Fake!Moody's attack on Draco (Was: Scabber's Attack on Goyle)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 113690

Angie wrote:
> 
> <snip> I never thought about why Moody attacked 
> Draco; I thought he was trying to get on Harry's good side.  But 
> wasn't it FakeMoody who said if there was one thing he couldn't stand 
> it was a Death Eater who got away?  Thus, his attack on Draco could 
> have been intended as signal to Lucius because Lucius pretended to go 
> back to the "good side."  But then again, Lucius didn't know that 
> Barty Jr. was masquerading as FakeMoody, so any message to Lucius 
> would have appeared to have come from Moody???

Carol responds:
I think the message, if any, was intended for Draco and his cronies:
you can't get away with anything with my magical eye watching you. But
I as a reader, also got a message--something's wrong here. This Moody
person is pretty scary, bullies students *physically* (the bouncing
ferret bit may have been funny to Harry and his friends but it was
probably painful to Draco, as well as publicly humiliating), and he
seems indifferent when McGonagall tells him that the teachers at
Hogwarts don't use transfiguration to punish students. (In fact, no
other teacher uses magic on students for any reason until Umbridge
shows up in the next book.) My sense was that this old auror friend of
Dumbledore's was a bully and someone to watch out for. (No, I'm not
standing up for Draco, who of course should not have hexed someone
whose back was turned; I'm just saying that the punishment went beyond
the crime.) I also felt and still feel that he was going behind
Dumbledore's back to use illegal curses on the students (there's no
confirmation that DD gave him permission to do do, only his own word),
and I felt that Crucioing the spider--and seeming to enjoy doing
so--without regard to Neville's feelings was also cruel.

IOW, the message was not to Lucius, who wouldn't have known (or cared)
what happened to his son in school, where he probably expects harsh
punishments, but to us as readers: "Watch out for this man."

Carol