The Dueling Club - an interpretaion (was PS/SS vs. CoS: It's A Tie!)

[jodel at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 57580

GulPlum reminds us;

>During the Duelling Club, it becomes apparent that Harry is a Parselmouth. 
Snape throws Harry a "shrewd and calculating" look.<

I think that the Dueling Club incident was another one of Dumbledore's 
set-ups. Very much like getting Harry into the same room as the Mirror of 
Erised in PS/SS. I still say that Dumbledore gave Harry the cloak and had 
Snape and Filtch "herd" Harry in the right direction (with Mrs. Norris, who 
could track him by scent's help) in order to acomplish that maneuver before 
the end of the Christmas hols. The Dueling Club nonsense reads very much the 
same way.

Look at the timing;

We have the Deathday party with the discovery of the petrified Mrs Norris. 
Harry hears the voice in the walls but does not confess to it. 

Dumbledore is suspicious. Dumbeldore remembers that Riddle was a Parselmouth, 
and since he has since concluded that Riddle was responsible for the last 
time the Chamber was opened, he now is forced to wonder whether that might be 
a factor this time as well. By this time he has had 50 years to mull over the 
rumors that had been flying about the castle the first time, including the 
rumors about Slytherin -- a known Parselmouth -- having left a monster that 
only his own heir could control.

I think that at some point between the opening of the Chamber and the Dueling 
Club Dumbledore formed his hypothisis that Harry may have acquired something 
of Tom Riddle's powers, including Parselmouth, when the curse rebounded. He 
already knew that the second Fawkes wand had chosen Harry, and that may have 
been the springboard for his reasoning.

Lockhart may have come up with the idea of the Dueling Club independently, or 
someone may have mentioned Dueling in the staff room and Lockhart grabbed the 
idea and ran with it. In any case it was on Dumbledore's direction that Snape 
agreed to assist, and to test the theory, since Harry was refusing to talk.

Snape engineered the Potter/Malfoy match and he even gave Malfoy the 
Serpensortia spell. I do not think that he was acting totaly independently in 
this. Dumbledore wanted to know what Harry would do when confronted by a 
snake. Snape pretty obviously told him, for he was perfectly ready with the 
theory that Harry had gotten the gift of Parselmouth from Voldemort in a sort 
of magical transfusion once Harry *finally* told him that he had been hearing 
the Basilisk in the pipes.

-JOdel


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