Dueling Club/Sirius's Appeal/Plotlines I'd like to see/Tournament

[blpurdom at yahoo.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 25397

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Mindy, a.k.a. CLH" <mindyatime at j...> 
wrote:
> I really don't get the entire premise of the dueling club chapter. 
Why was the entire dueling club necessary? The students are much too 
young to know proper spells and defense spells. Lockhart doesn't 
begin to know what he's doing; does he just want to show off?
 
The point of the Dueling Club was to establish that the reason why 
Harry talked to the snake in the zoo near the beginning of PS/SS was 
because he is a Parselmouth.  (JKR lets us believe for the duration 
of that book that it's possible that all magical people have this 
ability.)  The poor reputation of Parselmouths is then revealed to 
him (by Ron IIRC) and in general, this casts more suspicion on his 
possibly being the heir of Slytherin, who was also a Parselmouth.  
This also aids Hermione in figuring out later why Harry was hearing 
voices that no one else could hear (although she gets petrified 
before she can tell Harry and Ron in person and they only find out 
about the basilisk by prying the paper out of her hand).

Another purpose to the Dueling Club was to teach the students the 
disarming charm, which is important in the next book, when it is used 
by the trio on Snape in the Shrieking Shack, knocking him out.  This 
chapter also serves to further cast doubts on Lockhart's abilities.  
JKR erodes his reputation gradually as the book goes on, and this is 
just one part of that.

In addition, the tussle with Millicent Bulstrode gave Hermione the 
opportunity (she thought) to get one of Millicent's hairs for the 
Polyjuice Potion.  As we later learned, however, Millicent was 
evidently the owner of a cat who did quite a lot of shedding, which 
caused Hermione to be left out of the visit to the Slytherin common 
room.

IMHO, the Dueling Club chapter is VERY important!

--Barb