First lesson WAS: Re: Marietta, was Slytherin's Reputation

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 185885

> jkoney:
> I'm not trying to have it both ways. Draco knows more than other
second year students. His casting of Serpentsortia shows that he knows
more than other second year students.

Carol responds:
How so? Maybe Serpensortia is one of those spells that a second-year
can get right the first time he uses it, especially if he's motivated.
(JKR is somewhat inconsistent in the mattering of mastering spells.
Harry gets some right the first time and has to practice others. We
don't see Draco learning spells at all.) Any time we see Draco and
Harry casting spells at each other, specifically the time that Draco
casts a tooth-elongating spell (Densuageo) and Harry casts a
boil-causing spell and the fight in the girls' bathroom in HBP, they
appear to be on the same level. If you can show evidence that Draco as
a second-year is more advanced than Harry, I'd appreciate seeing it.

jkoney: 
> But neither Harry or Draco are as experienced as the upper classmen
who are also at the event. The notice was posted in the entrance hall
for all students to see. If it was just second years they would have
mentioned in one of their classes (such as DADA). When Harry enters
the great hall he sees that "most of the school" was there and "were
carring their wands and looking excited." 

Carol responds:
"Most of the school" is undoubtedly an exaggeration given that
Hogwarts has at least 280 students, an impossible number for even
Snape to manage alone (Lockhart may be nominally in charge, but he's
more hindrance than help). Even the Apparation (Apparition?) lessons
in HBP, which involved only the sixth years, required not only the
Apparation teacher but the four Heads of Houses to keep order.

I read "most of the school" as typical JKR-style exaggeration like the
descriptions of Hagrid and Madam Maxime (hands the size of trashbin
lids and feet the size of small sleds would require them both to be
about 24 feet tall, larger than Grawp). JKR often exaggerates the
number of people present at an event. If you count the number of
tables and people per table at the Yule Ball, for example, you'll have
(IIRC) about 800 people, several times the population of Hogwarts even
though only fourth-years and up are allowed to attend (along with
their possibly younger dates).

If any older students that Harry knows were present, for example the
Twins or Angelina, JKR would surely have mentioned it. (Sure, the
event was open to the whole school, but evidently the older students,
experienced in hexing each other in the corridors, didn't need it.)

The whole incident is just a plot device, in any case, primarily
intended to illustrate to a sizeable number of students--and Professor
Snape--that Harry is a Parselmouth and to set up the Justin
Finch-Fletchley incident, making Harry a suspect in his upcoming
Petrification. (It also serves other purposes that I've already
identified, including exposing Lockhart and hinting at Snape's real
skill in DADA.)
> 
> Carol
> > snip> 
> > As you said yourself, he's an inexperienced wizard just like Harry.
> > 
> jkoney:
> He's inexperienced, but was taught more spells (probably from his 
father) than Harry knows.

Carol responds:
Evidence, please? We see them casting spells at each other before
they're set up as the demonstrating pair. The only advantage Draco has
is that he cheats, getting in his first spell before Lockhart has
finished counting. We don't know what that first spell was, but
there's no evidence that the other one, Tarantellegra, is any more
difficult than Harry's Rictusempra. You're making unsupported
generalizations and treating them as if they were facts.

> jkoney:
> So Snape decides to pair up two students who don't like each other
from two houses that don't get along. So Snape is either a complete
idiot not knowing that this will get out of hand, or he is up to 
something.

Carol responds:

Well, we know that he's not an idiot, complete or otherwise, but we
also know that he's protecting Harry. If he's "up to something," it's
giving Harry much-needed experience. That's what DADA is
about--teaching kids to defend themselves against enemies. Much later,
in HBP, Snape is trying to get the students to do much the same thing,
but nonverbally. One is supposed to cast a jinx or hex nonverbally and
the other is supposed to block the hex nonverbally. When Snape sees
Harry waiting, apparently forever, for Ron's hex to come, he steps in
and either casts or pretends to cast a spell at Harry to make him cast
a Protego. And when he does so, knocking Snape over, the only thing
Snape yells at him for is not casting it nonverbally. As for getting
out of hand, they're inexperienced second-years, and Snape can easily
undo any of their spells, as we see first with the Finite Incantatem
that stops *every spell in the room* and then with the conjured snake
that he easily vanishes.

