[HPforGrownups] Re: Draco

[Tandy, Heidi]

No: HPFGUIDX 18379

Amber wrote:

> Well, I think I'll put on my Devil's Advocate hat for a moment; who's 
> to say that he hasn't made his choice already? And we just haven't 
> seen it? Granted, he is young, too young to know the full impact of 
> his decision. But he may; we have absolutely no idea of how much 
> Lucius has revealed to young Mr. Malfoy. 
It is possible, but there's textual inferences that even if he *knows* a
lot, he's not participating - Clearly, in 2nd year, lucius told him to stay
out of it, or so he tells Harry & Ron, as Crabbe & Goyle, AND right before
4th year he wasn't participating either - if he had made a choice for the
Dark Side, and had been allowed to participate, then he would've been out on
the field with the "former" Death Eaters at the Quidditch World Cup, not in
the woods - that is the *one* scene that makes me think that he certainly
"knows" that Muggle-borns are "subwizards", and even might know his father
(parents?) supported Voldemort, but hasn't seen the activities they do *at
present* as anything other than game-playing*.
Of course, he could just be really short, and Lucius was afraid he'd get
stepped on...


* note: even the death eaters didn't let the muggles drop - they *could
have* avada-ed them, or picked them right up and then released the
levitation spell immediately, before the good guys could rescue them, if
their real intent was to kill the muggles then & there (this does NOT mean
they weren't doing something bad - it just means that the mob's intent was
to harm but not to kill (although I can't see them being very upset if
someone had been killed))



> > 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
> 
> I don't know how good an indication this is. Has Crookshanks ever 
> reacted badly to any *humans*?
Sort of. He reacted badly to Peter in human form in the shrieking shack...

> 
> > 3. He doesn't hit hermione, or even report her for fighting, even 
> > though he has no problem tattling in other circumstances
> 
> As for reporting her for fighting, he's embarassed that a girl hit 
> him. Doesn't want it floating around the school. As for not hitting 
> Hermione, he's too surprised by what she's done? I mean, hitting 
> another person is a bit out of character for Hermione... 
I don't know, a not-uncommon reaction to being hit is to hit back - I don't
want to read *too* much into this, because it comes too close to the old
mafia mythology - they do hits, they smuggle, they swindle - but they don't
hit women...like that's enough to keep them from being horrid?

> 
> > 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? 
> 
> Well, this is open to personal interpretation.
Exactly - it's an ambiguous thing - if she chose to do so, she could explain
this either way.  


> I personally don't know what to think about Draco. Part of me says 
> he's a miserable little git who's been pushed around by his father 
> and can't help being being who he is because of his upbringing. The 
> other part of me says that Draco makes his own choices while in 
> school and if he wanted to change he could. There certainly are 
> positive role models in the castle. I'll be very interested to see 
> what happens in the next three books, although I have a hard time 
> seeing Draco swinging over to Dumbledore's crowd.
Ah! now we get to the real reason I wanted to respond to this post - because
we've gone over many of these things onlist before, but one subtopic hasn't
really come up, so I offer this question:

If Draco decided not to become a Death Eater, would there be any option for
him, other than acting in a manner that supports Dumbledore's crowd, even if
he doesn't want to?

My answer: Yes, there is - and that would be living completely outside
Wizarding society, and to some extent outside "ordinary" muggle society too,
because from what we've seen of Lucius, he doesn't seem the type to brook
dissent from within his home - witness his treatment of still-enslaved-Dobby
(yes, I know he doesn't do anything like go after dobby afterwards, but that
might be because wizards are no match for house-elf magic...). Lucius just
does not seem like the sort of parent who would say, "Ok! You've looked at
the pro and con arguments, you've made a nice little chart showing the
reasons for and against becoming evil and accepting the Dark Mark and the
Dark Lord as your Master, and you've decided against it. Fine, son! Here's
your allowance, and I'd like the key to the cellar under my drawing room
back, but you still have run of the house. Try not to report my movements
and activities to anyone, ok?"

uh. huh.