The series that introduced us to the wizarding world only gets better as the movies progress and the second installment in the Harry Potter series takes a deeper dive into the magical world surrounding Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. With the introduction of key elements that play a role in later movies, like the Whomping Willow, and secrets about Hogwarts' founding, this movie subtly expands upon the foundation of the wizarding world that the first movie built.

In this article, we’ll be covering the most notable scenes, rating different elements of the movie, going over differences between the book and movie, and answering some of the most commonly asked questions.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets | Summary & Recap

Dobby the House-Elf

The second movie begins at the Durley’s house, where Harry must inevitably return every summer. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon are meeting with Mr. and Mrs. Mason to secure an investment and instruct Harry to stay in his room and pretend like he doesn’t exist. This goes very wrong when a new character named Dobby, a house-elf, is introduced.

In Dobby’s attempt to stop Harry from going back to Hogwarts because of an unknown threat, the elf drops a cake on Mrs. Mason’s head, infuriating Harry’s uncle. They automatically assume Harry used magic to jeopardize Uncle Vernon’s investment opportunity and lock him in his room, even going so far as to put bars on his window.

The Burrow

Having caught wind of Harry’s situation, Ron, Fred, and George show up to rescue Harry in a flying 1960 Ford Anglia. They break Harry out of his room and narrowly escape Uncle Vernon before flying back to the Weasley’s home, known as the Burrow. Harry meets most of the Weasley family in their cozy magical home.

Afterwards, they all travel to Diagon Alley via floo flame, but Harry takes an accidental trip to Knockturn Alley, a very sketchy street where dark wizards linger. Hagrid finds Harry there, and the two return to Diagon Alley together where Harry meets Gilderoy Lockhart, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, as well as Lucius Malfoy, Draco’s father.

The Whomping Willow

When trying to reach Platform 9 and 3/4, the secret passageway is suddenly sealed when Harry and Ron try to run through it. With their overturned trolleys and luggage scattered everywhere, they decide to use the flying car in a final attempt to reach Hogwarts. On their way, they’re nearly hit by the train and Ron has to save Harry from falling out of the car.

The two make a very ungraceful landing in a tree on the castle’s grounds. Unfortunately for the two friends, the tree in which they landed is the Whomping Willow, a magical tree that nearly kills them by smashing the car with its large branches. They manage to escape with their lives but have to serve detention due to their recklessness, making their return to Hogwarts a rather dramatic one.

The First Attack

While serving detention with Professor Lockhart, Harry hears a voice whispering within the walls of the castle. He follows it, running into Ron and Hermione before finding the first victim in a series of attacks that’ll follow. Filch’s cat, Mrs. Norris, has been petrified by an unknown person or creature, and a message written on the wall puts the whole school on alert:

“The chamber of secrets has been opened, enemies of the heir . . . beware.”

The Rogue Bludger and Dobby’s Warning

Harry ends up stuck in the hospital wing after having his arm broken by a rogue bludger during a Quidditch match. There, he hears the whispering voice once again just as Dobby makes a second appearance. The house-elf admits that he is responsible for the bludger and that he did it to protect Harry from the dangers within Hogwarts.

Right when he says this, another petrified victim is brought into the hospital wing, but this time it is a first-year student named Colin Creevey. Harry overhears the professors express their fears about the Chamber of Secrets.

Moaning Myrtle

Harry and his friends plan to learn more about the attacker; their first suspect is Draco Malfoy. Hermione devises a plan that involves using Polyjuice Potions, a potion that allows the drinker to temporarily change into someone else’s form. As the group is brewing the potion in the second-floor girls' bathroom, a ghost named Moaning Myrtle, who scares away anyone trying to use that bathroom, makes an appearance.

Dueling Lessons

The teachers decide to start dueling lessons in light of the attacks so that students can learn defensive and offensive spells against the unknown attacker. During the duel, the first students pitted against each other are none other than Harry and Draco.

Draco ends up conjuring a snake that sets its eyes on one of the onlooking students. Harry unknowingly speaks Parseltongue, the language snakes, to convince the snake not to attack. However, all the students become suspicious of Harry as they know only the heir of Slytherin has the ability to speak Parseltongue and Harry just spoke it in front of half the school.

