Christianity in Harry Potter's Wizarding World: The Chamber of Secrets Part 1

Ottery St. Catchpole

In Chapter 3, after the Weasley brothers rescue Harry from the Dursleys, the readers first come to the Burrow, which is located in a town called Ottery St. Catchpole. This is a town with both a Muggle and a wizard community.

It turns out that Ottery St. Catchpole is a small town based on the real life Ottery St. Mary around Devon, England. That "St." does not stand for Street, but rather it stands for Saint.

I think the name of the town may reinforce a wizard's knowledge of who or what a saint is. For example, out here in my neck of the woods, city names include St. Paul, St. Charles, St. Peters, and St. Louis (among others). These are not just random names of cities, but also names of saints with a history and a past. Citizens of these cities have the knowledge of where the name of their town comes from. In the same way, wizards who live in Ottery St. Catchpole have the knowledge that the town is named after a Catholic person, thereby having access to info about what a saint is and what makes St. Catchpole a saint.  I think it is interesting that J.K. Rowling changed the name of the real town so that instead of a real saint's name, she used a fake name (there is no St. Catchpole in reality, at least not that I could find. Though in Harry Potter's world, St. Catchpole is a real figure).

Devil

In both the movie and the book, Gilderoy Lockhart describes Cornish pixies as "devilish". I think by examining the appearance and behavior of the pixies, we can better understand the wizard's concept of  the devil. At first, the pixies seem small and harmless. It's kind of a way for them to lure wizards into a false sense of security. As soon as the pixies are released, they wreck havoc throughout the classroom. They attack the students, they take Lockhart's wand, and they pick up Neville and hang him up on the ceiling. While the pixies are small, they are vicious.

All of these describe how the devil manipulates us through sins and temptations. He lures us into a false sense of security by making himself or something bad seem small and harmless and then attacks us after we fall for the trap. In this understanding, Lockhart correctly defines the pixies as devilish and by experience the student wizards also understand why the pixies are defined as devilish.

Bless

While Harry helps him answer fan mail, Lockhart is telling the boy about one of his admirers and says "bless her". This phrase kind of reminds me of the little old ladies who say "bless you" to people as a term of endearment. What does bless mean, according the wizarding world then? Most definitions of bless revolve around asking God to bring His grace down upon the person being blessed, but bless can also mean to bestow good upon someone. I think that the latter definition is how the word bless is used in the wizarding world. Though wizards like Lockhart most likely understand the Christian background behind the term, bless is used by wizards as a way of wishing good things upon someone, as this example from the book demonstrates.

Christened 

At the beginning of Chapter 14 "Cornelius Fudge", the book goes over Hagrid's liking for large creatures and, when it comes to the three-headed dog that we encountered in the first book, it says that Hagrid "christened" the dog Fluffy.

This is not an unfamiliar word, Christened. One of the definitions of christen is to give a name to something, as in "I christen you the U.S.S. Enterprise" or "I christen you Fluffy the three headed dog". However, other definitions refer to the receiving of one's Christian name, particularly during baptism. The word itself is derived from the ancient word for Christian. In the wizard world, if one uses the word christened, it is most likely being used according to the first definition, to name something, but with the understanding that Christ is there in the word, thereby linking the word to the Christian world.


This is only half of my findings from The Chamber of Secrets. Look for a continued examination of Christianity links from Harry's second year in the next installment of the series.