Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets seven books had been published, Graeme Davis regarded "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" as the weakest of the series, and agreed that the plot structure is much the same as in "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone". He described Fawkes's appearance to arm Harry and then to heal him as a "deus ex machina": he said that the book does not explain how Fawkes knew where to find Harry; and Fawkes's timing had to be very precise, as arriving earlier would probably have prevented the battle with the basilisk, while arriving later would have been fatal to Harry
Legal disputes over the Harry Potter series of 21 July. In an official statement, Scholastic appealed "to the "Harry Potter" fans who bought their books from DeepDiscount.com and may receive copies early requesting that they keep the packages hidden until midnight on 21 July." Customers who agreed not to read the book received a special "Harry Potter" t-shirt and a $50 coupon for Scholastic's online store. In June 2005, Aaron Lambert, a security guard at a book distribution centre in Corby, Northamptonshire, England, stole a number of pages from "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" six weeks before its intended publication date. He was arrested a day