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Jul 27
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Only the sea is like a human being; the sky is not, nor the earth. But the sea is always moving; always something deep in itself is stirring it. It never rests; it is always wanting, wanting, wanting.
Olive Schreiner, The Story of an African Farm
The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.
Kate Chopin, The Awakening
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TaGs: American, Encyclopedia, Literature
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The Tales of Beedle the Bard is a collection of stories written for young wizards and witches. They have been popular bedtime reading for centuries, with the result that the Hopping Pot and the Fountain of Fair Fortune are as familiar to many of the students at Hogwarts as Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty are to Muggle (non-magical) children. Beedle’s stories resemble our fairy tales in many respects; for instance, virtue is usually rewarded and wickedness punished. However, there is one very obvious difference. In Muggle fairy tales, magic tends to lie at the root of the hero or heroine’s troubles – the wicked witch has poisoned the apple, or put the princess into a hundred years’ sleep, or turned the prince into a hideous beast. In The Tales of Beedle the Bard, on the other hand, we meet heroes and heroines who can perform magic themselves, and yet find it just as hard to solve their problems as we do. Beedle’s stories have helped generations of wizarding parents to explain this painful fact of life to their young children: that magic causes as much trouble as it cures. Another notable difference between these fables and their Muggle counterparts is that Beedle’s witches are much more active in seeking their fortunes than our fairy-tale heroines. Asha, Altheda, Amata and Babbitty Rabbitty are all witches who take their fate into their own hands, rather than taking a prolonged nap or waiting for someone to return a lost shoe. The exception to this rule – the unnamed maiden of “The Warlock’s Hairy Heart” – acts more like our idea of a storybook princess, but there is no “happily ever after” at the end of her tale. Beedle the Bard lived in the fifteenth century and much of his life remains shrouded in mystery. We know that he was born in Yorkshire, and the only surviving woodcut shows that he had an exceptionally luxuriant beard. If his stories accurately reflect his opinions, he rather liked Muggles, whom he regarded as ignorant rather than malevolent; he mistrusted Dark Magic, and he believed that the worst excesses of wizardkind sprang from the all-too-human traits of cruelty, apathy or arrogant misapplication of their own talents. The heroes and heroines who triumph in his stories are not those with the most powerful magic, but rather those who demonstrate the most kindness, common sense and ingenuity. One modern-day wizard who held very similar views was, of course, Professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, Order of Merlin (First Class), Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, and Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. This similarity of outlook notwithstanding, it was a surprise to discover a set of notes on The Tales of Beedle the Bard among the many papers that Dumbledore left in his will to the Hogwarts Archives. Whether this commentary was written for his own satisfaction, or for future publication, we shall never know; however, we have been graciously granted permission by Professor Minerva McGonagall, now Headmistress of Hogwarts, to print Professor Dumbledore’s notes here, alongside a brand new translation of the tales by Hermione Granger. We hope that Professor Dumbledore’s insights, which include observations on wizarding history, personal reminiscences and enlightening information on key elements of each story, will help a new generation of both wizarding and Muggle readers appreciate The Tales of Beedle the Bard. It is the belief of all who knew him personally that Professor Dumbledore would have been delighted to lend his support to this project, given that all royalties are to be donated to the Children’s High Level Group, which works to benefit children in desperate need of a voice. It seems only right to make one small, additional comment on Professor Dumbledore’s notes. As far as we can tell, the notes were completed around eighteen months before the tragic events that took place at the top of Hogwarts’ Astronomy Tower. Those familiar with the history of the most recent wizarding war (everyone who has read all seven volumes on the life of Harry Potter, for instance) will be aware that Professor Dumbledore reveals a little less than he knows – or suspects – about the final story in this book. The reason for any omission lies, perhaps, in what Dumbledore said about truth, many years ago, to his favourite and most famous pupil: “It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.” Whether we agree with him or not, we can perhaps excuse Professor Dumbledore for wishing to protect future readers from the temptations to which he himself had fallen prey, and for which he paid so terrible a price. 
