Is Draco a bully? WAS: Re: The Train Scene GoF / Some mention of Grey Snape

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 162667

Alla wrote:
> 
> Erm... No, sorry. In your view he may not be a bully, in my - he is
one and very clear bully at that. Bullies come in all shapes or forms
and sometimes bullies who just talk can hurt you just as badly IMO.

Carol wrote:
I agree that Draco is a bully in the sense of a blustering braggart
who sometimes uses his father's power and money to hurt people
(usually Hagrid). However, he seldom hurts anybody himself (when the
kids hex each other in the hallway, they're on pretty much equal
terms), and in the GoF train scene, he clearly is not threatening to
harm HRH. He's just predicting, maliciously and boastfully, what he
thinks will happen when Voldemort comes to power. Stupid on his part
to insult them and push their buttons, but it's provocation, not a
threat of harm by him or his thuggish friends. HRH are in no immediate
danger and they are not intimidated by Draco. They're just angry. IMO,
Harry should have followed his "Get out!" with "or I'll hex you!"
which would have given Draco et al. the choice of either leaving or
pulling their own wands and fighting on equal terms.

I don't think HRH/Twins' conduct can be justified using the Code of
the Playground. They were not in danger. They were not intimidated.
Their action was not self-defense. Hexing unarmed opponents, and
stepping on them afterwards, was unchivalrous and, IMO, just plain
wrong. (On a side note, Barty Sr. is in the books to show what happens
when the conduct of the good guys is indistinguishable from that of
the bad guys. I don't think that's what JKR wants for HRH. They need
to learn how good guys behave. The mercy that Dumbledore showed Draco
on the tower was as much a lesson for Harry as a gift to Draco, who
also, I hope, will learn a lesson from it beyond not killing a
helpless old man.)

Alla: 
> And Harry is more popular, more well connected, etc is something I
> could never understand and still don't. Draco's father, not Harry's
is able to buy or blackmail anybody under the moon and at least
temporarily to throw Dumbledore out of Hogwarts. <snip> Draco's social
connections is in my view so much higher than Harry ever will be.
> 
> Somebody some time ago said something that I totally support - Harry
may be a celebrity, but he is **not** popular, he never was, never
will be. IMO of course.

Carol:
I don't think anyone is denying that Lucius Malfoy is a bully or that
Draco uses his father's power and money to achieve his ends (though I
don't think he needed his father buying brooms to get himself on the
Quidditch team--Draco is a good player in his own right.) But I do
think that Draco, regardless of his social status and his father's
wealth and power (up until Lucius's arrest, that is) is jealous of
Harry. True, celebrity is not the same as popularity, and Harry goes
from being gawked at to hated to virtually worshipped (he *is* popular
as a Quidditch champion in HBP, for example, and look at all the girls
who ask him to the Yule Ball in GoF) and back again, with intervals of
being, or seeming to be, just an ordinary kid who gets a lot of
detentions. But I don't think Draco sees it that way. He's jealous
that Harry is clearly Dumbledore's favorite (look at all the House
points Harry and his friends have won, taking the banner from
Slytherin in SS/PS and winning the House Cup virtually on their own
again in CoS. And then Harry becomes a Tri-Wizard Champion at fourteen
despite the Age Line, so Draco, out of jealousy, makes his Support
Cedric Diggory/Potter Stinks" badges.

As Magpie has pointed out, the antipathy between Harry doesn't start
out because Draco is a DE's son with a pureblood ideology. It starts
out with Draco making what for him is ordinary conversation, trying to
find out who this new boy is ("What's your surname?" doesn't give
Harry the clue it gives us that Draco is interested in Wizarding
families vs. Muggleborns), whether he's interested in Quidditch, what
House he wants to be in, etc. Harry just doesn't like him because he
reminds him of Dudley, talking about bullying his father into buying
him a broomstick (As if!) and briefly referring to "the other kind"
whose parents aren't witches and wizards in a way that makes Harry
feel defensive. ("They were a witch and a wizard, if that's what you
mean.") And, as Magpie says, Draco makes Harry feel inadequate because
he knows so much more about the WW than Harry does, so when Draco
says, "I say! Who's that man!" Harry seizes the opportunity to
identify him as Hagrid. Draco again lowers himself in Harry's esteem
by asking if Hagrid is "some sort of servant."

So before they meet again on the train and Draco, now knowing who
Harry is (and having presumably been advised by Daddy that Harry
Potter, the Boy Who Defeated the Dark Lord, just might be a Dark Lord
in the making, in which case it would be prudent to be civil to him)
offers to be his friend, Harry is already predisposed to dislike him.
Draco's sneering attitude toward Ron cements the matter. Harry refuses
the offer of friendship, leaving Draco seething and resentful.

As I said in another post, Harry at first sees Draco as dangerous but
later learns to view him mostly with contempt despite all his pitiful
attempts to cause trouble for Harry and his friends. And even in the
train scene, after Harry has seen Voldemort return and Cedric die, he
still knows that Draco is essentially powerless, just a wizard kid
with a big mouth, a bad attitude, and the wrong loyalties.

It was downright nasty of Draco to say that Voldemort would go after
the "Mudbloods" and "Muggle lovers" (a clear reference to Hermione and
Ron and possibly to Harry himself and Dumbledore), but the reference
to Cedric Diggory was an afterthought, not in itself deliberate
provocation (Well, diggory was the first") though Harry takes it as
such. Still, the speech is intended to push Harry's (and Ron's and
Hermione's) buttons (the Weasley/Malfoy feud is an old one, and Draco
has resented "Mudblood" Hermione for outperforming him in his classes
for a long time), but the only thing that's changed for Draco is that
his side seems to be winning now. But while Crabbe/Goyle and Daddy
will personally back him up, he can hardly say the same of Voldemort.
He isn't *threatening* to call Voldemort to kill them. He's simply
warning them, particularly Harry, what's going to happen and
experiencing the thrill of having what he thinks is the upper hand.

HRH, having no words to answer with, use wands. If they'd been
Muggles, they'd have used fists. Hardly fair to Crabbe and Goyle, who
haven't even spoken and are just playing the role of loyal and not
very bright sidekicks/bodyguards. Wands are the great equalizers
unless you're a Muggle, but they seem to predispose kids to hexing
instead of thinking.

BTW, Alla, what does ETA mean? (Every time I see it in your posts, I
think "Estimated Time of Arrival.")

Carol, imagining Hermione slapping Goyle and getting punched in the
mouth for it