Spoiler Warning
This is the ending of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, book two of seven, explained from the first clue to the very last scene.
And fair warning, this video is full of spoilers. If you haven’t read the book yet, watch my spoiler free review first. If you have, here is the quick answer. The monster is a basilisk, the real villain is a young Tom Riddle hiding in a diary, and Ginny Weasley was the one opening the Chamber.
The Setup
Let’s catch up on where the story stands. Students have been turned to stone, and a message on the wall says the Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Harry hears a cold voice that no one else can hear.
He has also learned something from an old diary he found. Fifty years ago, the Chamber was opened before, and a young Hagrid was blamed. Now Hagrid is taken to Azkaban, and Dumbledore is forced out by the school governors.
Before he goes, Hagrid gives one hint. Follow the spiders. Harry and Ron do, into the Forbidden Forest, where the giant spider Aragog tells them Hagrid never opened any chamber. Aragog says something else too. The girl who died long ago was found in a bathroom.
The Page In Hermione’s Hand
Then comes the clue that cracks everything. Harry and Ron visit Hermione in the hospital wing, where she lies petrified. In her hand is a torn page from a library book, and on it, one word in her handwriting. Pipes.
The page describes a basilisk, the king of serpents. Its stare kills, spiders flee from it, and it fears only the crowing of a rooster. Suddenly everything fits. Nobody has died because nobody looked it in the eye. Colin saw it through his camera. Justin saw it through Nearly Headless Nick, who was already dead. Mrs. Norris saw only a reflection in the flood. Hermione and Penelope Clearwater were carrying a mirror.
And the voice? It is the snake, heard through the plumbing, and only Harry understands it, because he speaks Parseltongue.
Lockhart’s Secret
Then Ginny Weasley is taken into the Chamber, with a message on the wall that her skeleton will lie there forever. The teachers turn on Gilderoy Lockhart, who always boasts that he knows how to handle the monster. They tell him this is his moment.
Harry and Ron go to his office, hoping to share what they know, and find him packing to run away. Then comes the best reveal in the book. His adventures are not his. He tracked down real heroes, got their stories, and wiped their memories with Memory Charms. When he tries it on the boys, Harry disarms him with Expelliarmus, and marches him to Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom.
Down The Pipe
There, Harry finally asks Myrtle the right question. How did you die? She remembers a boy speaking in a strange language, and a pair of great yellow eyes by the sinks. Harry finds a tiny snake carved on one tap, and says open in Parseltongue. The sink sinks away, and there is a pipe wide enough to slide down.
At the bottom they find a long stone tunnel, full of bones, and a huge shed snake skin, twenty feet long at least. Then Lockhart snatches Ron’s broken wand and tries to wipe their minds. The spell backfires, the ceiling falls in, and Lockhart loses his own memory. Harry has to go on alone, past two carved snakes with emerald eyes, and he opens the door with a hiss.
Riddle’s Confession
In the Chamber, a huge statue of Slytherin stands at the far wall, and Ginny lies at its feet. Beside her stands Tom Riddle, a sixteen year old memory kept in the diary for fifty years. He takes Harry’s wand and explains everything with a smile.
For months, Ginny had been writing to him. He wrote back with kindness, while he drank in her secrets and fed some of his own back into her. She did not know she was the one opening the Chamber. She lost time, woke with rooster feathers on her robes, and wrote to him that she thought she was going mad.
He also framed Hagrid fifty years ago. It was the polished prefect’s word against a blundering boy with a monster in a box, and the prefect won. Now he wants Harry. He has drained Ginny’s strength to step out of the diary, and he used her to lure Harry here.
Then he writes his name in the air with Harry’s wand, Tom Marvolo Riddle, and rearranges the letters into I am Lord Voldemort.
The Phoenix, The Hat And The Sword
Harry says the greatest wizard in the world is Dumbledore, and Riddle loses his smile. Then music fills the Chamber, and Fawkes the phoenix swoops in with the old Sorting Hat.
Riddle laughs at Dumbledore’s defenders, and he orders the basilisk out of Slytherin’s mouth, in Parseltongue. Harry closes his eyes and runs. Fawkes attacks the snake and stabs out both its eyes. Blinded, it still hunts by smell, and Harry puts the Sorting Hat on his head, and begs for help.