Polyjuice Potion

On Halloween, the Polyjuice Potion is finally finished and the trio each drink a cup that has the hair of the person they want to turn into. Something goes wrong with Hermione’s potion (which we later learn that she unknowingly put a cat hair in hers), and so it’s up to Harry and Ron, posing as Crabbe and Goyle, to secretly get answers from Malfoy.

They soon learn that Malfoy is not the one responsible for the attacks, nor does he know who is responsible. However, they do learn that the chamber was opened fifty years ago, where a muggle-born student died. After enduring some hateful comments about their real selves, Harry and Ron have to run out of the room once the potion begins to wear off.

Tom Riddle’s Diary

Harry finds a diary in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom and takes it back to the common room. He starts to write in it and finds out that someone on the other side of the book, someone named Tom Riddle, offers to show him a glimpse of the past. Harry is shown a memory from fifty years ago where a muggle-born witch is killed and Hagrid is expelled for keeping an acromantula as a pet, which they believe to be the creature that killed the student.

Hermione’s Petrification

Just as the Gryffindor team is about to start a Quidditch match, Professor McGonagall calls off the game and leads Harry and Ron to the hospital wing. There, the two find Hermione’s petrified body; they are shocked to find their close friend, and the smartest of the trio, in such a state.

Follow the Spiders

Harry and Ron go to Hagrid’s Hut in search of answers, but they are interrupted by Lucius Malfoy, the Minister of Magic, and Dumbledore, who have all come to take Hagrid to Azkaban because everyone except Dumbledore believe he is behind the attacks. Hagrid leaves with a vague message to Harry and Ron to “follow the spiders”.

Throughout the movie, Harry has spotted lines of spiders which trail into the unknown. Harry and Ron decide to follow the spiders which lead them into the Forbidden Forest. Deep in the woods, they meet Hagrid’s old pet, Aragog, a giant acromantula. The spider clears Hagrid’s name, but then proceeds to try to kill Harry and Ron.

Into the Chamber of Secrets

As Harry discovers a piece of paper in Hermione's hand, they finally connect all the dots: the monster in the Chamber of Secrets is a basilisk! The giant serpent has been using the pipes to move around Hogwarts unnoticed. Looking into the basilisk's eyes causes the onlooker to die, but all the victims throughout this school year have been petrified instead. They have all glimpsed the basilisk indirectly, either through a puddle, a camera, or a mirror.

Harry and Ron overhear the teachers talking and discover a student has been taken to the chamber and it’s none other than Ron’s sister, Ginny. They run to Professor Lockhart for help only to find him trying to run away. They force him to go with them to talk to Myrtle; it turns out that she was the girl who died fifty years ago when the Chamber of Secrets was opened once before. The entrance to the Chamber of Secrets has been right under their nose all along, in the sink of the second-floor girls' bathroom!

The Final Battle

Unlocking the chamber, they force Lockhart to make the first leap before following. Lockhart ends up casting obliviate against the two students, but it backfires (as he used Ron's broken wand) and he loses his own memory. Harry and Ron are separated and Harry learns from Tom Riddle that Ginny was manipulated to open the chamber. Riddle reveals himself to be Voldemort, or at least a memory of him preserved in the diary.

Harry defeats the basilisk with the Sword of Gryffindor, which was revealed to be inside the Sorting Hat, delivered by Fawkes, Dumbledore's phoenix. He then destroys the diary and the part of Tom Riddle that resided within it with the basilisk's fang. Injured and poisoned, Harry's life is saved again by Fawkes, which uses its healing tears before carrying everyone out of the chamber.

The End

In Dumbledore’s office, Harry puts two and two together: Lucius is the one who gave Ginny the diary! It is revealed that Dobby is a slave to the Malfoy family and Harry cleverly devises a plan. He puts his sock in the diary, gives it to Lucius, who then gives it to the house-elf, unintentionally freeing his elf. If a house elf is given clothes by its Master, that signifies that they are free. "Dobby is free!" Dobby then protects Harry from an attack from Lucius in response to the trickery.

