Harry's Attempt to Destroy Saknussemm's Parchment

Harry's Attempt to Destroy Saknussemm's Parchment is the failed effort to suppress the secret Harry has deciphered before Professor Hardwigg can act on it. Its decisive turn is material and immediate: Harry takes up the book and parchment to cast them into the fire, but his uncle enters before he can do so, leaving the dangerous knowledge—and the documents that carry it—within reach of discovery.

Discovery and Crisis

Before the attempted destruction, Harry’s deciphering has brought him to the brink of physical and mental exhaustion. He describes straining his eyes over the parchment as its letters seem to dance in black groups; overwhelmed and stifling, he fans himself mechanically with the document, turning it from front to back. The gesture that begins as an effort to endure the puzzle exposes its solution: ink has penetrated the reverse, where he can make out Latin words including craterem and terrestre. He recognizes that he has discovered the secret, but understanding it does not bring relief. It makes the consequence of the text suddenly real.

After spreading the parchment on the table and tracing the letters, Harry reads the deciphered message aloud. The revelation strikes him as a terrible secret already accomplished by another person, and he recoils from what it implies. He resolves that no living person should know. The shift is sharp: the parchment has ceased to be merely an opaque puzzle to be solved and has become an instrument capable of changing what its reader does.

Why Harry Tries to Burn It

Harry’s fear centers on Professor Hardwigg. He believes his uncle is already nearly mad with intellectual absorption and would be capable of undertaking the terrible journey described by the secret. Harry anticipates that nothing would deter him—and that Professor Hardwigg would compel Harry to accompany him, risking both their lives. The attempted burning is therefore not a general rejection of the discovery: Harry seeks to prevent its consequences for himself and his uncle by keeping the secret from him.

The threat is compounded by the possibility of accidental discovery. Harry reasons that Professor Hardwigg may solve the puzzle independently; if that happens, Harry believes they are both lost. His decision to destroy the evidence follows this fear: he takes up both book and parchment and moves to cast them into the fire, wanting the flames to bury the secret in oblivion. The action makes the physical documents central to the conflict. As long as they survive, the secret can still be read; destroying them appears to Harry the last way to prevent the journey.

Interruption and Suspense

Harry does not complete the attempt. The door opens as he is about to throw the documents into the fire, and Professor Hardwigg enters. Harry has scarcely enough time to put them down before his uncle is beside him. The interruption preserves the parchment and book, while converting Harry’s private decision into an immediate suspense: the person he most fears will discover the secret is now in the room with the documents.

Professor Hardwigg is profoundly absorbed, his thoughts evidently fixed on the parchment. He sits in his armchair and begins an algebraical calculation with a pen; Harry watches anxiously as the prospect of his uncle finding the answer grows more plausible. The scene thus closes not with the secret safely destroyed, but with the danger still active. Harry’s attempted solution has failed at the threshold of action, and Professor Hardwigg’s calculations point toward the very discovery Harry hoped to prevent.

Narrative Significance

The episode turns a process of intellectual decipherment into a conflict over knowledge, agency, and danger. Harry can read the secret, but he cannot control what it will set in motion if Professor Hardwigg reads it too. His choice is drastic because he sees no safe distinction between disclosure and the journey itself: in his reckoning, discovery would mean compulsion and possible death for both of them.

The parchment’s double role gives the scene its tension. It is the object that yields the hidden words when Harry turns it over, and then the object he tries to destroy because those words have become consequential. Yet the attempted burning is interrupted before it can erase anything. The documents remain available, Professor Hardwigg is already working toward the solution, and Harry’s resolve to keep the secret has produced suspense rather than security.