When Harry met Draco, or Pride and Prejudice (non-SHIP)

[Kirstini]

No: HPFGUIDX 78724

I've been going over Pip's recent post on prejudice(78680), and 
Kneasy's post on anti-Muggleism (78606)(1) quite a bit today, and 
considering the choices each of the characters makes to align 
themselves to one side or the other: racist, not racist. Kneasy 
asked: 

<<What does Harry think of Muggles? We assume he was glad to escape 
from their world, to become something special. That showed in The 
Hut on the Rock. Does he now consider Muggles an irritating 
irrelevance?>>

It's often struck me as remarkable that Harry as a child doesn't 
react more strongly against Muggles when he discovers himself to be 
a different kind of human being. Growing up, as one listie so wisely 
pointed out recently (2), Harry has been the victim of blood-
prejudice. He is then immediately plunged into a world which is just 
as casually racist, yet tipped in his favour. Even those characters 
we now know as very firmly "good" express strong anti-Muggle 
sentiments.  Professor McGonagall, for example, the first non-Muggle 
to speak on the subject in series, says:

***
` – even the Muggles have noticed something's going on. It was on 
their news
Well, they're not completely stupid. They were bound to 
notice something.' (PS, p13)
and
"You don't mean – you *can't* mean the people who live *here*?
You 
couldn't find two people who are less like us." (p15)
***
Within McGonagall's sphere of tolerance, then, Muggles can be 
accepted if they are "like us" – ie, if they assimilate themselves 
to values approved of by "our" society. (Ironic, given that what she 
disapproves of is Dudley's violent clamouring for sweets, a 
behavioural pattern which reoccurs, in differing forms, in the acts 
of various wizards throughout the series.) 
The first explanation of the divide Harry himself witnesses is 
Hagrid's: 

***
`A Muggle,' said Hagrid. `It's what we call non-magic folk like 
them. An' it's your bad luck you grew up in a family of the biggest 
Muggles I ever laid eyes on."(p43)
***

Here, it is indicated to Harry that he is of the superior side, and 
his hated relatives ("your bad luck") are inferior. He is offered 
the keys to a world in which he can obtain power over the Dursleys, 
in which, for the first time in his life, he will be treated with 
respect. And yet, his hatred of the Dursleys and Dursleyism, the 
only form of morality he has ever been exposed to, and that which he 
has spent his life reacting against, doesn't spill over into his own 
ethical choice, as happened with Tom Riddle. When tested by Draco 
Malfoy, the first non-Muggle child of his own age he meets, Harry 
suddenly, shockingly, reveals himself to be a thoroughly decent 
human being. Perhaps *too* decent, as many list members have often 
speculated. With all this in mind, I went back and re-read that 
first meeting scene again. Apologies for quoting at length. PS, pp60-
61.

***
`Hello,' said the boy. `Hogwarts too?'
`Yes,' said Harry.
`My father's next door buying my books and mother's up the street 
looking at wands,' said the boy. He had a bored, drawling 
voice. `then I'm going to drag them off to look at racing brooms. I 
don't see why first-years can't have their own. I think I'll bully 
father into getting me one and I'll smuggle it in somehow.'
Harry was strongly reminded of Dudley.
`Have you got your own broom?' the boy went on.
`No,' said Harry.
`Play Quidditch at all?'
`No,' Harry said again, wondering what on earth Quidditch could be.
`*I* do  - Father says it's a crime if I'm not picked to play for my 
own house, and I must say I agree. Know what house you'll be in yet?'
`No,' said Harry, feeling more stupid by the minute. 
`Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they, but I know 
I'll be in Slytherin, all our family have been – imagine being in 
Hufflepuff, I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?'
`Mmm,' said Harry, wishing he could say something a bit more 
interesting.
`I say, look at that man!' said the boy suddenly, pointing towards 
the front window. Hagrid was standing there, grinning at Harry, and 
pointing at two large ice-creams to show he couldn't come in.
 `That's Hagrid,' said Harry, pleased to know something the boy 
didn't. `He works at Hogwarts.'
`Oh,' said the boy.  `I've heard of him. He's sort of a servant, 
isn't he?'
`He's the gamekeeper,' said Harry. He was liking the boy less and 
less every second.
`Yes, exactly. I heard he's a sort of *savage* - lives in a hut in 
the school grounds and every now and then he gets drunk, tries to do 
magic, and ends up setting fire to his bed.'
`I think he's brilliant,' said Harry, coldly.
`*Do* you?' said the boy, with a slight sneer. `Why is he with you? 
Where are your parents?'
`They're dead,' said Harry, shortly. He didn't much feel like going 
into the matter with this boy.
`Oh, sorry,' said the other, not sounding sorry at all. `But they 
were *our * kind, weren't they?'
`They were a witch and a wizard, if that's what you mean.'
`'I really don't think they should let the other sort in, do you? 
They're just not the same, they've never been brought up to know our 
ways. Some of them have never even heard of Hogwarts until they get 
the letter, imagine. I think they should keep it in the old 
wizarding families. What's your surname, anyway?'
***  

