[HPforGrownups] Draco as Victim in GoF (was: Re: The Huge overreactions...)

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 150295

> Carol, who still sees Draco teetering on the edge and not yet

> converted to DDB!Draco


Magpie:

Oh, I don't think he's converted to DDB in that sense either--I just meant 
in that scene he was still connected to DD, more than the DEs, after they 
arrived.  I agree he still could fall any number of ways in the future.  I 
think DD had an effect on him there, not that he's converted to anything.


Carol:

The only adult who has any way of helping him is Snape, to whom he owes his 
life whether there's a formal Life Debt or not (and I don't think there is).


Magpie:

Okay, this definitely seems like a possibility for the next book, that Snape 
will be helping Draco by hiding him or convincing Voldemort not to kill him. 
He'd be physically protecting him, helping to keep him alive and free. But 
that isn't redemption.

Carol:

If Snape is DDM!, and if he takes his obligation to help Draco seriously 
(like a godfather, as I pointed out in another post), he can help put Draco 
on the right path. Neither Narcissa nor Bellatrix is likely to do that. So 
unless he turns himself in to the Order, goes into hiding, and disappears 
from the story, he has to either understand what Snape was really doing and 
why and accept his values in place of loyalty to the undeserving Voldemort, 
or arrive at those conclusions on his own despite being seventeen years old 
and a wanted fugitive.



Magpie:

But that's my question: how is Snape going to help put him on the right path 
and what does it mean that Draco will simply exchange loyalty to Voldemort 
for Snape's values?  How is Snape going to do this? How is Draco not going 
to be coming to his own conclusions?  Is Snape going to be sitting him down 
and telling him about right from wrong?  How is he adopting Snape's values? 
What are Snape's values--hasn't Snape been teaching Draco values by example 
for six years now?

Presumably Draco is going to come to learn that the Snape he has known for 
years--the one who's a DE and was trying to steal his glory (since what 
other motivation is there for a DE other than competing for Voldemort's 
favor?)--is false and Snape has really always been working for Dumbledore 
and not after any dark glory.  But how does that lead to actual redemption 
where Dumbledore's actions and words and Draco's own experiences couldn't? 
How is it different than Draco coming to his own conclusion based on 
information and events he experiences--which would include stuff related to 
Snape?

And above all, perhaps, how does this happen in a way that leads to a boy 
becoming a man and growing up and this generation healing the last, rather 
than leading to separating the men from the boys, and children letting 
adults handle things, and a stunted morality that leaves moral decisions to 
someone else and the past generation continuing on without handing over the 
reins? Obviously I don't expect you to write book VII for me to explain how 
it works, I just don't think I'm seeing what you mean about what Snape would 
be needed to do.

Carol responds:

I agree that *if* this curse or hex is Sectum Sempra, Severus did a 
remarkable job of controlling it under the circumstances and given his 
emotional state.



Magpie:

What's gained by this not being Sectumsempra?  I mean, when I read it I 
never thought it was anything else--I actually mistakently thought we 
already knew the name of the curse Snape used against James so when I read 
"Sectumsempra" and "for enemies" I said, "Oh, it's that razor blade spell 
Snape used on James."  I guess I just logically thought that if Levicorpus 
was the upsidedown spell of course the mystery spell Harry had seen before 
too--JKR tends to work that way.

In the Pensieve scene that razor blade spell is nasty and seems to work just 
the way Sectumsempra does.  Snape flicks his wand and Harry waves his, and 
that seems to account for the differences in effect.  We don't know that 
Snape didn't do a counterspell later on James (for a smaller cut the 
counterspell might be less elaborate) or that James didn't use dittany any 
more than we know James' lacking a scar means it couldn't be Sectumsempra (I 
would think even a regular razor-blade cut without the "sempra" part would 
scar), but it seems like the simplest solution: two spells from the same 
book made up by the same boy in the same scene with basically the same 
effects as another spell from the same book by the same boy.  It seems like 
the whole reason that spell even appears in OotP is to show it before Harry 
uses it--that tends to be JKR's style.  The only thing gained from assuming 
the spell used in the Pensieve isn't Sectumsempra that comes to my mind 
immediately is that it puts more distance between Snape and the incredibly 
violent spell from HBP and adds a self-defense note to it.  It suggests 
Snape didn't make a really bad spell until Sirius tried to kill him. To me 
the spell looks deadly in both cases.

-m