CHAPTER SUMMARIES/DISCUSSION - CH. 13-15, CoS

[Allison]

No: HPFGUIDX 25447

Chapter 13 - The Very Secret Diary

Chapter 13 starts off with Hermione in the hospital just after the 
Polyjuice Experiment goes awry.  Lots of people assume she's been 
attacked by the Heir of Slytherin, and come by the hospital wing to 
try and see her.  Harry and Ron come to visit every day, bringing all 
her homework.  Ron discovers, much to his disgust and Hermione's 
embarrassment, a frightfully stuck-up get well card from Lockhart, 
prompting one of Ron's most insightful remarks to date: "Is Lockhart 
the smarmiest bloke you've ever met, or what?".  

On the way back to the common room, they hear Filch shouting about 
having more work to do because Moaning Myrtle's bathroom has 
flooded.  They decide to investigate and discover Myrtle is more 
upset than usual because someone threw something at her: a small, 
thin book with a shabby black cover (dun dun dun).  Harry goes to 
pick it up, but Ron tries to stop him, saying the book could be 
dangerous, recounting several real-life examples from Mr. Weasley's 
work.  Harry picks it up anyway, and finds the diary belonged to 
a "T.M. Riddle," distinguished for both his special services to the 
school fifty years ago and having a slug-covered plaque in the Trophy 
Room.

In February, Hermione leaves the hospital wing, "de-whiskered, tail-
less, and fur-free."  She suspects the diary might have hidden 
powers.  When Harry wonders aloud what Riddle got an award for, 
Hermione brings up the point that Riddle could have caught the Heir 
of Slytherin (has the idea of Hermione being a Seer ever been 
mentioned?), and goes through several different processes trying to 
find any hidden writing in it, all of which fail.

Harry, despite Ron's protests, keeps the diary, occasionally looking 
through it as if expecting to find writing.  He feels like he used to 
know Riddle, as if he'd been an old childhood friend, but "he'd never 
had any friends before Hogwarts, Dudley had made sure of that."  
(Isn't that the saddest thing you've ever heard?  Poor Harry.)

Soon, the sun begins to shine and with it, spirits rise.  There are 
no new attacks, Professor Sprout reports the Mandrakes are growing 
right on target, and, most reassuring of all, Lockhart is convinced 
the Heir gave up because he knew it was only a matter of time before 
Lockhart caught him. 

However, Ernie Macmillan is still convinced Harry is the Heir of 
Slytherin, and Peeves has added a dance routine to his "Oh, Potter, 
you rotter," song.

Lockhart decides the school needs a morale-booster, in the form of 
tacky, overdone Valentine decorations, complete with singing dwarves.

Harry receives a singing Valentine, with really clever lyrics, in 
front of everyone -  to Harry's mind, the equivalent on the 
embarrassment-o-meter to showing up in class naked.  Ginny, Draco, 
and Percy are all on hand to witness the spectacle.  Draco picks up 
the diary when it spills out of Harry's bag along with all his other 
stuff, and Harry gets it back by performing an illegal Disarming 
Spell in the corridor, which Percy then feels forced to report.  A 
sullen Draco then makes a snide comment to Ginny about the 
Valentine.  Ginny, in the throes of adolescent humiliation, runs 
off.   

In Charms, Harry notices that while all his other books are covered 
in scarlet ink from his broken ink bottle (even his ink is in a House 
color - taking the House pride a bit far, ain't it?), the diary is 
completely dry.  

Harry goes to bed early so he can examine the diary.  He writes his 
name in it, and the ink disappears, coming back in a message from Tom 
Riddle.  They talk/write, and Riddle tells Harry that he did catch 
the Heir, and created the diary to preserve his knowledge, because he 
knew the Heir would strike again (imagine that *snorts*).  He invites 
Harry to view the scene by coming into the diary.  Harry does so, not 
putting a whole lot of thought into it beforehand.

Fast forward (or is it rewind?) to June 13th, 1942.  Riddle asks 
permission to stay at Hogwarts during the summer, permission denied, 
so he goes and waits in an abandoned dungeon for a thirteen-year-old 
Hagrid - running into a suspicious, red-headed, hundred-year-old 
Dumbledore along the way.  Hagrid soon comes into the dungeon to feed 
his adorable baby spider who "wouldn'!  Never!" hurt a soul.  Riddle 
is about to kill the spider, so it seems, when it lunges.  He 
recovers, aims again, but Hagrid leaps at him (how did scrawny Riddle 
even *survive* that?), and Harry is whirled back into the present, 
now knowing why Hagrid was expelled and believing he opened the 
Chamber.