What's interesting to note is that, initially, Harry doesn't respond 
to Draco's prejudice simply because he exhibits prejudice. What he 
responds to first is Draco's *privilege* – because he is first 
struck by the resemblance to his hated cousin (who Harry has always 
been jealous of – we only find out Harry's desire for Dudley's 
materialistic life in the Occlumency lesson where Snape uncovers 
Harry's burning envy of Dudley's new bike.). Then, he responds to 
the fact that Draco makes him feel ignorant and disenfranchised 
within his idyllic new world, which becomes a game of one-upmanship. 
Harry is not merely happy to have something to contribute to the 
conversation, which would set him on an equal level with the 
stranger, he is pleased because his knowledge exceeds Draco's. After 
this, he responds to the manifestation of Draco's privilege in his 
scorn of Hagrid, because one of his friends, his one source of 
knowledge about his new world, is threatened, and placed on a level 
(sort of servant) equivalent to his own in the Muggle world. His 
final response is to Draco's prejudice where he himself is the 
(unconscious) object (PS, p61):

***
Harry was rather quiet

`What's up?' said Hagrid.
`Nothing,' Harry lied
When they had left the shop, he said, `Hagrid, 
what's Quidditch?'
`Blimey, Harry, I keep forgettin' how little yeh know – not knowin' 
about Quidditch!'
`Don't make me feel worse,' said Harry. He told Hagrid about [Draco].
` –and he said people from Muggle families shouldn't even be allowed 
in - ' 
***

What Harry reacts to in Draco's spiel are the parts which involve a 
slight to his own self-hood – ie "'I really don't think they should 
let the other sort in, do you? They're just not the same, they've 
never been brought up to know our ways. Some of them have never even 
heard of Hogwarts until they get the letter, imagine
'"  Escape from 
his hated life has magically appeared and is now threatened, and 
this, more than anything else, is instrumental in the choice of 
ethical stance Harry later makes.
***
 `I heard you went to live with Muggles,' said Ron. `What are they 
like?'
`Horrible – well, not all of them. My aunt and uncle and cousin are 
though
' (PS, p75)				*** 

Harry's response here is immediately reconsidered. Yet Harry, as we 
know, has no experience of non-horrible Muggles. He only interacts 
with the Dursleys, Aunt Marge, some nasty teachers at school, and 
Dudley's gang:

				***
At school, Harry had no-one, Everybody knew that Dudley's gang hated 
that odd Harry Potter in his baggy old clothes and broken glasses, 
and no-one liked to disagree with Dudley's gang.(PS, p27)***

Harry, therefore, is unconsciously reforming his experience into 
motivation, that when Draco appears again, a few pages later, Harry 
can make an overt statement of his own allegiance: " `I can tell who 
the wrong sort are for myself, thanks.'" (p81), as a direct rebuff 
to Draco and whatever he stands for. Harry's initial impulse still 
underlies the five years of rivalry the reader has witnessed – see 
PoA, p181:

***
`
I reckon it's time you ordered a new broom, Harry. There's an 
order form on the back of  *Which Broomstick*
you could get a Nimbus 
Two Thousand and One, like Malfoy's got.'
`I'm not buying anything Malfoy thinks is good,' said Harry flatly.
*** 
Essentially, then, Harry's political awareness to prejudice 
originated as a defensive manoeuvre, and perpetuates as a gut 
reaction. He exhibits similar behaviour in OoP, where his reaction 
against Umbridge originates in the fact that she is against *him* 
(that and the fact that she's physically unattractive, I suspect

boys! <g>) – no evidence of progression made from his first ever 
Potions lesson, where Harry's dislike of Snape grows as a defensive 
reaction to Snape's unfair treatment of him – a small step from this 
to accusing him of being an agent of Voldemort, and then again 
to "never being able to forgive Snape" when he requires a handy 
scapegoat for Sirius' death <waves to Pip and Catlady>. Ditto 
Umbridge. It's Hermione, obviously more politically aware, who 
assists the narrative in building up a clear picture of Umbridge's 
racist beliefs in the scene where she alerts the others to Umbridge 
undermining Hagrid. 

