This chapter drives home the conflict between Harry and Draco Malfoy. Or between House Gryffindor and House Slytherin, to be more general. There are also some interesting points of Canon in this chapter. It opens with the comment
Aren’t the Gryffindors and Slytherins in Transfiguration together as well? So they share the courses taught by each of their Head of House? *shrug* No matter I guess.Still, first-year Gryffindors only had Potions with the Slytherins…
A notice is pinned up that the Gryffindors and Slytherins will be taking Madam Hooch’s flying lessons together. Harry, Hermione, and Neville all have cause to feel nervous regarding this, although Harry had been looking forward to fly.
At breakfast that morning, Neville receives a package from his grandmother which contains a Remembrall, a small glass ball filled with smoke that turns red when the bearer has forgotten something. Which it promptly does as soon as Neville handles it. Out of nowhere Draco appears at the Gryffindors table (why? Slytherins table is clear across the Great Hall) and snatches it up. Harry and Ron are itching for a fight anyway, but McGonagall must have noticed the three Slytherins being out of place and swoops down to interfere immediately.
Next we see Harry, Ron, and the other first-year Gryffindors approaching the grounds where the flying lessons would take place. We now learn the total number of first-years between the two houses, 20, as there are 20 brooms lying on the ground waiting for them. So we can assume each house has 10 students per year, unless Harry’s year was extremely small, which would make the total student population of Hogwarts around 280, with 70 students per House. And all of the first-year Gryffindor boys share the dormitory tower: Harry, Ron, Neville, Dean, and Seamus. Of the girls, I can remember Hermione, Lavender, and Parvati. Who are the other two? Anyone remember off hand?
Harry’s natural ability becomes apparent when the broom he uses jumps into his hand immediately, whereas both Hermione and Neville have difficulty. After being shown how to mount and grip the brooms, where Draco is humiliated by being told he has been doing it wrong for years, Madam Hooch prepares the students to take off, hover briefly, and land. Neville launches early and panics, rising twenty feet before sliding off his broom and smacking into the ground from that height. Yet all he does his break his wrist. Interesting.
As Madam Hooch escorts Neville to the hospital wing, Draco spies Neville’s Remembrall and scoops it up. Harry quietly tells him to hand it over, which spurs Draco to decide to put it out of reach in a tree. Harry, who has never flown before but who finds it comes naturally to him, pursues after him. Draco decides to throw the Remembrall as high and as far as he can. Harry chases after it…
…and thus a new Gryffindor Seeker is born…
As Harry lands gently with the Remembrall in his hand, any pride in his accomplishment is dashed by the immediate arrival of Professor McGonagall. She ushers Harry off the grounds, and silently stalks through Hogwarts corridors as Harry imagines himself soon to be expelled.
Yet instead of taking Harry to her office, or to Dumbledore for a reprimand, she stops at Professor Flitwick’s classroom and asks to borrow Oliver Wood, a 5th year Gryffindor who is the captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Leading both of them to an empty classroom, she then informs them that she has found a new Seeker for the Gryffindor team, and she will personally ask Professor Dumbledore to bend the first year rule. No explanation is given as to why she thinks Professor Dumbledore would bend the rule, but Harry is given permission to become the youngest Hogwarts Quidditch player in a century.
As Harry and Ron are reveling in this turn of events, Fred and George come and congratulate Harry. After they leave, Draco comes around with Crabbe and Goyle. Draco gloats, asking when Harry will be leaving. But when Harry doesn’t cower, and instead accuses him of being braver now that his larger escort is with him, Draco challenges Harry to a Wizard’s Duel. Ron accepts the challenge for him, stating that he is Harry’s second. Draco chooses Crabbe as his second, and chooses to meet in the trophy room at midnight.
As Draco leaves, taking Crabbe and Goyle with him, Harry asks Ron to explain to him just what a Wizard’s Duel is. As Ron attempts to explain, Hermione shows up.
*splutter*“I couldn’t help overhearing what you and Malfoy were saying ---“
“Bet you could,” Ron muttered.
“--- and you mustn’t go wandering around the school at night, think of the points you’ll lose Gryffindor if you’re caught, and you’re bound to be. It’s really very selfish of you.”
“And it’s really none of your business,” said Harry.
“Good-bye,” said Ron.
…of all the self-rightious, moralistic drivel…
Of any points in the books, if there is a point where I dislike Hermione more than at this point, I can’t think of one.
As Ron and Harry attempt to sneak out of Gryffindor Tower at 11:30, a light snaps on and Hermione confronts them once again. She apparently kept her knowledge to herself, most likely thinking her mere presence and awareness of what they were up to would prompt the two boys to return to their dorm. When they choose to ignore her warnings, she follows them out of the portrait hole, continuing to hiss dire warnings after them. Eventually giving up, she turns back to the Fat Lady’s portrait to return to the Common Room, and finds herself locked out. So, after all of that…she decides to accompany Harry and Ron.
The trio becomes a quartet when they stumble upon Neville who had fallen asleep in the corridor when he returned from the hospital wing, having forgotten the password into Gryffindor Tower. As quietly as they can, the four of them make their way to the trophy room, where they await the pair of Draco and Crabbe, who conveniently never show up.
Instead, they hear Filch and Mrs.Norris enter and start searching for them! By Filch’s mutterings, it is obvious he knows someone is there. Harry leads them to a door, and they try to quietly creep down a long corridor, but Neville panics, runs, and along with Ron, crashes into a suit of armor.
At the resultant clamor, Harry tells them all to run. After much twisting and turning down corridors with no idea where they are, they wind up near the Charms classroom…
…and get caught by Peeves the Poltergeist…
Peeves is delighted to catch them out of bed at midnight, but I do not think he would have turned them in if Ron hadn’t become frustrated and had not tried to attack him. I think Peeves would have tried some sort of blackmail on the truants instead. But, Ron takes a swing at him, and Peeves raises the alarm for Filch.
Running at full pelt, the quartet comes to a locked door at the end of the corridor. Hermione, showing her giftedness, grabs Harry’s wand and unlocks the door with alohomora. They rush through, close the door, and listen to Filch question Peeves on where they went. Apparently Peeves, never one to let an opportunity to get Filch’s goat slip by, had decided to not betray them, and after teasing Filch for a bit floats out of sight. Harry realizes that Filch thinks the door they are behind is locked and thinks they had a clean getaway, when he feels a tugging on his robe from Neville. Turning around to snap at Neville and see what he wants, Harry finds himself looking face to face with…
…a huge, monstrous three headed dog…
The dog had been taken by surprise, so hadn’t attacked. Harry decided before the dog had the opportunity to do so, that he would rather take his chances with Filch, and he opened the door they had just come in through. Slamming the door behind them after they had all tumbled back through it, they started running again at full pelt for Gryffindor Tower on the seventh floor. Fortunately, Filch was nowhere to be seen. He must have gone to another part of the castle in search of them.
Collapsing into their Commons Room, Hermione in a rage reveals that she noticed the dog was standing on a trap door. That it was obviously there to guard something. …bright girl, that Hermione… And she stomps off to bed.
But Harry realizes something with these words.
…What had Hagrid said? Gringotts was the safest place in the world for something you wanted to hide --- except perhaps for Hogwarts.
It looked as though Harry had found out where the grubby little package from vault seven hundred and thirteen was.
Even though it isn't specified I would venture to guess that at least Narcissa and Bellatrix were both Slytherin and siblings although I am not sure which house Andromeda would have been in, perhaps Ravenclaw or Gryffindor. Those three were sisters.