Is Harry a Murderer / Killer!! ?? !! (Long)

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 151073


> Geoff:
>I had never realised before how the two confrontations - Harry's 
and >Draco's - echo each other....

Magpie:
Wow, I hadn't either.  The connection I had made was that PoA was 
the only other book besides HBP I could ever think of where Harry 
and Draco have an "understanding" (though that might be too strong a 
word) that sets them apart from Ron and Hermione.  In HBP it's that 
Harry knows that it's very possible Draco is up to something more 
serious than Ron and Hermione can imagine because of the situation 
with his family.  In PoA Malfoy tells Harry if it were his family 
(killed as a result of Sirius) he'd want revenge.  I remember after 
that conversation Harry says, "Malfoy knows..." (about Sirius) and 
Ron tells him it would be stupid to listen to anything Malfoy says, 
as Malfoy would love for Harry to do something stupid and get in 
trouble.  I'm not suggesting it's a big connection between Harry and 
Draco in that book, but it did stand out to me as the only time 
there was a subtle shift of perspective.  I now think that shift was 
significant given that we can now see that scene as indeed 
foreshadowing, and HBP having Ron and Hermione again unable to 
understand why Harry would give Malfoy any attention at all. 

I suspect that for JKR this situation is one she can relate to as 
one that would make you want to murder--the avenging of your 
parents. In Harry's case it would be revenge; in Draco's case 
there's a sense of avenging as well, of making things right for 
them, putting things back the way they should be.  But both reach 
the same moment of, I think you're right, knowing the "time has 
come" for this "proper" murder to occur, but not doing it.  It is, 
of course, hard to completely parallel them since we as readers know 
that Dumbledore is a good man and Lucius belongs in jail, and that 
killing for Voldemort is killing for evil.  But then, Harry was 
about to kill an innocent man as well, because his feelings made it 
seemed to demand it. 

-m