51 pages • 1 hour read
Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets
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Chapters 5-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary: “The Whomping Willow”
Harry passes the last month of the summer at the Burrow. On the day he and the others are scheduled to leave for Hogwarts, they set off in Mr. Weasley’s car, though Mr. Weasley drives on the ground instead of flying. They arrive at King’s Cross station moments before the train is scheduled to depart. Everyone except Ron and Harry passes through the inconspicuous portal to platform nine and three-quarters, from which the Hogwarts Express departs. When Harry and Ron try to enter the portal, which is disguised as a regular barrier, they bounce off of it, along with their luggage. Confused, they panic as the train’s scheduled departure time passes.
Ron proposes that they fly the car to Hogwarts alongside the train; Harry agrees. They set off, engaging the vehicle’s invisibility booster to conceal the car from Muggles, but the booster soon stops working. They then take cover in a layer of clouds, occasionally descending to check the train’s route. Hours later, as they near Hogwarts, the car’s engine falters, then dies. They crash-land in a large, enchanted willow tree, whose branches batter them and the car; Ron’s wand breaks. Once beyond the tree’s reach, the car forcibly ejects Harry and Ron and their luggage, then drives away.
Entering Hogwarts castle, Harry and Ron catch sight of the start-of-term feast in the Great Hall, where new students are sorted into Hogwarts’s four houses named after the school’s founders. Harry, Hermione, and all of the Weasleys belong to Gryffindor House, which is associated with bravery. Before Harry and Ron can join the feast, Severus Snape, the disagreeable Potions teacher, appears and leads them to his office. Snape informs Harry and Ron that several Muggles saw them flying the car. Minerva McGonagall, the strict head of Gryffindor House, and Albus Dumbledore, the wise headmaster, join them; Harry is devastated to see Dumbledore’s disappointment. McGonagall assigns Harry and Ron to detention.
After a light meal separate from the feast, Harry and Ron go to the Gryffindor common room; Hermione meets them outside and scolds them for flying the car. Inside, they are greeted by cheers.
Chapter 6 Summary: “Gilderoy Lockhart”
The next morning at breakfast in the Great Hall, Ron receives a magical letter, known as a Howler, from Mrs. Weasley, which loudly scolds him for flying the car.
On the way to his first class, Harry runs into Lockhart, who affectionately chides Harry for flying the car to Hogwarts to generate more publicity, as Lockhart assumes. Harry then joins his classmates in one of the greenhouses for Herbology, the study of magical plants. Professor Pomona Sprout leads them in repotting Mandrakes. Since the young Mandrake roots, which resemble babies, make a dangerous crying noise, the students wear earmuffs as they work. Harry, Ron, and Hermione are joined by Justin Finch-Fletchley, a friendly Muggle-born boy in Hufflepuff house.
Their next class is Transfiguration, which involves transforming objects. Under McGonagall’s direction, they practice changing beetles into buttons. Hermione succeeds, but Harry struggles. Ron’s attempts backfire due to his broken wand.
After lunch, a first-year Gryffindor student named Colin Creevey asks Harry to take and sign a photo with him. Draco overhears Colin’s request and mocks Harry. Lockhart appears and sweeps Harry into a photo for Colin, then counsels Harry not to be so obvious in what Lockhart assumes to be his quest for fame.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione attend Defense Against the Dark Arts, taught by Lockhart. Lockhart introduces himself as a “five-time winner of Witch Weekly’s Most-Charming-Smile Award” (99) and administers a quiz all about himself; Hermione answers every question correctly. Lockhart then dramatically introduces and unleashes a group of small, mean-spirited pixies into the classroom and leaves Harry, Ron, and Hermione to deal with them after his own spell has no effect.
Chapter 7 Summary: “Mudbloods and Murmurs”
Over the next few days, Harry tries to avoid both Colin and Lockhart. Early Saturday morning, Oliver Wood, the Gryffindor Quidditch captain, wakes Harry to practice the magical sport, which is played on broomsticks. Colin, who grew up in a Muggle family, follows Harry to the Quidditch pitch and questions him. In the locker room, Wood lectures Harry and his teammates at length before they take to the field, by which time Ron and Hermione are in the stands, along with Colin, who takes pictures.
Moments later, the Slytherin house Quidditch team arrives with a note from Snape authorizing them to use the field to train Draco, their newest player. The Slytherin players show off their new, state-of-the-art brooms, purchased by Draco’s father. When Hermione points out that “no one on the Gryffindor team had to buy their way in,” Draco calls her a “filthy little Mudblood” (112), an offensive term for a witch or wizard born to non-magical parents. Ron tries to curse Draco in retaliation, but the spell backfires, causing him to burp up slugs.
Harry and Hermione lead Ron to the hut where Hagrid lives. They chat with Hagrid as Ron’s vomiting slows down. Hagrid criticizes Lockhart and explains that Dumbledore hired him because no one else wanted the job teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts, which seems to be cursed since no one who takes the position lasts very long. Hagrid also shows off his crop of pumpkins, which he enhanced magically. Since Hagrid was expelled from Hogwarts in his youth, he is not supposed to use magic, but he does so occasionally.