Quidditch Through the Ages is a 2001 book written by British author J. K. Rowling about Quidditch in the Harry Potter universe. It purports to be the Hogwarts library’s copy of the non-fiction book of the same name mentioned in several novels of the Harry Potter series. In 2001 Rowling penned two companion books to the Harry Potter series, Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, for British charity and off-shoot of Live Aid, Comic Relief with all of her royalties going to the charity. As of July 2008, the books combined are estimated to have earned over $30 million for Comic Relief. The two books have since been made available in hardcover.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them represents the fruit of many years’ travel and research. I look back across the years to the seven-year-old wizard who spent hours in his bedroom dismembering Horklumps and I envy him the journeys to come: from darkest jungle to brightest desert, from mountain peak to marshy bog, that grubby Horklump-encrusted boy would track, as he grew up, the beasts described in the following pages. I have visited lairs, burrows, and nests across five continents, observed the curious habits of magical beasts in a hundred countries, witnessed their powers, gained their trust and, on occasion, beaten them off with my travelling kettle. The first edition of Fantastic Beasts was commissioned back in 1918 by Mr. Augustus Worme of Obscurus Books, who was kind enough to ask me whether I would consider writing an authoritative compendium of magical creatures for his publishing house. I was then but a lowly Ministry of Magic employee and leapt at the chance both to augment my pitiful salary of two Sickles a week and to spend my holidays travelling the globe in search of new magical species. The rest is publishing history: Fantastic Beasts is now in its fifty-second edition. This introduction is intended to answer a few of the most frequently asked questions that have been arriving in my weekly postbag ever since this book was first published in 1927. The first of these is that most fundamental question of all – what is a “beast”?
Throughout the six previous novels in the series, the titular character Harry Potter has struggled with the difficulties of adolescence along with being a famous wizard. When Harry was a baby, Lord Voldemort, a powerful evil wizard, murdered Harry’s parents but vanished after attempting to kill Harry. Harry immediately became famous, and was placed in the care of his Muggle, or non-magical, relatives Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon. In Philosopher’s Stone, Harry re-enters the wizarding world at age 11 and enrolls in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He makes friends with Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. Harry also meets the school’s headmaster, Dumbledore, and schoolmaster Severus Snape, who dislikes him. Harry fights Voldemort several times while at school, as the wizard tries to regain a physical form. In Goblet of Fire, Harry is entered in a dangerous magical competition called the Triwizard Tournament. At the conclusion of the Tournament, Harry witnesses the return of Lord Voldemort to full strength. During Order of Phoenix, the Ministry of Magic appoints Dolores Umbridge as the new High Inquisitor of Hogwarts. After forming an underground student group in opposition to Umbridge, Harry and several of his friends face off against Voldemort’s Death Eaters, a group of Dark witches and wizards, and narrowly defeat them. In Half-Blood Prince, he learns that Voldemort has been using “horcruxes” to become immortal. These objects are fragments of a person’s soul placed within an object so that when the body dies, a part of the soul remains and the person can be regenerated or resurrected. However, the destruction of the creator’s body leaves the wizard or witch in a state of half-life, without corporeal form. When returning from a mission to discover a horcrux, Dumbledore is murdered by Snape, a former Death Eater whom Harry suspected of secretly remaining loyal to Voldemort. At the conclusion of the book, Harry decides to find and destroy Voldemort’s remaining horcruxes to defeat the wizard.
