Dobby the house-elf sabotages the Dursleys' dinner party by dropping a pudding, and the Ministry of Magic blames Harry.

Ron Weasley and his brothers rescue Harry from his locked bedroom by arriving outside his window in a flying car.

Harry and Ron fail to pass through the magical barrier at King's Cross and fly Mr. Weasley's car to Hogwarts instead.

Harry and Ron crash-land the flying car into the Whomping Willow, which attacks them and destroys Ron's wand.

On Halloween, Harry discovers the caretaker's cat petrified beside a wall message warning that the Chamber of Secrets has been opened.

A bewitched bludger breaks Harry's arm during a Quidditch match, and Lockhart accidentally removes all the bones while trying to heal it.

Dobby visits Harry in the hospital wing and admits he blocked the train barrier and bewitched the bludger to force Harry home.

Harry discovers Tom Riddle's fifty-year-old diary writes back and enters a preserved memory showing Riddle framing Hagrid for the Chamber attacks.

Hermione Granger is found petrified in a corridor near the library, clutching a torn page from a book in her fist.

Under pressure from the school's governors, Hagrid is arrested and Dumbledore is suspended as headmaster of Hogwarts.

Harry and Ron follow spiders into the Forbidden Forest and learn from the giant spider Aragog that he never attacked anyone in the castle.

Harry and Ron pry a torn library page from Hermione's hand identifying the Chamber monster as a basilisk traveling through the school's pipes.

McGonagall announces to the staff that Ginny Weasley was taken into the Chamber of Secrets and will die there.

Inside the Chamber, Harry drives a basilisk fang into Tom Riddle's diary, destroying Riddle and saving Ginny's life.

Harry frees Dobby from the Malfoy family by tricking Lucius Malfoy into throwing a sock at the house-elf.

Harry's troubled second year begins when a mysterious house-elf named Dobby sabotages the Dursleys' dinner party in a desperate attempt to keep Harry from returning to Hogwarts. After escaping the Dursleys and missing the Hogwarts Express, Harry and Ron fly a car to school and immediately find themselves in danger and disgrace. Strange attacks begin petrifying students across the castle, and a chilling wall message warns that the Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Harry and Ron piece together clues through a forbidden forest, a magical diary, and a stolen note left by the petrified Hermione. The trail leads deep into the Chamber itself, where Harry confronts the memory of Tom Riddle and a deadly basilisk. Harry destroys Riddle, rescues Ginny, and frees the house-elf Dobby from his cruel masters in the process.

The core events driving the Chamber of Secrets mystery from start to finish.

Harry hides in a cabinet at Borgin and Burkes and overhears Lucius Malfoy selling dark magical artifacts to the shopkeeper.

At a bookshop signing, Lockhart announces he will teach Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts and gives Harry a free set of his books.

Mr. Weasley and Lucius Malfoy get into a physical brawl at Flourish and Blotts after Malfoy insults the Weasley family.

A magical letter called a Howler from Mrs. Weasley loudly scolds Ron at breakfast for flying the car to Hogwarts.

Lockhart releases a cage of Cornish pixies in his first Defense Against the Dark Arts class and fails completely to control them.

Draco Malfoy calls Hermione a Mudblood at Quidditch practice, and Ron's retaliatory curse backfires, causing him to vomit slugs.

During detention helping Lockhart answer fan mail, Harry hears a disembodied voice making violent threats that only he can hear.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione attend Nearly Headless Nick's five-hundredth deathday party in a cold dungeon on Halloween.

In History of Magic class, Professor Binns reluctantly explains the legend of the Chamber of Secrets and Salazar Slytherin's monster.

At the first Dueling Club meeting, Snape humiliates Lockhart by knocking his wand away with a Disarming Charm during their opening demonstration.

Harry speaks Parseltongue to a conjured snake at the Dueling Club, and his classmates begin suspecting him of being the heir of Slytherin.

