Chapter 12: The Polyjuice Potion | Chamber of Secrets

It’s interesting that you guys keep bringing up Percy… because I don’t even think as a child I interpreted Percy as a red herring for the heir. I always assumed he was simply unhappy with the rule breaking and ‘nonsense’, but not being set up as a misdirect.

Draco may have stayed at school for Christmas because Lucius wanted to stay informed about the Chamber activity. Draco was his dad's on-scene reporter.

I think Ben is exactly right. I can just imagine the founders sitting at dinner one evening and realizing, "Hey, we're running a formal school here. When did that start?" Someone says, "5 Years ago?" Then someone else says, "" No, we had students here 10 years ago. " Then someone else ays, " Yes, but we didn't really have separate subjects until 7 years ago." It wasn't planned, it was organic.

Probably my favorite little bit from any of the movies is from this chapter. In the movie, Harry (as Goyle) is still wearing his glasses, and Draco asks something like "Why are you wearing glasses?" Goyle (paraphrasing): "I need them for reading." Draco: "I didn't know you could read!" And then Draco gives a little nod like he's actually impressed about that. I always just find it really funny.

Percy=red hair-ing 😂 I’ll see myself out. lol.

Please never split chapters in parts. I absolutely love you long content. I have listened to every chapter twice and have listened to the long all in one what ifs because it’s in long form. Thank you!

It's a pretty simple solution for the Map to only "know" what the Marauders "knew" and to only show what they cared to see. The Marauders know about people, ghosts, poltergeists, animals, animagi and polyjuice; they probably didn't know anything about horcruxes and they definitely didn't know about the location of the Chamber. So the map shows people and poltergeists (and maybe ghosts). It doesn't show every animal. It shows animagi as their human idenity and people under the influence of polyjuice as their true identity. It doesn't show horcruxes or the Chamber or the basilisk.

I like to think Dumbledore was messing with the Dursley's by having Headwig sent over there asking for a present for Harry for Christmas.

The reason Tom Riddle knows Hagrid is because he stands out! How many students are 10 feet tall? Draco knows Colin because he follows Harry around begging for pictures and autographs!

I think it's more likely that Lucius Malfoy and not Dumbledore is blocking the school governors from reporting it to the Daily Prophet. Dumbledore has probably told the Governors, but Malfoy (Sr.) would absolutely want the attacks to continue, and have targets for those attacks present. He even tells Draco to let the Heir do his work and all that.

It's really strongly implied in HBP that Hagrid was in Gryffindor - when McGonagall takes over as 'Acting Head', she invites Hagrid to take her place as head of Gryffindor when the senior teachers discuss what to do next (Slughorn is there as the new head of Slytherin after Snape's departure).

As an adult, when it comes to Percy and Penelope sneaking around in remote parts of the castle, I can't help but think that they are up to more than just snogging. And of course as prefects they don't want others to know that wand polishing is going on. Lol

If your going to be faithful to the book , Goyle doesn't destroy the diadem , Crabbe does .He cast the fiendfyre curse in Deathly Hallows . They changed it in the movie .

Lucius is on the Board of Governors. I wouldn't put it past him to get the list of incoming students every year and then tell Draco who's who: who he needs to network with, who he can afford to bully, and who he wants dirt/more information on.

Merch idea: Ugly Christmas sweaters for main characters. Malfoy's has large font reading "I'm Dashing" with small text below "through the snow!"

I've always read Malfoy's attitude in this chapter as he was just bragging in front of Crabbe and Goyle. Like he thinks he looks so cool this way, like this is his idea of being mature. I also think JK want to contrast his attitude in this book with how he acts in The Half-Blood Prince. There's a ton of parallelisms between those two stories (the diary of Tom Riddle and the copy of Advanced Potion Making being the main one), and I think the fact that Malfoy thinks that commiting murders in school is a funny thing in year 2 contrast with the way he thinks about that when he is in fact asigned this same task, because by then he's more aware of the actual dangers of the war.

These chats make me realize how fast these early books move. The books take place over a year and it feels like only two chapters ago we were on Summer break, and now we are in December.

The Millicent Bulstrode plot hole always gets me. Im so glad you guys brought it up

I always thought that Draco was frustrated with Harry for receiving attention as the heir of Slitherin because Draco respects the heir a lot, and is frustrated that Harry of all people, someone who he hates, is sullying the name of the heir of Slitherin

Ok what is the deal with mandrakes, it's both common enough that they let 2nd years play with them, but also rare enough that Dumbledore can't just send an owl to st Mongo's and order some? He and Poppy both opt to just let the children be paralyzed for nearly half a year? Mandrake salve sounds like it would be insaney useful at st Mongo's and there no way they would just have some