***
Hermione had tears of fury in her eyes now.
`You hag, you evil hag!' she whispered, as Umbridge walked towards 
Pansy Parkinson. `I know what you're doing, you awful, twisted, 
vicious -'

 `That foul, lying, twisted old gargoyle!' stormed Hermione half an 
hour later
`You see what she's up to? It's her thing about half-
breeds all over again -' (OoP, pp396-7)
***

Interestingly, here, Hermione's reaction is primarily emotional. 
Yes, Hermione could be moved by the plight of her friend, as she has 
consistently proved herself very considerate of Hagrid's needs. 
However, it's important to note that Hermione is more attuned to 
prejudice – any form of prejudice – than the other two. Remember, 
she's also the wench with the wit to engineer Umbridge's downfall by 
her own racism.

 I was interested to note that there was a paper given at Nimbus (or 
scheduled to be given at Nimbus before OoP came out) on Hermione's 
involvement in SPEW being a manifestation of liberal white 
womanhood, something she is easily distracted from by her romantic 
involvement with Viktor Krum. Of the principal characters, Hermione 
probably has the most in common with the majority of her readers – 
an affluent, middle-class, (Muggle-born) reasonably privileged child 
(who likes reading). And yet, as Pip pointed out in her earlier 
post, this is precisely the demographic which finds itself Other to 
the WW's prejudice, just as Hermione does in CoS. It's Hermione who 
introduces the reader to the emotional impact of the WW's particular 
prejudice, thus involving the reader (by identification) in the 
theme within their own personal level, and forcing them to confront 
their own prejudice, as (at the very least) a defensive manoeuvre. 
Hermione may be a perfect specimen of liberal white womanhood within 
our own, Muggle sphere, but within the WW she is something set 
apart. I was particularly interested in the parallels Abigail's 
recent conceptual art work of a post drew between her and Lupin (yet 
more extensive quoting, I'm afraid):

<<They're both prefects, both studious - in 
between OWLs, Lupin is poring over a Transfiguration 
textbook just like Hermione. More importantly, they've both 
taken to heart the plight of the disenfranchised in the 
wizarding world. Lupin criticizes the treatment of goblins by 
the MoM, and is the only person, child or adult, willing to 
take SPEW seriously." Abigail labels a pipe 'Hermione Granger' 
and welds it to the Lupin pipe.

"You're forgetting something here." Dicentra says. "When 
Lupin talks about prejudice in the wizarding world, he speaks 
from an insider's perspective - he is a member of a 
marginalized minority. Hermione, in contrast, is nothing but 
a well-intentioned philanthropist."

"Yes and no." Abigail replies. "Hermione is a member of a 
marginalized group, albeit one whose segregation is more 
subtle then that of werewolves or goblins. Hermione is 
Muggle-born, and it is becoming increasingly clear that in 
many circles, including the MoM, that makes her a 
second-class witch. I suspect that Hermione came to 
Hogwarts in a golden age for Muggle-borns - one 
championed by Dumbledore. Had she been a student under 
another headmaster, her experiences might have been 
marked with a great deal of unpleasantness. I think there is 
an exact parallel in this case between Lupin and Hermione. 
They're both talented wizards who can 'pass' in regular 
society, but are discriminated against because their blood 
is impure.">>

And of course, much has been made recently of Lupin's self-interest 
on list. Another defensive manoeuvre? I wonder if Hermione's 
ethical/political stance is, unconsciously, equally self-defensive? 
Hermione discovers herself in a world which is perhaps not so 
inclined to accept her as one of its own. Naturally more confident 
than Harry, she responds not with resentment, but by trying to 
change the ethical basis that world is founded upon, encountering as 
much casual prejudice (ie from Gred and Forge: `They're *happy*, 
Hermione! They love serving humans' – I'm currently GoF-less, so 
have no idea if that quote is correct) as exists towards her and her 
kind from even the most well-intentioned of wizards (McGonagall, 
Molly, even, as Kneasy pointed out, Arthur: 
<< Arthur Weasley's fascination may be well meant, but you just know 
he'd love to put the Grangers under the microscope. Just like any 
animal behaviourist studying chimpanzees "Oh look! they can do that! 
It's almost as if they were human!">>)
It may well be our choices that show what we really are, but I feel 
that JKR understands rather better than many that those choices, 
regardless of their outcomes, are always motivated by the basic 
human drive for self-preservation. It all appears to come down to 
circumstance after all. 
   
Kirstini

1)	Despite the slight to my own, special little theory. But 
hey, we had words, I forgave him. Self-motivatedly.
2)	Apologies – I can't find this post. Particular apologies if 
it was yours, Pip, as I suspect it may be. My computer won't let me 
check it, for some reason. There were loads of bits I'd love to have 
quoted form it, as I thought it was utterly brilliant.