in which I met Sirius Black and Remus Lupin.
There are a lot of things going on in the third book. Hermione goes off the deep end when she tries to take every single class the school has to offer. She and Ron are always going at it because their pets can't get along. Dementors make Harry pass out all the time, and in response, he learns how to do unrealistically advanced magic.
In the midst of all of these developments, what fascinated me the most were the two men who suddenly brought Harry's parents to the forefront of his mind: Sirius and Remus, who had been James Potter's best friends at Hogwarts.
Before then, the only time we really felt for Harry's orphanhood was when he lived with the Dursleys, and when he gazed longingly into the Mirror of Erised back in Book One. Harry was too preoccupied with fending off Voldemort in the first two books to really dwell on the fact that he didn't have any parents.
"Azkaban" changed that. Faced with the idea that their best friend had betrayed his parents, Harry realized he could have had a normal childhood. His parents could have taught him how to fly, talked him through his problems and taken him to buy his first wand. He could have come to Hogwarts knowing he was a wizard. Instead he got borderline child abuse at the hands of his aunt and uncle.
Enter Sirius and Remus, who treated Harry as some sort of mix between son and brother. They told him stories about what kind of people his parents were. They looked out for his wellbeing. They made personal sacrifices to better his life. For the first time, Harry got a taste of what it meant to have real parents.
As Harry considers how these parental figures fit into his life, I started questioning where I fit into my parents' lives.
In the eight years of my life before I picked up "Azkaban," my parents had been married, separated, divorced, pregnant and then married again. As a family, we had been in multiple different living arrangements, and because my brothers and I were so small, my parents didn't always feel the need to explain the changes to us. I had talked with court-ordered therapists, school specialists and my professional babysitters, but never with my parents.
I was naturally a happy kid, and I tried my best not to cause more problems for my mother and father. Some children, when faced with change and divorce, turn angry and rebellious. I turned the opposite direction. But Harry had a tendency to make me examine my life, and for the first time I didn't examine myself. I examined those around me.
Lily and James Potter had been a young couple in a troubled time of war, but they had loved their son and gave everything to protect him. In the end, that turned out to be their lives. My parents were young and troubled for other reasons. I can't pretend that I know them — I certainly didn't when I was younger. But in the years of constant changes, I often felt pushed to the side so they could deal with more pressing issues. I couldn't be angry with them (it's not in my nature), but I turned sad and lonely in my little life. I felt isolated, as Harry did. I had problems that no one seemed to understand, not even those closest to my world.
Harry is still lonely after Sirius and Remus enter his life; the fifth book alone demonstrated that with his constant yelling and brooding. Strong role models cannot solve everything, though they still reached out to him and supported him in ways he had not yet experienced and improved his life tremendously.
What I remember most from the third book is the recognition that I could find support in areas beyond my home. I have always had close relationships with teachers because they came into my life ready to get to know me and listen to me if I chose to trust them. At 8, I was desperate for someone to understand me, and that feeling didn't end for a long time. Harry ensured me that it was OK to trust people who were willing to be there for you even though they had no genetic predisposition to do so. Those professional babysitters can sometimes be great listeners.
As I've grown, life has taught me lessons that are beyond Harry's grasp: My parents love me as Harry's did, but mine could sit down and listen when I finally decided to tell them how I felt. Emotional separation is infinitely better than a physical one.
