Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban attacked by a big black dog, which Harry has seen several times before. The dog drags Ron through a tunnel under the Whomping Willow into the Shrieking Shack. Harry and Hermione follow, and there is a brief standoff when they find Ron with Sirius Black, who has transformed from the dog. Lupin enters, and they explain the situation to Harry and his friends: Lupin is a werewolf, which led to his friends James Potter, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew becoming animagi. Lupin explains that Scabbers is Pettigrew in his animal form; he has been hiding from Black, whom he had
Harry Potter in translation asked Rowling about the gender of some of the characters—Zabini, Professor Sinistra, and "R.A.B."—while working on her translations. Harry Potter in translation The "Harry Potter" series of fantasy novels by J. K. Rowling is one of the most translated series of all time, with the first book, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", having been translated into over 74 languages. This includes languages diverse as Azerbaijani, Malayalam and Welsh as well as the dead languages Latin and Ancient Greek. This makes it the longest published work in Ancient Greek since the novels of Heliodorus of Emesa in the 3rd century