Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Books/Chamber of Secrets/Chapter 9
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Chapter 9 of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: The Writing on the Wall
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[edit] Synopsis
Filch appears and immediately accuses Harry of killing his cat. The situation is defused by the arrival of Professor Dumbledore and several other teachers. Dumbledore indicates that he needs a place to examine Mrs. Norris, and Professor Lockhart volunteers his office. Professor Dumbledore asks Filch, Harry, Ron, and Hermione to accompany him. Professors Lockhart, McGonagall, and Snape tag along. While Lockhart babbles about deaths he has prevented, Dumbledore examines Mrs. Norris, concluding she is not dead, merely Petrified, and that Harry could not have done it. Filch still believes that Harry was somehow involved because he knows Filch is a Squib. Harry states he does not even know what a Squib is. Snape suggests that while Harry, Ron, and Hermione were possibly just in the wrong place at the wrong time, it is suspicious that they were absent from the Hallowe'en feast. They explain that they were at the Deathday party but do not say why they did not go to the Feast afterwards. Harry does not want to reveal that he heard voices, but the excuse he does offer is rather flimsy. Snape suggests punishment for dishonesty, but is overruled by McGonagall and Dumbledore, to Filch's great displeasure. Harry, Ron, and Hermione are dismissed, and Ron explains to Harry that a Squib is a non-magical person born to wizard parents.
The possible opening of the Chamber causes a change in some students: Justin Finch-Fletchley avoids Harry in the halls, and Hermione is spending all her time in the library, among other things. Harry goes to speak with Ron in the library and finds that Hermione is upset because she cannot find any copies of Hogwarts: A History. In their next class, History of Magic with Professor Binns, she manages to persuade the old ghost to recount the legend of the Chamber of Secrets.
Binns says that over a thousand years ago there was a falling out amongst the school's four founders, Godric Gryffindor, Salazar Slytherin, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Helga Hufflepuff. They argued over whether Muggle-borns and Muggles' descendants (half-bloods) should be admitted to Hogwarts. Slytherin alone believed only pure-bloods should be admitted, and he left the school when the others rejected his beliefs. The legend says he created a secret Chamber and hid a monster within it. Only Slytherin's true Heir can control the monster or open the Chamber. Although the Chamber has never been found, Binns is unsuccessful in convincing the class it does not exist.
While passing between classes, little Colin Creevey mentions that someone said Harry could be the Heir; Harry realizes this could explain why Justin avoided him earlier.
While walking in the hall, Harry, Ron, and Hermione realize they have reached the spot where Mrs. Norris was Petrified. They see a clutch of spiders running away from something. Ron is terrified of spiders, and, to change the subject, Harry mentions the water that is all over the floor. It is coming from the girls' bathroom that Moaning Myrtle inhabits. This bathroom is now in disrepair; it is also very wet, evidently because a moping Myrtle causes floods. She is less than communicative with them. Percy catches the three leaving the bathroom and docks five House points from Gryffindor.
During a later discussion, Ron suggests that Malfoy would be the logical choice to be the Heir. Hermione says there is a way to find out. They could use Polyjuice Potion to impersonate someone else. However, she needs a copy of Moste Potente Potions from the library's restricted section to learn how to make it. For that, she needs a teacher's signature. "But what teacher," says Ron, "would be so thick?"
[edit] Analysis
In this chapter we see the pay-off of the set-up that was made by the discovery of Argus Filch's Kwikspell course in the previous chapter. Filch admits that he is a Squib; Ron explains what a Squib is. In these two passages, we have learned why Filch feels the need to buy a beginner's magic course, and why he was not educated in the normal manner for Wizards. However, much more than this: we can now see why he is so very bitter. Year after year, he sees children that could have come from his family enter, get trained in the ways of magic that he can never know, and leave to careers he possibly once dreamed of, while he remains behind. Being a Squib is a horrible sort of half life, aware of the world of magic, but despite being surrounded by it, not being a part of it.
We are also granted a bit more insight into the nature of Gilderoy Lockhart. As we step into his office, all of the pictures of him whisk themselves out of their frames and into hiding; some of them, overcome by curiosity, reappear later, and Harry notes that some of them are wearing hairnets. Lockhart himself, instead of helping with the investigation, babbles on about deaths he has supposedly prevented. When Mrs. Norris is found to be merely petrified, Lockhart suggests that he could whip up a restorative potion in short order, irritating Snape, who of course, as Potions master, would expect that job to be his.
This last point also highlights the dislike that Snape has for Lockhart. By this stage, most of the teachers have dismissed Lockhart as a fraud, and no doubt Snape shares that opinion. We suspect that Professor Dumbledore is aware of this as well, and has only hired him as Lockhart was the only applicant for the post (according to Hagrid). We should note that Snape was apparently irritated in particular by Harry's fame in the previous book; it was the fact that Harry was famous that Snape had dwelt on in Harry's first Potions lesson. Harry does not actively seek the spotlight, but Lockhart does, to the point that almost everything he does is aimed at getting himself more attention. This can only serve to increase Snape's dislike of Lockhart, a dislike that is heightened still more by Lockhart's self-serving attempt to take over some of Snape's duties.
The core of the plot line of this story is here revealed. While Binns states that there can be no Chamber of Secrets, that multiple headmasters have looked for it for years and never found even a broom-closet of secrets, still it is evident to the reader, as it is to the students, that the Chamber does exist and does have some monster in it. There is no other possible explanation for the petrification of Mrs. Norris.
[edit] Questions
[edit] Review
[edit] Further Study
- Since Mrs. Norris is just a cat (not an Animagus), why would she have been selected as the first victim?
[edit] Greater Picture
While Harry, Hermione and Ron are examining the area where Mrs. Norris’s body was found, they notice some strangely-behaving spiders. Ron admits that he has a fear of spiders, which is confirmed later in this book, and also in the next two books: by his Boggart in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and his behavior during Mad-Eye Moody’s Unforgivable Curse demonstration in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The peculiar behavior of the spiders in this scene sets the stage for events later on by giving a clue about the monster Slytherin concealed within the Chamber.
One must wonder about Professor Binns' vehement denial of the existence of the Chamber of Secrets. We will find out that the Chamber had been opened before, some fifty years previously, and the headmaster of the day, Professor Dippet, had considered closing the school as a result of that. While it is possible that occurrence had been before Professor Binns joined the school, that seems unlikely; Binns' apparent refusal to teach anything later than about the nineteenth century argues for his having been a teacher for many more years than a mere fifty.
It is noted in this chapter that Percy penalizes Harry and Ron house points; this could be a plot hole since prefects, as we find out in later books, are not given this power. It is possible, however, that Percy has taken on an over-inflated sense of his own importance, and when that importance is questioned, as Ron does here, Percy reacts by saying he's docking House points, when in fact he can do no such thing. The author said in an interview that she believes Percy is more likely to be right than Ron, who said in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix that prefects could not dock House points; she later reinforced this statement on her official web site. Against this, however, we must mention that Draco Malfoy, then a prefect, agreed that Prefects could not dock House points. One can be sure that if Draco were able to dock House points from Gryffindors, he would, and in fact as a member of the Inquisitorial Squad he was allowed to, and did. In this particular case, it makes more sense in the story as a whole to have Percy be overstepping his boundaries through over-officiousness, a very Percy-like thing to do, than to have Draco later refrain from abusing a power he has been given.
