What's he up to?

[Jo Ann]

No: HPFGUIDX 94882

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Barry Arrowsmith 
<arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:

> So Malfoy plays both ends against the middle, cooperating with both 
> sides to a certain extent until he can pick the winner. How would 
> that grab him? I  think he'd like it - he'd think he was being
> clever.
> Until the fight in the Ministry. Still, not  too  bad -  the
> Dementors have gone and Voldy will no doubt get him sprung fairly
> soon.
> 
> What can we expect? Contrition, a mending of his ways or an even
> more fanatical adherence to the DE cause? Place your bets. Not many
> posters have had a close look at Malfoy recently, he seems  to slip 
> under the radar. Too slippery by half - I think he bears watching.


<Snipped a whole bunch of really cool stuff about how and why Dobby 
managed to sneak out to warn Harry, and what that might mean about 
Lucius' motives and the possibility of Harry's being related to that 
family>

Plenty of other people are doing a fantastic job of speculating about 
all this, so I won't, but it does dovetail neatly into something else 
I've been wondering about.  Had anybody noticed that Draco Malfoy, in 
the course of being his usual obnoxious self, has done Harry a number 
of favors without Harry realizing it?

1.  The first thing Draco does in the books is to try to make friends 
with Harry (or an alliance, at any rate.)  He botches the job, and 
manages as a side effect(?) to firmly cement Harry's sympathies to 
Ron and Hermione and halfbloods/muggle-borns in general, and to 
convince him he doesn't want to be in Slytherin.

2.  He's indirectly responsible for Harry discovering his own talent 
for flying.  One could argue that Draco couldn't know about that--but 
then again everybody (except Harry) knew about James Potter's 
Quidditch skills...

3.  Stretching a bit with this one, but if Draco hadn't got Harry in 
trouble, he would never have learned about the Unicorn killings or 
the properties of Unicorn's blood.

4.  In PoA, he tips them off that the Death Eaters are out hunting 
muggles and muggle-borns.  He specifically warns Hermione to get 
under cover if she doesn't want to become a target.  Why on earth 
would he do that--surely he would have had a lot more fun watching 
the Death Eaters play with her?

5.  He's the first one to clue Harry in that Sirius was spotted at 
the train station.

There may be others, but I only have two of the books with me at the 
moment and I'm still re-reading OoP.  Individually any one of those 
incidents could have been an accident or a coincidence, but put them 
all together with Kneasy's ideas and it really makes me wonder!

J. Spencer