So I have read all of the Harry Potter books and I decided I would make posts on every one of them. This one is on Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

A (not so) short summary of the story:

So Harry Potter has not been receiving letters from his friends all summer and on the most inconvenient night (the Dursleys had visitors), meets Dobby, the house-elf who warns Harry that something bad will happen at Hogwarts, and that Harry has to stay with the Dursleys. To try and help make Harry want to do that, Dobby prevented all of Harry’s friends’ letters from reaching Harry, which obviously aggravated Harry.
When Harry said he would still go, Dobby destroyed a cake on top of a visitor’s head and Apparated away. The Dursleys thought Harry did it, so they nailed his window shut and didn’t let him go to Hogwarts as a punishment.

Ron and his brothers, Fred and George, use their dad’s flying car to break open the gate nailed onto Harry’s window and save Harry. In the end, Harry gets to the Weasleys’ house and tries Floo Powder for the first time. He makes a mistake, ends up in the wrong place and then is found by Hagrid and brought back to Diagon alley.
Ron, Fred, George, Hermione, and Harry bought all the stuff they needed to go to school and also met their new Defense against the Dark Arts teacher, Gilderoy Lockhart, who turned out to be a famous wizard.

When September 1st arrives, the barrier doesn’t let Harry and Ron onto platform 9 3/4. Harry and Ron use Ron’s dad’s flying car to get to Hogwarts, And they crash into the Whomping Willow, damaging the tree, but more-so themselves. They are saved from being expelled when Proffesor McGonagall gives them tons of detention instead.

Harry is walking through Hogwarts one day when he sees a horrible sight. Argus Filch’s cat on the wall, petrified, and next to it, was a message written in blood that was referring to the Chamber of Secrets. [At some point, (I don’t remember when) they find a different message saying that a student has been captured and they figure out Ginny, Ron’s little sister, was the student brought to the chamber of secrets,] Harry was seen looking at the petrified cat and many people started thinking it was him who did it.
In one History of Magic class, Hermione asks the teacher about the Chamber of Secrets. They learn a lot about it and about the fact that only the “Heir of Slytherin” can open it, but in the end the teacher says it’s a myth and soon it was back to everyone being bored.

At some point, there is a duel in this dueling class which is Draco against Harry. At some point Draco summons a snake, and Harry unknowingly starts telling the snake to stop attacking people. It turns out he can speak Parseltongue, which is the language snakes talk. People were even more suspicious of Harry now because only the darkest wizards spoke Parseltongue. Many people believed Harry made the snake attack others.

They are suspicious of Malfoy being the Heir of Slytherin, so they question him using Polyjuice Potion and find out he isn’t the Heir of Slytherin. Later, Harry finds a diary owned by a former student called Tom Marvolo Riddle. Tom shows Harry a memory of his and makes Harry start thinking: ‘What if Hagrid really is the Heir of Slytherin?’. Tom also acted friendly to not seem suspicious. He asks Hagrid about it because Hagrid was the one who was blamed in Tom’s memory.

Later, he finds out how to enter the Chamber of Secrets, and he enters the Chamber of Secrets with Ron and Gilderoy. Gilderoy loses his memory because he tries to use Ron’s broken wand to memory charm Harry and Ron (Gilderoy hadn’t done any of the things he claimed he did, he just memory charmed the wizards who actually did it and claimed
he did it.).
In the end Harry fights Tom, who instead uses a huge basilisk to kill Harry. Fawkes, Dumbledore’s phoenix, came to help and brought the Sorting Hat as well. Harry pulled out a sword that appeared in the Sorting Hat and used it to stab and kill the basilisk, and also gets bitten by the basilisk. He uses the basilisk’s fang in his arm to stab the diary and kill Tom. He doesn’t die because Fawkes starts crying on the bite and heals it (Dumbledore actually told Harry that phoenix tears have crazy healing abilities.) Harry saves Ginny and gets out of there with Ginny and Ron.

When talking with Dumbledore, Dumbledore said that sword was the sword of Godric Gryffindor, and that only a true Gryffindor could pull Godric Gryffindor’s sword out of the hat.

Moments I liked:

When Harry stabbed the basilisk and the diary. Those were both very satisfying moments.

I really liked the moment when Fawkes came, blinded the basilisk, and pretty much saved Harry by healing the basilisk bite because of crying.

It’s such a satisfying moment when Harry makes Lucius Malfoy accidentally free his family’s house elf, Dobby. He was abused like crazy by the Malfoys.

When Gilderoy turns on Harry and Ron but it backfires because he is using Ron’s broken wand, its amazing. It’s kind of funny and it’s great.

Overall rating:

I think this was a great book with lots of action at the end and it kept me interested the whole time. J.K. Rowling is good at making amazing books. No wonder I finished all the Harry Potter books in at most a month. 9.8/10.