Lord Voldemort has returned to power, and his wrath has been felt in both the Muggle and Wizarding worlds. Severus Snape, long considered an enemy of Voldemort and a member of Dumbledore’s anti-Voldemort coalition, the Order of the Phoenix, meets with Narcissa Malfoy, mother of Harry’s school rival Draco and wife of Lucius, an imprisoned Death Eater. Snape makes an Unbreakable Vow to Narcissa, promising to protect Draco. Dumbledore collects Harry from his aunt and uncle’s house. On their way to the home of Harry’s best friend Ron Weasley and family, Harry and Dumbledore stop to persuade Horace Slughorn, former Potions teacher at Hogwarts, to return to teaching, and he finally agrees. Later, when shopping for schoolbooks, Harry and his friends Ron and Hermione follow Draco Malfoy to Dark Arts supplier Borgin and Burkes, where they overhear Draco insisting that the store-owner fix an unknown object. Harry is instantly suspicious of Draco, whom he believes to be a Death Eater like his father. The students return to school, and Dumbledore announces that Snape, the previous Potions teacher, will be teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts, while Slughorn will resume his post as Potions teacher. Harry receives a used Potions textbook that once belonged to someone named “The Half-Blood Prince”, which is heavily annotated and helps Harry excel in Potions. Believing that Harry needs to learn Voldemort’s past to gain advantage in a foretold fight, Dumbledore schedules regular meetings with Harry in which they use Dumbledore’s Pensieve to look at memories of those who have had direct contact with Voldemort. Harry learns about Voldemort’s family and the influences that corrupted Voldemort, eventually leading him into dividing his soul into seven Horcruxes. Two of these, young Voldemort’s diary and his grandfather’s ring, have already been destroyed. Of the remaining, one resides in Voldemort, one resides in Voldemort’s snake, one is Slytherin’s locket, and the other two are suspected to be hidden in objects belonging to Hufflepuff, or Ravenclaw. Ron acquires a new girlfriend, Lavender Brown, of whom Hermione is extremely jealous, and Harry feels stuck in the middle of his friends’ bickering. Eventually, Harry falls in love with Ginny, Ron’s sister, and Ron and Lavender break up, to Hermione’s delight. Harry spends much of his time keeping up with his duties as Quidditch captain and following Draco Malfoy for any proof of suspicious actions, though he often cannot find him on his Marauder’s map of Hogwarts. Harry realizes that when Draco is not on the map, he is using the Room of Requirement on the seventh floor of Hogwarts, which transforms into whatever its user needs. Harry tries his best to get in to see what Draco is up to, but until he knows exactly what Draco is using the room for, he cannot gain access. Eventually Harry and Dumbledore leave Hogwarts to fetch and destroy the locket Horcrux, completion of which would make Voldemort one step closer to mortal. They journey to the middle of a treacherous sea into a cave that Dumbledore senses is protected with magic – the same cave in which Voldemort tortured other children when he was younger, and later used to hide his Horcrux. They reach the basin where the locket is hidden underneath a potion. Dumbledore drinks the potion and Harry fights off Voldemort’s Inferi, an army of re-animated corpses. They take the locket and return to Hogwarts as quickly as possible. Dumbledore is quite weak, and when they reach Hogsmeade they can see that the Dark Mark, Voldemort’s symbol, is visible above the astronomy tower. When they arrive at the tower, Dumbledore uses his magic to freeze Harry in place while Harry remains hidden by his cloak of invisibility. Draco Malfoy arrives and disarms and threatens to kill Dumbledore, acting on his mission from Voldemort. Dumbledore tries to stall Draco by telling him he is not a killer, but then Snape bursts into the tower and kills Dumbledore, sending him flying over the edge of the tower. Because of Dumbledore’s death, his spell on Harry is broken and Harry rushes after Snape to avenge Dumbledore’s death. Snape reveals that he is the Half-Blood Prince and manages to escape. Later, Harry looks at the locket he and Dumbledore retrieved and realizes that it is not the real Horcrux. Inside the locket is a note from someone named “R. A. B.” After Dumbledore’s funeral, Hermione explains to Harry that Snape was called the Half-Blood Prince because he had a Muggle father and a witch mother whose maiden name was Prince. Harry is devastated to think that he trusted and took help from the man who would turn out to be Dumbledore’s murderer. He tells his friends he will not be returning to Hogwarts next year and will instead search out and kill Voldemort by destroying all of the Horcruxes. Ron and Hermione vow to join him.
