Chamber of ....Secrets?

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 185970

Potioncat wrote:
> >
> > I recently watched TMTMNBN--CoS. And, suddenly I wondered, why is
Slytherin's hidden chamber called the Chamber of Secrets? All that was
there was a big snake. I mean, that was enough. 
> > 
> > But why "secrets"? Why not The Monstor's Lair; The Horrible
Chamber: The Hidden Menace? Even the legend (although I may not be
firm on the canon) was that there was a monster in the chamber--not
that there were hidden secrets. <snip>

Montavilla47 commented:
> 
> I think it was probably called the Chamber of Secrets because it 
sounded cool.
>
Carol responds:

Possibly, especially as a book title! On the other hand, the chamber
does involve several secrets or mysteries, including whether it exists
(Binns thinks it's just a legend), and, if so, where it is, why no one
has found it, and what it contains. Once it's opened again, there's
the added mystery of who opened it and how he or she did it. (For DD,
who knows that it must have been opened by Voldemort in some
manifestation, the question is not who but how.)

All those mysteries are, of course, solved in the book (with the
possible exception of why DD, who in HBP is shown to understand
Parseltongue, couldn't find the chamber and open it. Maybe he couldn't
hear the Basilisk, or maybe he could understand Parseltongue but not
speak it and consequently couldn't open the chamber even if he'd found
it--in which case, you'd think he'd close Hogwarts to protect the
students, especially the Muggle-borns. Or maybe JKR didn't think about
the implications for her "epitome of goodness" when she showed him
understanding Parseltongue in HBP.) 

The real question, for me, is how the legend got started in the first
place. Did Slytherin include a P.S, in his letter of resignation? "By
the way, my former friends, I have left you a gift, a secret chamber
inhabited by a monster that will one day rid the school of those unfit
to attend it when my true heir opens it. Find it if you can. Salazar."

Carol, seriously wondering how the legend got started since no Heir of
Slytherin appeared until June 1943 (IIRC)