jkoney:
> When Lockhart chooses a pair of inexperienced students (probably 
because they were close to him and he thought he could impress them 
while an upperclassman would ignore him), 

Carol responds:
As far as I can see, *all* the students present are inexperienced. We
don't know, BTW, what kind of DADA teachers the older students have
had, but Quirrell doesn't seem to have been as inept as Lockhart, and,
according to Umbridge, he followed the Ministry-approved curriculum.
It's probably safe to assume that he taught Protego, probably the most
important defensive spell next to Expelliarmus, to the students at the
appropriate level (fourth year?), which is probably why no older
students appear to be present. As for why Lockhart chose Seamus and
Neville, I agree that it was probably because they were close at hand,
but that proves nothing one way or the other.

jkoney:

> Snape decides that two different inexperienced students should be
chosen. Why does he do this? Either group of inexperienced students
would do. But instead he makes Harry go up before the group, hoping
he'll fail against a spell he doesn't know.

Carol responds:
You keep repeating that assumption, but you're not providing any
support. We know Snape's reasons for rejecting Neville and Seamus. He
states them openly. As for choosing Harry and Draco, he has a special
interest in that pair. One is a student in his own House who likes and
respects him and who, unlike, say, Crabbe, is unlikely to make a fool
of himself. The other is the student he is watching over and
protecting. Remember Dumbledore's words in "The Prince's Tale"? "We
[meaning himself and Snape] have protected him because it has been
essential to teach him, to raise him, to let him try his strength" (DH
Am. ed. 687). IMO, that's what is happening here. And, had Lockhart
actually taught Harry Protego, or at least given him the incantation
even if he couldn't do the hand movement, Harry would have done as
well as Draco.

Sure, Snape appears to have a moment of enjoyment as he sees Harry
panicking, but I doubt that his intention was to make Harry, who is as
good at spell casting as any other kid in the room, fail publicly. He
intended to Vanish the snake immediately if Harry failed to cast the
Protego and would have done so if the bungling Lockhart hadn't stepped
in to attempt the Vanishing spell himself. 

Carol earlier:
Why would Snape, who is *protecting* Harry, want him to fail against a
spell he doesn't know? Protego will block any spell except an
Unforgiveable Curse.

Carol again:
You still haven't answered this question.

> jkoney:
>
> 
> "Don't move, Potter," said Snape lazily, clearly enjoying the sight 
> of Harry standing motionless eye to eye with the angry snake."
> 
> That definitely seems like a set up to me. One designed to embarrass 
> Harry and make him look bad in front of most of the school.

Carol responds:

It may look like a setup to you, and perhaps it did to Harry though
there's no indication that he felt that way, but the set-up idea
contradicts the canon fact that Snape is protecting Harry. And you
left out an important part of the quotation, "I'll get rid of it."

We don't know what's in Snape's mind, but he clearly sees no danger to
Harry that he can't easily eliminate. the whole point of the pairing
off, as I said before, was for one student (Draco) to cast an
"unfriendly spell" (Serpensortia) and for the other student (Harry) to
block that spell using Protego (the blocking spell). there was even a
chance that the spell would backfire on its caster (as Snape's
Legilimens spell backfires onto him when Harry casts a Protego during
an Occlumency lesson), in which case it would have been *Draco* who
had a moment of fritht with the snake before Snape Vanished it.

Carol: 
> IMO, if we disregard Lockhart's inept contributions, we're seeing
DADA as Snape would have taught it. He might even have become Harry's
favorite teacher if he'd kept it up. Alas, the DADA curse and the
whole Snape/Harry plot makes that impossible.
> 
> jkoney:
> "favorite teacher"???
> 
> Harry would have ended up hating DADA and that would have been a 
disaster for Harry and everyone else.

Carol responds:
Well, we'll just have to differ on that. I think that Harry would have
loved to have the chance to duel Draco in a classroom--with Snape's
approval.

At any rate, what is DADA beyond third year other than having students
fire hexes at each other so that they can learn to defend themselves?
In Fake!Moody's class, the "teacher" even cast the Imperius Curse on
his own students. At other times in that class, the students hex each
other. Harry learned Stupefy and other DADA spells for the TWT by
practicing them on Ron. In Snape's DADA class, the students pair off
and try to hex each other or block the hex nonverbally. Harry uses the
same technique, minus the nonverbal element, in his own DA lessons.

Carol, who understands jkoney's interpretation but does not agree with it