Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Books/Chamber of Secrets/Chapter 10
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Chapter 10 of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: The Rogue Bludger
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[edit] Synopsis
After the rather disastrous episode with the Pixies, Professor Lockhart has changed the Defense Against the Dark Arts course; now it is mostly Lockhart re-enacting scenes from his books with the unwilling assistance of Harry. Today Harry is being a werewolf, playing along because he wants to stay on Lockhart's good side. At the end of class, Hermione asks him to sign a note for a book that will help her understand something in one of his works; he signs it without bothering to see what the book is, then offers to provide Harry advice on being a Quidditch Seeker. At the school library, Madam Pince accepts the note, though with some misgivings, and gets a copy of Moste Potente Potions for Hermione.
Shortly thereafter, Hermione, Harry, and Ron are in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom; this is one place they are unlikely to be disturbed. Looking over the ingredients and methods for the Polyjuice Potion, they find that they need ingredients (Boomslang skin and Bicorn horn) not stocked in the student supplies cupboard. The potion will take about a month to make. Hermione, surprisingly, convinces Harry and Ron that they have to take some chances in order to do this.
Next day is Quidditch against Slytherin. As soon as they get into the air, a Bludger targets Harry. Despite Fred and George's best efforts, the Bludger seems determined to knock Harry off his broom; as the rest of the team is getting slaughtered by the remaining Bludger and the Slytherin Beaters, Harry tells Fred and George to let him deal with the Bludger on his own. Eventually, Harry spots the Snitch, hovering over Malfoy's head, but while lining up to grab it, he is hit by the Bludger. It breaks his arm, but he manages to catch the Snitch with the other hand and land on the ground intact. Regaining consciousness, he is dismayed to see Lockhart standing over him. Lockhart promptly uses a spell to "mend" Harry's broken arm but it instead removes all the bones from his arm and hand.
In the hospital wing, Madam Pomfrey is furious — she can easily fix broken bones, but regrowing them will be an overnight job, and a painful one at that. Ron helps Harry into pyjamas. The Gryffindor team arrives to celebrate the win over Slytherin but are promptly thrown out by Madam Pomfrey.
Later that night, Harry is awakened by Dobby sponging his forehead. Dobby admits that he closed the barrier at Kings Cross station to prevent Harry from returning to school and that he enchanted the Bludger in hopes it would injure Harry enough to send him home where he would be safe. He tells Harry that a House-elf can only be freed if his Master gives him clothing, which is why he wears an old pillowcase. He also mentions that the Chamber of Secrets has been opened once before. Realizing he was not meant to mention that, he punishes himself by smashing Harry's water jug over his own head. Hearing a noise, he vanishes. Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall bring in a Petrified Colin Creevey, who was apparently on his way to visit Harry, carrying his camera and a bunch of grapes. Colin's camera is completely melted inside; Dumbledore says that this proves that the Chamber is open again, but the main question is not who, but how?
[edit] Analysis
Lockhart's apparent ineptness with magic is shown in significantly more detail. Now, instead of teaching charms for self-defence, Lockhart has chosen to re-enact scenes from his books, seemingly in order to avoid something like the Cornish Pixies incident. And, despite his claim that he is an expert in healing magic, his attempt to heal Harry only results in a worse injury. One must wonder why Hermione, normally so logical, again rejects the possibility of Lockhart being incompetent despite this proof. It is perhaps telling that at the close of the previous chapter, Ron asks, he thinks rhetorically, which teacher would be so thick as to give second-year students permission to take a book out of the Restricted section of the library, and at the beginning of this chapter, we see that Hermione is assisting in getting a signature from Lockhart. Could she be starting to see, despite her infatuation, that he is perhaps not quite as brilliant as he claims?
Dobby is clearly still trying to convince Harry to leave Hogwarts; he quite clearly knows that the Chamber has been opened in relatively recent memory and that something happened then that could indicate that Harry's life is in peril. His attempts to chase Harry away, or prevent his traveling to Hogwarts, are almost laughable. We have seen four attempts so far. Dobby first tried intercepting all of Harry's mail to try and convince him that none of his Hogwarts friends cared about him, so that he would choose to stay home instead. When that failed, he threatened to wreck a dessert in the Dursley kitchen unless Harry promised to stay away from Hogwarts. Harry's refusal to promise resulted in the dessert being wrecked. Dobby could not have predicted the side effects of that; the owl from the Ministry of Magic, and Uncle Vernon's decision to lock Harry into his room were not things that Dobby would have expected to happen. Dobby's next attempt, blocking the barrier to the platform, failed when Harry and Ron used the flying car to get to Hogwarts, and this last attempt, to injure Harry badly enough to send him home, seems extremely poorly thought out. Does Dobby actually believe that Muggle medical care is better than what Harry can receive at Hogwarts? Or does he believe that Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia would allow magical healing to happen in their house? Dobby seems to be blind to the idea that Harry's house is not a home for him, and that even with the threat that Dobby is unable to enunciate, Hogwarts is a more welcoming place than Privet Drive.
[edit] Questions
[edit] Review
[edit] Further Study
[edit] Greater Picture
After stating that the Chamber of Secrets has been reopened, Dumbledore comments that the question should not be who opened it, but how it was opened. This implies that Dumbledore does not follow the commonly-held belief that Hagrid opened it before, and Tom Riddle had caught him in the act and stopped it. If Dumbledore suspects that Riddle had opened the Chamber fifty years ago and believes that he has reopened it now, Dumbledore may have already formulated theories about horcruxes. Until the revelation of the diary, however, any such theory would be extremely tentative; Dumbledore no doubt also remembers the year before when the shade of Voldemort was riding Professor Quirrell, and may be wondering if Voldemort might have found another mount, despite rumours placing him in Albania.
It seems that Dobby is more aware of the nature of the weapon that Lucius has brought into the school than Lucius himself is. We will find out in a later book that Hogwarts employs several hundred House Elves, and it is extremely likely that the House Elf society communicates amongst themselves. So it is quite likely that Dobby knows, if not the true nature of what the Chamber of Secrets conceals, at the very least that Lucius has provided the means to reopen the Chamber, and the fact that the chamber had been opened fifty years previous and that a student had then died. It is almost certainly fear for Harry's life that is causing Dobby to carry out these ineffective, almost childlike attempts to get Harry to return "home" to Privet Drive.
Having revealed that he is, in fact, trying to get Harry back home, and having been so fiercely rebuffed, Dobby will not attempt again. Dobby likely is now aware that, if anything occurs which appears to be trying to send Harry home, Harry will believe that it is Dobby up to his old tricks, and so further attempts would be ineffective.
