[HPforGrownups] DDM!Harry and Snape/The Cabinet Plan...again (was:Re: The UV (was ESE, DDM, OFH, or Grey?)

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 162832

 Alla:
>
> LOL. You think Snape is more worthy of that title than Harry? I
> suppose under certain circumstances I would not wish that title on
> Harry at all, but I believe that JKR indeed means for us for Harry to
> be seen as prototype of DDM - ultimate loyalty and all that. IMO of
> course.

Magpie:
Yup! I totally think of him as more of DDM, but obviously the term means 
something different to me than to you.

Basically, I think Harry is his own man. He's potentially someone who could 
become an equal to Dumbledore--a totally different guy, but at 150 Harry 
might also have a great reputation and be a wiley old guy etc. (He's less 
brilliant, but he might bring something else to the table.) Dumbledore has 
now died before Harry's reached adulthood and before he's had his biggest 
challenges, so he's not going to be Harry's leader as an adult.

Harry's more like Dumbledore as a person to start with than Snape and 
they've always been on the same side, but in a way I'd almost say that 
Dumbledore was more Harry's man than vice versa. It was Harry who would 
always have to fight and Dumbledore was always trying to prepare for that, 
including dying and passing the torch to Harry. (Harry's also pretty 
independent really, which I think is a good thing. He doesn't trust Snape 
because Dumbledore does. If he's going to see him as an ally he's going to 
need to see it for himself.)

Now, with Snape as he seems to me as a DDM!Snaper (if all this is jossed in 
the next book obviously I'll have to take it all back!) Dumbledore the man 
is far more important because Snape's story is one of redemption. When he 
was a DE who realized he made a mistake and wanted to fix it it was 
Dumbledore who gave him a second chance and vouched for him. He tells 
everyone to trust him. When Fake!Moody suggested otherwise Snape got very 
upset about how Dumbledore trusted him. He's spent almost all his adult life 
under the guy. Snape has very few people in his life--most of his old 
friends he betrayed by switching sides and the good side doesn't really 
trust him. So there was only Dumbledore.

So while Harry might learn to be more like Dumbledore in terms of 
understanding his lessons in mercy and second chances, Snape *is* one of 
Dumbledore's lessons in mercy and second chances. So to me Snape's greatest 
potential role is as truly Dumbledore's man. He's not going to get higher 
than that. Harry, strange as it is to say, doesn't need Dumbledore.

> Magpie:
> I think that's why Dumbledore can't be meaning what you are saying
> he means (and why I disagree with all interpretations that say that
> Draco didn't feel anything about Katie and Ron--if he almost-killed
> from a slight distance with no problem, I'd need more explanation
as
> to why he couldn't kill Dumbledore). Dumbledore is throughout the
> scene, imo, saying that Draco did have a problem with murder,
> period.

a_svirn:
So he does. And that's just another instance of Dumbledore's being 
hypocritical. Because all those problems were in fact technical, yet 
Dumbledore made them sound as if they were moral problems.  Draco made two 
honest-to-God murder attempts, and that's a fact. He let a group of hit-men 
into Hogwarts to finish Dumbledore off, and that's
another fact. Whatever he felt about it didn't stop him from doing it.

Magpie:
Oh, I didn't expect that not to be challenged as a concept. But I thought 
that was what the book was laying out as the way Dumbledore saw things. 
(Dumbledore of course having some insavory connection to those murders 
himself, given what he knew.)

a_svirn:
So would you say that Macbeth and his Lady weren't really murderers? I mean, 
look how the whole thing affected them! And I don't think that Pettigrew is 
particularly happy about murdering people, but
needs must. Of course, Draco's record is no match to Pettigrew's - yet - but 
he made a start of sorts. Not a very promising start, because he feels 
queasy about killing people with his own hand, but he's very clever about 
arranging for them to be killed.

Magpie:
Pettigrew I would say obviously was a killer because he's not bothered by 
killing. He hates certain things about his life, but killing's no problem at 
all. I think he was probably relatively happy as Scabbers all those years.

