Jameyanne Rereads Harry Potter, 2019 edition: Sorcerer’s Stone and Chamber of Secrets

Every year I reread the Harry Potter books. I’m a nerd like that. And every year, I discover something new.

Recently, a friend suggested that I write down my thoughts during my yearly reread and do a blog post about them. She may have been joking, but I’m running with it.

This year, I reread the Harry Potter books starting just after finals in December 2018 and through April 2019 (I’m actually not finished with my reread yet but I’m planning to finish this month). I took my time with this reread, savoring the books instead of hurtling through them at my usual breakneck reading speed. This was a particularly fun reread, because at the same time I was reading the first two books, I was also reading The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook, which really made me focus on the food in the series. Also, in my middle grade space adventure novel, my main characters are listening to the audiobooks when they’re having downtime in the plot—the Jim Dale version, of course. This may be cut from the final draft, but right now I’m having a lot of fun interpreting the Harry Potter books from a time when interplanetary space travel is common and the books are considered classics, akin to Shakespeare.

I’m breaking up my thoughts on the Harry Potter books into three posts. This week, I’m talking about Sorcerer’s Stone and Chamber of Secrets. Next week, I’ll talk about Prisoner of Azkaban, Goblet of Fire, and Order of the Phoenix. And the week after that, assuming I’ve finished reading them, I will talk about Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows. These posts are not reviews like my other posts. I will write spoiler-free reviews at some point in the future (probably for next year’s reread). These posts will be my thoughts and notes as I read the entire book, so there will be spoilers. All the spoilers. If you have not read the Harry Potter books and plan to in the future and don’t want to be spoiled in what will probably be a very confusing way, these are not the posts for you. If you have no interest in the inner workings of my brain while I’m reading these books, these are also not the posts for you. You have been warned.

Also, I ask a lot of questions in these thoughts. I’m sure there are answers out there on the web, especially on Pottermore, but I’m generally confining these posts to what’s contained in the books themselves. Also last I checked (admittedly a few years ago, thanks law school), Pottermore wasn’t all that accessible with a screenreader.

So without further ado, here is what struck me as I reread Harry potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of secrets this year.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Since I was living in the query trenches for my own novel when I started rereading this book, I was struck by the first chapter of the first book. I never thought much about the first chapter, which I always viewed as more of a prologue. But this time as I was reading it I was really dissecting what the point was. And I’m not sure there is a point other than to be mysterious. Everything that is introduced in the first chapter is introduced again in the subsequent chapters in a much more dynamic and developed way, and the second chapter is a more intriguing place to start the book. We all know that J. K. Rowling was rejected a lot before she got a book deal—this is like the thing that nonwriters quote at me whenever I said I was trying to get an agent—but this is the first time I really considered why that might be the case. When you submit a book, you usually submit a query letter and the first few pages, maybe the first chapter. And I can definitely see, because I’ve done it myself now, why the first Harry Potter book would get rejected so much. Don’t get me wrong, I love the first book to pieces, but the opening could have been a lot stronger.

So Dumbledore has a scar above his knee that’s an exact map of the london underground. Which makes me wonder: Does he reference that?

I really admire how so much of what happens in Diagon Alley isn’t just important for world building but is also setup for later in this book and later in the series. I really admire when a writer puts things together so well, and that’s one of the things I love about this series is just how well everything comes together.

I just love little innocent eleven-year-old Harry.

I don’t think we ever learn what the point of studying astronomy is. I’m all for studying astronomy, but every other class connects in some way to magic and this one doesn’t. Astrology comes up later in divination but that’s always treated as a joke. So what is the point of astronomy?

Why couldn’t Snape just heal his leg with magic after Fluffy bites it? Or go to Madam Pomphrey? Or get Dumbledore to do it if he doesn’t want anyone else to know?

