Analysis: Minerva McGonnagall | Expecto Patronum!
The first half of “The Midnight Duel” is devoted to the Flying Lessons and their immediate aftermath.
Short Summary: The young Gryffindors are filled with anxiety at the prospect of having Flying Lessons with the Slytherins. On the morning of the lesson, Neville Longbottom receives a Remembrall from his gran – to help him remember things he’s forgotten. Draco tries to nick it, but McGonnagall quickly steps in.
Later, during Flying Lessons, Neville’s broom goes out of control, and the boy falls 20 feet to the ground, breaking his wrist. While Madam Hooch takes the injured boy to the Hospital Wing, Draco picks up the dropped Remembrall, thus leading to a broomstick confrontation with Harry Potter who learns – much to his surprise and delight – that he’s a natural-born flyer. When Draco tosses the Remembrall into the air and challenges Harry to fetch it, Harry performs a daring move that ends in his catching the small object just an inch from the ground – a perfect Seeker maneuver.
Professor McGonnagall comes charging out of the castle, demanding that Harry come with her. Since Madam Hooch threatened expulsion for any student who did not stay firmly planted on the ground, Harry is convinced he is about to be kicked out of Hogwarts. Instead, McGonnagall introduces him to Oliver Wood, Captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch Team, and tells Wood that she has found him a Seeker for the team.
This section further develops the Harry-Draco rivalry – which will become even more intense once Harry gets to own a broom (despite the first-year ban) and becomes the youngest House Quidditch player in a century.
But for me, the real core of this part of the chapter is the development of Neville Longbottom and Professor McGonnagall. And for both characters, appearances are a bit misleading.
I’ve talked about Neville a bit before, but this is the first chapter where we really see a lot of him, so I’d like to repeat a bit and expand.
When we first meet Neville, he is a complete mess. He can’t remember anything (not even something as simple as the password to Gryffindor Tower). He can’t brew a simple potion without blowing up or melting his cauldron. He can’t do any magic worth speaking of. And now, he can’t even fly a broom without hurting himself.
In our introduction to Neville, we assume that he’s in the story to play the buffoon and provide some comic relief. And actually, there is very little in PS/SS to prove we’re wrong. But in GoF we begin to learn a little bit of his backstory… and start to think that maybe he has good reason to be afraid of succeeding at magic. Finally in OotP, he will start to resolve his fears. And in DH… well, let’s just say that Neville comes through in a way that no reader could have anticipated at this stage in the story.
Neville’s story over the course of the series shows that early failure does not doom a person to failure for life. When we first meet him, we wonder why he is in Gryffindor instead of Hufflepuff (the House Hagrid says is for the “Duffers“)? By the end of DH, nobody will be asking questions about what qualities landed him in Gryffindor.
For more extensive analysis of Neville, try this page on the CoS Forum.
I wrote post 605 and post 609, but there are a lot of other posts on that page that are well worth reading.
We don’t have any concerns for Professor McGonnagall’s competence. But she, too, has a side that it takes awhile for the audience to see.
When we first met McGonnagall – just outside the Dursleys’ house in the first chapter – she came out of her Tabby Animagus form in order to interrogate Dumbledore on the deaths of Lily and James Potter… and the survival of their year-old boy. At that time, she dabbed her eyes on learning that the rumors were true. But ever since that time, we’ve seen her as primarily a stern, no-nonsense teacher. And Harry is certainly expecting a bit of that stern no-nonsense when she brings him back into the castle after his catching the Remembrall.
Part of the reason she does not punish Harry for the Remembrall dive is that she wants to defeat Slytherin as badly as Harry does… possibly more. Her own former Transfiguration student (Severus Snape) can smirk in her face for weeks every time Slytherin prevails over Gryffindor.
Professor McGonnagall peered sternly over her glasses at Harry.
This is McGonnagall’s second smile since Harry arrived. The first was for Hermione’s rudimentary Transfiguration ability. This, for Harry’s potential at Quidditch… but even more, I think, for reminding her of his lost parents.