[HPforGrownups] Draco as student/teacher's pet

[Tandy, Heidi]

No: HPFGUIDX 17119

Dinah wrote:
> Draco is not the natural pick for Severus as
> "teacher's pet". He has the ambition, that's something Snape 
> as head of
> Slytherin admires naturally, but Draco doesn't want to work for
> achievements. If he wants something he uses his fathers 
> reputation, his
> place in the Quidditch team is bought, he doesn't even bully 
> people himself
> but lets Crabbe and Goyle do the dirty work. And he doesn't 
> seem to be such
> a great student, either.
> 
> Another crucial point is that he relies heavily on Snape to get others
> students in trouble and to keep him out of it. I don't see 
> Severus as a
> person who would normally tolerate that well.

While a lot of what Dinah says, about Draco not "work[ing] for achievements"
and not seeming to be a rgeat student are perfectly reasonable conjectures
based on canon, these things are not explicitly stated in canon. In other
words, it's just as likely that when Lucius Malfoy was criticising Draco's
marks in the begining of CoS, he was saying that he expected Draco to be at
the top of the class - number one - but Hermione was, and therefore he was
merely number two, or something close to it. If Lucius is the type who
thinks that anything less than number one is meaningless and useless, then
he could slam Draco for having lousy marks when the only problem with them
is that they're not better than Muggle-born Hermione. Otherwise, why would
he specifically criticise Draco for being beaten by Hermione, instead of
saying something like "And so many mudbloods got better marks than you...."
His place on the quidditch team *might* have been bought because of age, but
not skill. In other words, Slytherin might have dumped their then-current
seeker to have Draco on the team, but he certainly seems to be doing quite
well, winning three games in second and third year (in other words, beating
everyone but Harry, who we all agree is exceptional)
I haven't seen him relying on Snape to keep himself out of trouble - if he
really could do that, then Snape would've at least tried a way to get Draco
out of that forebidden forrest trip back during first year.