The hat does not speak. Something heavy hits his head, and he pulls out a silver sword studded with rubies. He kills the basilisk, but one long fang goes through his arm, and the venom starts to kill him.
The Diary Dies
Fawkes lays his head on the wound and weeps. Phoenix tears heal, and the wound closes. Riddle realizes it too late, and raises the wand to finish the job himself.
Then Fawkes drops the diary into Harry’s lap. Without thinking, Harry grabs the basilisk fang and drives it through the book. Ink pours out, Riddle screams, and he is gone. Ginny stirs and wakes, in tears, certain she’ll be expelled.
Ron has shifted enough rock to get through. Fawkes pulls them all up the pipe, and Lockhart, who remembers nothing, says it’s just like magic. They walk into Professor McGonagall’s office, where Ginny’s parents are waiting.
Dumbledore’s Answers
Dumbledore, back at Hogwarts, is calm. He promises Ginny no punishment, since older and wiser wizards have been fooled by Voldemort. He gives Ron and Harry Special Awards and two hundred points each.
Then Harry confesses his deepest fear. Riddle said they were alike, and the Sorting Hat once said Harry would do well in Slytherin. Dumbledore explains that Harry can speak to snakes because, on the night he gave Harry his scar, Voldemort passed some of his own powers to him. But the hat only put Harry in Gryffindor because he asked not to be in Slytherin. It is our choices, Dumbledore says, that show who we are. The sword has Godric Gryffindor’s name on it, and only a true Gryffindor could pull it from the hat.
Dobby’s Sock
Then Lucius Malfoy storms in with Dobby at his heels, furious that Dumbledore is back. Dumbledore says the culprit is the same person as last time, Voldemort, acting through the diary. Behind Lucius, Dobby is pointing at the diary and punching himself.
Harry works it out. Lucius slipped the diary into Ginny’s old book at the bookshop, and Harry says so. Dumbledore says nobody can prove it now. Then Harry runs after them with the ruined diary wrapped in his dirty sock, and Lucius throws it away. Dobby catches the sock. A master has given him clothes, and Dobby is free.
Lucius lunges at Harry, and Dobby blasts him down the stairs. Dobby explains one last thing. Before the Dark Lord changed his name, people could freely say it, and that was his clue.
The Feast
After all that, there is a feast, and it is wonderful. It lasts all night, and everyone eats in pajamas. Hermione, waking from her stone sleep, runs to Harry yelling that he solved it. Hagrid walks in, free, at half past three in the morning.
Ron and Harry’s points win Gryffindor the House Cup again, McGonagall cancels the exams, and Lockhart will not be back. Lucius Malfoy is sacked as a governor, and Ginny is happy again. On the train, she tells Harry what Percy didn’t want her to share. He has a secret girlfriend. It’s a gentle, funny way to end a very dark book.
What It Means
So, what is the ending saying?
First, choice beats nature. Harry has some of Voldemort’s gifts and some of his ambition, and the book says that doesn’t decide who he becomes.
Second, danger often comes from what we trust. Ginny confided in a diary because it listened. The book warns children about it without ever being preachy.
Third, loyalty summons help. Dumbledore says only loyalty could call Fawkes to Harry, and that echoes in the final scene when Dobby chooses Harry over his master.
And finally, the ending plants seeds for later books. Riddle’s pages, Harry’s link to Voldemort, the sword and Dobby all return, and I cover those in my clues video.
My Verdict on the Ending
I love this ending. It is one of the best in the series, with a great villain reveal, a real sense of danger, and a quiet, moving scene with Dumbledore. The sock trick is a joyful payoff to a plot that began with cruelty.
It does have a few weak spots. Lockhart’s exit is almost too convenient, and Harry rescues everyone with a lot of help from lucky objects. But the heart of it, a boy choosing who he is, lands. I also love that the victory is shared. Fawkes, the hat, Ron, Dobby and even Myrtle all play a part, and Harry never wins alone. After a book full of fear and whispers, that feels right.
So, what do you think? Leave a comment and tell me your favorite moment in the Chamber. If you want more, my clues video shows the signs you missed.
