COS Chapter Eleven: "The Duelling Club"

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

 

* Percy’s looking “in far better spirits than last time they’d met”. Wonder if he’s been seeing Penelope in one of the less-used sections of the library?

* Although if we asked JKR, she’d probably say that he’s in a state of sadistic glee after docking points from a first-year, or something like that.

* Percy and Ron both seem quite hung up on the fact that it’s a girls’ toilet. Perhaps Gryffindor wizards are just insecure about their sexuality (cf. Harry), and so compensate by rejecting anything even remotely connected with the feminine sex.

* Harry can’t see why Ron and Hermione would be in the bathroom, but goes in there anyway, proving (as if any more proof were needed) that logic isn’t one of his strongest points.

* Trying to kill someone because you’ve just lost a Quidditch game would be totally IC for a Gryffindor, IMHO. Less so for a Slytherin, though: you’d have thought that a member of a House noted for cunning would be able to put such things into better perspective.

* Or at least they would, if JKR could convincingly write a cunning person.

* Ron immediately assumes it was Lucius Malfoy who opened the Chamber last time round, even though he has absolutely no idea whether Lucius was actually at school when that happened.

* Ron belittles Hermione’s reading, except when he needs her to do his homework for him, in which case he’s glad she knows so much.

* The Twins are giving Ginny nightmares until Percy stops them. This does not stop Percy from being the tactless one with no people skills, obviously.

* Is Neville “almost a Squib”? He’s always having magical accidents, to be sure, but his problem mostly seems to be one of control, rather than actual power. (Cf. Snape’s “we’ll be sending Finch-Fletchley home in a matchbox” comment.)

* Is there any explanation for Draco staying at school? He always goes home during the other years, AFAIK, so why break the pattern now, if not for authorial convenience?

* Or perhaps he’s just started going out with Pansy, and is spending a romantic Christmas Holidays with her…

* On a side note, I’ve never really got all the Pansy-hate that goes around. I can sort of understand it in the books, from a Doylist perspective if not a Watsonian one (Pansy being based on some girls who used to bully JKR at school), but why does fandom seem to hate her, too? Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever read one fic where she’s portrayed in a positive (or even a neutral) light, which is surprising given that (a) she doesn’t do anything that bad in canon, and (b) fandom (or at least parts of it) seems determined to like pretty much every other Slytherin in the books.

* Anyway, let us leave such characterisation conundrums, and return to the actual book…

* Harry has got to think of a way to steal something from Snape’s stores without being seen. *sigh* If only he had some sort of magical garment – a cloak, maybe, or something like that – which could make him invisible…

* As Harry, unfortunately, does not have any such garment until Rowling remembers about his invisibility cloak, he’s instead stuck with disfiguring the Slytherins to create a diversion.

* BTW, Hermione’s “I’d better do the actual stealing, as you’ll get expelled if you get caught” line doesn’t make much sense, given that Harry would surely be in even more trouble if he were found lobbing fireworks into cauldrons full of dangerous potions than if he were found stealing something from Snape’s stores.

* Snape turns a blind eye to Draco flicking puffer-fish eyes at Harry, which obviously counterbalances Harry’s getting the rules bent to help him, receiving free top-of-the-range broomsticks free of charge, being given extra tuition by Dumbledore, having the House Cup rigged so his House always wins…

* Oh, Harry, the things you have to do to save the school. I bet you hated disfiguring Malfoy like that, didn’t you?

* For all that we’re expected to see Snape’s dislike of Harry as an irrational result of his dislike for James, Harry doesn’t really do much to prove him wrong. He is lazy, arrogant, rude and mediocre, and here he’s endangering other pupils’ safety. It’s no wonder Snape doesn’t like him.

* For “he knows a tiny little bit about duelling”, read “he knows enough about duelling to completely wipe the floor with me”. And Harry, too, but unfortunately we’ll have to wait until HBP to enjoy that.

