Harry, Draco and bathroom/ A couple of theories - Snape

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 162436


> Amiable Dorsai:
> Oh, I'm not surprised Harry feels bad about it--Harry's a decent 
guy,
> and what happened to Draco was horrific.  

Magpie:
A lot of decent guys would have felt even worse.

Amiable Dorsai:
Doesn't change things,
> though--Draco forced a split-second decision on Harry, if Harry 
chose
> poorly, that's Draco's fault, not Harry's.

Magpie:
Just as it's not Draco's fault if Harry chose poorly. I think the 
fact that it was actually written as horrific means it's not 
something Harry should respond by strutting out confident that that's 
just what happens when you mess with him.  As a regular human being 
he should be affected by it, not just enough to convince himself that 
he's a decent guy.  I think that's normal--particularly in a book 
that seems to put so much focus on the act of taking another life.

> > > Amiable Dorsai: 
> > > Then Harry would, like as not, be dead or insane and Draco would
> > be hoping Azkaban would keep him safe from Voldemort.  
> > 
> > Magpie:
> > Being hit by a Crucio doesn't make you either.  The Longbottoms 
are 
> > a special case, having been put under longterm Crucio by two 
experts 
> > at the spell.  If Harry's spell hadn't worked and Draco's had 
(which 
> > in itself isn't a given) the more likely result would be that 
Harry 
> > would have been hit with a lot of pain that would then stop.  
> 
> Amiable Dorsai:
> Why would it stop?  If Draco manages to get off a Cruciatus on 
Harry,
> Draco's life essentially ends at that point. 

Magpie:
I don't think it does. Especially given that Harry opened up Draco on 
the bathroom floor and got detention.  

Amiable Dorsai:
 He will have committed
> an Unforgivable in front of a witness he can neither bribe nor 
silence
> (Myrtle), and has thus failed at the task Voldemort has set him. 
> Either Voldemort or the Ministry will get him, and the best he can
> hope for is life in Azkaban.
> 
> And there before him him lies the author of his misery: The Boy Who 
> Spurned His Friendship, The Boy Who Humilated Him at Quidditch, The
> Boy Who Put His Father In Jail, The Boy Who Should have Died, 
Dammit!> 
> I think it quite likely that Draco would either have held Harry 
under
> Cruciatus until Snape stopped him, or, as the Ministry can't punish
> him any more for two Unforgivables than one, fired off an AK. 

Magpie:
Draco's entire storyline in HBP is about not being a killer even when 
he wants to be and has to be.  Not unable to stop himself offing a 
peer in the bathroom after reaching champion sadist ability with 
torture spells that seem to require even more nerve to manage (Harry 
himself couldn't sustain one).  I don't think there's anything in the 
scene that indicates for a second that Harry would be facing that 
kind of longterm fate or that it ever enters Harry mind before or 
after. 

If Harry had been facing that monster described there he probably 
wouldn't feel any more guilty about his Sectumsempra than he does 
when he uses it against the Inferi. I think he feels lingering 
twinges not only because he almost violently killed another person, 
but because he did it in a moment when he felt something besides 
righteous rage and a drive to survive.

-m