The movie ends on a very happy note with all the petrified students and Mrs. Norris being cured, along with Hagrid’s return from Azkaban.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets | Review

CGI and Visuals | 10/10

This movie had a lot going on, with the basilisk, the giant spiders, the Whomping Willow, and more. One of the most impressive things about the second movie is how realistic everything looked. With a mix of props and CGI, the developers brought the movie to life in a fantastic way.

Storyline and Plot Development | 9/10

The story unfolds well, foreshadowing later events in the movie and the series. We never expect Ginny to be the cause of the attacks, but we do see Lucius slip the journal into her cauldron in the beginning. Moaning Myrtle, who is introduced as a moody ghost that haunts a bathroom, has ties to the chamber in a tragic way. And then there is the Whomping Willow, which was planted by the Marauders, one of them being Harry’s own father, which we learn more about in the third movie.

However, the characters do make some questionable choices that land them in trouble that could have been avoided. For example, if Harry and Ron would have just waited on Ron’s parents to help them find another way to Hogwarts, then they wouldn’t have exposed a couple of muggles to the wizarding world or nearly been killed by a tree.

Character Development | 7/10

We are introduced to several new characters and also witness the growth of the ones we already know. The trio are more mature than they were in the first movie and Harry has found a place in the magical world. We get to meet Dobby and Lucius, whose intertwined stories and roles in the world are told well. We finally get more dialogue out of Ginny, who comes off as a strong, protective character (but we all know how that turns out later on).

Sound and Music | 7/10

While the music from Harry Potter movies is debatably one of its best elements, the music from the second one isn’t nearly as memorable as it is in the other movies, except perhaps at the end when Fawkes is flying them out of the chamber. The sound design, however, is just as great as the previous movie, if not better.

Reception and Impact | 8/10

For most fans, the second movie was a step up from the first one and was a great continuation in the franchise. It introduced more about the world and the characters continued to age and grow in an action-packed movie. However, some critics complained that the movie wasn’t nearly as heartwarming as the first and had no connection to the rest of the series.

Overall Score | 8/10

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets | Book and Movie Differences

The Deathday Party

Nearly Headless Nick is only shown a few times on screen throughout the series, but one of his key moments in the second book is his Deathday Party. Instead of spending Halloween drinking Polyjuice Potion, the trio join the party. Harry hears the voices in the walls and later finds Mrs. Norris petrified after the party, compared to the movie where this happens much earlier on.

Filch’s Secret

Filch is never shown using magic on the big screen and there is a reason behind that, which is never really revealed in the movies. We hear about muggle-borns often, but never their opposite, Squibs. Squibs are non-magical people with magical parents, and Harry accidentally learns that Filch is a Squib when he catches him utilizing a course for beginner magic.

Harry’s Escape

When Ron and the twins show up to save Harry from the Dursleys, there’s a bit more to the scene that is left out. Harry’s uncle locked his trunk in his old room under the stairs and the twins show off their skills with a regular ole lockpick. While it isn’t a big difference, the twins don’t get much screen time until later in the series and seeing them show off their trouble making skills in the movie would have been amusing.

Floo Flame

In the movie, Harry pronounces Diagon Alley wrong and ends up traveling to Knockturn Alley. Because of this mistake, many fans now joke around that the silly mispronunciation is one of the reasons Harry doesn’t belong in Ravenclaw. After all, he can defeat the Dark Lord but can’t say Diagon Alley?

However, in the book, this scene makes much more sense. It’s Harry’s first time traveling by Floo Flame and he gets a load of hot ash in his mouth, which causes him to choke up while he’s saying Diagon Alley.

Ginny’s Secret

Ginny isn’t seen much throughout the second movie, except at the beginning and the end, so no one ever suspects she is being manipulated into opening the chamber. There are signs of her being possessed by Tom Riddle in the book, such as becoming rather quiet and withdrawn, and being distraught whenever she learns about an attack. There’s a moment where she tries to tell Harry and Ron, but she can’t get the words out in time.