That night, Harry and Ron go to detention. Ron polishes trophies while Harry helps Lockhart answer his fan mail. After several hours, Harry is surprised to hear a menacing voice make violent statements, including “Let me kill you” (120). Lockhart, who does not hear the voice, dismisses Harry.
Chapter 8 Summary: “The Deathday Party”
October arrives, bringing heavy rain, but Wood continues to hold Quidditch practice. Returning from a practice session one day, Harry encounters Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington, nicknamed “Nearly Headless Nick,” a ghost who haunts Gryffindor Tower. Nick, whose head was not entirely separated from his body at the time of his death, shares his frustration at being rejected for membership in a club of ghosts called the Headless Hunt. Harry and Nick’s conversation ends with the arrival of Mrs. Norris, a cat belonging to Argus Filch, the grumpy caretaker; Filch follows close behind.
Angry at Harry for tracking mud into the castle, Filch leads him to his office. Filch begins to fill out a punishment form but is interrupted by a loud noise from upstairs. Filch hurries away, leaving Harry in his office. Out of curiosity, Harry opens an envelope on Filch’s desk, which turns out to be from Kwikspell, a mail-order course in magic for beginners. Upon his return, Filch sees that the letter was moved. Embarrassed, he sends Harry away without completing the punishment form. Leaving Filch’s office, Harry passes Nick, who explains that he convinced Peeves, a mischievous poltergeist, to drop a chandelier in the hopes of distracting Filch. Grateful, Harry accepts Nick’s invitation to attend an upcoming party to mark the 500th anniversary of Nick’s death.
On Halloween, Harry, Ron, and Hermione reluctantly forgo the school feast to attend Nick’s party. The party is held in a cold dungeon and features hundreds of ghosts dancing to screechy music; some of the ghosts walk through a table of rotten food in the hopes of detecting some flavor. Hermione compliments “Moaning Myrtle,” a moody ghost who haunts one of the women’s bathrooms; sensing Hermione’s insincerity, Myrtle leaves in tears. The Headless Hunt arrives on ghostly horses, to the amusement of everyone but Nick. Nick begins to make a speech, but he gives up as the Headless Hunt plays a Head Hockey game.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione sneak out of the party, hoping to catch the end of the feast. Harry hears the voice he first heard in Lockhart’s office, now saying “time to kill” and then “I smell blood” (137-38); Ron and Hermione, who do not hear it, follow Harry as he pursues the voice to an upstairs corridor. There, they find a puddle on the ground; Mrs. Norris hanging, motionless, from a torch holder; and a message painted on the wall: “THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE” (138). At that moment, the feast ends, and students flood into the corridor. Spotting the message, Draco expresses his approval.
Chapters 5-8 Analysis
As Harry leaves the Muggle world behind in these chapters, the contrast between the magical and the mundane remains relevant, though here is it not so much between magical and non-magical people or situations, as was the case when the Dursleys were present, as between expectations and the way things play out. By following Harry’s perspective as someone raised in a non-magical household, Rowling subverts his and, by extension, readers’ expectations. Nothing acts as expected in the magical world—not even a willow tree on school grounds, which violently assaults Harry, Ron, and the flying car. In addition to finding magic in everyday things, Rowling also subverts expectations by incorporating elements of European folklore, such as garden gnomes and broomsticks used for flying, and presenting them in a relatively mundane or commonplace light within the wizarding world. In doing so, Rowling fashions a modern magical world that, while distinct from the Muggle world, is also a reflection of it.
Within the school environment, these chapters also begin to treat another theme common to young adult novels: that of obedience to authority versus acting independently. In these chapters, Harry and Ron’s decision to fly the car is presented as youthful foolishness and frowned upon by authority figures and Hermione; Harry’s immature peers also celebrate it as an act of defiance. While this may seem a trivial example, it sets up later discussion of how important it is—or is not—to follow the rules under extraordinary circumstances, especially as Harry and his friends move forward in their coming-of-age journeys, which span not only this novel but the series.
Lockhart features prominently in these chapters, as Rowling comments on the dangers of celebrity worship. First, his apparent obsession with fame and image at the expense of all else makes him an unpleasant, patronizing teacher and would-be mentor to Harry. Meanwhile, the contrast between his carefully cultivated media personality and his magical incompetence is revealed in his first lesson. Rowling also investigates the fan side of the fame equation through the character of Colin Creevey, who takes every chance he can to associate with Harry. Like those of Lockhart’s fans whose mail Harry helps answer, Colin's attitude shows that celebrities can only be sustained in a culture that facilitates celebrity worship. The appearance of the Headless Hunt at Nick’s deathday party and the ensuing distraction of the crowd serves as another example of the kinds of superficial qualities that attract public admiration.
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By J. K. Rowling
