Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

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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.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter Books

Author	J.K. Rowling
Illustrator	Cliff Wright (UK), Mary GrandPré (US)
Genre	Fiction
Publisher	Bloomsbury (UK), Scholastic (US), </br> Manjul Publications (India)
Release date	1998
Number in series	Two
Sales	14.7 Million (US)
Dedicated to	"Séan P.F. Harris, getaway driver and foulweather friend"
Story timeline	1992-1993

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 July 1998. A film was theatrically released in November 2002.

1 Plot overview
2 Points to consider
3 Gallery of book covers
4 External links
5 Translations
6 Harry Potter Series

[edit] Plot overview

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

While home with Dursleys for the summer, Harry is visited by Dobby, a house elf, who warns him he will be in mortal danger if he returns to Hogwarts. Harry is determined to return, despite Dobby's attempts to stop him. The Dursleys have locked away Harry’s books and wand, making him a prisoner, but the Weasley brothers (Fred, George and Ron) rescue him in their dad's flying car. After a pleasant summer together, everyone heads to platform 9¾ to take the Hogwarts Express back to school. But 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, 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 three people's attention: 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 photo; and Ron's sister, Ginny Weasley, who has a crush on Harry. Events take a bad turn when the Chamber of Secrets is opened and a monster stalks the castle, petrifying 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 heir, especially after he inadvertently speaks Parseltongue (the language of snakes), a rare ability Harry gained after Voldemort's murderous attack 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 who the heir is, although he does not know. Unfortunately, Hermione mistakenly adds cat hair instead of human to her potion and assumes a feline 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 bones will lie forever."

With Ron's help, Harry discovers the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. They force Gilderoy Lockhart to go with them, but once inside, Ron and Lockhart are separated from Harry by falling rock. 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 Riddle, imprinted his memory in an enchanted diary, to one day continue the work he begun when he reopened the Chamber fifty years ago—ridding Hogwarts of non-pureblood 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. It tries to kill Harry by setting loose the basilisk (the monster responsible for petrifying the students), but Dumbledore's phoenix, Fawkes, carries the sword of Godric Gryffindor to Harry. Fawkes blinds the basilisk, destroying its fatal gaze, and Harry slays it with the sword. He stabs the diary with a fang, and Riddle's memory is vanquished while Ginny revives a near death state. She fully recovers, as do the petrified students.

Harry realizes it was Lucius Malfoy who gave the diary to Ginny 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 dead diary in one of his socks and hands it to Lucius. He tosses aside the sock, but it is caught by Dobby; and it constitutes a gift of clothing—the traditional manner a master frees a house-elf from servitude. The freed Dobby is eternally grateful to Harry and even protects him from an attempted reprisal from Lucius.

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

Meanwhile, Gilderoy Lockhart, who Harry and Ron discovered to be a fraud who wipes clean other wizards' memories and claims their achievements, is confined to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies. When he attempted to erase Harry and Ron's memories in the Chamber of Secrets, his charm backfired while using Ron’s broken wand, and he no longer remembers who he is.

[edit] Points to consider

It takes a little more than a month to reverse Hermione's Polyjuice Potion accident. No other magical malady is ever described as taking as long to reverse, not even brushes with spells that could kill but fortunately didn't kill their intended victim.

Many fans noted that Dumbledore said that Voldemort was the last remaining ancestor of Salazar Slytherin, instead of descendant. J. K. Rowling said this was a "deliberate mistake". This could support the theory that time travel will recur in the series. This mistake was fixed on further printings, though, so it's more likely to be a mistake that slipped past the editors than an actual hint. Some versions have put it back after Rowling's comment, perhaps overlooking the tongue-in-cheek nature of the term "deliberate mistake". This line was left out of the film. It is highly unlikely that any such event will occur, however, given the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince; noting that there was a lot of background history on Voldemort in said book.

It was implied in the book that Ginny had sent Harry his singing valentine. Some members of the online fandom have questioned this conclusion, suggesting it being a prank by the Weasley twins or a genuine overture from Moaning Myrtle as other possibilities. However, during an interview around the time of the publication of Half-Blood Prince, Rowling confirmed that it had indeed been Ginny who had sent Harry the valentine.

The confrontation in the Chamber shares several notable features with Redwall, the children's novel by Brian Jacques. For example, both books feature ancient swords belonging to fabled warriors (both of whom formerly resided in the main institution of the novels); in both of these novels, the sword is used to kill a monstrous poisonous snake with dangerous eyes.

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 cabinet Harry hides in at Mr. Borgins' is possibly the same one Draco Malfoy uses in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince to get in and out of Hogwarts (along with the one that was broken in this book).

Dumbledore does not send Fawkes to save Harry; Fawkes is called to save Harry because he shows true loyalty to Dumbledore during the encounter with the basilisk.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Gallery of book covers

Brazilian Edition	Danish Edition	French Edition	Indian Edition (Hindi)
German Edition	Japanese Edition	US Edition

[edit] External links

Image:Wikibooks-logo-en.svg

Wikibooks Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter has a page on the topic of

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Fans of Fantasy, One of the largest Fantasy sites on the web with Eragon, Potter, and much much more.
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

[edit] Translations

See: Harry Potter in translation

[edit] Harry Potter Series

J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series
Philosopher's Stone	book	film	game	soundtrack
Chamber of Secrets	book	film	game	soundtrack
Prisoner of Azkaban	book	film	game	soundtrack
Goblet of Fire	book	film	game	soundtrack
Order of the Phoenix	book	(film)	(game)
Half-Blood Prince	book	(film)
Unnamed 7th book	(book)
Other books			Other games
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them			Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup
Quidditch Through the Ages
Plot – Characters – Places – Spells – Translations – Fandom – Related articles - Quidditch