Friday 56 and Book Beginnings: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter #2) by J.K Rowling // 50/50 Friday: Favorite/ Least Favorite Supernatural Being

This is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice

These are the rules:

1. Grab a book, any book.

2. Turn to page 56, or 56% on your eReader.

3. Find any sentence (or a few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you.

4. Post it.

5. Add the URL to your post in the link on Freda's most recent Friday 56 post.

Please join us over at RoseCityReader every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author’s name.

On to book 2! I am so happy I decided to re-read this series.

Synopsis:

     The Dursleys were so mean and hideous that summer that all Harry Potter wanted was to get back to the Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. But just as he's packing his bags, Harry receives a warning from a strange, impish creature named Dobby who says that if Harry Potter returns to Hogwarts, disaster will strike.

     And strike it does. For in Harry's second year at Hogwarts, fresh torments and horrors arise, including an outrageously stuck-up new professor, Gilderoy Lockhart, a spirit named Moaning Myrtle who haunts the girls' bathroom, and the unwanted attentions of Ron Weasley's younger sister, Ginny. But each of these seem minor annoyances when the real trouble begins, and someone, or something, starts turning Hogwarts students to stone. Could it be Draco Malfoy, a more poisonous rival than ever? Could it possibly be Hagrid, whose mysterious past is finally told? Or could it be the one everyone at Hogwarts most suspects: Harry Potter himself? 

Book Beginning:

Not for the first time, an argument had broken out over breakfast at number four, Privet Drive. Mr.Vernon Dursley had been woken in the early hours of the morning by a loud, hooting noise from his nephew Harry's bedroom.

My 56:

"Did Lucius Malfoy buy anything?" Mr.Weasley said sharply behind them.

"No, he was selling--"

"So he's worried," Mr.Weasley said with a grim satisfaction. "Oh, I'd love to get Lucius Malfoy for something."

50/50 Friday is a new weekly link up hosted by Carrie @ The Butterfly Reader and Laura @ Blue Eye Books.  Every week they have a new topic featuring two sides of the same coin - you share a book that suits each category and link up on the hosts' blogs.

Favorite/ Least Favorite Supernatural Being

Favorite:
Hard to choose. Most supernatural creatures in books and movies these days have been watered down. A lot. It's a toss up between Dragons, and the Chimera.

Least:
Vampires, or rather Modern Vampires. I feel the current run (the past 10 years or so) of Vampire books and shows have kind of ruined the creature for me. I started being a fan of Vampires thanks to Anne Rice and Buffy. But, thanks to things like True Blood, Twilight and other ones that follow those trends Vampires have become stale to me. Twilight and TB are the extremes of both sides of what makes a very interesting and deep mythology of Vampires, and over does one side of things to make them boring and caricatures instead of what they used to be.