Choosing sides

[Barry Arrowsmith]

No: HPFGUIDX 118697

 > Nora:
A short post to address one issue, because this is not quite what 
Dumbledore actually says--if we're taking that as our basis for 
argument.  It's pretty frequently misquoted.

Dumbledore says, near the end of CoS, "It is our choices that show what 
we truly are, far more than our abilities."

Show.  Not determine.
 >


True: all too often  we get involved in threads, batting ideas, 
thoughts and theories back and forth and a kind of Chinese Whispers 
takes place. Unintentional subtle changes take place and it's only when 
the canon is checked that we realise the words are not quite what we 
had come to  assume they were.

But choices, now. I've long argued that Harry's have been limited, that 
he's not as much a free agent as would appear at first sight.  I see 
disagreement looming; never mind, it'll all add to the fun, I  hate it 
when too many fans agree with me, it shows I'm slipping.

Naturally, his being dumped on the Dursleys was not his decision, it 
was DD's. And since I'm a staunch advocate of Puppetmaster!DD I  think 
it quite possible that planting that cuckoo in that particular nest 
killed a number of birds with one stone. Two are pretty obvious (the 
need for blood protection and the wish to prevent him being 'spoiled') 
but I  contend there's at least one other and it didn't come to 
fruition for ten years.

Consider - if Harry had had a happy life among the Muggles, if all were 
sweetness and light with caring guardians, lots of friends at  school, 
etc, would he have been so keen to jump into  the unknown world of 
wizards? If, for example, Vernon had been the exact opposite of what he 
is, if Harry had come to like, even love and respect him, and Vernon 
had then advised him not to take up the invitation to Hogwarts DD would 
have been in a pretty pickle. And even if he did make the choice to 
step into a total unknown, would he have had the necessary 
self-reliance and resilience to be successful? Probably not IMO.

Some may point to Hermione in a counter argument; here's a Muggle-born 
who jumped at the chance of  switching  worlds. I'm not so sure about 
her motives. Remember that in the first part of PS/SS she's not very 
nice at all, a positive pain in the neck in fact. Little miss bossy 
boots, Hectoring!Hermione. Just how many friends did she have in the 
Muggle world? Not many, I'll  bet. She hasn't got many at Hogwarts -  
Harry, Ron, Neville - any more? If it hadn't been for the Troll 
incident she could easily have spent 7 years at Hogwarts and made no 
close friends at all.

Anyway, back to Harry. There's a comment I passed a couple of days ago 
(and that Carol agreed with to a certain extent) that some, perhaps 
many choices are made not  through high principles but because of where 
people you like/dislike already  stand. And as things stood at the 
start of PS/SS it would be more or less guaranteed that Harry would 
choose the opposite option to any that Vernon favoured.

DD already knew how bad they were and MM reminds him of the fact. 
(Though I've posited previously that at least some of the Dursley's 
attitude was more than just bloody-minded nastiness; there's a lot of 
fear in there too. They are absolutely terrified of magic and I suspect 
that the deaths of Harry's grandparents may have something to do with 
it.)

Whatever - with Vernon as unwitting recruiting sergeant it's no 
surprise that Harry leaps at the chance to get out. And it's not long 
before he makes another choice based on personal antipathy -  Draco 
Malfoy. The encounter in Madam Malkin's  provides the basis for their 
future inter-actions. Harry decides he doesn't like Draco before he 
knows anything about purebloods, Slytherin House or it's association 
with Voldy. It's a purely personal reaction.

Sometimes, boozing with friends, after the obligatory castigation of 
the managers of the brewery and the standard recitation of the 
iniquities and vileness of political scum, the talk may turn to more 
interesting, even esoteric subjects. An occasional and potentially 
entertaining theme (particularly if one is of a theorising bent) are 
the "what ifs" of history. What if Blucher hadn't reached Waterloo that 
afternoon in June? What if Elizabeth I had actually died of the 
smallpox that damned near killed her? What if Harold hadn't been killed 
by Duke William's last gasp desperation tactics at Hastings? What if 
there hadn't been a storm to scatter the Armada? Lots of scope for the 
fertile imagination.

Well, there's another "what if" right here. What if Malfoy hadn't been 
in M. Malkin's emporium? Harry wouldn't have asked Hagrid about 
Slytherin and he probably wouldn't have been so adamant about not being 
sorted into it by the Hat. Or what if Harry had told Draco his name? 
Draco seems quite keen to recruit Harry into his circle once he does 
find out who he is. There's quite a reasonable argument in asserting 
that a chance encounter was influential in Harry choosing sides.

But not satisfied with that, Jo works it a third time - Snape. If that  
first Potions lesson had gone differently - what? Being the sort of 
teacher ole Sevvy is it's unlikely that Harry would ever actually like 
him, but it probably wouldn't have degenerated into outright hate. A 
reaction on the personal level once again has long-term effects for 
Harry. And no, I  don't believe Snape hates Harry. Doesn't like him 
much, that's for sure, probably never will, but I doubt it goes as far 
as hate. In fact it wouldn't surprise me if sometimes Snape retires to 
his dungeon and laughs his socks off at how easy it is to jerk Harry's 
chain. Predictable!Potter.

It's the personal interactions that have set Harry on his  course, not 
the high falutin' principles of social strife in the WW. He likes 
Hagid, his rescuer; Ron and Neville, both in  one way or another fellow 
sufferers of childhood hardship; DD - the kindly old duffer that never 
holds him to blame for anything. Conversely there's Vernon, Malfoy, 
Snape and Voldy. Note that Harry never (until the climax of OoP) makes 
a conscious decision to confront Voldy. Throughout the books he keeps 
tripping over him unexpectedly and Voldy tries to blow his head off 
with boring regularity, not to say ineptitude. All Harry's interested 
in is getting out from under; actually facing down the epitome of evil 
is the last thing on his mind. He's reacting to Voldy - the killer of 
his parents  and four-time aspirant for handing Harry the Black Spot - 
in terms of his own experiences rather than philosophical  principles.
It's personal.

And it will continue to be so, at least with some of his betes noir, I 
think. Only next time, in HPB it's likely he'll have to think about 
what he's doing, why he's doing it and what the consequences are likely 
to be in much wider terms. We all do it eventually. It's called growing 
up.

The choices made from now on really will show what he's made of.

Kneasy