Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Chapter Nine:
The Writing on the Wall

"Please, sir, don't legends always have a basis in fact?"

Synopsis by William Silvester
Notes and links by Michele L. Worley

U.S. hardcover edition: pages 140 - 160
U.K. hardcover edition: pages 107 - 121
U.K. paperback edition: pages 154 - 175
Timeframe: 31 October - xx, 1992 [Y12]

In which HRH are questioned about the Petrified cat, Hermione asks Professor Binns about the Chamber of Secrets, HRH return to the scene of the crime, consult Moaning Myrtle, and speculate about the mystery.

Interesting facts and notes about the text of chapter nine:

This chapter gives us our first close look at a History of Magic lesson, and at Professor Binns, Hogwarts' only ghost teacher.

"I remember something very similar happening in Ouagadougou," said Lockhart, "a series of attacks, the full story's in my autobiography."

A clock chimed somewhere.
"Midnight," said Harry.

Professor Binns had asked for a three-foot-long composition on "The Medieval Assembly of European Wizards".

This leads to an awkward question. How can Professor Binns collect homework assignments, let alone handle the rolls of parchment to open them up and read them?

Professor Binns opened his notes...

...and began to read in a flat, drone like an old vacuum cleaner until nearly everyone in the class was in a deep stupor...

He had been speaking for half an hour when something happened that had never happened before. Hermione put up her hand.

Professor Binns, glancing up in the middle of a deadly dull lecture on the International Warlock Convention of 1289, looked amazed.

"My subject is History of Magic," he said in his dry, wheezy voice. "I deal with facts, Miss Granger, not myths and legends."

"In September of that year, a sub-committee of Sardinian sorcerers..."

He cleared his throat with a small noise like chalk snapping

Professor Binns was looking at her in such amazement, Harry was sure no student had ever interrupted him before, alive or dead.

But the whole class was now hanging on Professor Binns' every word. He looked dimly at them all, every face turned to his. Harry could tell that he was completely thrown by such an unusual show of interest.

"You've used spiders in potions loads of times..."

"If you must know, when I was three, Fred turned my - my teddy bear into a dirty great spider because I broke his toy broomstick."

"Five points from Gryffindor!" Percy said tersely, fingering his prefect badge.

There was only one way to get out a book from the Restricted Section: you needed a signed note of permission from a teacher.

Characters introduced in this chapter:

• none

Characters returning in this chapter:

• Binns, Professor

• Brown, Lavender

• Creevey, Colin

• Dumbledore, Albus

• Filch, Argus

• Finnegan, Seamus (as O'Flaherty)

• Granger, Hermione (as Miss Grant)

• Lockhart, Gilderoy

• Longbottom, Neville

• McGonagall, Minerva

• Norris, Mrs.

• Potter, Harry

• Snape, Severus

• Thomas, Dean

• Weasley, Ginny

• Weasley, Percy

• Weasley, Ron

Characters mentioned in this chapter:

• Finch-Fletchley, Justin

• Gryffindor, Godric

• Hufflepuff, Helga

• Malfoy, Draco

• Malfoy, Lucius

• monster of Slytherin

• Ravenclaw, Rowena

• Slytherin, Salazar

• Sorting Hat, the

• Sprout, Professor

• Weasley, Molly

Settings and locations introduced or returning in this chapter:

• DADA office

• History of Magic classroom

• Myrtle's bathroom

Settings and locations mentioned in this chapter:

• Chamber of Secrets, the

• Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

• Sardinia, Italy

• staff room

Exceptional character moments:

• Binns, who (according to rumour) never noticed when he died, but simply got up from his armchair, leaving his body behind him, and hasn't varied his routine in the slightest since. There is someone who is focused.

• Binns, who is obviously unused to anyone in his class actually being a student of history and taking an interest in his subject. Once the students take an interest in his material (which completely throws Binns), he reveals an unsuspected ability to relate history as a story.

• Binns' annoyance at the idea of anyone believing such a story as the legend of the Chamber of Secrets, when there is no reliable evidence to support it and when various searches of the castle seem to provide evidence that it doesn't exist. Binns is the sort of person who has both feet firmly on the ground, so to speak; he is concerned with concrete evidence rather than imaginative theories.

• Filch, who breaks down crying when he believes that Mrs. Norris is dead.

• Ginny, who is a great cat-lover.

• Lockhart. Even photographs of him are so vain that they put their hair up in rollers and hairnets at night.

• Ron, who has been arachnophobic since the age of three, when Fred Transfigured Ron's teddy bear into a spider while Ron was holding it.

Spells:

• Petrification

• Transmogrifian Torture

• (unnamed) spell to remove ink smudges from parchment

Links and Resources:

• books

  • Hogwarts, A History

  • Magical Me

  • Moste Potente Potions

  • The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2

• The Number Twelve

• ghosts

• Herbology

• History of Magic (class)

• House points - CS

• Kwikspell

• Legilimency

• mandrakes

• pictures with moving subjects

• Potions Encyclopedia

  • Mandrake Restorative Draught

  • Mrs. Scower's All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover

  • Polyjuice Potion

• Blood Status

• Transfiguration

• Wizards Young and Old

Memorable lines:

• "D'you think we've got nothing better to do in Potions than listen to Snape?" muttered Ron.

Strictly British:

• cubicle

• cupboard

• dodgy

• first-year

• Head Boy

• prefect

• second-year

• spot

• thick

Timelines/Calendar:

The action of this chapter picks up on Hallowe'en night, and covers the next few days.