Chapter 14 - Cornelius Fudge

The Trio is very upset with Harry's discovery and none of them really 
want to believe it.  They decide not to say anything to Hagrid about 
it because there haven't been any attacks in so long.  Things are 
actually looking up: Peeves quits singing "Oh, Potter, you rotter," 
Ernie asks Harry to pass the toadstools, and the Mandrakes are very 
nearly grown up.

The second years are given the daunting task of deciding what extra 
classes they want to take third year, which causes no end of 
frustration.  Hermione signs up for everything, completely unaware 
she's going to provide the solution to a problem which will present 
itself a year later, and Harry just signs up for the same things as 
Ron.

Wood insists on practicing Quidditch every day for the next match 
against Hufflepuff.  Harry comes in from practice one day to discover 
his one-fifth of the room has been searched, and Riddle's diary is 
now missing.  This is especially disconcerting in light of the fact 
only a Gryffindor could have gotten into the dorm to steal the book.

The next day is the Quidditch match.  On his way out of breakfast, 
Harry hears the voice in the walls again, whispering all sorts of 
violent, nasty things.  A lightbulb goes off over Hermione's head and 
she rushes off to the library to document her epiphany, thereby 
committing the cardinal sin of missing the Quidditch match.

Said Quidditch match gets canceled before it ever gets a chance to 
start because there has been a double attack.  Hermione and a 
Ravenclaw (later revealed to be prefect Penelope Clearwater, also 
Percy's girlfriend) were Petrified near the library, WITH a small 
mirror was found next to them.

After the attack, a huge security crackdown ensues.  Students are 
escorted everywhere by teachers, much like preschoolers, Quidditch is 
cancelled, and no one is allowed to leave the dorms in the evenings.  

The threat of having to close the school down angers and scares many 
students, especially the Gryffindors, who have had the most 
causalities.

Harry and Ron decide they have to talk to Hagrid, and the only way to 
do so is to use Harry's Invisibility Cloak.  They sneak out at night 
to Hagrid's hut.  A very scared and paranoid Hagrid greets them with 
crossbow - he's "bin expectin' -", but never says what.  He's very 
distracted, and feeling really upset about Hermione.

Dumbledore then arrives, followed by Minister of Magic Cornelius 
Fudge, dressed like he lost a bet.  Fudge, in a brilliant display of 
incompetent leadership, has come to take Hagrid to Azkaban, over 
Dumbledore's protests.

Enter a smug Lucius Malfoy, come to make sure Dumbledore gets what's 
not coming to him.  He insults Hagrid, deposes Dumbledore, and does a 
really bad job of pretending to be sympathetic to the plight of 
Muggle-born students.

Dumbledore agrees to go with him, parting with a patented cryptic 
remark about not being truly gone until no one at Hogwarts is loyal 
to him any longer.

Hagrid is then led away, but he says that if someone wanted to know 
what was really going on, all they'd have to do is follow the spiders.

The chapter ends with Harry and Ron being understandably worried.  
With Dumbledore gone, as Ron remarks, "There'll be an attack a day."

Chapter 15 - Aragog

Summer is beginning, but it doesn't look right to Harry without 
Hagrid "striding the grounds with Fang at his heels."  Things are no 
better indoors without Dumbledore.  Madam Pomfrey won't let them see 
Hermione, they can't find any spiders to follow Hagrid's lead, 
Draco's being even more pompous than usual, and Lockhart's convinced 
he's behind the capture of the Heir.

In Herbology, Harry sees some spiders, headed for the Forbidden 
Forest.  Harry and Ron make plans to go to the Forbidden Forest that 
night, though Ron is nervous about it.

They use the Invisibility Cloak again, also taking Fang.  They follow 
the spiders into the Forest, going farther in then Harry's ever been 
before (all one times).  Fang barks, and Harry hears something 
moving - something big.  Suddenly, a bright light flares, and they 
realize it's the Weasley's car, gone feral.  They're preparing to 
keep going when Ron freezes in fear.  Harry hears a loud clicking 
behind him, and suddenly he's swept up and into the forest.  He's 
being clutched by two huge black pincers, which are attached to a 
huge black spider.  Ron and Fang have also been captured, and all 
three are taken to a hollow where huge spiders the size of carthorses 
live.  The king of the giant spiders is called Aragog, an even 
bigger, blind spider, and tells the others to kill Harry, Ron, and 
Fang until Harry says they're friends of Hagrid's.  Aragog was the 
monster Hagrid got expelled for having, and was believed to have been 
behind all the attacks.  He tells Harry his story: A delightfully 
maternal Hagrid raised him from an egg, feeding him scraps and 
keeping him hidden.  He protected Aragog when he was expelled, found 
him a wife (for which we're all eternally grateful), and still comes 
to visit him.  Out of respect for Hagrid, Aragog never harmed a 
human, but he does know what sort of monster did kill the girl - the 
sworn enemy of the spiders, whose name he refuses to reveal.  Aragog 
plans to feed Harry, Ron, and Fang to his children, but they are 
saved by Mr. Weasley's car, who heroically swoops in, scoops them 
into its interior, and zooms off.

