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

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

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*.

Thats the thing I question about it the other governors actions. Why would the go along with the threats that long and then - but maybe Dumbledore went and spoke with each of them, maybe all the governors didn't know what was going on with the rest of the governors till Dumbledore visited them.

So maybe Dumbledore went about explaining, maybe even near the end of the book Dumbledore told the other governors about the diary and that was what prompted them to remove Lucius.

Have no clue unless they're is somewhere a conversation or explaination as to why they would first agree. And also I think I wondered earlier in another post about, do you have to have all 12 governors agree to remove a headmaster or do you only need a majority. That might make a difference into how many governors Lucius actually threatened.

Odds are Lucius didn't get them all together and threaten them, so each one of the governors may not have realized others were being threatened and it took Dumbledore going to talk to them to find out why they agreed to remove him as headmaster, etc.

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

If it was so easy for Dumbledore to convince them to defy Lucius, it's amazing he managed to gain prominence at the Ministry. Wouldn't Dumbledore have been able to drop a word in people's ears about how that fiend Lucius threatened the families of innocent governors and torpedo his reputation?

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

If it was so easy for Dumbledore to convince them to defy Lucius, it's amazing he managed to gain prominence at the Ministry. Wouldn't Dumbledore have been able to drop a word in people's ears about how that fiend Lucius threatened the families of innocent governors and torpedo his reputation?

That depends on how much licence members of the aristocracy are given. It doesn't take much suspension of disbelief to assume that the paterfamilias of a family with as much apparent standing as the Malfoys would be able to get away with using magic like this, what with the respect shown to magical power.

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

what with the respect shown to magical power

That goes back to me being amazed that the governors would defy Lucius then. I'd think it's one way or the other- either he has a lot of power, due to his family name, political clout and whatnot, meaning they fall in line and do his bidding, or else he's not as powerful as he's made out. And given he threatened their families, you'd think that's eleven people with a grudge against Lucius, plus Dumbles, who can tarnish his name and prevent him making inroads at the Ministry.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

Who says the other governors have enough political clout to do that? (Do we ever learn who any of the other governors are?)

The easiest way I can see this working is if no individual governor is powerful enough (socially or magically) to stand against Lucius, and he's doing all he can to persuade them to suspend Albus as soon as the basilisk is known to be loose. Then, now that most of a year (I think) has gone with Albus having done nothing, n governors are on his side. He visits the (11 - n) most intransigent governors individually, claims that they're the only ones left opposing him, and threatens their families. None of them can oppose him, so they sign. (I would imagine he takes an unsigned parchment to the first one and says something like "Everyone else supports me, why don't you be the first one to sign?", then goes to the second and says "Governor-who-opposes-me has seen the error of his ways, why don't you follow hir example".) The governors remain intimidated (perhaps the pro-Albus governors suspect each other of having supported Lucius willingly) until Ginny is taken, suffer a crisis of conscience, and send panicked apologies to Albus, who chooses to interpret them as requests to return.

As for why none of them oppose him at the Ministry - Albus does, and we don't know how influential the governors are, or whether Lucius' friends there would care too much what an aristocrat gets up to in his spare time. Albus doesn't have any proof, and it's possible the governors might simply want to avoid a scandal. (This bit is the weakest part of my theory - either Dumbledore's star fell rapidly during PoA or Lucius was being particularly trigger-happy with spells like Imperius).

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

The easiest way I can see this working is if no individual governor is powerful enough (socially or magically) to stand against Lucius, and he's doing all he can to persuade them to suspend Albus as soon as the basilisk is known to be loose.

It's also possible that Lucius used bribes rather than threats. Why admit to being bribed when you can just claim you were threatened?

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

That is indeed a lot simpler.

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

I like this theory. It sounds more like Lucius- I mean, how clumsy, for him to be going around threatening people, please. And I can see how the governors would turn that into squawking about being threatened, to make themselves look blameless. And it'd explain why it didn't affect Lucius' rise in prominence at the Ministry- I was wondering how he managed to get ahead, even with eleven presumably important people who'd have it in for him for threatening their loved ones, but if they just exaggerated, they aren't going to be throwing around accusations or trying to stab him in the back, in fact, they'd not want to draw his attention back to them. Very neat!

Now, if I could just work out what the hell Lucius' plan was... *clutches head* It's all too confusing!

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

No. Albus told no one about the Diary. The Diary was Tom Riddle's secret, and if there is nothing else we know, we know that Tom Riddle could always depend upon Albus to keep his secrets for him.