Harry Potter is spending another tedious summer with his dreadful Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon when a group of evil spirits called “Dementors” stage an unexpected attack on Harry and his cousin Dudley. After using magic to defend himself, Harry is visited by a group of wizards and whisked off to number twelve, Grimmauld Place, London. Number twelve is the home of Harry’s godfather, Sirius Black, and the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix. The Order is a group of witches and wizards, led by Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore, dedicated to fighting the evil Lord Voldemort and his followers. The Order is forced to operate in secrecy, outside of the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Magic, which is headed by the dense and corrupt Cornelius Fudge. Fudge refuses to believe that Lord Voldemort has returned. Harry used magic to fight off the dementors, and since underage wizards are not permitted to use their wands outside of school, he must face a disciplinary hearing at the Ministry. With Dumbledore’s help, Harry is cleared by the Wizengamot and permitted to return to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Reunited with his best friends, Ron and Hermione, Harry returns to Hogwarts and learns that Dolores Umbridge, an employee of Fudge, will be his new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. The Sorting Hat, which traditionally sorts all new students into one of four houses, cautions the students against becoming too internally divided. Meanwhile, the wizard newspaper, the Daily Prophet, continues printing untrue and unfair stories about Harry. Many of his classmates are whispering about him behind his back, but Harry ignores them and tries to concentrate on his studies, since all fifth-year students at Hogwarts are required to take rigorous standardized exams that are O.W.L.s, or Ordinary Wizarding Level examinations. Umbridge refuses to teach her students how to perform Defense spells, and before long, Fudge appoints her High Inquisitor of Hogwarts, giving her the authority to inspect all faculty members and evaluate their skills. In desperation, Harry, Hermione, and Ron form their own Defense Against the Dark Arts group, also known as the D.A., or Dumbledore’s Army. Twenty-five other students sign up, and they meet as often as possible to learn and practice Defense spells. Harry wishes desperately to contact his godfather Sirius to discuss the situation, but Umbridge is inspecting all Owl Post and patrolling the fires that students can use to make contact with wizards residing outside of Hogwarts. Umbridge openly dislikes Harry, whom she considers a liar, and eventually bans him from the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Ron’s twin brothers, Fred and George, storm out of Hogwarts in protest, moving to London where they plan to open a joke shop in the wizarding town of Diagon Alley using the money Harry won last year in the Triwizard Tournament. Harry continues to have upsetting dreams about walking down a corridor at the Department of Mysteries, deep inside the Ministry of Magic. At the end of the corridor, Harry goes through several doors and enters a room full of dusty glass spheres. Harry always wakes up before he finds out what the dream means or what the spheres signify. One night, Harry has a vision where he inhabits the body of a large snake, and attacks Ron’s father. Harry wakes up horrified, and Professor McGonagall takes him to Dumbledore immediately. Dumbledore uses the portraits on the walls of his office to raise an alert, and Mr. Weasley is promptly rescued by two members of the Order. The Weasley Family, accompanied by Harry and the Order, visit Arthur Weasley in St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. Afterwards, Dumbledore demands that Harry take Occlumency lessons with Professor Snape, which should help Harry protect his mind against further invasions by Lord Voldemort. Harry is unsuccessful at Occlumency because he has such difficulty clearing his mind of all thoughts, making it difficult for him to focus on closing his mind off to all outside influence. Meanwhile, his scar (from the attack in which Voldemort killed Harry’s parents) burns horribly every time Voldemort experiences a powerful emotion. The D.A. continues to meet regularly, and Harry’s peers show great improvement until they are caught by Umbridge. Dumbledore takes full responsibility for the group and resigns as Headmaster. Umbridge takes over his position. The students begin taking their O.W.L. exams, and Harry has another vision, this time about Sirius being held captive and tortured by Voldemort. Horrified, Harry becomes determined to save him. Hermione warns Harry that Voldemort may be deliberately trying to lure Harry to the Department of Mysteries, but Harry is too concerned about Sirius to take any chances. Harry sneaks into Umbridge’s office, and, using her fireplace, transports himself to Twelve Grimmauld Place to look for Sirius. Kreacher, the House of Black’s house elf, tells Harry that Sirius is at the Ministry of Magic. Harry returns to Hogwarts to find that he and his friends have been caught in Umbridge’s office. Hermione and Harry convince Umbridge