We start with a brief synopsis of Harry's week of dodging Lockhart and Colin and a brief description of Ron's wand backfiring in Flitwick's class. The weekend is coming. The trio is planning to visit Hagrid on Saturday but the plan is initially foiled by Harry's wee hour waking by Oliver Wood for Quiddich practice. He arrives and is subjected to lengthy wall chart plans by Wood and by the time the lecture is over and they approach the field it's completely sunlight and the Slytherin team is approaching. Slytherin has permission to train their new seeker whom we find out is Draco Malfoy. Ron and Hermione join the discussion between the teams and we find that Draco's dad has bought the Slytherin team new brooms. After some argumentation Hermione insults Draco by claiming he needed to buy his way on to the team. Draco retaliates by calling Hermione a mudblood. Pandemonium ensues and Ron tries to curse Draco and ends up with his wand backfiring causing him to vomit up slugs. Harry and Hermione rush him to Hagrid's hut and there Ron tells Harry and Hermione the actual meaning of mudblood.
This gives us one of our first glimpses into the darker sides of the wizarding world. It's not all magic and fun. The wizarding world has it's own form of racism and predjudice. After they discuss this, Hagrid takes them to show them his humongous pumpkins that he's growing and Harry thinks about his suspicions as to where Hagrid may have stashed his forbidden wand and as to the reasons why Hagrid was expelled and forbidden to do magic. Then the kids hurry back to the castle and upon entering both Ron and Harry are told by McGonnagall what and where their detentions are to be served. Harry has to go serve Lockhart and Ron is stuck with Filch. Harry reports for detention and is held there for over four hours by addressing Lockhart's fan mail responses. He is tired and vulnerable and suddenly hears a mysterious voice out of thin air which says, "come... come to me... let me rip you... let me tear you.... let me kill you." He asks Lockhart about it and Lockhart did not hear it. Harry tells Ron about it and Ron finds it weird that Lockhart couldn't hear the voice and that concludes the chapter."It's about the most insulting thing he could think of," gasped Ron, coming back up. "Mudblood's a really foul name for someone who is Muggle-born -- you know, non-magic parents. There are some wizards -- like Malfoy's family -- who think they are better than everyone else because they're what people call pure-blood." He gave a small burp and a single slug fell into his outstretched hand. He threw it in to the basin and continued, "I mean, the rest of us know it doesn't make any difference at all. Look at Neville Longbottom --- he's pure-blood and he can hardly stand a cauldron the right way up."
Well, well well.... I pre-beg of you all to forgive me but I am going to use some extremely offensive words to get my point and emotional reaction across. Mudblood. It's the equivalent of "nigger, spic, kyke".... and the list goes on more than it should and in fact the concept and adherence to the beliefs that continue this concept should not even exist in our enlightened societyand yet they do. Horrible. Mortifying. Apalling. We have known about the dark wizards and were given a taste of Malfoy's snobbery in book one but the depth of the racism is finally revealed with the single use of and reaction to the word, mudblood. Even Hermione with all her book learning had not known the meaning of this word until Ron explained it. Wow. This is a whole new face to the world that Harry thought he was entering. I think for me this is the moment it stopped being a "kid's book" and became very adult.
Some very important things from this chapter, Harry expresses doubts about Hagrid in his contemplation of Hagrid hiding his wand in a pink umbrella and why he was expelled and why he avoids the issue. The learned racist behavior of Malfoy is also important. What a little prick. Ugh. Made me wanna smack the crap out of him. We also have two references to Ron's wand "backfiring." That is not a good sign.
I would call this a chapter of serious foreshadowing.