QUESTION!!!!

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 112652

theredshoes86 asked: 
> why, WHY, would Draco want to become friends with Harry?  It is
obvious that he wants Harry on his side, but to me, that does not make
sense.  why would he want Harry Potter, the guy, the Dark Lord's
downfall, as his friend?  when his own father despises Harry Potter?
 
> BUT, you cannot deny that Draco ADVISED Harry not to go making
friends with "Mudbloods and Muggle-lovers"  So, this is EVIDENCE that
Draco wanted Harry at least on his side.  Draco WANTED Harry to be a
prejudiced pureblood kinda guy.
> 
> WHY?
> 
Sherry responded: 
> I think it's because Malfoy knows Harry will be popular, important
and famous.  He doesn't want Harry as a friend, someone to tell his
secrets, to share his life.  Malfoy wants to be in with Harry to bask
in the glory of who he thinks Harry Potter is.  It's very common in
life, people wanting to be buddies with the famous and important, so
they themselves can be bigger and more important.  I don't think it
has a thing to do with a genuine desire to be a friend to anyone. 
It's only for the good of Draco Malfoy and his family.

Carol adds:
Interestingly, Lucius Malfoy makes a similar point in CoS (IIRC),
telling Draco that he needs to *appear* to share the WW's view of
Harry as a hero and not speak ill of him in public. Draco himself
first meets Harry in Madam Malfoy's without realizing who he is; he
discovers that Harry's parents are a witch and a wizard and concludes
that it's okay to associate him; Harry, however, draws very different
conclusions about Draco. It's only when they're on the train and Draco
realizes who Harry is that he actually attempts to make friends with
him, presumably because, as Sherry says, Harry is already famous and
Draco wants to bask in the reflected glory.

It has nothing to do with Voldemort at this point, IMO. Draco is just
an eleven-year-old kid who is thinking about his status in his new
school, not about alliances for or against Voldemort, whose return
Draco has no reason to anticipate. In any case, baby Harry didn't
really defeat Voldemort or fight him; he "just" survived a curse
intended to kill him--and has the scar to prove it. That would make
him "cool" in any kid's eyes, even a Slytherin's, I think. Also, we
can't assume that Draco at this point knows anything about the curse
being deflected onto Voldemort, much less the transfer of powers.
Harry is just the Boy Who Lived, the boy with the lightning bolt scar.

Draco at fourteen or fifteen (end of GoF) still wanting a friendship
with Harry is harder to explain. I think he still has hard feelings
about the incident on the train (and perhaps blames Ron for poisoning
Harry's mind against him) and part of him still wants Harry (who after
all is not a "mudblood" and therefore not *terribly* inferior
statuswise) to be his friend or associate, however perverse that may
seem to those of us who are older and wiser. Maybe he even senses a
Slytherinish side to Harry that he could have identified with and
exploited if only Harry hadn't been placed in hated Gryffindor. 

Yet Draco must know that Vapormort was inside Quirrell's head and that
Harry defeated him and that Memory!Tom Riddle was destroyed when Harry
destroyed the diary (between school rumors and overhearing his father
talk with other DEs, he can't be completely in the dark about these
things). He probably *doesn't* know exactly what happened in the
graveyard, though, since Harry isn't talking and Draco hasn't had a
chance to talk with his father about it (assuming that Lucius would
reveal much to his rather indiscreet son in any case), but he does
know (via Dumbledore) that Harry was there and survived yet another
encounter with LV (while Cedric, who was three years older, did not).
Nevertheless, what he knows of these incidents suggests Harry's
growing power and part of him wants that power on his side. Since
that's clearly impossible now, he taunts Harry for choosing the
"wrong" side. However much we may dislike the view that only
purebloods (and some half-bloods) are worth associating with, it's the
ideology Draco grew up with and he seems to believe in its truth. He
seems sure that he's right and that his side will win, and he wants
Harry to remember that he told him so: essentially, "you had your
chance to join me, Potter, and you blew it. If you're killed fighting
Lord Voldemort, it's your own fault."

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the subject and they make sense to
me. :-)

Carol