* “‘Wouldn’t it be good if they finished each other off?’ Ron muttered in Harry’s ear.” Note that this is completely different to Draco wishing that Slytherin’s monster would finish Hermione off.

* I’d love to be a Slytherin in this scene. It’s so rare they’re given a chance to shine, watching their Head of House publicly kick arse must be a very enjoyable occasion for them.

* I don’t see why they don’t teach Expelliarmus in the normal curriculum. It seems to me that spells like this are the first thing you’d teach them in DADA (maybe Stupefy and Protego as well).

* Lockhart bounces back from his humiliation as usual.

* Snape’s “splitting up the dream team”, as he put it, makes me wonder why pupils aren’t made to work with their peers from other Houses more often on assignments and suchlike. Having the Gryffindors work with the Slytherins might teach them that their counterparts in other Houses are human being too, not caricatures of evil like most people seem to think.

* So did Malfoy use Expelliarmus on Harry, then? Harry still seems to have his wand, but that could be attributed to Malfoy just learning the spell and, therefore, not being very good at it. If so, then Harry’s the one who actually starts using non-Expelliarmus spells.

* “Whoops – my wand is a little over-excited” must surely win the award for most Freudian sentence in COS.

* So is Snape the one who gave Draco the idea of using the snake spell? If so, why? Using random dark magic (presumably) just for the hell of it doesn’t really seem his style. Is it perhaps because he knows that Harry doesn’t know how to block proper spells, and just wants Draco to cast one which Harry will be able to avoid more easily?

* Also, is Draco’s already knowing the Serpensortia spell a sign that Slytherin has its own duelling club? It wouldn’t actually surprise me to find that Slytherin has the best clubs; given what we’ve seen of inter-House relations, I doubt that Slytherin students would be made to feel very welcome in any school-wide clubs they did join, so they’d probably set up their own.

* I have to admit, that “What, drop my wand?” line is rather funny.

* Better not tell Harry that, in a society as small as the WW, and given that Salazar lived a thousand years ago, everybody’s probably related to him several times over.

* Anyway, the idea of there being one heir of Slytherin doesn’t really seem very likely. Even if there’s only one legitimate heir, all it would take would be for one descendant over the past thousand years to have one illegitimate child, and there could be any number of unknown heirs. It could be anyone. It could even be Dudley Dursley… (Now there’s a fanfic idea if ever I saw one!)

* I like the way everyone assumes that (a) being Slytherin’s heir automatically makes one evil, and (b) all Slytherin’s heirs would get sorted into Slytherin. And people say that blood’s not important in Harry Potter?

* BTW, I wonder what the Slytherins all think of this constant vilification of their House’s founder?

* That’s right, chaps, Salazar spoke Parseltongue, so anyone who speaks Parseltongue must also be evil. Just like Slazar wore clothes, and ate, and got married, so anyone who does any of those things must also be—no, wait…

* Come to think of it, the evidence for Harry being the Heir is much stronger than the evidence against Draco. Not that this’ll give Harry pause for thought when he knocks out two of Draco’s friends to spy on him.

* “‘He always seems so nice, though,’ said Hannah uncertainly.” Don’t worry, Hannah, we’ll stamp that out of him soon enough.

* Harry’s voice is “shaking with anger” now, both foreshadowing CAPSLOCK!Harry and making him look like the dangerous menace the Hufflepuffs all think he is.

* Harry’s really unlucky in that he has a motive for attacking everybody who’s been attacked so far. Maybe Tom’s trying to discredit him, like Lucius is trying to discredit Dumbledore?

* I like the way going to Dumbledore’s office is seen as such a big deal. You can tell he’s got such a close relationship with the student body, can’t you?

 

Comments

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Sorry. I mean it was changed from '92 to '79. Typo.

[oryx_leucoryx]

But even if grandpa Abraxas was dangerously ill and contagious, wasn't sending Draco to spend break with his not-too-distant cousin Vincent Crabbe safer than letting him stay at a school where he might accidentally be killed by a basilisk?

