Draco

[Milz]

No: HPFGUIDX 18329

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., heidi.h.tandy.c92 at a... wrote:
> won't be much fun when the retribution is handed out.
> 
> I don't think everyone is going to reform - I think that it's just 
as 
> likely that someone believed to be on the side of good is going to 
> become evil!Really....
> As Cassie & I have discussed many times, we do not like the idea 
that 
> someone who JKR introduced us to as a ten-or-eleven-year-old child 
is 
> going to do nothing but follow some pre-ordained path to evil. If 
it 
> is our choices that make us what we are, then shouldn't Draco get a 
> choice at some point? Or is he just there to be hauled by Lucius 
> Malfoy, who is evil, to Voldemort's side, then held down to get the 
> Dark Mark, then trapped in the Evil!Universe forever? At a minimum, 
> he could at least have a conflict about accepting the evil in him, 
> and becoming evil - to be honest, that wouldn't bother me as much 
as 
> it would if there's no demonstration of his making that decision. 
> Right now he's spouting the vitriol he's been taught - but he also 
> might be warning hermione (at the World Cup) and the rest of the 
(on 
> the train). 

You're right that we have choices to make. However, at this point in 
time it looks like Draco has made a choice...to go along with his 
father's party line. I think when you are raised in an environment 
geared toward a certain prejudice, it's not very likely that you 
would question it because it's "normal". I mean, Draco might not even 
think his attitude toward Muggles and Muggle-borns might be the 
correct attitude and everyone else is wrong. It's only when he 
realizes that his behavior is possibly wrong that he'll have any 
conflict. And so far he doesn't.
 
> In terms of redeemable things he's done, it's not so much that he's 
> done "good" things, but he has done ambiguous things/had ambiguous 
> things happen around him, including the two potential warnings and 
> the following:
> 1. He ran screaming from voldemort-drinking-dead-unicorn-blood in 
> PS/SS
> 2. Part-kneazle Crookshanks doesn't react badly to him ever on the 
> train rides, even when Scabbers isn't around and he's not 
distracted 
> by that little rat
> 3. He doesn't hit hermione, or even report her for fighting, even 
> though he has no problem tattling in other circumstances
> 4. Do you really think that in the fight in the begining of 4th 
year, 
> right before he becomes a ferrett, he missed harry by accident? It 
> could've been a deliberate attention-catching action, not a missed 
> hex (if it had been a missed hex, it should've hit someone else 
with 
> the curse, and we see nothing indicating that it did)
> 5. The ferrett incident itself, to me, seems to have generated some 
> sympathy for him - I mean, reread it knowing who moody is, and all 
it 
> can be is an attack by a death eater on the son of someone who he 
> *hates* (probably more than he hates any other death eater because 
> Lucius Malfoy kept his power and standing, as Crouch Jr. saw so 
well 
> in the Top Box of the World Cup, where the Malfoys were being feted 
> by the Minister himself, while wizards who were associated with 
> convicted death eaters, like Crouch, Sr. was, were thrown far off 
> track). If there is *one* backstory I would like to ask JKR about, 
in 
> something more substantial than an online chat - it's that - what 
was 
> Draco's 4th year in Fake!Moody's class like? It must've been *hell*

Has Rowling said that Crookshanks is definitely part-Kneazle? I must 
have missed that.

I think Draco is sort of like Eddie Haskell in the old "Leave it to 
Beaver" television program. On the one hand he can be the "model" kid 
when he's around adults, but simply horrid when he's around other 
kids.

:-)Milz