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.

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.

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

Dude, Hagrid is gigantic. There’s no chance a single person at the school didn’t know his name.

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.

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.

It makes a lot of sense why Madam Pomfrey doesn’t really pry into what kids are doing. You don’t want to incentivize kids who hurt themselves doing things against school rules to not go to the hospital wing out of fear of getting detention or expelled

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!

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.

To answer your question.....I was raised in the states by a  real life witchy mom who knows all classic British folklore...I knew it was a Basilisk before it told me it was, because of the lore details (like the roosters) and Harry could hear it. It was obvious to me.

My head canon is that Bill paid for his parents Christmas visit and the reason the other trip was so expensive was because they did lots of touristy things

Thinking about the Weasleys’ trips to Egypt…I have a brother that lives in NYC, and there’s definitely a difference in cost between “I’m visiting Colin this week” and “We’re taking a vacation to the city”. On one hand, it’s “Oh we’ll catch a flight to New York, stay in his apartment to save money, and just spend time together”. On the other, it’s “We’re making a TRIP out of this! There’s more people, so we’ll get a hotel, we’ll get some Broadway tickets, go on some city tours, go to see the Statue of Liberty, take a trip up to the Empire State Building–”
Going to visit family is one thing, but if the Weasleys won the LOTTERY, I imagine they would’ve made a whole Family Vacation out of it complete with the classic touristy things that often cost money for ticket/entry. They’d skip all that during a Christmas visit because that’s not the point of the trip.
Granted, spending all 700 galleons in one go is DEFINITELY going all out for a family vaycay lol…but they feel like people who care more about the memories they make with family and the experience of a fun trip, than tucking every penny away even if it means never splurging on fun things.

Drinking game for every time the guys say"Dumbledore's Big Plan"😂😂

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

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 .