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Crabbe and Goyle were also at school for the holidays.

Actually, in canon we don't know of any Malfoy relatives, and off-canon, most of the Blacks were either *much* older, or ineligible. Admittedly there may have been any number of other relatives who weren't named either Black or Malfoy, but we don't know who they were.

For that matter, I have grown just a bit suspicious of Dobby popping up at Hogwarts to suck up to Harry. We can be sure that to suck up to Harry was not in his orders, but do we *really* know that he wasn't at Hogwarts on orders? I still think that it was Lucius's original intention to give the Diary to Harry. And he has no idea at this point that Dobby *didn't* tuck the Diary into Harry's schoolbooks. His, Ron's, *and* Ginny's were all in the same cauldron. And while he did have one of Ginny's books in his hands briefly, it would have been a lot easier for the Diary to get into the cauldron if it were put there by an elf (who are not seen unless they want to be) than for him to put it there himself.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

But why would he have sent Dobby to Hogwarts when all it would do is risk connecting him to the attacks? If Harry had the diary, he wouldn't need supervision, and it's not like he needs to send a spy to Hogwarts to check up on what's going on, since Draco's perfectly capable of writing to him and as a governor one would think he'd be kept up to date with this sort of thing.

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

Plus as a governor of the school (1 of 12) shouldn't Lucius be able to go to the school whenever he wanted to check up on things?

And another thing I'm wondering, The 12 governors sound like they have power over the Headmaster in certain respects. Don't forget that Lucius was able to 'make' the other 11 governors agree to removing Dumbledore.

It was said to be that he threatened to curse they're families but HOW would he be allowed to continue as a governor making such threats to the other governors? The fact that these 11 people agreed without complaint to the ministry sounds kind of suspitious to me.

Though I don't remmeber for sure if it was all 11 that agreed, I don't know how many governors you need to remove a Headmaster, do all have to agree or do you just need a majority.

But if Dumbledore had proof that Lucius threatened other governors it seems rather questionable that nobody ever spoke up to the ministry about that. These other 11 governors don't sound like very responsible people - hell I don't think we ever hear who they are - I'd love to know who these people are that get threatened so easily by Lucius malfoy and that then bend to his will without much complaint; I can't see them being just some random nobody in the community that has no power or influence. It just sounds rather suspitious having Lucius threaten to curse their families but then nothing is done about it later or after the fact.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

I don't think he had concrete proof - as far as we know, all he has is the word of the other governors, and they may have been covering their asses in the belief that Dumbledore's absence had exacerbated the crisis. And I can't really imagine Lucius explicitly saying "I will curse your families if you don't vote to fire Dumbledore" - he'd probably have phrased it more ambiguously in case anyone complained to the Ministry. As for their caving so easily, I've always assumed that with the Blacks out of the picture, the Malfoys are either the noblest or one of the noblest wizarding families around, and according to Draco, Abraxas Malfoy had connections to Slughorn's contact network which may have been inherited by Lucius. Up until the end of OotP, Lucius had a lot of social pull.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

I have a theory (no canon support, but it doesn't directly contradict anything we've been told about lucius) that he threatened them with Greyback.

Lucius waas outed during the last part of the war. He got off with an Imperius defense, but his involvement with the DEs was public knowledge. Ergo: Greyback, who had a band of weres to impress and support, knew where to find him. I think he paid Greyback off when he could, but threw a bit of dirty work in his drection when it seemed like a good idea. Intimidation and extortion seems to have been Lucius's specialty, and Greyback may have been useful. Occasionally. Particularly when invoked as a threat, behind his back.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Did Lucius continue as governor after the end of this year? I don't think the governors get mentioned again until the end of HBP when obviously Lucius was no longer among them, as he was in Azkaban.

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

Did Lucius continue as governor after the end of this year? I don't think the governors get mentioned again until the end of HBP when obviously Lucius was no longer among them, as he was in Azkaban.

I can't remember for sure but I'm thinking he was still Governor up till the OOTP Ministry attack.

