The Short Version
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, book two of seven, hides its whole solution in plain sight, and this video is all about the clues.
Fair warning, it is full of spoilers. We will reveal the twist, and near the end I will flag a few payoffs from later books in the series, so skip that part if you are still reading. Here is the short version. The diary, the voice, the spiders, the roosters, the pipes, and Ginny’s strange behavior all point to the answer, if you know where to look.
The Diary
Let’s start with the most obvious clue, which feels completely innocent at the time. Harry and Ron find a small black book in Moaning Myrtle’s flooded bathroom. Someone has thrown it at her, and it is soaking wet.
It belongs to a T. M. Riddle, it is fifty years old, and it is completely blank. Harry even concludes that Riddle never wrote in it. Yet look at what happens later. When a bottle of scarlet ink smashes all over Harry’s books, the diary comes out spotless. And when Harry writes in it, the ink sinks into the page, and a reply rises up. A blank old diary that answers back is not an ordinary diary, and Rowling tells you that very early.
The Voice
Next, the voice only Harry can hear. The first time is in Lockhart’s detention, when Harry is addressing fan mail and hears a cold voice that wants to rip and tear. Lockhart does not hear a thing.
On Halloween, Harry hears it again, and it is moving upward, through a stone ceiling. That detail matters. Voices that move through walls and floors do not belong to a ghost or a person. They belong to something moving inside the castle. Ron says hearing voices that no one else can hear is not a good sign, even in the wizarding world, and Harry does not tell the teachers. The book makes the voice scary first, and logical later.
The Spiders
Now the spiders. Right after Mrs. Norris is found, Hermione spots about twenty spiders scrambling out through a crack in a window, as if they are running away. Later, after Justin and Nearly Headless Nick are found, Harry sees a line of spiders scuttling away from the bodies as fast as they can.
Ron stands well back, and nobody thinks it means anything. But Hermione’s page on the basilisk gives us the reason. Spiders flee before the king of serpents. Hagrid’s famous hint, follow the spiders, is not just a path to Aragog. It is also a message that the thing in the castle is something even spiders fear.
The Roosters
Hagrid is carrying a dead rooster when Harry meets him in the corridor, and he says it is the second one killed this term. He thinks it is foxes, or a Blood Sucking Bugbear. He wants permission from Dumbledore to put a charm on the hen coop.
Read that again. Roosters are dying near the school, and nobody thinks it matters. Later we learn the crowing of a rooster is fatal to a basilisk. It is a very sly clue, hidden inside a cozy Hagrid scene. The feathers also show up in Ginny’s diary entries, which is the kind of detail you only appreciate on a second read.
The Pipes And The Water
There is water everywhere in this book. When Harry, Ron and Hermione find Mrs. Norris, there is a large puddle on the floor. Later the corridor floods, and the water comes from Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom.
Water is how the clue works. A reflection in a puddle means a basilisk’s stare cannot kill, which is why Mrs. Norris survives. And the pipes carry the voice. The Chamber’s entrance is in a bathroom, and Hermione’s one word on her page, pipes, says it all. Look at how many scenes happen in or near that bathroom. Rowling keeps pointing at the door.
Ginny
Now for the best misdirection in the book, Ginny. If you read it as a first timer, Ginny seems like a shy girl with a crush on Harry. She knocks over the porridge and puts her elbow in the butter.
But look at the details. In October she is pale, and Percy pushes a potion on her. She is very disturbed about Mrs. Norris, and her lip trembles. After Colin is attacked, Percy says she is having nightmares. When Draco grabs the diary, Ginny stares at it, terrified. And at Flourish and Blotts, Lucius Malfoy handles her old Transfiguration book before handing it back.
Then there is the moment at breakfast when she nearly tells Harry something and then runs off, reminding Harry of Dobby, rocking back and forth before a forbidden secret. Her clues are everywhere. They are just disguised as shyness.
Dobby’s Hints
Dobby is full of clues. He warns Harry that terrible things will happen at Hogwarts this year, and Harry asks if it is You Know Who. Dobby shakes his head, but his eyes are wide, trying to give a hint.
At the end we learn why. It was a clue, because the Dark Lord, before he changed his name, could be freely named. Dobby also tells us the way to free a house elf, which is to give him clothes, and the family is careful never to pass Dobby even a sock. That line is the setup for the sock payoff, which is one of the most satisfying in the series.
Clues For The Rest Of The Series
Now, a series spoiler warning. This part is for readers who finished all seven books.
First, the diary. In book six we learn it is a Horcrux, a piece of Voldemort’s soul, which is why it thinks and writes back. Riddle’s middle name, Marvolo, returns in book six too, as part of the Gaunt family story.
Second, Harry’s Parseltongue. Dumbledore guesses Voldemort passed some power to him. In book seven we learn the truth, that a piece of Voldemort lived in Harry.
Third, the sword and the fang. The sword soaks up basilisk venom, and in book seven that is why it can destroy Horcruxes. A basilisk fang does the same in a later scene.
And fourth, a lot of small seeds. Dobby returns, with a heartbreaking fate. Myrtle’s bathroom returns in book four. Aragog returns in book six, Lockhart in book five, and the black cabinet Harry hides in at Borgin and Burkes turns out to be a Vanishing Cabinet, and it matters in book six.
Your Turn
So that is how Rowling hides a villain in a diary. Did you notice any of these on your first read, or only after you reached the end?
Tell me in the comments which clue surprised you most. And if you haven’t seen it yet, my ending explained video walks through the whole finale. Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you in the next one.
