The Chamber of Secrets

The Chamber of Secrets is the second installment of the Harry Potter series and is also the second and last Harry Potter movie that director Chris Columbus ever did.

These two films are also, in my opinion, the closest any of the movies get to the novels. Chris Columbus knew what he was doing when he made these movies, and it shined through in both. He was dedicated to making the Chamber of Secrets as close to the book as he could get, and I think he really achieved it.

But enough about the movie for now, I must talk about the story itself.

The Chamber of Secrets takes place in Harry's second year at Hogwarts when he is 12 years of age. He's survived his first encounter with Voldemort since he was a baby, but he can't survive living at home with the Dursley's. The Dursley's are as cruel as ever and lock Harry up in his room after the house-elf Dobby shows up and dumps a cake on some very important Muggles after Harry refuses to stay away from Hogwarts.

The Weasley boys; Fred, George, and Ron come to save Harry from his bedroom in their enchanted flying Ford Anglia and take him to the Burrow where he stays with them until it's time to head off to Hogwarts. Before Harry can even get to Hogwarts though, he must ride the Hogwarts Express, which has been mysteriously barricaded from entrance. Not knowing what else to do, Harry and Ron fly the Ford Anglia to Hogwarts and crash it into the Whomping Willow, which then results in Ron's wand snapping.

More mysterious events unfold as Mrs Norris is petrified and found hanging from a torch underneath the words "The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the Heir beware."

The Chamber of Secrets has a similar formula to that of the Sorcerer's/Philospher's Stone. Something is amiss and it's up to Harry, Ron, and Hermione to find out. The only problem is, the whole school thinks that Harry is the one petrifying the students after he keeps showing up at the scene of the crime. It's a tough year for him at Hogwarts when everyone has turned against him, and it is only when Hermione is petrified that his classmates start to lighten up a bit.

This novel, while it may seem like not a whole lot is going on (other than a murder mystery without the murder), is actually very informative and has key components that help explain things later on in the series. We find out in Chamber of Secrets that Harry is a Parseltongue, something that only Voldemort and Salazar Slytherin can do, and that Tom Riddle was actually Voldemort's real name back when he looked like a normal person.

It turns out that Tom Riddle was going to school back when the Chamber of Secrets was first opened and that he was the one who opened it in the first place.

In order to go back again and finish what he started, Voldemort actually puts a bit of himself into a diary (which we all now know is a horcrux) and uses his Death Eater, Lucius Malfoy to set it all up so that the diary could fall into the hands of innocent Ginny Weasley and she could bring the diary back into the school.

Naturally, at the end of the story, Harry and Ron figure out what has been petrifying the students, cats, and ghosts of Hogwarts: a Basilisk, which is simply the giant serpent that when seen with the naked eye, can kill a person instantly. They find the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets in a girl's bathroom and set out on a rescue mission after Ginny has been taken. It is in the Chamber itself where Harry discovers Tom Marvolo Riddle has escaped the diary using Ginny's life source.

Up until this point, Harry has believed that Tom was a hero at Hogwarts, but the tide soon turns when Riddle admits that he opened the Chamber of Secrets before. He then baits Harry by asking him how he, a mere baby, could've defeated the greatest wizard of all time, and then reveals that TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE when switched around spells out I AM LORD VOLDEMORT (JK Rowling is so clever)

In the end, Harry destroys the diary by stabbing it with a the fang/venom from the Basilisk, after nearly being killed by the thing-thank goodness for phoenix's and their healing tears-and all is right in the world again.

Like I said before, the movie gets about as close to the book as you can get and retains that magical essence each installment contains. What's also so special about the film Chamber of Secrets is you get a glimpse at Daniel, Rupert, and Emma growing up. You can really tell the difference in Dan and Rupert's voices in this one, and I love seeing them in the "in-between" stage of puberty.

Well, there you have it! The Chamber of Secrets and the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone are probably the only two Harry Potter books that really belong in the Children's Book genre. After this, the characters mature and the stories become a lot darker.

As for my opinion? I do not love or hate this book. It has parts I like to skip over and parts I think are so important on figuring out why Harry is the way he is and what happens in the rest of the novels.

-Buffyrules01