With the Macbeth's, well, they turn out to be kind of driven to 
self-destruction by their murders so perhaps a case could be made that it 
didn't really suit them.:-)  But I can't really compare them because they're 
in a different story and I think JKR is saying something different in hers. 
In JKR's book actual murder is given, imo, as a big barrier to cross. Coming 
close to murder seems to be sometimes more of a warning sign to the would-be 
murderer more than a done deal.

a_svirn:
I don't know what it means, "killer at heart". He is not a bloodthirsty 
brute, like Grayback, or an insane sadist like his aunt, nor is he a 
hardened criminal. On the whole, he would rather not to kill. But he accepts 
the necessity of murder and acts accordingly. I
don't know what it says about his heart, but it certainly shows that he's 
capable of murder.

Magpie:
I would say the way it seems to me (and I obviously mean this is how I think 
it's being set up in the story--I'm not applying this to real people who 
almost kill) is that before making the attempts murder isn't real to Draco 
and without that dose of reality he wasn't honestly making a choice about 
murder. He's been brought up to think killing is fine, he can imagine it and 
come up with ways to do it, but the reality is still different. He's already 
guilty of almost killing people, but can he live with an actual murder on 
his conscience now that he has a taste of what that would be like? And 
presumably a big reason why he doesn't is because the near-misses showed him 
what murder really was.

a_svirn:
Then you disagree with canon, because that's what Draco says. Even after 
Dumbledore had presented Draco with a choice he was still thinking about the 
advantage of killing Dumbledore.

'But I got this far, didn't I?' he said slowly. They thought I'd die in the 
attempt, but I'm here ... and you're in my power ... I'm the one with the 
wand ... you're at my mercy ...'

Magpie:
I'm not disagreeing with canon I'm interpreting Draco's motivation 
differently there.  You see it as him thinking about the possible advantages 
of killing Dumbledore. I see him letting go of what's been important to him 
for so long, and part of that is recognizing how close he is to it.  Killing 
Dumbledore is not an option ever in the scene. Draco's never made a move to 
kill Dumbledore, and Dumbledore recognizes right away that whatever he's got 
to fear, this kid killing him isn't it. So Draco wouldn't go over the 
advantages of killing because it's off the table--and that's not what he 
says, either. He talks about where he's gotten to up until this moment--he 
didn't get killed, he got this far, he's got Dumbledore at his mercy.

a_svirn:
Except that Dumbledore himself said that Draco got it all wrong and it was 
Dumbledore's mercy that counted. And only after Dumbledore pointed that out, 
did Draco start to lower his wand. Because he
finally acknowledged that he would find neither glory, nor mercy from 
Voldemort's hands.

Magpie:
But Dumbledore was, imo, speaking spiritually. Dumbledore's not warning him 
about Voldemort in the scene. I think that reading reduces the concept of 
mercy for Dumbledore--he's just using it like Draco is using it or like a DE 
would use it. He's just another tough guy.  I think Dumbledore is using 
mercy in a far more important sense (some would say a Christian sense). He's 
offering mercy to his murderer. That's what Draco's accepting, not just 
protection from Voldemort. I think that's why it will stay with Draco in the 
next book long after Dumbledore's practical offer of witness protection 
ceases to be an option. Basically, I think it's a powerful line and far more 
central to Dumbledore's character than just "I won't kill you but snake-eyes 
will."

BetsyHP:
> But Draco is supposed to assume that out of several nameless Death
> Eaters he knows (that we've never met since we've not sat on
Draco's
> shoulder during the entirety of his life as he's met and/or heard
of
> several possible Death Eaters) that the mad werewolf is going to
be
> the one sent?
>
> Sorry, but that's stretching it, IMO.  To show that Draco's
surprise
> is fake, you'll need to show a tell that hints as such at the time
he
> expresses his surprise.

a_svirn:
Talk about stretching! Where do you see surprise? All Draco shows is 
disgust. And while other death eaters are indeed nameless, Fenrir Grayback 
has a name, and that's the one name Draco is quick enough to mention.

Magpie:
Actually, I don't know how exactly I'd describe what Draco shows in response 
to Fenrir. Dumbledore shows disgust. Draco's trying not to look at him. I 
figured it was complete horror Draco was feeling. But he *expresses* that he 
didn't know Fenrir was coming. I don't think he needs to show great 
surprise--as you say, he's mentioned the guy before. I think once Fenrir 
shows up he quickly gets that this was always a possibility. But I still 
thought he was telling the truth to Dumbledore. (I don't honestly think 
Draco was capable of lying at that point. He's been laid bare by the 
master.)

-m