When they’re looking for Nicholas Flammel, my first thought is that muggle-borns nowadays, used to google and smartphones, would be in for a nasty shock when they go to Hogwarts and there isn’t even electricity. I’m not even sure there’s a card catalogue for the Hogwarts library—at least it’s never mentioned. I would totally read the story about a muggle-born going to Hogwarts in 2019 and having to abandon their iPhone.

When I was a kid, it always really impressed me how Ron knew what the winged key would look like by looking for one that matches the handle. It must be a visual thing that keys match locks, which of course I wouldn’t have noticed as a kid, but even then as a twelve-year-old under pressure I don’t think I would have made the connection like that.

I love the potions logic problem. It reminds me of an LSAT logic problem, and I honest to goodness loved those. I try to diagram it every time I read it, but I’ve never managed to get it myself. I always got stuck with how to figure out which one of the end bottles lets you go forward and which one lets you go back. And I know, as someone who was just talking about the wonders of Google, maybe I should have looked it up. But I was determined that one of these days I would figure it out. And this year, I finally got it. In case anybody else has been as mystified as me, here’s how to do it.

First, here’s the riddle:

Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind,

Two of us would help you, whichever you would find,

One among us seven will let you move ahead,

Another will transport the drinker back instead,

Two among our number hold only nettle wine,

Three of us are killers, waiting hidden in line.

Choose, unless you wish to stay here forevermore,

To help you in your choice, we give you these clues four:

First, however slyly the poison tries to hide,

You will always find some on nettle wine’s left side;

Second, different are those who stand at either end,

But if you would move onward, neither is your friend;

Third, as you see clearly, both are different size,

Neither dwarf nor giant holds death in their insides;

Fourth, the second left and the second on the right,

Are twins once you taste them, though different at first sight.

And here’s how I solved it:

We have seven bottles, lined up on a table from smallest to largest. Three are nettle wine, two are poison, one lets you go forward through the black fire, and one lets you go back through the purple fire. Number the bottles 1 to 7 from left to right (because I’m treating this like at LSAT logic game). We know that neither bottle 1 nor bottle 7 is poison. We know that bottle 2 and bottle 6 are the same. So bottle 2 and bottle 6 could be wine, because there are 2 bottles of wine, but we also know that you will always find poison to the left of the nettle wine. Repeat, always. So if bottles 2 and 6 are wine, that means that bottle 1 is poison, and we know from the third clue that bottle 1 isn’t poison (we’re assuming of course that the poison is deadly, but it doesn’t work if you don’t assume that). So if 2 and 6 can’t be the wine, and they’re identical, they have to each be poison. That means that bottle number 3 has to be wine. What about bottle 7?  The second clue seems to indicate that bottles 1 and 7 won’t be your friend if you want to move forward, but forward is danger, as it says in the intro. So let’s come back to that. If 7 is wine, that would allow 6 to be poison, and leaves us with bottles 1, 4, and 5 to contend with. We know that 1 can’t be wine, because no poison to the left of it, and the clues say it isn’t poison. So bottle 1 will either let you go forward or backward. So 1 will let you go forward or back, 2 is poison, 3 is wine, 4 will either let you go forward or back or it’s poison, 5 will either let you go forward or back or it’s poison, 6 is poison, and 7 is wine. But that’s not completely solved, and I’m not seeing another clue to get you the last step.

But there’s another way to do it: 1 will either take you forward or back, 2 is poison, 3 is wine, 4 is poison, 5 is wine, 6 is poison, 7 will take you forward or back. There are three poisons and 2 wines and 7 spots, so one poison automatically won’t be directly to the left of nettle wine. Also, the pairing of the dwarf and giant twice in the second and third clues, particularly the third clue, hints that they have similar qualities—specifically fireproofing qualities. Finally, this is a much neater arrangement that fits with all the clues, and the clues are supposed to lead you to an answer.