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

Did Lucius continue as governor after the end of this year?

The narrator mentioned him being fired at the end of CoS:

The rest of the final term passed in a haze of blazing sunshine. Hogwarts was back to normal with only a few, small differences — Defense Against the Dark Arts classes were canceled (“but we’ve had plenty of practice at that anyway,” Ron told a disgruntled Hermione) and Lucius Malfoy had been sacked as a school governor. Draco was no longer strutting around the school as though he owned the place. On the contrary, he looked resentful and sulky. On the other hand, Ginny Weasley was perfectly happy again.

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

It was said to be that he threatened to curse they're families but HOW would he be allowed to continue as a governor making such threats to the other governors? The fact that these 11 people agreed without complaint to the ministry sounds kind of suspitious to me.

That's a fair point, but presumably Lucius wouldn't've done if unless he thought he could get away with it. My view, actually, is that it's odd that Lucius got fired if he intimidated the other governors so much he could make them vote to suspend Dumbledore.

Presumably the board of governors is the highest level of authority at the school, so who other than the governors themselves could remove a governor from the board? The Ministry? OotP gives the impression that the Ministry *wasn't* so involved in the school before that point, and Lucius was on good terms with Fudge, anyway.

Also, what was Lucius fired *for*? Everyone agreed there was no *proof* that Lucius gave Ginny the Diary, so what else is there? Lucius' threatening the other governors? Again, that makes no sense; that would mean that the governors fired Lucius for threatening them at the end of the book, when their initial response to being threatened was to do what he told them to do. If he'd threaten to curse their families for not voting as they wished, imagine what he'd do if they challenged him *directly*.

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

What's weird is that Dumbles says that after they heard Ginny was killed, they immediately owled him to reinstate him and complained about Lucius. I can't figure out the connection there- is it simply because they thought a kid died, instead of being petrified? But why would Dumbles be able to do anything about it ex post facto?

Did the governors know the theory about Lucius giving Ginny the diary? But surely, hearing that she was supposedly dead would make them even MORE terrified of thwarting Lucius, because now a kid's dead?

And if they didn't know he was involved in anything except trying to oust Dumbles, then what, did they regret falling in line because a life had been taken and grow a collective spine and stand up for themselves in order to protect the other kids? (hey, maybe appointing a new headmaster would've made more sense, rather than reinstating the guy that Lucius threatened them over?)

that would mean that the governors fired Lucius for threatening them at the end of the book, when their initial response to being threatened was to do what he told them to do. If he'd threaten to curse their families for not voting as they wished, imagine what he'd do if they challenged him *directly*.

EXACTLY. People are all 'Lucius is so evil, he threatened to curse their families' without actually looking at the situation and how stupid that seems and how it actually muddies up matters because it makes no sense how he could be so powerful that eleven governors do his bidding yet so powerless that they stage a coup to remove him. Um?

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Oh, all true. I'm still suspicious, but I could as readily believe that Draco called him and ordered him to nobble the game. It's something on the level of not-quite-competence that Draco is perfectly capable of.

Of course such orders would have suited Dobby's purposes admirably.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Did Dobby pop up at Hogwarts to suck up to Harry or did he come to curse the Bludger and stayed around? Or did he pop in once to curse the bludger and another time to chat with Harry? Were the trips to Hogwarts disguised as part of some errand (grocery shopping or whatever else that elves do away from their families)?

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

That's the thing that makes me suspicious. All of Dobby's absences from his proper post.

Rowling, of course never seems to have given the matter a 2nd thought. Things happen because she says they happen, and the world revolves around Harry.

But I'm pretty much convinced that over the summer Lucius had him monitoring the situation at Privit Drive in order to be able to intercept Harry when he went to get school supplies. He might even have ordered Dobby to keep the boy from getting any contact from the ww in order to isolate him and make him more responsive to a book that writes back.

