The Cabinet Plan...again (was:Re: The UV (was ESE, DDM, OFH, or Grey?)

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 162898

> 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.
> 
> Carol responds:
> Dumbledore is using psychology on Draco and taking advantage of his
> hesitation at actually being face to face with his intended victim.
> But I see no indication that Draco feels any remorse about the
> near-deaths of Katie and Ron. His reaction after Katie is sent to 
St.
> Mungo's (I doubt he knows that Snape, whom he's talking to, saved 
her)
> is "That Bell girl must've had an enemy no one knows about" (HBP 
Am.
> ed. 322). Not a drop of remorse, not even an admission of guilt,
> certainly not an "I'm sorry I almost killed the wrong person."
> Granted, he thinks that Snape is a DE who's only worried about 
Draco's
> getting caught, but he could at least have said, "I'm sorry I was 
so
> careless." Instead, all we get is defiance and denial. 

> 
> And Draco doesn't say a word (that we know of) about Ron as victim 
of
> the mead intended for Dumbledore. His tears in the 
bathroom/restroom
> are over death threats and failure to do what the Dark Lord 
expects.
> ("I can't do it" clearly relates to the cabinet--which he later is 
so
> happy to have repaired that he whoops in joy and triumph--not to 
the
> inability to kill a man face to face, which he isn't ready to think
> about yet.)

Magpie:
Yes, and I do see remorse and guilt over the earlier killings, as 
I've said before. Of course he's not going to say "I'm sorry I 
almost killed you"  or even think it. He's not supposed to feel 
anything like that as a DE. He sees that these were bad things to 
do, and uses them to defend himself against Dumbledore's (accurate) 
description of him as not having the stomach for this kind of thing. 
when Dumbledore claims he's an innocent Draco disagrees with "You 
don't know what I've done!"--he has done bad things. He's ashamed of 
not being happy with that.

Carol:
> 
>  When Dumbledore mentions that Draco almost killed Ron and Katie,
> Draco ignores that part of DD's remarks and merely protests
> "vehemently" that his heart *has* been in the attempt to kill DD 
and
> that he's been working on it all year (585). 

Magpie:
Yes, the lad protests too much that his heart has been in it. That 
seemed to be Dumbledore's view and I agreed with him. "I've been 
working on it all year!" is not having your heart in it. He's 
desperately trying to prove that his heart was in it.

Carol:
When DD again brings up
> the necklace and the mead as "crude and badly judged" attempts that
> could easily go astray (desperation measures that Draco resorted to
> when he feared that he couldn't fix the cabinet), Draco sneers, 
> Yeah, well, you still didn't realize who was behind that stuff, did
> you?" (587). And though Draco has looked at certain points as if 
he's
> going to vomit, his wand is still pointed at Dumbledore's heart. 

Magpie:
Everything in this scene suggests to me that Dumbledore is right and 
Draco is desperately trying to deny it. I don't see that as making 
him without remorse. I think the looking like he's going to vomit  
shows the truth behind the empty bragging. You see the bragging as 
truthful and the vomiting as a minor issue--presumably linked to 
fear of failure (and he's going to fail not because he has a problem 
with killing but because he's realized he can't look Dumbledore in 
the eye and kill him, though there's no actual moment in the scene 
where we see him make that realization).

Carol: 
> On the last reference to Katie, DD is sliding down the wall and 
barely
> manages to figure out that Draco's accomplice is Rosmerta, who has
> been Imperio'd, Draco taunts, "Got there at last, have you?" (588).
> Draco's hand is starting to shake when he realizes that Dumbledore
> really did know about those attempts and when he explains about the
> enchanted coins, but there's still no sign of remorse, only what
> appears to be fear, and a contortion of his mouth "as though he had
> tasted something very bitter" when DD points out that Draco could 
have
> AK'd him at any time (590)--he's just now realizing that he can't 
do
> the job the DEs and Voldemort expect him to do. 

