Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

"HP2" redirects here. For the Ilford photographic film, see Ilford HP.

This article is about the book. See Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (film) or Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (video game) for other formats.

Template:HPBooks Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, by J.K. Rowling, is the sequel to Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. It is the second book in a series of seven Harry Potter books. The book was published on 2 July1998. A film was theatrically released in November 2002.

Plot overview

While home with the Dursleys for the summer, Harry Potter is not getting any mail from his friends, Ron and Hermione. On his twelfth birthday (July 31) Harry is visited by Dobby, a house-elf, who warns him he, Harry, will be in mortal danger if he returns to Hogwarts. Harry is determined to return despite Dobby's dire warning. It turns out that Dobby was stopping Harry's letters, hoping that if Harry thought his friends had forgotten him, he might not want to return to Hogwarts. Dobby, seeing that he will have to use force, decides to drop a bowl of pudding on the kitchen floor through the use of a charm. Harry is blamed by the Ministry of Magic for Dobby's charm, and is told that if he does magic outside of school again, he will be expelled. The Dursleys, upon learning that he cannot do magic outside of school, have locked away Harry’s books and wand; Mr Dursley has screwed bars onto his window, making Harry a prisoner.

A few days later, Fred, George, and Ron Weasley come to his rescue in their dad's flying car, a Charmed Ford Anglia. After a pleasant summer together in the Weasley house, everyone heads to Platform 9¾ to take the Hogwarts Express back to school. To their shock, Harry and Ron are unable to enter through the magical barrier between platforms 9 and 10. In desperation, they fly to Hogwarts in the car, crashing into the Whomping Willow and damaging Ron's wand. The semi-sentient car ejects them and their belongings and disappears into the Forbidden Forest.

Harry soon finds he is the unwanted centre of attention of three people: the vain new Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor Gilderoy Lockhart, a wizard perpetuating his own legend; admirer Colin Creevey, a young first year Gryffindor who endlessly takes Harry's photo; and Ron's sister, Ginny Weasley, who fancies Harry. Events take a bad turn when the Chamber of Secrets is opened and a monster stalks the castle, which literally petrifies several students. According to legend, the Chamber was built by Salazar Slytherin and can only be opened by his heir to purge Hogwarts of students who are not pure-blood wizards. Many suspect Harry is the Slytherin heir, especially after he inadvertently speaks Parseltongue (the language of snakes), a rare ability Harry gained after Voldemort's murderous attack upon Harry when Harry was an infant. Harry, Ron, and Hermione attempt to discover the Heir of Slytherin's true identity. Using Polyjuice Potion brewed by Hermione, they disguise themselves as Slytherin students, Crabbe and Goyle, hoping to learn from Draco Malfoy the identity of the heir. Malfoy, they learn, does not know who the Heir of Slytherin is, but he inadvertently provides Harry and Ron with an important clue about the Chamber of Secrets.

Unfortunately, Hermione mistakenly adds cat hair instead of human hair to her practice potion and assumes a feline appearance, and it takes a little more than a month to restore her normal human appearance.

The attacks increase throughout the year, petrifying students, including Hermione. Most horribly, a message written on a wall declares that a student—Ginny Weasley—has been taken into the Chamber where, "her skeleton will lie forever."

With Ron and Moaning Myrtle's help, Harry discovers the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. They force Gilderoy Lockhart, a fraud who wipes clean other wizards' memories and claims their achievements, to go with them. Once they find the entrance to the Chamber, Lockhart attempts to use Ron's broken wand to erase Harry and Ron's memories, but the spell backfires onto himself and brings the ceiling caving in, separating Harry from Ron and Lockhart. Lockhart revives again, but has now lost his own memory.

Harry makes it to the Chamber where he finds an unconscious Ginny. He also meets a young man named Tom Riddle, who claims to be a "memory". Harry learns that Ginny, under the control of Lord Voldemort, opened the Chamber. Voldemort, whose real name is Tom Marvolo Riddle (an anagram of "I am Lord Voldemort"), imprinted his memory in an enchanted diary, in order to one day continue the work he began when he reopened the Chamber fifty years ago—ridding Hogwarts of non-pureblood witches and wizards. It was Hagrid, a Hogwarts student at the time, who was blamed for the attacks and expelled.

Tom Riddle's memory grows more powerful as it steals life from Ginny's body, and it tries to kill Harry by setting loose the Basilisk (the monster responsible for petrifying the students). But Dumbledore's phoenix, Fawkes arrives carrying the Sorting Hat, from which Harry draws out the sword of Godric Gryffindor. Fawkes blinds the Basilisk, destroying its fatal gaze, and Harry slays it with the sword. He stabs the diary with one of the Basilisk's fangs, and Riddle's memory is vanquished while Ginny revives from a near-death state. She fully recovers, as does Hermione and the other petrified students.

Harry realises it was Lucius Malfoy who slipped the diary into Ginny's cauldron when he encountered the Weasleys in a Diagon Alley bookshop, but he is unable to prove it. Dobby reveals he is the Malfoys' servant, and knowing their treachery, had been trying to protect Harry all year. In gratitude, Harry wraps the diary in one of his old socks and hands it to Lucius. Lucius throws away the sock, but Dobby catches it. This constitutes, in Dobby's eyes, a gift of clothing—the traditional manner in which a master frees a house-elf from servitude. The freed Dobby declares he is eternally grateful to Harry and protects him from an attempted reprisal from Lucius.

Dumbledore dispels Harry's fears that he is kin of Slytherin's rather than to Gryffindor's nobility. He tells Harry that it is his choices that define him and not his abilities, and he could not have wielded the sword of Gryffindor if he did not truly belong to that house.

Points to consider

• Dumbledore says that Voldemort was the last remaining ancestor of Salazar Slytherin, instead of descendant. J. K. Rowling said this was a "deliberate mistake". This mistake was fixed in further printings.

• Filch leaves Harry alone in his office briefly, while he goes and investigates a loud crash. On his return, he comments about a very expensive Vanishing Cabinet that has been broken by Peeves the Poltergeist. This cabinet later plays a small part in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and a significant part in the events of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

• The Hand of Glory and the opal necklace that first appear when Harry is in Borgin & Burkes also come into play in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

• At his deathday party, Nearly Headless Nick "took several deep breaths". But later in the series, Moaning Myrtle says that ghosts don't breathe.

• According to a 2002 interview with J.K. Rowling [1], the original working title for the book was Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, which Rowling "quite liked". Unfortunately, it didn't fit in with the plot of the book and so it was used instead for the sixth book in the series.

Translations

Main article: Harry Potter in translation

External links

• Mythological structure of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets from MonoMyth.org
• Mistakes in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets from bookmistakes.com