to follow them into the forest, where they claim to be hiding a weapon for Dumbledore. Once in the forest, Centaurs carry Umbridge away. Harry and his friends climb aboard flying horses called thestrals and speed off to the Ministry. Once they arrive, Harry cannot find Sirius and realizes that Hermione was right. Harry also sees that one of the glass spheres has his name on it, as well as Voldemort’s. Harry grabs the sphere, and Death Eaters surround to attack, demanding that Harry hand over the prophecy. Employing all of their Defence skills, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Luna, and Neville have moderate success fighting the Death Eaters, but they are ultimately helped enormously by the arrival of several members of the Order. In the midst of the fight, Harry drops the glass sphere, and it shatters and Sirius’ own cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange, kills Sirius. Before Harry can avenge his godfather, Dumbledore appears shortly after Voldemort and the two engage in an intense duel. Voldemort and Lestrange escape, just as Fudge appears at the Ministry, finally faced with incontrovertible evidence that the Dark Lord has returned. Dumbledore sends Harry back to school, where he explains that the sphere was a prophecy which stated that Harry has a power that Voldemort will never know: the power of love, given to him by his mother’s sacrifice 15 years earlier. The prophecy goes on to claim that neither Harry nor Voldemort can live while the other survives. Dumbledore takes this opportunity to tell Harry why he must spend his summers with the Dursleys in Little Whinging: Because Harry’s mother died to save him, he is blessed with her love, a blessing that can be sealed only by blood. Harry’s Aunt Petunia, his mother’s sister, makes that bond complete by taking Harry into her home. As long as he still calls Little Whinging home, Harry is safe. The Order members strongly advise the Dursleys to treat Harry with the respect he deserves, and he returns home with them to face another miserable summer.
Throughout the three previous novels in the Harry Potter series, the main character, Harry Potter, has struggled with the difficulties that come with growing up and the added challenge of being a famous wizard. When Harry was a baby, Voldemort, the most powerful Dark wizard in history, killed Harry’s parents but mysteriously vanished after unsuccessfully trying to kill Harry. This results in Harry’s immediate fame and his being placed in the care of his muggle, or non-magical, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, who have a son named Dudley Dursley. Harry enters the wizarding world at the age of 11, enrolling in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He makes friends with Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger and is confronted by Lord Voldemort trying to regain power. In Harry’s first year he has to protect the Philosopher’s Stone from Voldemort and one of his faithful followers in Hogwarts. After returning to the school after summer break, students at Hogwarts are attacked after the legendary “Chamber of Secrets” is opened. Harry ends the attacks by killing a Basilisk and defeating another attempt by Lord Voldemort to return to full strength. The following year, Harry hears that he has been targeted by escaped murderer Sirius Black. Despite stringent security measures at Hogwarts, Harry is confronted by Black at the end of his third year of schooling, and Harry learns that Black was framed and is actually Harry’s godfather. He also learned that it was Sirius’s, Lupin’s and James Potter’s friend Peter Pettigrew who actually betrayed his parents.
Harry and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger return to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and find security has been tightened because of notorious mass murderer Sirius Black’s escape from Azkaban, the wizarding prison. Harry learns that Black betrayed Harry’s parents to the evil Lord Voldemort 12 years ago, leading to their deaths. Black is also known to have murdered the Potters’ good friend, Peter Pettigrew. Despite the disapproval of headmaster Albus Dumbledore, the grounds of Hogwarts are being guarded by Dementors, dark, sinister beings that drain the happiness of anyone nearby and are the appointed guards of Azkaban. The Dementors have a particularly strong effect on Harry, causing him to black out and hear the screams of his dying parents every time they come near him. Professor Remus Lupin, the school’s new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, befriends Harry and agrees to teach him the Patronus Charm, a difficult spell used to repel Dementors. Harry is depressed to learn he will not be allowed to visit Hogsmeade, the local wizarding village, with his fellow third-years, because his guardian, Uncle Vernon, has refused to sign the permission form. Harry is also angry with his arch-nemesis Draco Malfoy for ruining gamekeeper Hagrid’s first lesson as Care of Magical Creatures teacher. Malfoy’s rude behavior during the lesson causes him to be attacked by a Hippogriff named Buckbeak, and Malfoy’s father Lucius promises that Buckbeak will be executed in the course of the year. Meanwhile, Sirius Black manages to