Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets


After another long summer at the Dursleys, Harry Potter wanted to go back to Hogwarts. On his birthday, which nobody in the house remembered, a strange elf dressed in a pillowcase whose name was Dobby arrived with strange warnings for Harry: he didn’t have to return to Hogwarts!

When Harry refused to stay home from school, Dobby caused Harry a lot of troubles with the Dursleys, who locked Harry up in his room and refused to let him out.

In the middle of the night, he was awakened by Ron’s face at the window. It was – Ron and his twin brothers, Fred and George, who came in their dad’s old car to rescue Harry. Ron’s father had put a spell on it so it could fly through the air!

They used the car to pull the bars off the window and load Harry’s trunk into the vehicle. The boys took Harry to their family home, where he could spend the rest of the summer.

The family magically travelled from their home to Diagon Alley, where they could buy their school supplies. Harry entered Borgin & Burkes, a shop that sold Dark Arts supplies. He heard Lucius Malfoy selling some Dark Arts items from his house. Draco wanted his dad to buy him something, but Lucius planned to buy Draco only a racing broom. While buying his textbooks at Flourish & Blotts, he met his future Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. He was Gilderoy Lockhart – vain, blond, grinning, wearing strange robes and author of numerous books on tracking monsters.

The second school year started. The students had new lessons, some new teachers and a lot of work to do. Harry started to hear a mysterious voice in the walls. As the school year progressed, this mysterious voice became more and more menacing, and soon bad attacks started happening to the students of Hogwarts: they were "petrified" in a coma-like state. Harry discovered that he could speak to snakes, and that he was the person who, according to legend, could open the mysterious “Chamber of Secrets” and release the monster inside.

There was a monster in the school. Harry had no idea who was attacking the students, and wanted to find out the responsible. He, Ron and Hermione decided to transform themselves into Slytherin students using a potion Hermione had created, the Polyjuice. So they could question Draco Malfoy, because they believed he was setting the monster loose in the school. They discovered that Draco was not the one they were looking for.  

Harry found a magic diary with some clues to identify the real author of the petrifyings. He discovered that if you wrote in it, the original keeper, Tom Riddle, could write back.

Then Hermione was attacked and petrified by the monster. Ron’s sister, Ginny, was kidnapped and taken down into the Chamber of Secrets, and Ron and Harry were helped by an important clue that Hermione had left for them. They went down into the Chamber of Secrets to rescue Ginny.

Harry and Ron left to find the Chamber of Secrets and kill the monster that liveds there. It was a basilisk, a giant snake whose gaze could permanently kill someone. Harry realized that was why he was hearing a voice in the walls – it was the snake traveling through the plumbing, talking about killing. He understood its words because he knew Parseltongue.

They first went to Lockhart for help in fighting the basilisk. He told them he couldn’t help them. They took him into the Hogwarts undergrounds to find the Chamber.

 

Harry and Ron got separated down there and Harry was left to pursue the monster on his own. Harry arrived in the Chamber. Ginny was lying on the ground, unconscious. An image of a teenage boy with black hair was also standing there by the girl. Harry recognized the boy as Tom Riddle but didn’t understand what he was. He was a projection from the diary, he explained. He told Harry he wanted to destroy him, and that Ginny opened the Chamber of Secrets and let the snake enter Hogwarts’ pipes and petrify people. 

 

Tom Riddle told Harry that he grew up to become Lord Voldemort. He opened a statue and the Basilisk came out. Then Fawkes the phoenix arrived! The bird was carrying the old Sorting Hat in his beak, went after the basilisk and blinded it with his beak. An old sword dropped out of the hat.

The Basilisk attacked Harry, who stabbed it in the mouth with the sword and killed it, but the snake left a poisonous tooth into his arm. Harry also fell on the floor.

The bird’s tears fell on him and healed him. Fawkes brought the diary to Harry. He took the basilisk’s tooth and stabbed it into the diary. A black ink just like blood came out of the diary. The Riddle projection screamed and disappeared.
 Ginny woke up. She understood that Voldemort had possessed her through the diary. Harry took her back to Ron.

Harry and Ron became heroes, and Harry was very happy when Hermione and the rest of the victims were healed and Gryffindor won a lot of House points.

Reading Comprehension exercise:

Questionnaire


 1. Who was Dobby?

 2. What did Dobby want from Harry?

 3. How was Harry rescued from his room?

 4. What did Harry hear from the school walls?

 5. What did Harry discover about himself?

 6. What did Harry and his friends do to discover the responsible of the troubles?

 7. What did they discover?

 8. What happened to Hermione?

 9. Who was Ginny and what happened to her?

 10. How did Harry and Ron enter the Chamber of Secrets?

 11. Who was Fawkes?

 12. What did the enchanted diary do?

 13. Who was the owner of the diary?

 14. How did Harry win over Voldemort?

 15. How did the film end?