Lucius is a fairly good plotter, but he made two big mistakes. He was plotting with insufficient information, and he forgot that his servant might have an agenda of his own. Between the two the whole thing ended in a shambles, and cost him big time.

Tom gave him the Diary and told him to hold onto it until *he* said otherwise. Tom evidently let it slip that deploying the Diary would open Salazar's Chamber of Secrets, and presumably, get rid of Dumbledore.

Only... Lucius wasn't even born yet when the Chamber had been opened before, so he had no real understanding of what that *meant*. Now, either Abraxis was still alive that summer to be consulted, and Abraxis was either at the school at the time, or he had been a school governor either then, or soon enough after to have been able to tell him about the death of a student, or as a school governor Lucius was able to get at the records himself.

But the records don't actually tell you very much other than that there was a series of attacks on students ending in a death, and resulting in an expulsion. And (Rowling completely dropped the ball here) evidently *no one was openly talking about the Chamber of Secrets having been opened at that time at all*. So how Lucius was to have drawn the conclusion that that must have been what Tom was talking about is unclear -- other than that it seems to have been the *biggest* scandal to have taken place at the school in the 20th century, and he simply cut himself with Occam's razor.

But the fact is that he had no clear idea of what deploying the Diary was going to do, apart from raising a stink which he could use to pry Albus out.

So now the confusion is why Lucius targetted Hagrid -- who he must have known had nothing to do with it. Hagrid was on record as the suspected perp the last time. So getting him off the property was probably necessary in case any of the other governors had been checking the records as well. But since he must have known that Hagrid had nothing to do with opening the Chamber, because deploying the Diary is what opened the Chamber, and, consequently, if a child was going to die (either Harry or any other child) before the end of this, it was all going to unravel if he pinned the blame on Hagrid. And it did.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

So now the confusion is why Lucius targetted Hagrid -- who he must have known had nothing to do with it. Hagrid was on record as the suspected perp the last time. So getting him off the property was probably necessary in case any of the other governors had been checking the records as well. But since he must have known that Hagrid had nothing to do with opening the Chamber, because deploying the Diary is what opened the Chamber, and, consequently, if a child was going to die (either Harry or any other child) before the end of this, it was all going to unravel if he pinned the blame on Hagrid. And it did.

He didn't target Hagrid. Fudge did in the hope that the public would see the Ministry taking steps to stop the attacks. Lucius didn't protest Hagrid's arrest probably because he was telling Dumbledore he'd been suspended, and as far as we know he didn't have any plans after that.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

That works. Fudge -- who also has access to the records --got the bit in his teeth and Lucius didn't think far enough ahead to see any reason to stop him.

I've always rather suspected that Fudge was a first or 2nd year back when Tom found the Chamber and all hell broke loose. He's remember that things quieted down once Hagrid was out of the castle.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

Fudge -- who also has access to the records --got the bit in his teeth and Lucius didn't think far enough ahead to see any reason to stop him.

To be fair to Lucius, it's not like he could have stopped it. I just wish I knew what he was planning to do once Dumbledore was gone. Other than gloating, he doesn't seem to be doing anything and you'd think there would have been complaints from the Weasleys and/or gloating from Draco if he'd been encroaching on Albus' political influences and nebulous international rank. It just seems like he's orchestrated the whole plot just to get Dumbledore fired and then hasn't got a clue what to do next. Unless he was planning to send Dobby in to retrieve the diary he must have known there was no way of stopping the attacks once Hagrid was arrested, and since he could hardly tell anyone what the cause was, it was only a matter of time before someone died and Hogwarts was closed, which surely can't have been his aim. (And though I'm sure everyone here's aware of this problem, what happens to magical education in Britain when they shut the only school?) I know he only got Dumbledore fired because JKR wanted to build tension and didn't care what was going on behind the scenes, but it's just really frustrating when this sort of thing happens. Was Lucius planning to install Snape as headmaster and, thinking he could be trusted with knowledge of the plot, tell him about the diary and who (he believed) had it? (And how was he hoping to do that, given that McGonagal and Flitwick both have obvious seniority and far more experience, not to mention McGonagal being deputy headmistress?) Was he planning on becoming headmaster himself somehow?

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Absolutely not a clue.

I suspect that he intended to spearhead the appointment of the new Headmaster, which probably wouldn't have been an issue until over the summer. The school could operate for the remaining couple of months of the present term without an official Head. He would have made certain that the appointee would be someone whose politics he approved of. Which doesn't mean a DE, just someone who believes in pureblood superiority. And probably someone to whom he could dictate policy. Probably not Snape, at this point. But he's probably have opposed Minerva or Flitwick as well. They were too closely associated with Albus.

