Chapter Seventeen: The Heir of Slytherin
In chapter seventeen of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Salazar Slytherin is revealed as super nuts, Harry defeats evil with a bird and a really old hat, and we all guess how many hours Tom Riddle spent making anagrams of his name.
(Please be advised that this is a reread and I will be discussing book and movie spoilers.)
We start our tale again with Harry hissing at the Chamber of Secrets and seeing Ginny’s practically lifeless body next to the memory of Tom Riddle. I realize he’s got quite a few things on his mind, but Harry seems pretty nonchalant about a weird quasi ghost of a sixteen year old boy from fifty years ago chilling in a secret murder chamber with Ginny’s motionless body.
Secondary aside, but how evil was Salazar Slytherin? How was he ever friends with the other founders if this was lurking within him? And how on Earth does no one notice an enormous chamber underneath the castle hiding a giant monster?
Third aside, how did Riddle not go completely monkey-flinging-his-own-poo insane trapped inside a diary for fifty years? What did he DO?! Did Voldemort occasionally take out the diary and write in it?
LV: Today I killed some more Muggles, isn’t that awesome young me?
TR: Does my face look worse again?
LV: Melted candle with devil eyes, why?
TR: *headdesk*
LV: BTW I’m going to give you to Lucius for keeping, k?
TR: The one with the pimp cane and hair bow?!
Anyway, so somehow Riddle is speaking coherently and not babbling nonsense at Harry and it takes Harry a super long time to cotton on that Riddle is eeeevilll.
I joke, but c’mon, Harry genuinely has some more important things, like a murderous serpent and Ginny’s imminent death to take time to wonder about how hot young Tom Riddle is Tom Riddle is there.
Harry starts to wonder what in the eff is going on with this dude after approximately ten minutes of him trying to get Riddle to help him with no success, and Riddle starts his evil exposition by mocking the secrets of a tween girl that were confided in utmost secrecy and YOU MONSTER TOM RIDDLE! We knew you were evil but this is too far!
Poor Ginny gets her secrets spilled to her biggest crush and really it’s possible she doesn’t wake up from her coma solely out of tween embarrassment.
Harry finds out the Ginny is the Heir of Slytherin, kind of, sort of, but really she’s the puppet of this rando dude who is apparently the actual Heir of Slytherin trapped in a diary, and Harry takes this weirdness like a damn champ.
Riddle reveals that he set up Hagrid fifty years before, and look this is not okay that we find this out now, without doubt, and Hagrid’s name isn’t cleared and he isn’t issued a new wand and given the opportunity for an education. #JusticeForHagrid, my precious hairy prince!
But enough of my one woman protest for Hagrid’s rights, because now T-Ridz has revealed to Harry that he’s Lord Voldemort, is obsessed with Harry Potter just as much as Colin and Ginny are, and that he spent an entire weekend once muttering over anagrams of his name. I might’ve exaggerated those last two, but only slightly.
Sassy Harry makes his very welcome re-emergence when he tells T-Ridz that he will never ever EVER be half as cool as Dumbledore and Fawkes shows up with the sorting hat which makes Riddle laugh his evil ass off, and I can’t say I quite blame him for this one, even if his hubris will be his undoing, as usual.
Riddle demands to know how baby Harry defeated him, and Harry wisely realizes this is a waste of time and sasses at Riddle that his Muggleborn mother actually was the one to defeat him (that’s my girl, Lily!) and he riles Riddle up enough that he calls the Basilisk, who’s gotta be freaking starving at this point. Riddle takes a gamble that the Basilisk won’t listen to Harry, which would’ve been kind of hilarious if he was wrong and Harry just rode the Baslisk out of the chamber with Ginny at his side, the diary clasped in the snake’s fanged mouth.
We’ll never know cause Harry doesn’t try to talk to the Basilisk in Parseltongue and instead, runs away while Fawkes blinds the beast and the sorting hat gives Harry the sword of Gryffindor.
Harry drives the sword in the Baslisk’s mouth like a BAMF and then when Riddle does the classic villain gloat for roughly the sixth time this chapter Fawkes heals Harry with his Deus Ex Machina tears and Harry stabs Hot Tom Riddle to death with fang-through-diary badassery. Oh, it wasn’t relevant that Tom Riddle is hot? Ooops. P.S. He’s still hot.
Ginny wakes up and reveals she was the guilty party (Ginny this would’ve been helpful six months ago!) and Harry, Ron, Lockhart, and Ginny take a hold of Fawkes and fly away on the Deus Ex Machina with magic…only to go to McG’s office. You guys better hope she’s not about to punish you for being out of bed with a death detention!
And now, join me in enjoying this picture of evil in human form drinking a delicious caffeinated beverage:
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So how long did Riddle spend writing anagrams of his name?
How did Riddle not go crazy spending fifty years trapped in a diary?
Evil Tom Riddle is super hot, right?
Is it possible the basilisk would’ve listened to Harry if he spoke Parseltongue to it?
What’s worse for Ginny: revealing she’s the heir of Slytherin to Harry, or getting her embarassing personal secrets revealed to Harry?
Just how evil was Salazar Slytherin?
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