Chamber of Secrets

The Chamber of Secrets is a hidden chamber within Hogwarts Castle, built by Salazar Slytherin before he left the school, and sealed so that only his true heir could open it. It is the central mystery and threat of the second year at Hogwarts, containing a Basilisk that attacks Muggle-born students. The chamber's existence is dismissed as a legend by the school's official history, but it is proven real when the Heir of Slytherin opens it and unleashes the monster. The chamber is ultimately entered by Harry Potter, who destroys the Basilisk and the diary containing Tom Riddle's memory, saving Ginny Weasley and resolving the crisis.

Legend and Founding

According to the legend recounted by Professor Binns, Hogwarts was founded over a thousand years ago by the four greatest witches and wizards of the age: Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin. They built the castle together, far from prying Muggle eyes, in an age when magic was feared and witches and wizards suffered persecution. For a few years, the founders worked in harmony, seeking out youngsters who showed signs of magic and bringing them to the castle to be educated. But then disagreements sprang up between them, and a rift began to grow between Slytherin and the others. Slytherin wished to be more selective about the students admitted to Hogwarts, believing that magical learning should be kept within all-magic families. He disliked taking students of Muggle parentage, believing them to be untrustworthy. After a serious argument on the subject between Slytherin and Gryffindor, Slytherin left the school.

The story goes that Slytherin had built a hidden chamber in the castle, of which the other founders knew nothing. According to the legend, Slytherin sealed the Chamber of Secrets so that none would be able to open it until his own true heir arrived at the school. The heir alone would be able to unseal the Chamber, unleash the horror within, and use it to purge the school of all who were unworthy to study magic. Professor Binns dismissed the whole thing as arrant nonsense, insisting that the school had been searched for evidence of such a chamber many times by the most learned witches and wizards, and that it did not exist. He called it a tale told to frighten the gullible, and when pressed about the 'horror within,' he said it was believed to be some sort of monster, which the Heir of Slytherin alone could control.

The Writing on the Wall and the Attacks

The Chamber of Secrets became a terrifying reality when, on Halloween night, a message was found daubed on the wall of a second-floor corridor: "THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE." Beneath the message hung Mrs. Norris, the caretaker Argus Filch's cat, stiff as a board, her eyes wide and staring. She had been Petrified, not killed, as Dumbledore determined. This was the first of a series of attacks on Muggle-borns and those associated with them. Colin Creevey, a first-year Gryffindor who idolized Harry, was found Petrified while holding his camera, which had been melted by the basilisk's gaze. Justin Finch-Fletchley, a Hufflepuff who had told Harry he was Muggle-born, was found Petrified alongside Nearly Headless Nick, the ghost of Gryffindor Tower, who had been rendered black and smoky. Hermione Granger and Penelope Clearwater, a Ravenclaw prefect, were also found Petrified near the library, with a small circular mirror on the floor next to them.

The attacks created an atmosphere of panic and suspicion throughout the school. Many students, including Ernie Macmillan, suspected Harry, especially after he revealed his ability to speak Parseltongue at the Dueling Club. The school was placed under strict security measures: students were to return to their House common rooms by six o'clock, were escorted to lessons by teachers, and were not allowed to use the bathroom unaccompanied. All Quidditch training and matches were postponed, and evening activities were canceled. The threat of the Chamber of Secrets was so great that the school was on the verge of being closed.

The Entrance and the Journey Inside

Harry and Ron discovered the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, the site of the first victim's death fifty years earlier. After learning from Aragog, the giant spider, that the girl who died had been found in a bathroom, Harry realized that Moaning Myrtle was that girl. In the bathroom, they found a sink with a tiny snake scratched on the side of one of the copper taps. When Harry spoke Parseltongue, saying "Open up," the tap glowed with a brilliant white light and began to spin, and the sink sank out of sight, leaving a large pipe exposed, wide enough for a man to slide into.

Harry, Ron, and a reluctant Gilderoy Lockhart descended into the pipe, which twisted and turned, sloping steeply downward, deeper below the school than even the dungeons. They landed on the damp floor of a dark stone tunnel large enough to stand in, which Harry guessed was miles under the school, probably under the lake. The tunnel was littered with small animal bones, and they soon encountered a gigantic snake skin, of a vivid, poisonous green, lying curled and empty across the tunnel floor. The creature that had shed it must have been twenty feet long at least. After Lockhart's Memory Charm backfired and caused a rockfall that separated Harry from Ron, Harry continued alone, eventually reaching a solid wall on which two entwined serpents were carved, their eyes set with great, glinting emeralds. Speaking Parseltongue again, Harry commanded "Open," and the serpents parted as the wall cracked open, revealing the Chamber of Secrets.

The Chamber Itself and the Heir of Slytherin

The Chamber of Secrets was a very long, dimly lit chamber, with towering stone pillars entwined with more carved serpents rising to support a ceiling lost in darkness, casting long, black shadows through the odd, greenish gloom that filled the place. At the far end stood a statue high as the Chamber itself, an ancient and monkeyish face with a long, thin beard that fell almost to the bottom of the wizard's sweeping stone robes, where two enormous gray feet stood on the smooth floor. This was the statue of Salazar Slytherin. Between the feet lay Ginny Weasley, facedown, small and black-robed with flaming-red hair.

Harry found Tom Riddle waiting for him, a tall, black-haired boy leaning against a pillar, strangely blurred around the edges, as though Harry were looking at him through a misted window. Riddle revealed that he was a memory preserved in a diary for fifty years, and that he had manipulated Ginny into opening the Chamber. He had grown powerful on a diet of her deepest fears and darkest secrets, and had poured a little of his soul back into her, making her strangle the school roosters, daub the threatening messages, and set the Serpent of Slytherin on the Muggle-borns and the Squib's cat. Riddle also revealed his true identity: he was Lord Voldemort, having rearranged the letters of his name, Tom Marvolo Riddle, to form "I AM LORD VOLDEMORT." He explained that he had framed Hagrid for opening the Chamber fifty years earlier, and that he had left the diary behind to lead another in his footsteps and finish Salazar Slytherin's noble work.

The Battle with the Basilisk and the Chamber's End

Riddle summoned the Basilisk from the mouth of Slytherin's statue, commanding it to kill Harry. Harry, with his eyes shut, was saved by Fawkes the phoenix, who arrived and blinded the serpent by puncturing its eyes with his golden beak. The Sorting Hat then gave Harry the Sword of Godric Gryffindor, which he drove into the roof of the Basilisk's mouth, killing it. However, one of the serpent's poisonous fangs sank into Harry's arm, and he was poisoned. Fawkes healed him with his tears, and Harry, realizing the diary was the key to Riddle's power, plunged the Basilisk fang into the heart of the book. Riddle screamed and writhed, and then he was gone, his memory destroyed. The diary burned a sizzling hole through it, and Ginny woke up, freed from Riddle's control.

After the battle, Harry, Ron, Ginny, and the memory-wiped Lockhart were flown back up the pipe by Fawkes. The Chamber of Secrets was thus defeated, its monster slain and its Heir's memory destroyed. The victims of the Basilisk were revived with Mandrake Restorative Draught, and the school returned to normal. The Chamber of Secrets, once a source of terror and a symbol of Slytherin's dark legacy, was rendered harmless, its secrets buried once more beneath the school.