HP Reread 2025 October 22
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Malfoy suggests Snape apply for the Headmaster's job and while Snape says Dumbledore is likely to be back soon he "couldn't suppress a thin-lipped smile" and he smirks at Malfoy's suggestion that he'd have Lucius' vote. I wonder if Snape would like to see Dumbledore gone at this point.
Malfoy follows this up by once again saying "Mudbloods" and both gambling on one dying, and saying it was a pity it wasn't Hermione who died. Snape doesn't hear or ignores this. I know people excuse Snape from acting like a decent person at times like this because he had to keep up his cover, but Voldemort is ostensibly dead, and he could excuse telling Malfoy off as a matter of teaching the brat some public civility (which Malfoy Sr also seems to try teaching him, so that would probably be a really good excuse).
I think there's something important in Ernie apologizing to Harry. Both as a good model of you-should-apologize-to-people and in demonstrating Harry's capacity for forgiveness. He shakes hands with Ernie and that's it on his part, even though Ron is less forgiving.
Harry gets a lot of flack over the course of the books for being both nosy and reckless in the pursuit of solving mysteries. Interestingly, this is one book where he actively delays following up on two leads. They don't go to talk to Hagrid right away, and they don't follow the spiders right away. The last might be a little because of having trouble finding them, but it's also clear they don't think to use the cloak earlier to go looking.
It's interesting that Malfoy and Ron are the two characters afraid of werewolves, who think that they roam the forbidden forest. They're pureblood, so they're the ones in the best position to know about them and have heard rumors, but you'd think they'd also know that werewolves only transform at the full moon. It's possible they went into the forest during a full moon, but there's no moonlight so probably not.
I love Mr. Weasley's dog-car. It makes no sense, but I love it. It's a pity it doesn't come up more often.
I'd forgotten that Aragog has a wife named Mosag.
There are some characters I have more sympathy for in this reread and some characters I'm finding myself with decidedly less. Percy, I've so far found more understanding towards. Ginny, very much not.
Ginny has four older brothers there at school with her, at least three of whom have been actively trying to help her all year, and it takes her the entire year to even get close to admitting things? Why is she trying to admit them to Harry and Ron anyway? Why didn't she go to Percy, or Fred and George, ages ago? Harry not confiding in others makes sense, because he wasn't raised with anyone to confide in. Ginny doesn't have that excuse.
Despite my sympathy for Percy, ugh, you're so wrong here.
I wonder if, had McGonagall not caught Harry and Ron and stopped them from checking the bathroom out, if they'd have caught Ginny before she disappeared.
Hermione tore the page from a very old library book. Now, why she didn't just take the book... plot, I guess? However, other problem. Why did she need to take it from an old library book, when most of that information is in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, a book on her first year class list. The only info on that page that isn't is that spiders flee from it, and the basilisk flees the crowing of the rooster.
Now. Harry and Ron see Snape do a marvelous job, assisted by Professors Flitwick, Sprout and McGonagall, of getting Lockhart out of the way. They even hear McGonagall acknowledge that was just to get him out of the way. So why, why????? do they choose to go to Lockhart with the information instead of telling McGonagall or one of the competent ones.
Why if everyone is shut up in the common rooms, was Percy able to leave to send a letter?
Even though just about everyone seems to suspect that he's a fraud, why does Lockhart admit that to Harry and Ron? It's such an odd thing to do, even if he does expect to be able to obliviate them.
I suppose we must thank Snape for Harry's success in disarming Lockhart. Interestingly, Harry actually calls him "Professor Snape" here.
Flinging Lockhart's wand out the window wasn't a good idea, Ron. You could have used one that actually worked.
Also, Lockhart just admitted that he's a fraud. Why take him with you? Why assume he'd be any help at all?
...did no one at the time, including Dumbledore, think to ask Myrtle how she died? Deducing it's a snake isn't hard, and how many snakes have great big yellow eyes that kill at a glance? They might not have known where the entrance was, but they'd have known what it was and how to defend against it.