The Big Picture
The post-credits scene in
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
reveals Lockhart’s tragic fate.
Lockhart ends up in a straitjacket with no memory, showing his downfall as a fraud.
Lockhart’s Memory Charms backfire, leading him to forget his identity and ending up at St Mungo’s.
In our current cinematic landscape dominated by franchise powerhouses like Star Wars, DC, and of course, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, post-credit scenes are a given. Nowadays, it’s hard to imagine a film from a major franchise not culminating in a post-credit scene that teases some inevitable crossover, or drops an Easter egg hinting at future plot points. But one of the most successful and robust film franchises only contains one post-credit scene in all eight films — and it’s one that many fans may have completely forgotten about (pun very much intended).
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is the longest Harry Potter movie, so not everyone knows of its post-credit scene — the movie is already so long, it is doubtful that people want to stick around for the entirety of the end credits. But if you are a Harry Potter music fan or a John Williams fan in general, or you just love to listen to the end credits scores, chances are you will know of this end-credit scene. It is a quick one, only a few seconds long, but it gives insight into the fate of this morally questionable Hogwarts professor.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
The second instalment of boy wizard Harry Potter’s adventures at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, based on the novel by JK Rowling. A mysterious elf tells Harry to expect trouble during his second year at Hogwarts, but nothing can prepare him for trees that fight back, flying cars, spiders that talk and deadly warnings written in blood on the walls of the school.
Release Date November 13, 2002
Runtime 161
What Happens in the Post-Credit Scene in ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’?
After the credits are over, we see a birds-eye shot of Diagon Alley, but then the camera hones in on the Wizarding bookstore known as Flourish and Blotts. At the beginning of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and his friends are in Flourish and Blotts buying their new school books. But Professor Gilderoy Lockhart (Kenneth Branagh) is there, too, doing a book signing for his numerous autobiographies that detail his countless adventures and magical feats consisting of conquering banshees and other heroic acts of varying degrees. Many witches are swooning over Lockhart, and he isn’t shy about how much he loves himself, nor does he fail to boast about his achievements.
But during this post-credit scene, Lockhart is in Flourish and Blotts for an entirely different reason. Toward the end of the film, Lockhart reveals that he is a fraud. The only real talent he possesses is his ability to perform Memory Charms. All the feats he depicts in his autobiographies were stolen from witches and wizards who actually performed these acts of bravery, but Lockhart tampered with their memories to make them forget what they did, and he instead told everyone that he did all these great things. The only reason he reveals his dark secret is because Harry and Ron (Rupert Grint) corner him. However, afraid to lose his outstanding yet completely falsified career, Lockhart attempts to tamper with Harry and Ron’s memories. Unfortunately for him, Lockhart attempts this by using Ron’s broken wand, and the Memory Charm backfires on himself instead.
‘Chamber of Secrets’ Gives Us a Hint at Lockhart’s Fate
Image via Warner Bros. Pictures
So, Lockhart loses his memory completely and even forgets who he is. And so, in the post-credit scene, Lockhart isn’t physically inside Flourish and Blotts, but he is in the front window within a moving photograph. He is dressed in a straitjacket with a vague and clueless expression on his face. The caption above the photo says: “Who Am I?” So, it would appear that Lockhart has definitely fallen from grace now that he’s lost his memory, and the whole Wizarding community has clearly found out he’s a fraud.
Later on in the Harry Potter series, we learn that Lockhart was admitted to St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, still without a clue of who he is. It is sort of a tragically ironic fate, and there’s no doubt that Lockhart’s Memory Charms were powerful, since he copped the wrath of his own magic and had to reap the consequences of it for the rest of his life. As the only post-credit scene in the Harry Potter series, this seconds-long shot doesn’t add much to the narrative except to confirm Lockhart’s fall from grace, but it is still a fun hidden gem for book and non-book fans alike.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is available to watch on Max in the U.S.
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