CHAPTER DISCUSSION Chamber of Secrets Ch. 5. The Whomping Willow

[dumbledore11214]

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CHAPTER DISCUSSION: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Chapter 5: The Whomping Willow.

School holidays are ending and as much as Harry looks forward to going to Hogwarts he does not want to leave the Burrow, he likes it so much. Arthur takes his kids and Harry to platform 9 ¾ in the magically enlarged Ford Anglia which he wants to make invisible, but Molly will not let him. Unfortunately Ron and Harry are not able to get through the entrance to 9 ¾, when they try, they feel as if they hit a wall.

Well, since everybody else including their parents is already at the Platform, waiting to see the other Weasley kids off to Hogwarts, Ron gets the bright idea to fly to Hogwarts in the Ford Anglia, which their parents would not need to get home anyway.

So that's what they do. At first Harry thinks the ride is very cool, but after a few hours they are bored. But they do come to Hogwarts eventually, where they crash into the Whomping Willow, a tree that "hits them back" and very angry Snape meets and greets them. Snape tells the boys that he will get the people who have the happy power to expel them and brings Dumbledore and McGonagall. Harry and Ron are not expelled, but are given a detention. Snape does not look happy. In the meantime the boys are late for the Sorting. McGonagall informs them that Ginny is in Gryffindor as well.


1.  Not only Ron knows that underage wizards can use magic in case of emergency, he quotes the chapter of the law to that effect. Was Molly's home schooling that effective or does Ron really like to study more than we were lead to believe?

2.  Is Arthur just placating Molly when he agrees not to make car invisible or is he truly afraid of her?

3. What was your first impression of Whomping Willow? Did you expect for it to make another appearance in the series?

4. Snape implies that he would like to expel Harry. How can this be reconciled with the commitment to help Dumbledore protect Harry we saw him make in "The Prince's Tale"?


5. "This was not the first time Snape had given Harry the impression of being able to read minds". We know now that this impression was absolutely correct. If Snape used Legilimency and knew that they indeed could not get through 9 3/4 by regular means, why does he say what he says?

6. What do you think was that "large, slimy something suspended in green liquid on a shelf behind Snape's desk?

7. Please feel free to add your own questions here.


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