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

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 150327

Magpie: 
> <snip> Canonically, Draco has not done anything he can't make amends
for, imo. <snip>
> The DEs have presumably murdered people in the past, but they did 
> not murder anyone as a result of Draco letting them into Hogwarts. 
> Dumbledore was murdered by someone already in Hogwarts. <snip>

Carol responds:
Ah. Here's where we differ, at least primarily. IMO, Dumbledore would
not have died if Draco had not let the DEs into Hogwarts, activating
the UV and forcing Snape's hand. If Snape had wanted to kill DD, he
had plenty of other chances--sixteen years' worth--notably the ring
Horcrux curse, which he could have allowed to kill DD with no blame
attached to himself. Neither Snape nor DD believed that Draco could
kill DD, nor did they think that DEs could get into the castle thanks
to the protections that DD had placed on it. But Draco got past those
protections, confronting DD in an attempt to kill him, and the
presence of the DEs threatened Draco's life as well as Dumbledore's,
activating all three provisions of the UV. When Snape entered the
room, the stage was set. He had no choice but to fulfill the UV (save
Draco and "do the deed") or die, taking Dumbledore, Draco, and
probably Harry with him.

Even if Snape had not killed Dumbledore himself, he could not have
saved DD from the Death Eaters, who would have murdered him if Snape
had died from the UV. (That was their assignment: to make sure that DD
died.) So even though Draco did not kill Dumbledore himself, he made
Dumbledore's death inevitable. The fact that Snape was already in
Hogwarts has nothing to do with it.

I'm not arguing that Draco is irredeemable. I agree with you that he
will be redeemed, as befits the child antagonist in a children's
series by a Christian author (cf. Edmund Pevensey in the first Narnia
book). But I do think that Draco has committed very real crimes, the
greatest of which is setting up the circumstances that led inevitably
to the murder he could not bring himself to commit with his own wand
but nevertheless did nothing to prevent. I still think he stands on
the brink, and that only a full knowledge of what really happened,
courtesy of DDM!Snape, can lead him to choose the path that Dumbledore
showed him as opposed to the path he thought was destined for him. It
will, however, be his own choice.

Carol, who hopes that the adults, including Lupin and the Weasleys as
well as Snape, will make important contributions before the
kids--through luck and courage and loyalty and destiny and, of course,
Love--eventually save the day