Musings on loyalty (long)

[Rita Winston]

No: HPFGUIDX 808

--- In HPforGrownups at egroups.com, Peg Kerr <pkerr06 at a...> wrote:

> Voldemort, too, when the  death eaters come, scolds them for how
> they has let him down, and punish some, cruelly. But although he 
> gives Wormtail back a hand, my impression is that everyone 
> understands that all the giving is going to flow toward Voldemort,
> not the other way around--unless he decides to reward his
> followers on a whim. Note, too, that the Deatheaters return this 
> "loyalty" of Voldemort's with coin just about as false. They come
> back to him out of fear, or because he can offer them scope for
> depraved pleasures--not because they think, "By gum, my friend
> Voldemort is in a spot of trouble, and he needs me, and I know he's
> always stuck up for me before." Others, observing the characters of
> these Death eaters, note that their loyalty is false. Karkaroff and
> Wormtail, for example, both guage their loyalty to Voldemort by
> calculating first and foremost what's in it for them.

I have a very strong feeling (which I cannot prove) that SOME of the 
Death Eaters actually ARE loyal to Voldemort -- ones who went to 
Azkaban, scorning to renounce their master -- not because they had 
faith that he would return and triumph in time to save them from 
madness and death and reward them for loyalty, but quite sincerely. 
Certainly none of them thought 'Voldy is my friend', but that is not 
what the samurai dying for his daimyo thinks, and probably not 
what the Christian martyr dying for his/her faith thinks. But this 
leaves me wondering WHY???? would they have that kind of loyalty to 
Voldemort? It isn't something that they were raised up to for 
generations, such as patriotism that leads people to die for their 
country even when their country is very much in the wrong. Presumably 
it is some sort of Nietzschean worship of power, such that they 
believe that it is right and proper that the greatest wizard should 
triumph and it is their proper role and glorious privilege to live 
and die to assist in this triumph.

> Other thoughts: it was something about loyalty, or more 
> specifically, about choosing sides, that led to the first falling 
> out between Draco and Harry.  Remember the scene on the train, 
> first year: Draco wanted Harry to join "his side" and appealed to
> him to avoid Ron and others of that ilk.

Second falling-out. The first was when they ran into each other in 
Madam Malkin's robe shop, and neither of them knew who the other was. 
Draco tried in his own despicable way to make friends with Harry the 
stranger: by boasting of his wealth, lineage, excellent Quidditch 
skills, and by putting down the Muggle-born. This did not inspire 
Harry to warm to Draco.

Then, in the train scene you quoted, after Draco has found out who 
that kid was (Harry), he gave Harry another chance to be his friend, 
if only he let Draco choose his other friends for him. As Harry 
already disliked Draco and didn't want to be friends with him, that 
was an easy offer for him to refuse.

However, I wonder about Draco's motives for giving Harry that second 
chance. Of course, it is because he is the famous Harry Potter. At 
first, I thought Draco was simply after the glory of being friends 
with a celebrity. After GoF, and Draco's explicit pro-V statements, I 
am left wondering if he was working on some plan to entrap Harry and 
turn him over to the Death Eaters, perhaps under excuse of bringing 
him home for a visit.