Bloomsbury HP 2 harry potter and the chamber of secrets

Harry Potter and the
Chamber of Secrets








Titles available in the Harry Potter series

(in reading order):
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Titles available in the Harry Potter series

(in Latin):
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

(in Welsh, Ancient Greek and Irish):
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone



Harry Potter and the
Chamber of Secrets
J. K. Rowling













All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying
or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher

First published in Great Britain in 1998
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 36 Soho Square, London, W1D 3QY

This edition first published in 2004

Copyright ©J. K. Rowling 1998
Cover image copyright © Michael Wildsmith 2004

Harry Potter, names, characters and related indicia are
copyright and trademark Warner Bros., 2000™

With thanks to the Natural History Museum, London, for permission to
photograph the snake stone carving for use on the cover image

The moral right of the author has been asserted
A CIP catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 0 7475 7361 6

The paper this book is printed on is certified by the © 1996 Forest Stewardship
Council A.C. (FSC). It is ancient-forest friendly. The printer holds
FSC chain of custody SGS-COC-2061.

©


FSC
Mixed Sources
Product group from well-managed
forests and other controlled sources

Cert no. SGS-COC-2061
www.fsc.org
©1996 Forest Stewardship Council

Printed in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc
Typeset by Dorchester Typesetting

5 7 9 10 8 6 4

www.bloomsbury.com/harrypotter







for Séan P. F. Harris,
getaway driver and foulweather friend














— CHAPTER ONE —

The Worst Birthday

Not for the first time, an argument had broken out over breakfast
at number four, Privet Drive. Mr Vernon Dursley had been woken
in the early hours of the morning by a loud, hooting noise from his
nephew Harry’s room.
‘Third time this week!’ he roared across the table. ‘If you can’t
control that owl, it’ll have to go!’
Harry tried, yet again, to explain.
‘She’s bored,’ he said. ‘She’s used to flying around outside. If I
could just let her out at night ’
‘Do I look stupid?’ snarled Uncle Vernon, a bit of fried egg dan-
gling from his bushy moustache. ‘I know what’ll happen if that
owl’s let out.’
He exchanged dark looks with his wife, Petunia.
Harry tried to argue back but his words were drowned by a
long, loud belch from the Dursleys’ son, Dudley.
‘I want more bacon.’
‘There’s more in the frying pan, sweetums,’ said Aunt Petunia,
turning misty eyes on her massive son. ‘We must feed you up
while we’ve got the chance I don’t like the sound of that school
food ’
‘Nonsense, Petunia, I never went hungry when I was at
Smeltings,’ said Uncle Vernon heartily. ‘Dudley gets enough, don’t
you, son?’
Dudley, who was so large his bottom drooped over either side
of the kitchen chair, grinned and turned to Harry.
‘Pass the frying pan.’
‘You’ve forgotten the magic word,’ said Harry irritably.
The effect of this simple sentence on the rest of the family was
incredible: Dudley gasped and fell off his chair with a crash that
shook the whole kitchen; Mrs Dursley gave a small scream and
8 H
ARRY
P
OTTER



clapped her hands to her mouth; Mr Dursley jumped to his feet,
veins throbbing in his temples.
‘I meant “please”!’ said Harry quickly. ‘I didn’t mean –’
‘WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU,’ thundered his uncle, spraying spit
over the table, ‘ABOUT SAYING THE M WORD IN OUR
HOUSE?’
‘But I –’
‘HOW DARE YOU THREATEN DUDLEY!’ roared Uncle
Vernon, pounding the table with his fist.
‘I just –’
‘I WARNED YOU! I WILL NOT TOLERATE MENTION OF
YOUR ABNORMALITY UNDER THIS ROOF!’
Harry stared from his purple-faced uncle to his pale aunt, who
was trying to heave Dudley to his feet.
‘All right,’ said Harry, ‘all right ’
Uncle Vernon sat back down, breathing like a winded
rhinoceros and watching Harry closely out of the corners of
his small, sharp eyes.
Ever since Harry had come home for the summer holidays,
Uncle Vernon had been treating him like a bomb that might go off
at any moment, because Harry wasn’t a normal boy. As a matter of
fact, he was as not normal as it is possible to be.
Harry Potter was a wizard – a wizard fresh from his first year at
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. And if the Dursleys
were unhappy to have him back for the holidays, it was nothing
to how Harry felt.
He missed Hogwarts so much it was like having a constant
stomach ache. He missed the castle, with its secret passageways
and ghosts, his lessons (though perhaps not Snape, the Potions
master), the post arriving by owl, eating banquets in the Great
Hall, sleeping in his four-poster bed in the tower dormitory, visit-
ing the gamekeeper, Hagrid, in his cabin in the grounds next to
the Forbidden Forest and, especially, Quidditch, the most popular
sport in the wizarding world (six tall goalposts, four flying balls
and fourteen players on broomsticks).
All Harry’s spellbooks, his wand, robes, cauldron and top-of-
the-range Nimbus Two Thousand broomstick had been locked in
a cupboard under the stairs by Uncle Vernon the instant Harry
had come home. What did the Dursleys care if Harry lost his place
in the house Quidditch team because he hadn’t practised all sum-
T
HE
W
ORST
B
IRTHDAY
9


