I'm not entirely sure what I expected for my second year of Hogwarts, but what I got certainly wasn't the usual experience, I'm sure...
It started with the Dursleys. They had to lock me in my room like a cage. Then there was Dobby. Then the letter. Then the car.
The car... Bloody hell. I felt so guilty for helping Ron steal it... Especially after the Weasleys had been so kind in allowing me to stay. Though it did help us later... if we hadn't stolen it then we would have died in the forbidden forest.
The whole beginning of the term was a fiasco, to say the least.
Well, the middle was too.
Come to think of it, maybe the entire thing was a fiasco. Being twelve was weird. Not just because my best friend hit puberty quite a bit before I did, but it's just an awkward age to be at all around.
Speaking of puberty, I suppose that the second year was really when I noticed romance. I noticed how Ron began to look at Hermione after the whole petrification incident , and I suppose that was when I began to look at Ginny that way too... Even though she was only eleven and nearly got us all killed.
In a way, the whole chamber thing really opened my eyes to the fact that maybe it wasn't all that safe here at Hogwarts. I mean, we almost had people die! I got stabbed with a basilisk fang and nearly died for the second time in my school career. I mean, was there already a rule that I had to almost die every single year?
I honestly don't think that I was prepared enough after that. I saw Voldemort in two forms and I didn't stop to think about how that couldn't possibly be the end?
But then again... I was twelve. I had exams to worry about.
Another thing I had to worry about that year was the sudden negative attention my being the "famous" Harry Potter brought me. Helped along by Lockhart, it was almost excruciating. I was used to being bullied by Dudley and his lackeys, but here it was a hundred times worse.
If there was anything good about getting attacked by a basilisk, it was meeting my future wife. Funny how nearly having the life sucked out of you by a book and getting a fang through your arm brings out future attraction.
I was so scared of losing her then. I would have done anything for Ginny, anything to keep her with her family and alive where I could keep an eye on her. It was an odd mix of brotherly concern and the beginnings of a crush. Needless to say, I was oblivious to the fact that she adored me.
There were other friendships to be made; Ron and Hermione and I were closer than ever, and things could only get better... Or so we thought.
My second year at hogwarts was really my last year of being innocent. After that, everything was different.