break into Hogwarts twice, presumably to reach Harry, but is unsuccessful. Fred and George Weasley give Harry the Marauder’s Map, a map that shows the whereabouts of everybody on the grounds of Hogwarts as well as secret passageways that can get him from the castle into Hogsmeade. Ron discovers that Scabbers, his rat, has disappeared and believes he has been eaten by Crookshanks, Hermione’s cat, causing a falling-out between him and Hermione. Hermione later finds Scabbers hiding in Hagrid’s hut when the three of them visit him before Buckbeak’s execution. On their way back from Hagrid’s, the three hear the sounds of Buckbeak being executed. Just then, a large, black dog appears and attacks Ron, dragging him and Scabbers into a hidden passage beneath the magical and dangerous Whomping Willow. Harry and Hermione receive a brutal beating from the Whomping Willow before entering the passageway in pursuit of Ron. Harry and Hermione follow the sounds of Ron’s screams and find themselves in an old, boarded-up shack in Hogsmeade, known as the Shrieking Shack. They also discover that the dog is actually Sirius Black, who is an Animagus and able to transform from dog to human at will. While Harry attempts to get revenge on Black for betraying his parents, Professor Lupin suddenly arrives. To the shock of Harry, Ron, and Hermione, Lupin embraces Black like a brother. Hermione confronts Lupin about habits she has observed during her classes with him, accusing him of being a werewolf. Lupin admits to being a werewolf, and begins to explain that he, Sirius, James Potter (Harry’s father), and Peter Pettigrew were inseparable friends while at Hogwarts, even writing the Marauder’s Map together. To make Lupin’s monthly transformations into a wolf more enjoyable, his friends all became Animagi so they could safely interact with him in his animal state. The Marauders remained friends after Hogwarts. When they learned that Voldemort was planning to go after the Potters, Sirius agreed to become their Secret-Keeper, the only one to know of their hidden location. Harry interjects that he knows the story: Sirius betrayed the Potters’ location to Voldemort, and later killed Pettigrew as well. However, Sirius then reveals that he had secretly switched his duty as Secret-Keeper with Pettigrew, to throw Voldemort off the Potters’ trail. Pettigrew was the real betrayer, and faked his own death in order to frame Sirius for the murders. Harry, Ron, and Hermione are skeptical, but Sirius swears that he can prove the truth, as he believes Scabbers to be the Animagus form of Peter Pettigrew. Professor Snape suddenly barges in on the scene, and upon seeing Sirius and Lupin together, threatens to turn them over to the Dementors. Harry, Hermione, and Ron, wanting to see if Sirius is telling the truth, all attack Professor Snape, knocking him out. This allows Lupin and Sirius to revert Scabbers back into Pettigrew. Pettigrew admits to the story, but Harry stops Sirius and Lupin from killing him, not wanting his father’s best friends to turn into murderers. Instead, Harry persuades them to take Pettigrew back to Hogwarts in order to clear Sirius’s name before turning Pettigrew over to the Dementors. As they return to the castle, the full moon emerges and Lupin transforms into a werewolf. Amidst the confusion, Pettigrew transforms back into a rat and escapes across the grounds. Lupin begins to lose control of himself in his wolf form, knocking out Sirius and nearly killing Harry, before a strange howl lures him away into the Forbidden Forest. Harry finds an unconscious Sirius lying by the lake, where Dementors suddenly descend on the pair and nearly kill them. They are saved at the last minute by a strange figure across the lake, who casts the Patronus Charm. Before passing out, Harry believes the figure is his father. Harry awakes in the hospital wing, only to learn that Sirius has been captured and is being imprisoned in the castle, awaiting his fate. On Dumbledore’s quiet suggestion, Harry and Hermione use a Time-Turner (which Hermione has secretly been using all year to take multiple classes at the same time) to travel back in time and try to prevent Sirius’s capture. Harry and Hermione first manage to rescue Buckbeak from his execution. They then watch the scenes of the night unfold while safely hidden from sight, as any interference with their past selves could prove disastrous. When they finally see the Dementors cornering Harry and Sirius at the lake, Harry watches intently for the figure who conjured the Patronus, only to realize at the last moment that it was, in fact, himself. Harry quickly performs the Patronus Charm and watches as Sirius is discovered by Professor Snape and taken up to the castle. Harry and Hermione then fly Buckbeak up to the tower where Sirius is imprisoned, and help him escape on Buckbeak into the dark. Having accomplished what they set out to do, Harry and Hermione rush back to the hospital wing just in time. Lupin, now revealed to all as a werewolf, must resign, even though he was the best professor Harry had ever had at Hogwarts. Harry is worried that Pettigrew, now free, may help Voldemort to return, but Dumbledore says that Harry may be grateful one day that he helped save Pettigrew’s life.
