Harry spends another miserable summer with his only remaining family, the Dursleys. During a dinner party given by Harry's aunt and uncle, Dobby, a house-elf, pops into Harry's bedroom, warning him that if he returns to Hogwarts, terrible things will happen. Harry disregards it, and Dobby wreaks havoc in the kitchen, infuriating the Dursleys, who angrily imprison Harry. Harry is rescued by his friend Ron Weasley and brothers Fred and George in their flying car, spending the summer at the Weasley home. Harry accidentally ends up in Knockturn Alley, the dark arts section of Diagon Alley. Fortunately, he encounters his friend Hagrid, Hogwarts's gamekeeper, there to buy flesh-eating slug repellent, who guides him safely back into Diagon Alley to shop for school supplies.
In the company of the Weasleys, Harry encounters the famous Gilderoy Lockhart who informs everyone that he is the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher and demands to be in a photoshoot with Harry, revealing his enthusiasm for self-promotion. Soon after, the Weasleys depart with Harry for King's Cross, but when they arrive, Harry and Ron inexplicably cannot get through the secret entrance to Platform 9 ¾, so they decide to fly the Weasley's car to Hogwarts instead. Things get dangerous when Ron loses control of the car, and it falls from the sky into a Whomping Willow (a tree that attacks anyone who approaches it). Ron and Harry escape from the tree, but Ron's wand is broken in the process. The next day, Ron receives a Howler from his mother, Molly Weasley, threatening to send him home if he puts another toe out of line.
Lockhart turns out to be an incompetent teacher, more concerned with personal celebrity than teaching. On Halloween, Mrs. Norris, a cat belonging to the school caretaker's is found petrified. On a wall nearby appears a message: "The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir, beware." Harry, Ron, and their best friend Hermione Granger discover that one of Hogwarts' founders, Salazar Slytherin, secretly built the Chamber of Secrets, which is rumoured to contain a monster that only Slytherin's heir can directly control. Slytherin disapproved of wizards and witches with Muggle parents (muggleborns) being allowed to attend Hogwarts and supposedly built the Chamber so that one day his heir could purge the school of them.
Suspecting that Harry's nemesis, Draco Malfoy, is the heir of Slytherin, the trio spends a month making Polyjuice Potion, a brew that will allow them, for a period, to look like someone else. Their makeshift laboratory is in a bathroom haunted by the ghost of Moaning Myrtle.
During a game of Quidditch, Harry's arm is broken by a rogue Bludger, although he still catches the snitch to win the game. Lockhart volunteers to heal the broken bones but removes them instead. That night, as Harry lies mending in his hospital bed, Dobby appears and admits responsibility for the platform incident and the rogue Bludger, out of a desire to stop Harry from being able to attend Hogwarts. He begs Harry to leave Hogwarts, insisting that he is in danger, and lets slip that the Chamber of Secrets has been opened before. Soon after, a first-year student, Colin Creevey, is attacked and petrified.
During the first meeting of Lockhart's new dueling club, Harry duels with Draco, who casts a snake that tries to attack a student, Justin Finch-Fletchley. In his efforts to stop it, Harry unwittingly speaks Parseltongue. The sudden appearance of this ability—also possessed by Salazar Slytherin—shocks everyone, since it suggests that Harry might be Slytherin's heir. Harry comes under further suspicion when he stumbles upon the petrified bodies of Justin Finch-Fletchley and Nearly Headless Nick.
At Christmas, Harry and Ron use the finished Polyjuice Potion to disguise themselves as Draco's two friends Crabbe andGoyle. Hermione is unable to join them, having accidentally used cat hairs instead of human hairs in her sample of the potion, and subsequently turning into a human-cat hybrid when she drank it. Talking to Draco in the Slytherin common room, Harry and Ron discover that Draco is not the Heir of Slytherin and that the Chamber was last opened fifty years before.
After a few quiet months, Harry finds a diary in Myrtle's bathroom, which has flooded. He writes in the diary, which responds by displaying the name "Tom Riddle." Communicating with "Riddle" by writing in the diary, Harry learns that Hagrid was found to handle opening the Chamber of Secrets fifty years ago. Some time later, Harry's room is ransacked, and the diary taken. Hermione and a Ravenclaw girl, Penelope Clearwater, are petrified as well. Harry and Ron intend to question Hagrid, but before they can, he is accused of opening the Chamber of Secrets again and is taken to Azkaban prison. Before Hagrid is led away, he secretly instructs the boys to "follow the spiders" into the Forbidden Forest. There they encounter Aragog, a giant spider whom Hagrid had raised in secret during his days at Hogwarts, who tells them the monster who killed the girl 50 years before was not a spider, that the girl's body was found in a bathroom, and that Hagrid is innocent. The boys escape a colony of giant spiders, who are instructed by Aragog to eat them. They also realise that the girl Aragog referred to must have been Moaning Myrtle.
To be continued ...........
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