Chapter 5 - The Whomping Willow

Before I give my reviews, some background -- In about a month my wife Imelda is expecting to give birth to a bouncing baby boy, which we all agree will make me a first time dad. As a dad-to-be I started thinking about things that children like, and one of those things was Harry Potter. You'll be damned to find a kid who doesn't like the series. So I figured I should get a leg up and get hip to what the kids are into by catching up in kid lit, and begin with Harry Potter.

I read the first book back in the day when I was teenager but never read any after that. I was a cool 15 or 16 year old, and Harry Potter was for the kids, so I never felt that excited to continue reading. Little did I know that it would turn into the phenomenon that it had become and spur all the movies, theme park rides, etc.



So here we are nearly 20 years later and I'm finally ready to continue the journey of reading Harry Potter books and giving you my take on them, chapter by chapter.









I'll start this blog with my review from chapter 5 of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.  This is the second book in the series and I already read the first 4 chapters before coming up with the idea for the blog so we'll just have to skip those. If you really want my take I'll do a retrospective of them but will batch them into one post. There's 18 chapters total in this book so no need to fret since there's still plenty book left to get through.



So in Chapter 5 Harry, the hero, hooks up with his best bud Ron Wesley and hangs with him back at his parents crib which is possessed by magic. In previous chapters Ron helps Harry bust out of his abusive adoptive parents' home by flying his dad's Ford to Harry's window and flying Harry back to his family's home. Ron's parents are laid back good people who don't mind their 14-year-old son driving their flying car and are happy to have Harry stay with them for the summer. Quick note to future son -- I ever catch you taking out the car when you're still 14 you won't get a license until you're 20. I don't care that your buddy from school won't write back to your summer letters. Food for thought, kiddo.



Anyway in this chapter Harry and Ron are getting ready to go back to Hogwarts, their wizard-training boarding school. Ron's entire family -- his mom, dad, and 3 siblings if I remember correctly -- all hop n the flying Ford to go to the train station to enter a magical portal that leads to the Hogwarts Express, the train that rides to Hogwarts. Ron's family make it through the magical portal but Harry and Ron cannot. They just keep bumping into the wall and people around them think they're crazy.

Ron then remembers that his Dad left the flying car in the parking lot and decided to use that to fly to Hogwarts instead of the train. Harry agrees to the plan so the two of them hop in, load of their luggage and their owls into the car, and fly their way out to Hogwarts. Good on them if you ask me...There was clearly something wrong with the portal, they needed to get to school, and Ron's dad was cool with him flying the car before, so why the hell not?



They follow the train path down to the school, everything's honky dory but then sure enough things start to go wrong. The engine goes and the flying car crashes into a tree near the school. To make matters worse the tree is hostile and aggressive and starts punching the car to smithereens. Harry and Ron luckily escape but the car is a goner and flys away on its own. Ron and Harry make it out relatively unscathed and make it to the school in time for the selection ceremony, where the Freshman get assigned to one of four groups -- hufflepuff -- the goofy one, slytherin -- the evil one, gryffindor -- the good one which Harry and Ron are in, and I can't remember the fourth but that's ok because it doesn't really matter that much at this point in the book.



Chapter ends with Harry and Ron almost getting expelled from the school for flying the car and getting spotted by "Muggles", or normal non-wizard humans. Their school's headmaster suggested that they should have just "sent an owl" with a note explaining their plight and the school would have sorted things things out accordingly. Ultimately the boys just get a stern scolding, hook up with their gal pal Hermione, and reunite with the rest of the Gryffindor gang, who all think Ron and Harry are pretty rad dudes for their deviant antics travel-choice getting to school. Hell, beats taking the bus.



Some thoughts -- Harry and Ron were ultimately in the right to steal the car. As I've said before, Ron's dad was cool with him using it earlier to break out Harry, so there is no harm from that end. As for the headmaster's suggestion to use the owl, that is a cop-out nonsensical unfair suggestion. The boys saw Ron's whole family make it through the portal to the train without a problem. Clearly there's some man behind the curtain trying to keep these guys out. Given that, it would have been useless to try and send an owl. It would have taken much longer, and would have possibly even been misconstrued by the school's administration as an excuse for getting to the train late. There was too much uncertainty and potential to get completely stuck had they tried sending an owl. They took matters into their own hands and flew in on their own. The head masters should have been thrilled that they were so eager to make it to school on time. I think they overreacted to the car getting spotted out in the open. So what? It's about time Muggles warm up to wizards and just accept that wizards are going to fly cars. Instead of just hiding they should share their wizarding ways and make flying cars available for all.

Look, I've seen Xmen, I get that supernaturals and humans often don't see eye to eye on things and hostility breeds quite easily. But c'mon, one flying car? It's bound to happen every once in a while. At least give them some credit for making it all the way back to school on time.



Looking ahead, Harry is about to start school again. There's some new hotshot professor that wrote all the text books that I think will be prominent in some capacity. Anything's possible. It's still early in the book but things should start heating up soon I suppose.



Cheerio!