51 pages • 1 hour read
J. K. RowlingHarry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1998A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 12-14Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 12 Summary: “The Polyjuice Potion”
While he waits for Dumbledore to appear, Harry examines his office, which is filled with unusual trinkets. Spotting the Sorting Hat, Harry puts it on; the hat confirms its view that Harry could have “done well” in Slytherin. Hearing a noise, Harry turns to see a perched bird suddenly burst into flames. As Dumbledore enters the room, he explains that his bird, Fawkes, is a phoenix, a type of bird that periodically burns up and is reborn from the ashes. Hagrid enters suddenly, declaring Harry’s innocence. Dumbledore clarifies that he does not suspect Harry. Hagrid leaves, and Dumbledore asks whether Harry wants to tell him anything. Harry decides not to mention the voice.
Over the next few days, panic and fear spread among the students. The term ends, and most students go home for the holidays, though the Weasleys stay since their parents are traveling. On Christmas morning, Hermione announces that the Polyjuice Potion is ready. After opening presents and enjoying the Christmas feast, they set out to obtain the last ingredient: a small sample of the people they will transform into. Following Hermione’s plan, Harry and Ron plant treats containing a sleeping potion in the path of Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, Malfoy’s two best friends. After Crabbe and Goyle eat the treats and fall asleep, Harry and Ron hide them in a nearby closet and pluck a few of their hairs for use in the Polyjuice Potion. They meet Hermione in the bathroom, split up the potion, add the hairs, and drink it. Harry and Ron transform into Goyle and Crabbe and change into larger robes. Hermione remains hidden in a stall and tells them to continue without her.
Unsure where the Slytherin common room is located, Harry and Ron wander for a few minutes, running into Percy, who scolds them, and then Draco, whom they follow. Within the common room, Draco shows them a newspaper clipping reporting that Mr. Weasley was fined for the flying car. Upset, Ron pretends to have a stomachache. Malfoy goes on a rant about Muggle-born students at Hogwarts and says that he wishes he knew who opened the Chamber of Secrets so that he could help. Harry and Ron leave abruptly as they start changing back into themselves.
In the bathroom, they find Hermione distressed. Hermione collected hair from the robes of a Slytherin student during the dueling club, not realizing that it was cat hair. Since the potion is not designed for use with animals, Hermione retains a catlike appearance. Harry and Ron convince her to go to the hospital wing.
Chapter 13 Summary: “The Very Secret Diary”
Hermione spends the next few weeks in the hospital wing, gradually returning to normal. Harry and Ron visit her each day.
One day Harry and Ron overhear Filch shouting about a mess at the scene of the first attack. Harry and Ron examine the scene and notice a stream of water coming from Myrtle’s bathroom. Inside, they find Myrtle upset that someone threw a book at her. Harry picks up the book, a 50-year-old diary that belonged to someone named Tom Marvolo Riddle. Ron recognizes the name from a trophy he polished during detention, an award for “special services to the school” (231). The book is blank, but Harry decides to keep it.
February arrives, and Hermione leaves the hospital wing. Harry shows her the diary. Remembering that the Chamber of Secrets previously opened 50 years ago, Hermione speculates that Riddle received the award for catching the person responsible. She attempts to extract any hidden information from the diary, but it shows nothing. Together with Ron, they visit the trophy room, where they learn that Riddle was Head Boy.
A while passes without any attacks. On Valentine's Day, Lockhart decorates the Great Hall and arranges for dwarfs dressed as cupids to deliver musical valentines. When one of the dwarfs tries to stop Harry in a busy corridor, Harry resists. His bag breaks, scattering his books and supplies on the ground. After the dwarf’s song ends, Draco picks up Riddle’s diary, thinking it belongs to Harry; Harry uses a Disarming Charm to recover it. Draco guesses that Ginny, who is nearby, sent the valentine. Embarrassed, she runs away. Arriving in class, Harry notices that all of his books carry ink stains from the incident, except Riddle’s diary.
In bed that night, Harry examines Riddle’s diary. When Harry writes, his words disappear and reappear as messages from Riddle, whose memories are preserved in the diary. Riddle offers to show Harry what he knows about the Chamber of Secrets, and Harry accepts.
Harry enters Riddle’s memory as a passive observer. He watches as 16-year-old Riddle visits then-headmaster Professor Dippet. After asking for permission to stay at Hogwarts over the summer instead of returning to the Muggle orphanage where he lives, Riddle learns that the Ministry of Magic is considering closing the school due to the recent attacks, one of which resulted in the death of a girl. After leaving Dippet’s office, Riddle passes Dumbledore, who tells him to go to bed. Instead, Riddle goes to the dungeon, where he waits until a figure passes by. Riddle follows the figure, whom Harry recognizes as a young Hagrid, to a room where Hagrid keeps a giant spider. Riddle confronts Hagrid, but Hagrid denies that the spider killed anyone. When Riddle draws his wand, the spider runs away, and the memory ends.
