Prisoner of Azkaban (PC) Any%

Timing for Any% starts at the confirmation of a new file and ends upon entering the final cutscene.

Category History
The first run was completed on February 23 2013 by TheUltimateGamer95. In order to reach the final cutscene and credits, a set of requirements must be completed: Often the limiting factor in speedruns are the 139 Cauldron Cakes required to buy all 8 passwords. Early runs opted to get very few Cakes throughout the run and either collect them repeatedly from Portraits or buy them directly from Fred and George. Additionally, due to the extra Peeves fight, runs would complete all of the requirements before entering the final exams, removing the option to collect a significant number of Cakes. Cake routes changed frequently until mid-2014 when runner Respirte established a route that collected 97 Cakes throughout the run and collected the remaining 50 from the 1st, 4th, and 7th floor portraits, this route would be used until late 2016.
 * All 10 Shields in Carpe
 * All 10 Shields in Draconifors/Lapifors
 * All 10 Shields in Glacius
 * All 5 cards from battling Pixies
 * All 5 cards from Flying courses
 * All 5 cards from battling the Monster Book of Monsters
 * All 8 Portrait Passwords

In late 2013 - early 2014, the start time for the run was moved from confirming new game to the first frame of movement after the opening cutscene. This rule would last until the end of 2014 when time would once again begin at its old point. 1:30 was added to all runs that were completed during this period.

In early 2015 it was discovered that the first bean bonus room could be exited early by jumping into a trigger floating by the bean bonus room door. This cuts close to 2 minutes off of the run time. Around the same time, it was also discovered that the lumos statue in Train could be hit without opening the door by turning sharply into the cabinet while casting. This would not be applied anywhere else in the run until September 2016.

Between September 2015 and January 2016, three different world records were set with a time of 1:21:51. The first being 1:21:51.59 by Entotrte, then .43 and .35 by FractNL.

In September 2016, the HP2 loadless timer was adapted to work in HP3. The loadless timer removes roughly 1 minute from the final run but removes most of the benefits from stronger computers.

In November 2016, a method for jumping over the gate in the third Peeves fight was discovered by KurryBro, requiring the runner to push Hermione into a gap between a wall and a torch. This trick would then be applied earlier in the game to skip obtaining the side chamber portrait passwords from Fred and George and the first Peeves fight with it. Shortly afterwards, a method to perform the skip without the assistance of another character was found. Since we never open the gate after the Fred and George sequence, the start of the third Peeves fight opens the gate instead of closing it. As a result the side room passwords and the third Peeves fight can be skipped with one trick, making the Cauldron Cakes in the final exams viable in an Any% speedrun. A new Cauldron Cake was built that collects 109 Cauldron Cakes during the main game and the final exams, and then collects extra Cakes from the 4th and 7th floor passwords.

In August 2017, KurryBro discovered that by pressing F9 to take an in-game screenshot you could lag the game and get a slightly longer jump. This meant that the first dragon room in the Draconifors/Lapifors challenge and the first slide in the Glacius Final Exam could be skipped saving close to 30 seconds. However, due to the high dependence on computer speed, this trick would be banned. On January 20 2018, MaxG1054 found an alternative method to add lag by pausing, changing the world or object detail in the game's settings, and unpausing at a specific time. While this trick still has a level of computer dependence, it is significantly lower, making it viable for full game speedruns. On December 18 2018, another new method involving pausing and holding print screen was found by Myelin_sr, once again lessening the computer dependence of the trick. A community decision in early 2019 would then allow lag jumps using F9 screenshots.

On March 8 2019. TheTedder discovered that the trigger for starting the credits sequence was exposed and easily reachable, allowing runners to bypass the requirements list and end the game early. Over the next day, the WR for the game would drop 5 times for a total nearly 25 minutes, including the second shortest community wide WR reign by Nixxo of just over 7 minutes.

Extra Links

 * Global Sum of Best
 * WR History
 * Speedrun.com Page