Soon after the start of Harry’s second year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, messages on the walls of the corridors say that the Chamber of Secrets has been re-opened and that the “Heir of Slytherin” would kill all pupils whose parents are not both magical – which includes Hermione. Over the next few months, various inhabitants of the school are found petrified in corridors. Meanwhile, Harry, Ron, and Hermione discover Moaning Myrtle, the ghost of a girl who was killed the last time the Chamber was opened and now haunts the girls’ toilet in which she died. Myrtle shows Harry a diary bearing the name Tom Marvolo Riddle. Although its pages are blank, it responds when Harry writes in it. Eventually the book shows him Hogwarts as it was fifty years ago. There he sees Tom Riddle, Head Boy at the time, blame Rubeus Hagrid, who was then thirteen years old and already kept dangerous creatures as pets, for opening the Chamber. Four months later the diary is stolen, and shortly afterward Hermione is petrified. However, she holds a note explaining that the culprit is a basilisk, a huge serpent whose gaze kills those who look into its eyes directly but only petrifies those who see their reflection. Hermione concluded that the monster travels through the school’s pipes and emerges through the toilet Myrtle haunts. As the attacks continue, Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic, holds Hagrid in the wizards’ prison as a precaution. Lucius Malfoy, Draco’s father and a former supporter of Voldemort who claims to have reformed, announces that the school’s governors have suspended Dumbledore from the position of headmaster. After Ron’s younger sister, Ginny, is taken into the Chamber, the staff insist that the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Gilderoy Lockhart, should handle the situation. However, when Harry and Ron go to his office to tell him what they have discovered about the basilisk, Lockhart reveals that he is a fraud who took credit for the accomplishments of others and attempts to erase the boys’ memories. Disarming Lockhart, they march him to Moaning Myrtle’s toilet, where Harry opens the passage to the Chamber of Secrets. In the sewers under the school, Lockhart grabs Ron’s wand and tries again to wipe the boys’ memories, but since Ron’s wand had been damaged, the spell backfires, inflicting total amnesia on Lockhart, collapsing part of the tunnel, and separating Harry from Ron and Lockhart. While Ron attempts to tunnel through the rubble, Harry enters the Chamber of Secrets, where Ginny lies beside the diary. As he examines her, Tom Riddle appears, looking exactly as he did fifty years ago, and explains that he is a memory stored in the diary. Ginny wrote in it about her adolescent hopes and fears, and Riddle won her confidence by appearing sympathetic, possessed her, and used her to open the Chamber. Riddle also reveals that he is Voldemort as a boy. He further explains that he learned from Ginny who Harry was and about his own deeds as Voldemort. When Ginny realised that she had been responsible for the attacks, she attempted to throw the diary away, which is how it came into Harry’s possession. Riddle then releases the basilisk to kill Harry. Dumbledore’s pet phoenix, Fawkes, brings a magnificent sword wrapped in the Sorting Hat. Harry uses the sword to kill the basilisk, but only after being bitten by the creature’s venomous fangs, one of which breaks off. As Riddle gloats over the dying Harry, Fawkes weeps on Harry’s wound to cure it. Harry stabs the diary with the broken fang, and Riddle vanishes.[1] Ginny revives and they return to Ron, who is still watching over the amnesic Lockhart. Fawkes carries all four out of the tunnels. Harry recounts the whole story to Dumbledore, who has been reinstated. When Harry mentions his fears that he is similar to Tom Riddle, Dumbledore says that Harry chose Gryffindor House, and only a true member of that House could have used Godric Gryffindor’s sword to kill the basilisk. Lucius Malfoy bursts in, and Harry accuses him of slipping the diary into Ginny’s bag while the pupils were shopping for school books. Finally, the basilisk’s petrified victims are revived by a potion, the preparation of which has taken several months.
