PS Chapter Nine

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*Harry never thought he’d hate any boy as much as Dudley, but that was before he met Draco. It’s like those monkeys whose mother is taken away that transfer their feelings onto a piece of stuffed terrycloth. Malfoy is the terrycloth.

*To review: Dudley successfully kept Harry from having a single friend his entire life, stole food from his mouth and beat him up for years when there was nothing Harry could do about it. But Draco’s kind of snotty and he threatened Harry ineffectually after Harry pwned him.

*If there was ever a greater demonstration of "It’s more just that he exists" in the books I’ve not seen it.

* Harry’s not looking forward to flying because he doesn’t want to look foolish in front of Malfoy. It’s not that Malfoy’s doing anything specific, just that he makes Harry feel foolish by being there. Something about those pale grey eyes watching makes Harry feel all ugly.

*Oh, I’m sorry. Malfoy also tells long, boastful stories about flying where he narrowly escapes helicopters. Which I can see being very annoying if you are a boy in Draco’s class. To me as an adult, of course, it’s endearing. Come on…helicopters!

*Oh wait, it turns out all Wizard boys talk like this. It’s just Malfoy’s more annoying about it. Must be the helicopters.

*Hermione, meanwhile, is boring everyone stupid with flying tips. Every first year is an idiot except Harry!

*She’s worried about flying because it’s not something you can memorize out of a book. Another blow to that idea that Hermione’s actually a genius and not a grind.

*Malfoy has noticed that Harry gets no letters. Harry is therefore forced to take equally obsessive interest in Malfoy’s post. He gets packages from home and opens them so gloatingly Harry can see the gloat all the way from the Gryffindor table without any projecting of his own issues onto Malfoy at all!

*I’m kind of loving all the kids here for being such kids, actually.

*McGonagall swoops down, interfering with what might have been a bullying scene by Draco. Take a moment to create the scene that would have happened had she not interfered, and be sure to hold it against Malfoy in future.

*Harry’s heard the twins complaining about the school brooms, which don’t fly right. Except for Ginny, I assume. Her glittery hoo-haw is like an extra rudder.

*Madam Hootch has yellow eyes. Wow. Cool.

*Harry and Ron are delighted when Hootch tells Malfoy he’s been doing it wrong for years. Which is nothing at all like Malfoy’s own delight in Harry doing anything wrong ever. Their snickering couldn’t, like, have the power to make Malfoy feel embarrassed or insecure that his does to Harry.

*Malfoy bursts out laughing as soon as Hootch and Neville are out of earshot. Wow, he waited until Neville was out of earshot? That was nice of him.

*Parvati establishes herself as the brave one of the non-Hermione girls, and seemingly as an old friend of Pansy, who’s already hard-faced at 11.

*Draco picks up the Rememberall lying on the ground—which is totally stealing it.

*Harry hates Malfoy so much that the blood is already pounding in his ears. Malfoy really doesn’t stand a chance with this kid.

*Seriously, to get all H/D-centric for a moment, as much as it seems like Malfoy hates Harry so much more than Harry hates him, and as much as that’s always been fandom wisdom, it’s really not true. Malfoy is angered by Harry’s dismissal of him and that grows into a resentment of Harry. He openly provokes Harry more. But it’s Harry’s hatred of Malfoy that is sure and true immediately, because Malfoy is what he is—a stand-in for everyone in his life he wasn’t able to fight. He’s no longer able to say anything to him that isn’t openly hostile and infuriated. The rest of the time he probably looks at him like he’s dipped in shit.

*I wonder if when Malfoy was lying on the bathroom floor bleeding his life didn’t pass before his eyes as a series of all the other times Potter looked at him with murder in his eyes and he thought, "He finally did it."

*Another moment in Malfoy’s scrapbook: the first time Potter turned out to have super powers that defy all logic, making it impossible to plan or be ready for an altercation with him.

*For example: there’s a Roadrunner cartoon where Wile E. Coyote carefully saws a circle around the roadrunner as he eats on a bridge. When the hole is completed instead of the circle he’s cut out falling with the roadrunner, everything but that falls down on the coyote. That’s what it’s like dealing with Potter.

*No Crabbe and Goyle to save your neck, Harry says. Not that Crabbe and Goyle have saved his neck in the past. The same thought seems to have struck Malfoy but honestly, reading it now I wonder if the thought wasn’t so much, "Oh no, I’ve provoked Harry Potter without the goons that protect me in my cowardice," so much as, "Save my neck? I haven’t actually done anything to this kid and after glaring at me all through class he’s just waiting for an excuse to beat me up! He really would kill me!"

*Though he still manages to save face a little by throwing the Rememberall.

*Harry streaks off to discover his next new talent. Not only can he fly, he can catch Snitches.

*Parvati again proves herself by somehow trying to argue that it wasn’t Harry’s fault he was flying, because Malfoy flew first. It’s the basis of the most sacred code of Gryffindor. The Law of He Started It.

*Harry worries that he’ll be expelled and consigned to a life as humiliating as Hagrid’s. Since we’re only in the first books, there’s actual suspense here. Enjoy it while it lasts.

