Harry Potter can hardly wait to return to Hogwarts after a summer without magic and friends. But his second year at school is filled with new torments, including an outrageous and snobbish new professor, Gilderoy Lockhart, a ghost named Moaning Myrtle who haunts the girls' bathroom, and the unwanted attention of Ron Weasley's little sister Ginny.

However, all of this becomes secondary when someone or something begins turning the students of Hogwarts to stone. Could it be Draco Malfoy, the increasingly mean rival? Or is it Hagrid, whose mysterious past is being uncovered? Or in the end, is it the one whom all of Hogwarts suspects the most... Harry Potter himself?.