Description
The Chamber of Secrets is a hidden chamber deep beneath Hogwarts, accessible only through concealed pathways known to those who speak Parseltongue. At its heart stands a large statue of Salazar Slytherin’s likeness—“ancient and monkeyish, with a long thin beard that fell almost to the bottom of the wizard’s sweeping stone robes, where two enormous gray feet stood on the smooth chamber floor.”
Within the Chamber, Slytherin placed a giant venomous Basilisk, a serpent of immense size and lethal power, intended to be commanded by one of his true heirs.
History
The Chamber was created by Salazar Slytherin after he departed Hogwarts due to bitter disagreements with the other founders over the admission of Muggle-born students. Slytherin believed that only those of pure wizarding blood deserved a magical education, and when the other founders refused to bar Muggle-borns, he left the school—but not before secreting the Chamber and its deadly guardian within the castle’s foundations. His intent was that a worthy heir would one day open the Chamber and use the Basilisk to rid the school of those he deemed unworthy.
Nearly a thousand years later, Tom Riddle discovered the Chamber and proved himself Slytherin’s heir. He opened it and used the Basilisk to attack non-pure-blood students. In 1942, the serpent killed Myrtle Warren, and Riddle used her death to create his first Horcrux—Riddle’s Diary.
The Chamber’s existence was long considered a myth by most of the wizarding world, dismissed as legend until events forced the truth into the open. Its discovery confirmed the darkest fears about The Founding of Hogwarts and the rifts that divided the founders from the very beginning.