Ron is furious with Hagrid, but Harry considers their near-death 
experience at least a partial success: They now have the word of a 
man-eating spider Hagrid did not open the Chamber.  They reach the 
castle unharmed, and make it back to the common room without being 
spotted.  Ron promptly falls asleep, but Harry stays awake, thinking 
about the Chamber.

He wakes Ron up, reminding Ron that the girl who died did so in the 
bathroom.  Ron follows Harry's train of thought and realizes that the 
victim was most likely Moaning Myrtle.

And so ends the chapter.

Questions:
Ch.13
1) Why do so many people come by the hospital wing to see Hermione?  
Actual concern for her or morbid curiosity about a potential 
Petrification victim?

2) On the "Ron-turning-traitor" front: When Harry attempts to pick up 
the diary, Ron's first thought is not curiosity about what sort of 
book someone would choose to throw at Myrtle, but fear for Harry's 
safety.  Discuss.

3) Does anyone think Flitwick really knows anything about Entrancing 
Enchantments, apart from a purely academic standpoint?  I'm just 
curious - I have a hard time reconciling my mental image of Flitwick 
to a "sly old dog."

4) Hermione is a Very Smart Witch.  Why on earth, then, does she like 
*Lockhart*? 

5) Harry says "There wasn't the faintest trace of writing on any of 
them, not even... 'dentist, half-past three.'"  A logistical 
question: How does one visit the dentist while at Hogwarts?  Is Madam 
Pomfrey trained in dental charms?

6) Ginny, it seems, did give Harry the Valentine.  Did she do so 
because she liked him, or did she do it under the influence of 
Riddle, for some reason no one can fathom because we aren't quite 
that evil?

7) Harry never thinks of Riddle as "Tom," but always "Riddle," even 
before he (Harry) realizes who he (Riddle) really is.  Is JKR setting 
the reader up for Riddle's real identity by not having Harry think of 
him in more familiar terms?  (In the diary, Riddle calls Harry "Harry 
Potter," and either "Harry" or "Harry Potter" during their 
confrontation at the end of the chapter.)

8) Harry never gets to see how Hagrid is captured and Aragog 
escapes.  Guesses?

Ch. 14
9) Fudge - secretly evil or just a moron?

10) Lucius does a really terrible job of covering up his real 
feelings regarding blood purity.  Why?  Perhaps he's more in contact 
with Voldie than we're aware of?  Is he counting on Riddle's ability 
to control Ginny permanently?  Does he assume it's safe, with 
Dumbledore temporarily out of commission?  How can he underestimate 
Dumbledore that much?

11) This marks the second time Dumbledore has known Harry was there 
even though Harry was wearing an Invisibility Cloak.  How?  Perhaps 
there's more to Dumbledore's half-moon glasses than meets the eye?  
This also opens up a possible glasses connection - we know Harry's 
glasses/eyes are important - what about Dumbledore's?

12) Why do people think the Heir of *Slytherin* is someone from 
another House?  First Harry, then Hagrid.  Am I the only one who 
thinks this makes no sense?

Ch. 15
13) Out of respect for Hagrid, Aragog claims he never harmed a soul.  
Yet he "cannot deny them [his children] fresh meat," and would 
willingly feed Hagrid's friends, who sought the spiders out to help 
Hagrid, to his children.  How does he justify this?

14) There are several instances of possible foreshadowing in these 
chapters: 
*The comparison of Percy to Riddle
*Hagrid's penchant for Big Scary Things once again places the Trio in 
danger.  As Ron says, "He always thinks monsters aren't as bad as 
they're made out, and look where it's got him!"  This doesn't just 
apply to beasts - could Hagrid's trusting nature put him or Harry in 
danger?  After all, isn't one of Harry's biggest fans supposed to die?
*Ron's abilities as a Seer: his fear the book could be dangerous 
turns out to be true, in a way.  He jokes that maybe Riddle murdered 
Myrtle - this turns out to be true.  Discuss all.  (Ack!  I sound 
like a teacher.  Apologies.)

15) Pointless Silly Question: Which would you prefer: having to speak 
in limericks for the rest of your life, or never being able to stop 
reading?

Sorry if this is really long - wasn't sure what was considered 
an "appropriate length," so I took the school paper route - when it 
doubt, ramble.

And Neal, sorry I didn't sign up for the essay too - blame school, 
which takes more time away from HP than should be allowed.

All right, I'll shut up now and go study for physics.

Allison