2.11 The Dueling Club

'You'll find that hard to prove,' said Hermione. 'He lived about a thousand years ago; for all we know, you could be.'

It’s Monday and that means yet another episode of Podtrificus Totalus, a Harry Potter podcast done chapter by chapter, book by book. We continue our coverage of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets with mounting rumors about Harry’s connections to the attacks on students. Snape and Lockheart host a disastrous Dueling Club that does little to improve Harry’s reputation or the students’ preparedness, and two more denizens of Hogwarts are petrified by the end of the chapter.

We make a number of references to outside sources and popular culture, which are listed below:

The Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger

The Princess Diaries series by Meg Cabot

Filius Flitwick on the Harry Potter Lexicon

Gilmore Girls and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, created by Amy Sherman-Palladino

Miss S. Fawcett on the Harry Potter Lexicon

Rictusempra, the Tickling Charm, on the Harry Potter Lexicon

J.K. Rowling interview at the Royal Albert Hall (Stephen Fry; 26 June 2003)

Parsel in the Oxford English Dictionary

“Wizard Chess,” a song by Harry and the Potters

Hannah Abbott on the Harry Potter Lexicon

Our Spell of the Week is Expelliarmus, which the students learn at the Dueling Club and which will probably return many more times throughout this podcast.

You can hear more from our guest, Bri Castellini, on the Burn, Noticed podcast, which covers the TV show Burn Notice on an episode-by-episode basis. You can also find Bri on her personal website as well as on Twitter and Instagram as @brisownworld.