[HPforGrownups] Re: Draco's redemption/Snape

[Aja]

No: HPFGUIDX 33361


On Mon, 14 Jan 2002, serenadust wrote:

> I hate to nitpick, but don't you mean paticide?  Fratricide is the 
> killing of ones own brother.

Lol! No, whoops, you're absolutely right--I was listening to a song from
Joseph and the Amazing... earlier today and had the word "fratricide" on
the brain. :) 

> I have to admit that I also find the "redeemed Malfoy" scenario to be 
> too much of a cliche for JKR to use.  However, I wonder why he would 
> want to murder his father for "bitter revenge"?  As far as I can see, 
> his father gets him anything he wants, confides DE secrets to him, 
> takes him to the Quidditch World Cup match, and generally has made 
> his life quite pleasant.  The only time his dad is critical of him at 
> all is when he chides him for not doing as well in his studies as 
> Hermione.  

Actually, we don't know that at all, IIRC.  The only *real* exchange we
ever see between Draco and his father--real as in, completely private (so
they think)--is in the scene at Knockturn Alley.  There, Lucius is nothing
but abusive and critical.  As far as Death-Eater secrets--we don't know
that either.  Lucius doesn't tell his son anything about Tom Riddle or the
existence of the Diary. Nor does he fill Draco in on the fact that Sirius
was not the spy who betrayed the Potters--something a Death-Eater so close
to Voldemort would probably have known.  And JKR never explicitly *says*
that Malfoy knows his father is a Death-Eater.  At the Quidditch Cup he
neither admits nor denies it--a clever Malfoy tactic when you don't know
the answer to the question, imo.

All that as it may, I do agree with you that Malfoy *worships* his father,
by all appearances--which is why if Lucius ever *did* do something hurtful
to betray or "sacrifice" Malfoy or his friends (a very interesting
scenario if Draco were in love with Hermione, as many have proposed
before), I believe the result would be tramautic.  Sirius wasn't
about to hesitate when he went to kill Peter Pettigrew, his former best
friend.  If the stakes were high enough, I could see Draco coming unwound
enough to wind up in a similar situation.

> Things would have to take a big turn for the worse at chez 
> Malfoy, before Draco would have any reason to feel hateful toward 
> Lucius.

In contemplating this I keep coming back to Hagrid's words, in, is it Book
One? I'm paraphrasing from memory, but basically he says, "When a wizard
turns bad, there ain't nothin' or nobody matters to 'em anymore."  This
sounds like an apt quotation to keep in mind when thinking about Lucius
Malfoy.  

Just my thoughts...

Aja