Chamber of Secrets-Troubled Blood links, Part 1: Books of dark magic and mysterious, spooky messages.

Today is the sixth anniversary of the publication of Troubled Blood, so it seemed a good day to start the look at connections between Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Troubled Blood. It also seems as good a time as any to distinguish between the type of connections I am looking for in these re-reads. When we talk about parallels between Harry Potter and Strike, there are a few broad categories.

• Overarching concepts:  This are big themes or settings in the book that correspond to the numerical partner in the other series. For example:
• Goblet of Fire and Lethal White (Book 4) are both set against the backdrop of major international sporting events. 
• Chamber of Secrets and The Silkworm (Book 2) both involve weaponizing a mysterious, dark book
• Prisoner of Azkaban and Career of Evil (Book 3) both involve a deranged murderer who is out to kill a protagonist. 
• Order of the Phoenix (Book 5) and The Hallmarked Man (Book 5 on putative Ring 2) both involve a secret society at the heart of the story. 
• Multi-point scenes or characters. These are elements of Potter and Strike books that connect in more than one way.  
• Jasper Chiswell and Barty Crouch Senior are both Book 4 characters who are bad-tempered and rigid ministers for culture who are tasked with pulling off major international sporting events. Both have sons that they help get out of prison and who repay dear old dad's kindness by patricide. 
• Both The Ink Black Heart cartoon and the Advanced Potion-Making textbook (Book 6) are works authored by one person that a different, younger and sexually/romantically frustrated young man, largely disliked by his contemporaries, tries to overwrite and improve. 
• Both Sirius Black and Shanker are reckless individuals who have spent half their lives in jail. get very brief references at the start of Book 1, then come back as major characters in Book 3. 
• Knocking out the troll in the dungeon (Philosopher's Stone), Robin rescuing a drunk Strike from the Tottenham (Cuckoo's Calling) and Robin coming to the hospital to support Strike with Jack (Lethal White, Book 1 in second ring) are all important pivotal scenes that launch or renew the friendship between the female and male protagonists. 
• You can hear a lot more about these types of connections between PS and CC in a recent Three Broomsticks Podcast.  
• If you don't want to sit through the whole thing, tune in at 02:11:45 for Irvin Khaytman's explanation of how Lula Landry's celebrity friends are the equivalent to PS's centaurs, and particularly how Ciara = Firenze. 
• One-note connections:  These are less complex connections and therefore less convincing, but sometimes the sheer number of them makes us ponder. 
• Robin and Hermione both get perfume gifts from Strike and Ron in Book 5. 
• Madeline and Lavender Brown play the role of clingy girlfriend in Book 6
• Michael Fancourt and Gilderoy Lockhart play the role of "vain, famous author" in Book 2. 
• Strike's "I have become a name" in CC matches Harry's "No one could say he was nothing but a famous name anymore" in PS.
• Ron sees himself holding the House cup in PS; Robin uncovers picture of Freddie Chiswell holding fencing trophy in LW. 
• Matthew makes Robin wear grey unflattering dress in LW; Aunt Petunia dyes Dudley's old clothes grey for Harry in PS. 

As I predicted, I am not seeing the same number of links between the two Book Two's (Chamber of Secrets; Troubled Blood) but I do see one over-arching connection. that has me quite excited.  It has been noted by multiple JKR/RG enthusiasts, including John Granger, Beatrice Groves and Irvin Khaytman that the Number 2 and Number 6 books of both series (Chamber of Secrets-Half-blood Prince; The Silkworm-The Ink Black Heart) are all characterized by a text-within-a-text: Riddle's Diary, the doctored potions text, Bombyx Mori, The Ink Back Heart cartoon. However, it has bothered me for years that Bill Talbot's True Book, which had no real parallel in Order of the Phoenix, was as good or better a match for the potions text. 