mer? What was it to the Dursleys if Harry went back to school
without any of his homework done? The Dursleys were what wiz-
ards called Muggles (not a drop of magical blood in their veins)
and as far as they were concerned, having a wizard in the family
was a matter of deepest shame. Uncle Vernon had even padlocked
Harry’s owl, Hedwig, inside her cage, to stop her carrying mes-
sages to anyone in the wizarding world.
Harry looked nothing like the rest of the family. Uncle Vernon
was large and neckless, with an enormous black moustache; Aunt
Petunia was horse-faced and bony; Dudley was blond, pink and
porky. Harry, on the other hand, was small and skinny, with bril-
liant green eyes and jet-black hair that was always untidy. He wore
round glasses, and on his forehead was a thin, lightning-shaped
scar.
It was this scar that made Harry so particularly unusual, even
for a wizard. This scar was the only hint of Harry’s very mysterious
past, of the reason he had been left on the Dursleys’ doorstep
eleven years before.
At the age of one, Harry had somehow survived a curse from
the greatest dark sorcerer of all time, Lord Voldemort, whose
name most witches and wizards still feared to speak. Harry’s par-
ents had died in Voldemort’s attack, but Harry had escaped with
his lightning scar, and somehow – nobody understood why –
Voldemort’s powers had been destroyed the instant he had failed to
kill Harry.
So Harry had been brought up by his dead mother’s sister and
her husband. He had spent ten years with the Dursleys, never
understanding why he kept making odd things happen without
meaning to, believing the Dursleys’ story that he had got his scar
in the car crash which had killed his parents.
And then, exactly a year ago, Hogwarts had written to Harry,
and the whole story had come out. Harry had taken up his place
at wizard school, where he and his scar were famous but now
the school year was over, and he was back with the Dursleys for
the summer, back to being treated like a dog that had rolled in
something smelly.
The Dursleys hadn’t even remembered that today happened to
be Harry’s twelfth birthday. Of course, his hopes hadn’t been high;
they’d never given him a proper present, let alone a cake – but to
ignore it completely
10 H
ARRY
P
OTTER



At that moment, Uncle Vernon cleared his throat importantly
and said, ‘Now, as we all know, today is a very important day.’
Harry looked up, hardly daring to believe it.
‘This could well be the day I make the biggest deal of my
career,’ said Uncle Vernon.
Harry went back to his toast. Of course, he thought bitterly,
Uncle Vernon was talking about the stupid dinner party. He’d been
talking of nothing else for a fortnight. Some rich builder and
his wife were coming to dinner and Uncle Vernon was hoping to
get a huge order from him (Uncle Vernon’s company made drills).
‘I think we should run through the schedule one more time,’
said Uncle Vernon. ‘We should all be in position at eight o’clock.
Petunia, you will be –?’
‘In the lounge,’ said Aunt Petunia promptly, ‘waiting to wel-
come them graciously to our home.’
‘Good, good. And Dudley?’
‘I’ll be waiting to open the door.’ Dudley put on a foul, simper-
ing smile. ‘May I take your coats, Mr and Mrs Mason?’
‘They’ll love him!’ cried Aunt Petunia rapturously.
‘Excellent, Dudley,’ said Uncle Vernon. Then he rounded on
Harry. ‘And you?’
‘I’ll be in my bedroom, making no noise and pretending I’m not
there,’ said Harry tonelessly.
‘Exactly,’ said Uncle Vernon nastily. ‘I will lead them into the
lounge, introduce you, Petunia, and pour them drinks. At eight
fifteen –’
‘I’ll announce dinner,’ said Aunt Petunia.
‘And Dudley, you’ll say –’
‘May I take you through to the dining room, Mrs Mason?’ said
Dudley, offering his fat arm to an invisible woman.
‘My perfect little gentleman!’ sniffed Aunt Petunia.
‘And you?’ said Uncle Vernon viciously to Harry.
‘I’ll be in my room, making no noise and pretending I’m not
there,’ said Harry dully.
‘Precisely. Now, we should aim to get in a few good compli-
ments at dinner. Petunia, any ideas?’
‘Vernon tells me you’re a wonderful golfer, Mr Mason Do tell
me where you bought your dress, Mrs Mason ’
‘Perfect Dudley?’
‘How about: “We had to write an essay about our hero at

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