Magpie:
And as I've explained before, I think the "something very bitter" is 
the the inner turmoil which includes remorse. His mouth contorts in 
response to Dumbledore saying, "You haven't killed me yet." I think 
the bitter taste comes from all the reasons he already knows he 
won't kill Dumbledore, and if he felt no remorse about almost 
killing before, why hasn't he tried yet?

I think what's important about this story, and what makes Draco grow 
up, is that he comes to recognize who he really is, what he wants 
and, ironically, what values he has. And that's the kind of wisdom 
he had to get through experience, not from being shepherded from one 
action to the next by wiser Snape and Dumbledore. Dumbledore's 
psychology on the Tower that I see is, far from trying to get Draco 
to feel remorse, is to be completely supportive of mostly everything 
about Draco's plan so that Draco's left with only his own issues. 

If Draco has nearly murdered people with no remorse, the only 
problem in facing Dumbledore is that he has to look him in the eyes, 
which is, of course, the popular "cowardly Draco" reading. That way 
we as readers can see him as the little murderer we and Harry always 
assumed he was, completely without scruples, only too cowardly to 
look his victim in the eye. It's the best of both worlds-not cool 
enough to kill, not good enough to not kill.

I don't think that's the story. I think his bragging in the Tower is 
a cover for the physical revulsion he has of killing that he has 
more of now because it has some meaning to it. I think the idea of 
his showing remorse by expressing remorse (I felt so badly when Ron 
Weasley got poisoned! And poor Katie Bell! I can't bring myself to 
call Hermione a Mudblood when I hurt one of her friends! Please tell 
them I'm sorry!) is unrealistic. Draco's always covered his own 
problems and fear of this kind of violence with uglier talk about 
bragging. That's why there's a difference in his actual pride in 
fixing the Cabinet and that plan than his "pride" in the necklace 
and the poison, about which he is childishly overly-defensive. Snape 
covers up remorse by being treating Harry & Co. badly, Draco puts on 
an act of being bad and proud of it. 

> Carol:
> As noted above, I don't see any evidence that it affect4ed him at
> all--and plenty of evidence that it didn't. Granted, he has not yet
> realized that he's not a killer. It takes the whole long 
conversation
> with Dumbledore (eight pages) before Draco appears (in Harry's 
view)
> to lower his wand a "fraction" (592).

Magpie:
I think the lowering is more important than the fractional because 
it shows the actual intention. Once he has felt that intention 
within himself, he can't go back, and can't ever even return to the 
amount of resolution he could muster at the top of the scene. That 
was his chance for an authentic choice and while he couldn't follow 
through, knowing it himself is significant.

> Carol:
> Right. Let's look at this quote. Draco does *not* lower his wand.
> Harry *thinks* he sees it "drop by a *fraction*. Nor does Draco
> *choose* not to kill Dumbledore. He can't make himself do it, even
> when the DEs arrive, but his wand, though it's shaking "so badly 
that
> he could barely aim," is still pointing his wand at DD when Snape
> enters and pushes him roughly aside (595). Far from having chosen 
to
> do anything, Draco stands irresolute, avoiding a choice until the
> choice is made for him.

Magpie:
But Harry is right. Draco would not have killed Dumbledore. And he 
does choose not to kill Dumbledore, because he doesn't kill him(how 
else does one choose not to do something except not to do it?). What 
he doesn't do is declare his intention not to kill to the DEs, or 
openly choose against the DEs by putting his wand down, and that's 
true too. He's frozen, unable to declare he won't kill, but equally 
unwilling to kill--everyone can see he's not doing it, he's not 
making a move to do it (he's less resolute than before, not newly 
attempting to take a shot) and then the choice is taken out of his 
hands.  But he knows what he wanted in the scene, and that's what's 
important. 
 
> Carol, who hopes that Snape will help Draco to make the right 
choice,
> or aid him after he's made it, in the next book

-m (Who feels Carol would be fine with Snape taking over Draco's 
story entirely)