Harry and Ron drink Polyjuice Potion disguised as Crabbe and Goyle and question Draco in the Slytherin common room.

Hermione accidentally uses cat hair in her Polyjuice Potion, leaving her with feline features and confined to the hospital wing.

Ginny steals Riddle's diary back from Harry's dormitory after spotting Harry carrying it on Valentine's Day.

Fawkes the phoenix arrives inside the Chamber and claws out the basilisk's eyes, allowing Harry to face it without dying.

While the central mystery unfolds, Hogwarts fills with telling secondary events that establish the year's tensions and characters. Harry's chance discovery of Lucius Malfoy's dark dealings in Knockturn Alley and the chaotic bookshop brawl between the Weasleys and Malfoys hint at deeper conspiracies from the very start. The arrival of fraudulent celebrity teacher Gilderoy Lockhart brings comic incompetence to Defense Against the Dark Arts, while the first Dueling Club meeting sees Harry accidentally exposed as a Parselmouth. Beneath the surface, Harry and Ron execute the Polyjuice Potion scheme to interrogate Draco, with mixed results, while Ginny's suspicious behavior around Riddle's diary goes largely unnoticed. The year's final crisis unfolds as Fawkes makes a decisive intervention inside the Chamber itself, tipping the balance in Harry's desperate fight.

The secondary moments that flesh out a full and eventful year at Hogwarts.

Harry refuses to promise Dobby he will stay away from Hogwarts, choosing to return despite warnings of mortal danger.

Harry and Ron decide to fly Mr. Weasley's enchanted car to Hogwarts after the magical train barrier refuses them entry.

Hermione proposes a plan to brew Polyjuice Potion and disguise themselves as Slytherin students to investigate Draco Malfoy.

Alone in Dumbledore's office, Harry puts on the Sorting Hat, and it again insists he could have done well in Slytherin.

Harry watches Dumbledore's bird Fawkes spontaneously burst into flames and be reborn from the ashes as a chick.

As Hagrid is led away under arrest, he tells Harry and Ron to follow the spiders if they want the truth.

Harry spots a long trail of spiders marching in formation toward the Forbidden Forest and recognizes the sign Hagrid meant.

Harry and Ron discover Lockhart packing his belongings in his office, preparing to flee Hogwarts before anyone can blame him.

Moaning Myrtle reveals she died fifty years ago after hearing a boy speak an unknown language and seeing a pair of large yellow eyes.

Lockhart tries to erase Harry and Ron's memories in the tunnel, but the spell backfires, wiping his own memory and collapsing the passage.

Harry finds Ginny unconscious on the Chamber floor with the shimmering figure of Tom Riddle standing nearby, holding Harry's wand.

Riddle levitates the letters of his name and rearranges them to spell I AM LORD VOLDEMORT, revealing his true identity.

Harry silently pleads for help while wearing the Sorting Hat in the Chamber, and the Sword of Gryffindor drops out of it.

Dumbledore tells Harry that choices, not abilities or circumstances, reveal a person's true character, reassuring him about his similarities to Riddle.

Harry realizes that Lucius Malfoy secretly planted Riddle's diary on Ginny during the brawl at Flourish and Blotts.

The story's most critical turning points begin with Harry's defiant refusal to promise Dobby he will stay away from Hogwarts, a choice that sets the entire year's events in motion. A series of risky decisions follows, from flying the car to planning the Polyjuice scheme, as Harry and his friends take matters into their own hands. Cryptic clues accumulate mid-year — a phoenix reborn, a trail of fleeing spiders, a dying hint from Hagrid — pointing Harry toward a truth hidden for fifty years. Inside the Chamber, the revelation that Tom Riddle is the young Voldemort and that he controlled Ginny all year through her diary exposes the conspiracy at its darkest. Harry's loyal plea for help produces the Sword of Gryffindor, the tool that ultimately defeats both basilisk and Riddle. Dumbledore's counsel afterward confirms that choices, not fate or circumstance, define who a person truly is.