But the bludger doesn't suit Lucius's purposes at all. So either that one was Draco, or Dobby did have some kind of standing order to keep track of Harry at Hogwarts (Draco would not have been in a position to monitor the progress of the Diary's possession -- and since Dobby had already re-directed the Diary, he had a reasonably free hand while lurking about) and got a bright idea of his own.

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

There ae so many things here that cofuse me. So, was there ever a plot against Harry? If Lucius intended to give the diary to Ginny, then why did Dobby flail about injuring Harry to keep him out of danger? But if Lucius intended it to go to Harry, which makes more sense with the mail-stealing as you pointed out, to make Harry susceptible to a magic book, then why did he slip it to Ginny? DID he slip it to Ginny? IDEK, so confused.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Is it possible that Dobby had a track record of being a not-quite-reliable elf? That he would disappear occasionally (visiting other elves at Hogwarts or Winky at the Crouches or whatever) that Lucius wouldn't notice if he was gone again? The way Sirius doesn't suspect when Kreacher isn't around for 2 weeks because he has a track record for sulking about and Sirius didn't particularly like seeing him?

[oryx_leucoryx]

Actually, in canon we don't know of any Malfoy relatives, and off-canon, most of the Blacks were either *much* older, or ineligible. Admittedly there may have been any number of other relatives who weren't named either Black or Malfoy, but we don't know who they were.

The maiden name of Sirius' maternal grandmother (Narcissa's paternal grandmother) is Crabbe, according to the family tree. So Vince could easily be Draco's third cousin. As well as the son of Lucius' old associate and Draco's closest friend that we know of.

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

Question- do we know that Dobby tucked the Diary anywhere? Because when I was discussing this with some other people, they were convinced Lucius himself directly put the book into Ginny's cauldron.

IDK, I just get so confused by JKR's 'plots' and all the holes in them, and the assumptions she has other characters make which they have no way of knowing are true but we're supposed to take as the gospel truth. Ugh. *confuzzled*

What was Lucius even trying to achieve anyway? Getting rid of the Diary, 'coz Arthur was conducting raids to pin something, anything on him, and then he thought he'd dump it with one of the kids- actually, wouldn't it make sense to give it to Ginny, to discredit Arthur?

[cured4life.livejournal.com]

I always thought that was the intent...to discredit Arthur since he was raiding Malfoy manner.

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

I know, but then why was Dobby flailing over some threat to HARRY? Sense, it makes none!

There are character motivations that make sense if the plot's against the Weasleys...but then Dobby's actions are inexplicable. O.o

ETA. LMAO, I'm d/l something and the code I had to put in to verify I am indeed human? WHY9. Why, indeed!

[oryx_leucoryx]

If Lucius knew what was going on and he wasn't being framed by Dobby, then the intent wasn't to discredit Arthur but to get rid of Albus. Arthur was just lucky collateral damage. Lucius waits for the 4th attack (and 3rd attack of a human) to go after Albus, when was he going to get Ginny or Arthur? It was April by the time he got Albus. To get the Weasleys involved he would have had to wait for at least one more attack after Hagrid's arrest to show that the culprit was still at school and then have the students' belongings searched in order to catch the diary in Ginny's possession. But he got Albus out, and his main complaint at the end was that Albus returned. I think that was his main goal (in addition to not being caught with the diary himself).

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

To me it almost seems like the only reason Lucius is involved in COS was to get the diary into the hands of the kids and to introduce us to Draco's father.

To me it would have been just as simple if JKR would have had Draco steal the diary from his father and then the plot could have moved the diary into Ginny and then Harry's hands or just into Harry's hands.

Because the business with the Governors and Lucius all seems kinda wonky looking at it now. Why are the governors so wishy-washy? One min they're bowing down to Lucius, next minute they're bowing down to Dumbledore and then kicking Lucius out.

No wonder the school is so screwed up - the governors are dumbasses.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

The theory that Dobby was involved in deploying the Diary is just that, a theory. The "Lucius gave the Diary to Ginny to discredit Arthur" explanation is what *Albus* gave us during the "Albus explains it all" session.