So how do you know whether 1 or 7 will take you onward and which one will take you back? The third clue says “if you would move onward, neither is your friend.” Taken figuratively, it means one bottle will take you back, so it’s not your friend, and one bottle will take you into more danger, so it’s not your friend either. And that’s always how I read it. But you can also read it literally: if you want to go on, your friend isn’t coming with you. And so bottle number 1, the smallest bottle that will only hold enough potion for one person, will let you go forward, and bottle 7 will send you back.

Voilá. I solved it. That being said, I’m not sure I’d be comfortable enough with that solution to drink a potion and walk through fire. Given that it took me years to figure it out, I am very, very impressed with Hermione. Of course I always have been. Nobody else I know memorizes all their textbooks.

I love the twist in this book. It does such a great job of setting up Snape as the bad guy, and yet it makes perfect sense that it’s Quirrel. Voldemort sticking out of the back of Quirrel’s head is totally terrifying (like I can’t believe I first read this when I was eight). And how Harry manages to hold him off is great.

And then Neville wins them the house cup! I will always love Dumbledore for that!

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets:

When I first read this book when I was a kid, I didn’t like it that much. I honestly don’t remember why. I mean okay it’s not my favorite in the series, but now when I read it, it’s so intense, and it gives me so many feelings.

The Dursleys are the worst. I wondered when I read the last book, and I feel like especially here it bears repeating, where is child services? Like when Harry and Dudley went to the same school, Harry’s teachers must have been able to tell that Harry was being neglected. He didn’t even have clothes that fit and his glasses were held together by tape. Come on people.

I know that the sixth book comes back to what happened in the second book because of Tom Riddle’s diary, but there’s also a lot of other stuff in this book that becomes important in the sixth book. Basically everything in the scene at Borgan and Burkes—the hand of glory, the opal necklace, even Harry hiding in the vanishing cabinet—are key to the sixth book. Later on, when Harry and Ron are disguised as Crabbe and Goyle, Malfoy reveals his family’s secret chamber under their drawing room floor, which will become important in the seventh book too.

Speaking of Harry hiding in the vanishing cabinet, I have fun imagining the conversation between Harry and McGonigall when he winds up traveling through the cabinets into Hogwarts and showed up at school a month before classes started. I know it’s not how it goes but it would have been a funny scene.

I feel like Harry complains a lot about not having money in the Muggle world. Why doesn’t he change some of his wizard gold for muggle money at any point during the series?

So Harry and Ron definitely cross a line for me when they steal the car to fly to Hogwarts. Like a certain amount of rule-breaking to solve the mystery like in the first book and this book and later on in the series is fine by me. But rule-breaking because the characters are being stupid and don’t think of the obvious solutions, like sending a letter to Hogwarts or waiting for Ron’s parents, kind of annoys me. Yes the car being at Hogwarts is important later, but I’m just kind of meh about how it gets there. (I like it when my characters are fundamentally smart and good.)

I love Colin Creevey. He is so cute, and he is also so brave. Annoying, yes, but it takes guts to approach a stranger and ask them for a photo. Not to mention the guts it takes to stick up for Harry against Malfoy.

Why doesn’t Hogwarts have a stash of spare wands? Or a contact with Olivander? It’s a wizard school. Accidents happen, right? Ron basically goes the whole year without doing magic, and his broken wand is frankly dangerous.

Speaking of Ron going the whole year with a broken wand, he isn’t the only one who misses large chunks of their education this year. Colin, Justin, Penelope Clearwater, Hermione, and even Ginny to some extent miss months of classes. I assume that in the first and second year it probably isn’t hugely important, but Percy’s girlfriend is a sixth year. How does she make that up? And when they cancel all exams at the end of the book, does that cover OWLS and NEWTS? These are just some questions I have.

Spiders continue to be scary, Lockhart continues to be a complete douchebag, and the ending of this book is just great. I’m not crying, you’re crying.

And that’s it for my thoughts on the first two books. I’ll be back next week to chat about the third, fourth, and fifth books.