• Unlike the cartoon, Tablot's notebook is actually a book. 
• Both are old, and filled with hand-written scribblings in black ink. 
• Both propose unconventional approaches to problem-solving that, at the end of the day, turn out to be helpful, though they are ridiculed by some (Strike, Hermione) that prefer a more traditional approach. 
• Both books have our protagonists (Harry, Robin, Strike) becoming fixated on the book at times. 
• There are suggestions that the contents of the book are dark and even dangerous.
• Both contain some crucial missing information (The prince lists spells without saying what they do; Talbot listed people by their Zodiac signs without giving names). 

My frustration with this anomaly was a big driver behind my now-discarded 5-6 flip idea (see also here).  But, under th Double Wedding Band model, where Troubled Blood is Book 2 of the second ring, it makes perfect sense that it would also include a "book within a book."  Please note that the implication is that we should also be expecting some important book at the heart of the Sleep Tight Evangeline. 

But, as might be expected, Talbot's True Book also has a lot in common with the central book in Chamber of Secrets: Tom Riddle's Diary.  Unlike Bombyx Mori and Advanced Potion-Making, the diary and the notebook are not texts written for publications, but blank books that someone else writes in. And, given the occult means that Talbot was employing to solve Margot's murder, it is probably the closest thing to a book of dark magic we are going to find in a realistic series like Strike. Finally, both Talbot and Ginny felt they were going mad when writing in it. 

I have no doubt I will have more to write on this once the actual books are introduced in the text, but for now, I am going to make note of the smaller connections I see.  I am currently reviewing both books from the start to Halloween (Chapters 1-8 in CoS, Chapters 1-14 in TB). 

As I said, there are not a huge number. I see no good TB equivalents to the Dursley dinner party, Dobby's smashed pudding, Floo powder, Knockturn Alley and Harry and Ron's joyride to Hogwarts in the flying Ford Anglia. Nor do I see a clear CoS connection to Pat, Morris (who is a much better match for Umbridge and Cormac), Max or Wolfgang, or the Shifty, Twinkletoes, Postcard or Two-times cases.

But there are some small points of connection:

• Both books begin on a birthday (Harry's, Polworth's). Neither of our protagonists is in much of a celebratory mood, Harry because everyone has forgotten, Strike because of Joan's recent terminal diagnosis. 
• Both our protagonists venture out into the back garden early in the morning. 
• Both have a sibling-like relative (Dudley, Lucy) approach them at the garden bench and begin ragging on them. 
• Both know they shouldn't rise to the bait, but wind up exploding at their sibling. 
• Both get stuck with household cleaning afterwards: Harry is given a day of tedious chores, Strike winds up cleaning up crushed flowers with the ancient carpet sweeper "to Joan's satisfaction." 
• There is a sense of both Harry and Strike feeling trapped and uncomfortable at the Dursley's/Ted and Joan's. 
• We hear the sofa "punishes" a different part of Strike's body every night; Harry is certainly punished plenty at Privet Drive. 
• Harry is delighted when the Weasley boys arrive to pick him up. Strike is delighted when Robin offers to pick him up. 
• True, this would have worked better if Robin had come to get him at St. Mawes, rather than meeting him at Falmouth, but we can't have everything. 
• The pounding the Whomping Willow gives the Ford Anglia is similar to the beating the second Mrs. Tufty gives her husband's sports car with the golf club. 
• Strike dislikes his appearance in the papers following the Tufty case. Harry dislikes appearing in the paper with Lockhart (and Lockhart's ongoing assumption that Harry loves publicity, when nothing could be further from the truth). 
• Al Rokeby pressures Strike to come to the Deadbeats' 50th anniversary party; Nick pressures Harry to come to his 500th Deathday party.
• Strike initially ignores invitation; Harry initially accepts but regrets it. 
• On Halloween night, Harry and friends walk through a dark, chilly corridor to the Deathday Party. On Halloween night, Robin and Strike take a rainy walk through Clerkenwell tracing the path on which Margot met her death. 
• Harry and friends discover the mysterious "Enemies of the Heir Beware" message. With help from Pat, Strike and Robin decode the mysterious shorthand "Transcribe in the True Book" message from Bill Talbot's police notes. 

In keeping with the holiday markers, I'm thinking the next section will cover Halloween through Christmas, but it depends on what I find. 

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