Now we’re into the second book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Plenty of connections can be made between this book and book six, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. In fact, book two was originally going to be called Half-Blood Prince! Here’s what Rowling had to say about that:
I have been engulfed by an avalanche of questions on the subject of ‘Prince’ having once been a title of ‘Chamber’. I am therefore attempting to answer most of them under this heading, which I think just about covers all the answerable variations (the unanswerable ones include questions such as ‘who’s the Half-Blood Prince?’ ‘what happens in the Half-Blood Prince?’ and ‘what does Half-Blood Prince mean?’)
The plot of ‘Prince’ bears no resemblance whatsoever to the plot of ‘Chamber’, nor is it an off-cut of ‘Chamber’. The story of ‘Prince’ takes off where ‘Phoenix’ ended and does not hark back to four years previously. True, mention is made to events that happened in ‘Chamber,’ but of course, mention is also made of events that happened in ‘Stone’, ‘Azkaban’, ‘Goblet’ and ‘Phoenix’.
‘The Half-Blood Prince’ might be described as a strand of the overall plot. That strand could be used in a whole variety of ways and back in 1997 I considered weaving it into the story of ‘Chamber’. It really didn’t fit there, though; it was not part of the story of the basilisk and Riddle’s diary, and before long I accepted that it would be better to do it justice in book six. I clung to the title for a while, even though all trace of the ‘Prince’ storyline had disappeared, because I liked it so much (yes, I really like this title!). I re-christened book two ‘Chamber of Secrets’ when I started the second draft.
The link I mentioned between books two and six does not, in fact, relate to the ‘Half-Blood Prince’ (because there is no trace left of the HBP storyline in ‘Chamber’.) Rather, it relates to a discovery Harry made in ‘Chamber’ that foreshadows something that he finds out in ‘Prince’. (JKR: FAQ)
There may be, as Rowling states, “no trace left of the HBP storyline in ‘Chamber’,” but there certainly are a lot of connections and similarities between the two books! Many fans have commented on the fact that the first and seventh books mirror each other as do the second and sixth. Check out our list of similarities toward the bottom of this page.
And now, let’s go canon diving!
Podcasts:
Chapter 1: Birthdays by Eileen Jones
Chapter 2: Dobby’s Warning … and other musings by Eileen Jones
Chapter 3: The Weasley Twins by Eileen Jones
Chapter 4: Privet Drive vs. The Burrow by Eileen Jones
Chapter 5: Or Worse, Expelled by Eileen Jones
The Weasleys and Ottery St. Catchpole by Steve VanderArk
Is Dobby Really Necessary? by Eileen Jones
Reader’s Guides:
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