Halloween

Halloween at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is a night of profound ritual significance and catastrophic disruption. In the second year of Harry Potter's attendance, the annual Halloween feast becomes the stage for the first attack of the basilisk, the monster from the Chamber of Secrets, an event that shatters the school's sense of safety and sets in motion a year-long crisis. The night juxtaposes the warmth and magic of the school's communal celebration with the cold, murderous threat lurking within its walls, establishing the central conflict of the term.

The Halloween Feast and Its Rituals

The Great Hall is transformed for the occasion, decorated with the usual live bats and Hagrid's vast pumpkins, which have been carved into lanterns large enough for three men to sit in. Rumors circulate that Dumbledore has booked a troupe of dancing skeletons for the entertainment. The Sorting Ceremony, a foundational ritual of the school year, takes place during the feast, with a long line of scared-looking first years filing into the Hall. Among them is Ginny Weasley, easily visible because of her vivid red hair. Professor McGonagall places the famous Hogwarts Sorting Hat on a stool before the newcomers. This aged, patched, frayed, and dirty hat sorts new students into the four Hogwarts houses: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Harry Potter, watching from outside, remembers his own Sorting the previous year, when he feared the hat would place him in Slytherin, the house that has produced more Dark witches and wizards than any other. He ended up in Gryffindor, along with Ron, Hermione, and the rest of the Weasleys.

The Deathday Party and the First Attack

Harry, Ron, and Hermione miss the Halloween feast to attend Nearly Headless Nick's Deathday Party, a gathering of ghosts in a dungeon lit by black candles that burn bright blue. The party is a grim affair, with rotten food and a dance floor of translucent spirits. The trio leaves early, cold and hungry, and as they head back toward the entrance hall, Harry hears a voice he has heard before—a cold, murderous voice that speaks of ripping, tearing, and killing. He follows the voice, which grows fainter and moves upward, leading him and his friends to a deserted corridor on the second floor. There, they find a message daubed on the wall between two windows: "THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE." Hanging beneath the message, stiff as a board with eyes wide and staring, is Mrs. Norris, the caretaker Argus Filch's cat. The feast has just ended, and students flood into the corridor from both ends, discovering the trio standing alone with the petrified cat. Draco Malfoy pushes to the front of the crowd and shouts, "Enemies of the Heir, beware! You'll be next, Mudbloods!"

Consequences and Aftermath

The attack on Mrs. Norris throws the school into a state of fear and suspicion. Dumbledore examines the cat and determines she has been Petrified, not killed, but he cannot say how. Filch, distraught, accuses Harry, revealing that he is a Squib—a person born into a wizarding family with no magical powers—and that Harry saw his Kwikspell correspondence course. Snape suggests Harry be taken off the Quidditch team, but Dumbledore insists on "innocent until proven guilty." The attack has an immediate effect on Hermione, who begins spending almost all her time reading, trying to find information about the Chamber of Secrets. The school buzzes with rumor, and the first years begin moving around the castle in tight-knit groups, scared of being attacked alone. The Halloween attack is the first of several, and it establishes the pattern of Petrification that defines the term's central mystery. The event also deepens the connection between Harry and the voice he alone can hear, a voice that will eventually lead him to the truth about the basilisk and the Heir of Slytherin.