The problem with it is that if Lucius put the Diary into Ginny's book, why didn't anyone see him do it? He was right there in full sight of everyone, positively begging for attention. So how did we miss it? Furthermore, if Lucius *intended* to give the Diary to Ginny in the first place, why was Dobby hanging around Privet Drive? There was no excuse for him to be there unless he was there to spy on Harry -- which was not required to plant the Diary on *Ginny*, who Harry didn't even know yet.

Basically, it's an explanation after the fact, without any consideration for how it fits into the action we've seen over the course of the book. It's perfectly in keeping as an explanation pieced together by Albus--who wasn't a witness to any of it -- and like most of Albus's explanations it comes across as highly plausible, until you start asking questions, and then it all falls apart. It ism however, highly convenient for the author. Who has no intention of giving us anything else.

Consequently, if we want something that takes account of the rest of what we saw going on, we have to piece it together ourselves. And keep in mind that Albus wasn't there.

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

Actually, that theory is Harry's. Prompted by Dobby's "pointing at the diary, then at Mr. Malfoy, and then hitting himself hard on the head with his fist," and seconded by Dumbledore's statement that no one can *prove* anything.

Dumbledore clearly believed that Lucius was behind it before Harry said anything, but Harry's the one who provided the details, and he was present.

Could Lucius have done it? Well...

He reached into Ginny’s cauldron and extracted, from amid the glossy Lockhart books, a very old, very battered copy of A Beginner’s Guide to Transfiguration.

“Obviously not,” Mr. Malfoy said. “Dear me, what’s the use of being a disgrace to the name of wizard if they don’t even pay you well for it?”

[...]

There was a thud of metal as Ginny’s cauldron went flying; Mr. Weasley had thrown himself at Mr. Malfoy, knocking him backward into a bookshelf. Dozens of heavy spellbooks came thundering down on all their heads; there was a yell of, “Get him, Dad!” from Fred or George; Mrs. Weasley was shrieking, “No, Arthur, no!”; the crowd stampeded backward, knocking more shelves over; “Gentlemen, please — please!” cried the assistant, and then, louder than all —

“Break it up, there, gents, break it up —”

Hagrid was wading toward them through the sea of books. In an instant he had pulled Mr. Weasley and Mr. Malfoy apart. Mr. Weasley had a cut lip and Mr. Malfoy had been hit in the eye by an Encyclopedia of Toadstools. He was still holding Ginny’s old Transfiguration book. He thrust it at her, his eyes glittering with malice.

“Here, girl — take your book — it’s the best your father can give you —” Pulling himself out of Hagrid’s grip he beckoned to Draco and swept from the shop.

(chuckle) Okay, now I'm wondering if the Diary just happened to be on that bookshelf, and happened to fall into (or magicked itself into) Ginny's cauldron. Dobby could also have done it in the confusion.

What Ginny says at the end of the book is, “I found it inside one of the books Mum got me. I th-thought someone had just left it in there and forgotten about it —”

It's theoretically possible that *that's* entirely true. It's also possible that it isn't at all true, and the Diary wasn't inside any of the books. Ginny might have said that because she was terrified of getting into trouble; after all, one of the first things she says after she wakes up is "I’m going to be expelled!" She might have thought she would sound less guilty for keeping the Diary if one book had been hidden inside another.

Back to the bookstore: with books everywhere after the fight, Lucius *might* have slipped one book inside another in front of everyone. The question is whether Lucius could have predicted bookshelves being knocked over. Lucius could easily have arranged the meeting them in a bookstore part, and he certainly went out of his way to provoke Arthur. Gryffindors tend to escalate verbal fights to physical/magical fights very quickly, so... I think that that part of the plan would be manageable. Lucius might not have expected to be thrown into a bookshelf from the start, but as long as Arthur started the physical fight, Lucius could have planned to fight back with a spell or two likely to knock things over.

What do you think?