*Err…not that Hagrid’s life is in any way something to look down upon! Unless you’re that bigot Malfoy. Harry sees Hagrid as just awesome!

*As readers of the series know, Harry has just proved himself to be the best Seeker ever (for now—his talent will subtly grow and shrink as the plot demands). Which is great because there is no other student in the entire school who can be Seeker at all! They have to break the rule for Harry—how could they possibly find another, more experienced flyer, in a school full of flyers, who also has binocular vision and opposable thumbs?

*Oh, and apparently when Harry’s made Seeker a broom must be gotten for him. A Nimbus! So I’m sure he wouldn’t think there was anything wrong with anyone else getting brooms for any other players on other teams, right?

*Ah, remember back in the first book where we could actually buy that Gryffindor hadn’t won at Quidditch since Charlie left? The team whom we now know could win even if filled entirely with Squib alternates?

*Harry comments that Malfoy is a lot braver on the ground. Which isn’t really true. Malfoy’s pretty equally brave in the air, all things considered.

*Malfoy challenges Harry to a duel (which must have looked pretty hilarious—I’m sure he was kicking himself he didn’t have a satin glove to slap Harry with). Ron naturally puts in that Malfoy thought Harry was going to refuse the duel, even though nothing in his manner suggests that.

*Hermione arrives to tell Harry he shouldn’t duel because it will lose points for Gryffindor. Nice to see her ethics are exactly the same at 17 when she tells him it was bad of him to almost kill someone, as he, well, might lose points for Gryffindor again.

*It’s funny I hardly remember Hermione isn’t already their friend. The boys don’t talk to her all that differently when she is. Ron’s kind of a prodigy at romantic bickering.

*Malfoy has already learned enough about Harry to know what lure to use to get him in trouble: the chance to beat Draco senseless.

*LOL. Harry couldn’t believe anyone could be so interfering as Hermione is right now. Such innocence.

*I like that Hermione’s hissing at them like an angry goose.

*The portrait helpfully closes behind Hermione so that she has to go with the boys. Even the wall decorations work according to plot.

*Btw, I think Slytherin’s wall wins again. What is the point of having that unreliable fat lady as the door except to keep people who want to get in out and let people they’re trying to keep out in?

*In fact, all of first year Gryffindor is wandering around lost, unable to get to bed. The whole "House of the Brave" is just a cover. They just got the reputation for being adventurous because they were always making up stories to explain why they were locked outside in their pajamas.

*Ron threatens to learn the "Curse of the Bogies" and use it on everyone. What is the Weasley obsession with those things? And has Ginny been taking credit for a curse of Quirrel’s?

*Hermione explains to Harry that Malfoy never intended to duel, and was just tricking him. Years later much of fandom still hasn’t grasped this concept. Malfoy was just too afraid to show up! Harry pwns!

*They’re all frantic about being expelled. If only Harry’s future self could help. Dude, you can hack someone open with a butcher knife and get detention. Chill out.

*Filch almost catches Harry intentionally breaking a school rule, thus racking up points to earn those hexes in sixth year.

*Ron wonders what the school’s doing, keeping a thing like Fluffy locked up there. Right out of the gate, Ron’s the one who’s going to be the most sensible and least patient with Hagrid.





Designated Hero
In his own mind, Harry’s incredibly heroic and noble in this chapter. Really.

IITS
Imagine all these important characters finding themselves locked out at the same time! What a coincidence! Especially Neville who has no reason to be there except Rowling wants to give him heroic face time.

Idiot Picture
Our heroes: the students who need elaborate plans to get into their own living room.

Idiot World
And the clueless 11-year-old’s figured out the Sooper Sekrit Hiding Place of the Thingie of Eternal Life in five chapters.

Informed Attributes
My god, Malfoy’s just so terrible the way he makes Harry’s life hell! He’s totally earned more hatred than the kid who actually did that in the opening chapters!

Ken and Andrew’s Rule of Plot Holes
Breaking the rule about first years playing for Harry is more adequately understood if you know about the mysterious Seeker Shortage of 1992. Find you a Seeker? For nine pence? On Jewish new year in the rain? A bare fortnight after the dreaded Seeker plague of old London town? With the Broom maker’s strike in its fifteenth week and the Dorset Snitch fetishists fair tomorrow?

Nut o’ Fun
The Rememberall is like the brandy in Hitchcock pictures. Always showing up or referenced with no real significance so far.

Selling Wood
To Wood and McGonagall having to put across this "No one else can play Quidditch but you!" scene. Not their fault. Nobody could do it.

Final score: 8

Shape of things to come: Harry gets special treatment. Harry has something to think about—which always leads to him doing something ill-advised that seems heroic but actually helps Voldemort. Harry discovers a secret power he didn’t know he had and doesn’t have to work at, impressing everyone. Harry gets special treatment. Malfoy appears and Ron and Harry rise as one, ready to fight. Harry’s Neville’s great defender when he’s absent, and mildly irritated with him in person. Harry gets special treatment.

H/D cliché count: Harry’s always five seconds away from giving Malfoy a good pounding because he’s just so Malfoy!