[HPforGrownups] Draco (was re: Horrible to Write?]

[yr awen]

No: HPFGUIDX 41554


Zoe said (in ref. to the Forest scene from PS/SS):
>
> And how was Draco supposed to know that the phantasmal spirit was
Voldemort?<<<<<

I'm not saying that he knew it was Voldemort at all (or rather,
Voldemort in Quirrell's body). My point is that Draco was presented
with rapacity and evil and he ran away from it. Not a sign of possible
redemption, I admit, but it says to me that Draco, for all his talk,
doesn't know how to deal with being physically confronted by an evil
entity. He reacts instinctively -- that is, screaming like a
schoolgirl and running away -- rather than staying to appreciate the
mysterious being's innate evilness, or staying to appreciate the
unicorn's suffering, which is what I believe an Evil Person would do.

 This was more of a corollary to my point that Draco, for all his
annoying behavior, has very little intimate experience with true evil.
Most of it is funnelled through his father who, for example, tells
Draco to stay out of the Heir of Slytherin's way while the basilisk is
terrorizing the school in CoS. Someone else, I believe, pointed this
out, and I'm in wholehearted agreement with it; Draco's more of a
microphone, someone who talks but doesn't quite walk the walk.

HF.