Character Profile

Choose a storybook: Harry Potter & the Chambers of Secrets

Harry Potter is an orphan who discovers at the age of eleven that he is a wizard, living within the ordinary world of Muggle people ( non-magical people ). His ability is inborn and such children are invited to attend a school that teaches necessary skills to succeed in the wizarding world. 

Harry is staying home with the Dursleys for the summer, and he is not getting any mail from his friends, Ron and Hermione. Harry is visited by Dobby, a house-elf, who warns Harry that he will be in great danger if he returns to Hogwarts this year. In order to counter Harry's determination on going back to school, Dobby decides to destroy, by the use of a charm, a large cake that Aunt Petunia has bake for an important dinner party attended by Vernon Dursley's boss and his wife. The Dursleys then lock Harry's books and wand away and fit bars onto his bedroom window, making Harry a prisoner.

Harry is then saved by Fred, George and Ron Weasley in their father's enchanted Ford Anglia car. After a pleasant summer together in the Weasley's house, everyone heads to Platform 93/4 to take the Hogwarts Express back to school. Harry and Ron then realized that they are unable to enter the barrier between platform 9 and 10. They then fly to Hogwarts in the car.

Harry, Ron and Hermione attempt to discover the Heir of Slytherin's true identity. Using polyjuice potion, they disguise themselves as Slytherin students, hoping to learn from Draco Malfoy the identity of the Heir.  

The attacks increase throughout the year, petrifying more students, including Hermione. Most horribly, a message written on a wall declares that Ginny Weasley has been taken into the Chamber, where "her skeleton will lie forever."

Harry makes it to the Chamber where he finds an unconscious Ginny. He meets a young man named Tom Riddle, who claims to be a memory. Lord Voldemort, whose real name is Tom Marvolo Riddle, imprinted his memory in an enchanted diary, in order to one day continue the work he began when he reopened the Chamber fifty years ago ridding Hogwarts of non-pureblood witches and wizards.

Tom Riddle's memory grows more powerful as it steals life from Ginny's body, and it tries to kill Harry by setting loose a basilisk. But Dumbledore's phoenix, Fawkes, arrives carrying the Sorting Hat, from which Harry draws out the sword of Godric Gryffindor. Fawkes blinds the basilisk, destroying its fatal gaze, and Harry slays it with the sword. In attempting to slay the basilisk Harry's arm has been pierced by the creature's fang. Harry stabs the diary with one of the basilisk's fangs, and the memory of Riddle is destroyed, while Ginny revives from her near-death state. Harry seems to be dying quickly from the venom but Fawkes comes to heal Harry with his tears (phoenix tears have healing power).

Dumbledore dispels Harry's fears that he could have been put into Slytherin rather than into Gryffindor when he tells Harry that it is his choices that define him and not his abilities, and that Harry could not have wielded the sword of Gryffindor if he did not truly belong to that house.