But, really, the longer one looks at it, the more it starts boiling down to the whole thing being fueled by nothing much more than personal antagonism to Albus which, now that Draco was actually *attending* the school, had become a big deal for him.

Having Dobby retrieve the Diary is something I never thought of. It would have certainly put an end to the uproar. But I suspect that Lucius may not have thought that far.

And, of course if he was targeting Harry deliberately, because he wanted him *out of the way*, then he'd have let the Diary run its course. The problem again is that we don't know how much Tom told him about that Diary. And he may have been expecting something very different from what actually took place.

[oryx_leucoryx]

When Lucius sees Fudge his immediate reaction is "already here, Fudge". Lucius was not surprised by Fudge's action. And he may have had further plans: either go after the Weasleys if another attack happened, or go after Fudge if another attack happened. He knew after all that it wasn't Albus conducting the attacks, so he wouldn't expect them to stop once Albus was gone.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

He wasn't surprised by Fudge's presence but that doesn't mean he suggested it. And I think the only follow-up plan that makes sense is to install a sympathetic headmaster and let slip (in a way that doesn't connect to him) the presence of a Dark diary in Gryffindor tower - the problem with this is that everyone's been very lucky in that no one's been killed yet, and he can't reasonably expect that happy state of affairs to continue. Based on Dippet's reaction to Myrtle's death and McGonagal's response to Ginny's kidnapping, shutting down seems to be standard Hogwarts procedure when a student dies, and I can still hardly believe he'd have risked that result in the first place - especially since he probably doesn't know exactly who got the diary, and if the students are sent home it's harder to catch whoever has it.

[oryx_leucoryx]

I don't think he cared if a student got killed if he could have, say, arranged a search of the common rooms and got the diary found afterward. The danger would be over so the school could stay open, he would have been the next savior of the Wizarding World and on a fast path to becoming Minister.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean he'd care about a dead student (at least, not as much as most - I'm undecided on just where Lucius' limits are), but that he'd care in so far as it affected whether Hogwarts would stay open. But as you say, he could have easily used it as an excuse to find the diary.

[oryx_leucoryx]

I think Lucius can take causing deaths as long as they don't happen in front of him. His behavior at the DOM suggests some limits to his brutality. Which is another reason I don't think the first war was all that violent in its first years. If Lucius, who joined an already existing army of DEs managed to rise to prominence despite such limits, then limited brutality wasn't that much of a hindrance in those years. When the all-out raiding started he used his position to sit at HQ.

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

Well, if you think about it. The second war wasn't hugely violent. A few people were killed but the rest of the wizarding world sort of went along with Voldemort.

Snape was accused of murdering the headmaster, yet a few months later Snape is installed as Headmaster.

You'd think people would be outraged but it's as if the rest of the wizard world sort of locks in step with whoever is in charge. Or at least it has that appearance.

So, maybe the Death Eaters mostly go around intimidating people into submission and they leave the killing up to Voldemort or his select few like Bellatrix who are nuttery anyway and don't mind killing.

[oryx_leucoryx]

We see two methods of operation with the DEs: kidnap someone so Voldemort can kill hir (Emmeline Vance, Florean Fortescue, Charity Burbage) or killing everyone on the spot and sending the Dark Mark - we hear this was common at some point in the first war but we don't have clear specific examples. The Bones and McKinnon families may have died this way. Then there are people Voldemort went out to attack personally - the Potters, Amelia Bones, probably Bathilda Bagshot, maybe Ms Dorcas from the Order. The latter group are people Voldemort needed dead for strategic reasons, often something he didn't want others to know about. So I can see ways someone can be a DE without personally killing anyone.

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

Didn't Molly's brothers or some relatives of hers get killed in the first war. I forget now how they were killed or if I'm remembering rightly that she had brothers.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Yes, Moody said they were killed by 5 DEs. I can't classify their deaths into any of my categories because we lack details. But I wonder how Moody knows how many attackers were present. Either they managed to send a Patronus to call for reinforcements and the additional fighters came too late to save them but early enough to see the attackers, or there were more Order members who survived or there were bystanders who survived. Or perhaps one of the attackers squealed. This happened after Igor Karkaroff's arrest (he hands in Dolohov for torture but doesn't mention Dolohov's involvement in this attack - but Dolohov's 'wanted' poster cites the death of the Prewetts as his most significant offense).