Ron enters the dormitory, and Harry tells him that Hagrid opened the Chamber of Secrets.
Chapter 14 Summary: “Cornelius Fudge”
Harry, Ron, and Hermione decide not to confront Hagrid about the Chamber of Secrets unless another attack happens. Over the Easter holiday, they select their classes for the upcoming year; Hermione signs up for as many subjects as possible.
One night, Harry returns to his dormitory to find that someone ransacked his belongings; Riddle’s diary is gone. He and Ron tell Hermione, who points out that only a Gryffindor student could have taken it.
The next morning after breakfast, Harry hears the menacing voice again. Hermione announces a sudden realization and leaves for the library. Despite his concerns about the voice, Harry heads to the Quidditch field for a scheduled match against Hufflepuff. Moments before the match is set to begin, McGonagall cancels it. She leads Harry and Ron with her to the hospital wing, where she shows them the Petrified victims of the latest attack: Hermione and Penelope Clearwater, a Ravenclaw prefect. They were found near the library with a mirror on the ground next to them. McGonagall leads Harry and Ron back to Gryffindor Tower, where she explains strict new rules for moving around the castle and adds that the school may be closed if the attacks continue.
That night, Harry and Ron sneak out of the castle in Harry’s Invisibility Cloak, which he inherited from his father, to visit Hagrid. Distracted and upset, Hagrid begins to prepare tea. When someone knocks on the door, Harry and Ron conceal themselves under the Invisibility Cloak. Hagrid opens the door to find Dumbledore accompanied by Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic. Fudge explains that, under pressure from Hogwarts’s board of governors, he has no choice but to arrest him; Dumbledore voices his support for Hagrid.
Moments later, Mr. Malfoy arrives, looking for Dumbledore. Mr. Malfoy pretends to be devastated by the threat to Muggle-born students. On behalf of the board of governors, he tells Dumbledore that he is suspended as headmaster due to his inability to stop the attacks. Dumbledore agrees to step down but comments that “help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it” (264) as if he knows that Harry and Ron are present. As Fudge leads Hagrid away, Hagrid hints that Harry and Ron should “follow the spiders” (264) if they want to find out the truth.
Chapters 12-14 Analysis
These chapters showcase Rowling’s ability to find dry humor in unlikely moments. When Hermione prepares Harry and Ron to obtain hair samples from Crabbe and Goyle, she speaks “as though she were sending them to the supermarket for laundry detergent” (213). Similarly, when Lockhart decorates the Great Hall in pink flowers for Valentine's Day, the narrator observes that “Snape looked as though someone had just fed him a large beaker of Skele-Gro,” the unpleasant bone-growing potion prescribed by Madam Pomfrey (236); moments later, when Lockhart suggests that the students ask Snape for help making love potions, the narrator adds, “Snape was looking as though the first person to ask him for a Love Potion would be force-fed poison” (236-37). Moments such as these enrich characterization and highlight whimsical elements in the world Harry inhabits.
The Harry Potter series as a whole can be considered a coming-of-age tale. Within these chapters, Harry struggles to make sense of his abilities and destiny. Specifically, he fears that his ability to speak to snakes and the Sorting Hat’s insistence that he could have succeeded in Slytherin make him a lesser wizard or one fated to follow a particular path. At this stage of his development, Harry tends to see people and situations in clear-cut, black-and-white terms, so he assumes that he would necessarily be bad or evil if he were in Slytherin. While understandable, Harry’s views serve as another subtle example of prejudice.
These chapters also complicate issues related to authority figures. By concealing their investigation from the teachers, Harry and his friends separate themselves from powerful allies, particularly Dumbledore. Had Harry confided in Dumbledore about his ability to speak to snakes and the voice that he heard, Dumbledore might have figured out the nature of the attacker sooner. Contrasted with Dumbledore’s benevolent authority are Percy’s superficial ambition, Lockhart’s empty bravado, Snape’s hostility, and Fudge’s pandering. Trustworthy authorities, then, are rare, and even when they do exist, Harry’s fears and self-doubt hold him back from confiding in them. Harry yearns for someone to fill the void left by the death of his parents but struggles to know where to turn, especially when, as in this case, Hagrid and Dumbledore are taken away.
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