Is Draco Evil & a true enemy of Harrys'?

[mellienel2 at yahoo.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 25075

One more thing to add to the discussion -- redeem Draco any time 
before the end of the 7th book, and you've taken away Harry's 
antithesis. Snape may be mean, but he's on the same side - or at 
least we think he is right now (I think he is). Crabbe and Goyle are 
too stupid to be the dark side of Hogwarts students. Without Malfoy 
causing trouble, it's just not as interesting. He hasn't done 
anything purely evil yet, but he did try to get Hagrid fired, spread 
lies (or mistruths) about Harry through the Skeeter rat (er, beetle), 
call Hermione a Mudblood (*repeatedly, knowing the reaction it 
stirs*), and other uncountable horrible things. Not pure evil, but 
definitely on the way; and even if he hasn't been trained to serve 
Voldemort (because Lucius wasn't sure he would return), he has been 
thoroughly schooled in the pureblood/racist way of thinking. That 
bias would take a miracle to reverse, and there's no way he could 
be "good" if he holds that prejudice. 

I really don't think the evil characters have to be flat -- I think 
it's more of a cop-out to redeem all of them. 

Then again, Malfoy and Harry are, as Dumbledore pointed out, like 
Snape and James. And Snape seems to have reformed, if he is nasty as 
all hell. JKR does a lot of parallels between ages, so perhaps this 
is one of them. Plus, the idea of Malfoy turning into a greasy, 
cantankerous Potions master that nobody likes is still appealing in 
its own way.

later,
m.