Harry's magic formula

The sheer brilliance of the Harry Potter books - just as much in evidence in the second volume and film as in the first - is that they combine the elements common to the best children's stories, from Enid Blyton to the Brothers Grimm. Like the fairy stories, they start with a put-upon child, preferably an orphan - in this case, Harry Potter - who is left to the mercies of his unspeakably horrid uncle and aunt. Think about the fairy story heroes and heroines with horrible stepmothers, or who are left orphaned like Cinderella, and you get the gist.

Then there's the stratagem for removing the children in the stories from a normal, boring, family environment, to one where they are left to their own devices. And an excellent means for procuring a situation like that is the very oldfashioned formula of the boarding school story. A boarding school is a controlled environment, with a familiar, set routine. You've got the never-changing cycle of the school year - holidays, Christmas, school matches, exams, then holidays again. You've got much the same faces every term - the same teachers, the same classmates. You've got rivalry inside the place, in the way of competition between the houses. And yet there isn't the same sort of hands-on control of the children as you'd get if they went home to their parents in the evenings.

And, of course, the great thing about the Harry Potter books, which is squarely established in the first book and film, is that Hogwarts isn't any old boarding school, riddled with class associations. It's for any child who's born to be a magician, and that means children of any class, either sex, any nationality. The school game, Quidditch, is conducted on broomsticks. The school building is a kind of Ruritanian castle. The uniform is a robe.

All this, anyone who's read the first book, or seen the first film of the series, already knows. The good news is that in the sequel, all those familiar elements are still there. Later volumes in the series are more serious and complicated (the fourth book is miles longer and darker than the first). But in The Chamber Of Secrets, the three friends, Harry, Hermione and Ron are still only second years. The relationship between them isn't sullied by puberty. And it's still the same formula - Harry Potter's running battle with the horrible Potions Master, Snape. The watchful supervision of Dumbledore, the kindly head, played for the last time by Richard Harris. The routine humbling of Harry's hateful Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon. And then there are the same magical elements - the banquets, the school ghosts, the Quidditch matches. All the things you liked about the Sorcerer's Stone are here in The Chamber Of Secrets.

But there are any number of new elements in this book and film. J.K. Rowling's funniest creation is the new Defence Against The Dark Arts master, Gilderoy Lockhart, a self-publicist of quite extraordinary stamina and cheek, winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award and author of the best-selling volume, Magical Me. For some reason, Kenneth Branagh has been cast in the role, which introduces an entirely new notion: the Celebrity Wizard. The struggle between Harry and Lord Voldemort takes shape around a monster of quite extraordinary horribleness - and one of J.K. Rowling's strengths is that she makes use of classical mythology for her creatures. And, for good measure, there's a giant spider as well, a bit like the enormous, malign ones which featured in The Hobbit. We are introduced to the helot class of the magical world, namely the house elves, the unpaid, loyal drudges who work for wizards and magical institutions, and who look a tiny bit like ET.

But in terms of the human interest of the story, the main thing is that we meet not only Ron Weasley's engaging family, but Ginny, his flame-haired little sister, who is going to Hogwarts for the first time and who plainly has the most enormous crush on Harry. I'm anticipating a bit here, but I can tell you right now this series will conclude with Harry ending up with Ginny. But in this film it's too early for the other obvious development, that Ron Weasley will end up with Hermione. Here, Ginny's crush on Harry very nearly ends in tears, and that's all I'm saying.

Naturally the story ends with a banquet, and then it's time for the school to go home for the holidays. Time for the cycle to start again, and for the next school year to begin at Hogwarts. But that's the beauty of school stories, there's always the promise of another school year. And the good news is that the next book, The Prisoner Of Azkaban, is, if anything, even better than this one.

Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets opens Fri 15 Nov.