Draco vs. Regulus, or vice versa (Was: Ginny Haters/ a bit of Draco)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 152184

Carol earlier:> 
> <snipped by Magpie> That, IMO, is different from Regulus, who joined
the DEs thinking they were some sort of crusaders for pureblood rights
(which is why his parents thought he was "a right little hero" for
joining up)--not exactly a noble motive, but very different from
Draco's awareness that the DEs engage in Muggle-baiting for sport and
many of them routinely use Unforgiveable Curses. (Surely Draco knows
about Aunt Bellatrix and the Longbottoms, for example.) But when
Regulus, in contrast to Draco, was asked to do something overtly cruel
or evil (perhaps "a spot of Muggle torture," though we don't know what
it was), he apparently refused. I'm assuming, based on LV's usual
treatment of his DEs, that he was Crucio'd for his disobedience the
first time, but instead of being brought into line by his punishment,
he became determined to help destroy Voldemort by stealing his Horcrux
(the only one Regulus knew about), and destroying it if he could (IMO,
he failed, as the locket is still sealed shut), knowing that he would
soon be dead--not for the theft of the Horcrux, which LV wouldn't know
about, but for further refusal to follow LV's orders. <snip>
> 
Magpie responded:
> We have no canon at all to suggest Regulus was so different from
Draco at all in terms of thinking the DEs would be above torturing
Muggles, or that Draco is so different than Regulus in not considering
the DEs a noble cause for Pureblood rights.  Canon suggests Draco
knows nothing about the Longbottoms, and from what we see of Regulus'
house I don't think we can assume he would be any more naive about
Voldemort's use of Unforgivables than Draco.  He joined up during
Voldemort's reign of terror so would be seeing this all around him.

> We don't know how Regulus joined up except for Sirius' description
of his being a right little hero--though Sirius also believes that
Regulus died without ever doing anything worthwhile, so it's not not
necessarily accurate.  All we know is that apparently Regulus
volunteered to be a DE.

Carol earlier:
> And he was actually proud, not only of the assignment to repair the
cabinet but of the further mission to kill Dumbledore. Regulus, in
contrast, not only refused to obey Voldemort, for which he was
ultimately killed, but actively attempted to bring about the Dark
Lord's destruction, as his signed note plainly states.
> 
Magpie responded:
> We don't know what Regulus was ordered to do and refused.  For all
we know he'd killed other people and then was assigned to kill Sirius
and balked at that.  All we know, imo, was that Regulus ultimately
decided that Voldemort was wrong and took action to bring him
down--something Draco has never done. 
> But we don't know that early Regulus before he made that decision,
was so different from Draco.

Carol again:
Granted, JKR herself makes a comparison between Regulus and Draco:

"JKR: That doesn't necessarily show that Voldemort killed him,
personally, but Sirius himself suspected that Regulus got in a little
too deep. Like Draco. He was attracted to it, but the reality of what
it meant was way too much to handle."

She also reminds us that Regulus wasn't considered important enough to
be murdered personally by Voldemort,

http://www.quick-quote-quill.org/articles/2005/0705-tlc_mugglenet-anelli-2.htm

almost certainly meaning that Regulus disobeyed an order to do
something evil and that Voldemort knew nothing about the missing Horcrux.

Let's look at the canon on Regulus, which is admittedly limited. The
first mention of him comes in OoP, "The Noble and Ancient House of Black."

Sirius Black says:

"No, he was murdered by Voldemort. Or on Voldemort's order, more
likely, I doubt Regulus was ever important enough to be killed by
Voldemort in person. From what I found out after he died, he got in so
far, then panicked about what he was being asked to do and tried to
back out. Well, you don't just hand in your resignation to Voldemort.
It's a lifetime of service or death" (OoP Am. ed. 112).

So, yes, we can definitely say that Regulus refused to do something
that he found repugnant, and a boy (he was a teenager) who would
murder a Muggle or a stranger would not balk at killing his blood
traitor brother who also happened to be a member of the Order of the
Phoenix.  Also, as DD tells Draco, "Killing is not nearly as easy as
the innocent believe" (HBP A. ed. 586). Regulus, who "panicked and
backed out," must have found murder as difficult as Draco did. I
seriously doubt that he ever committed it. Had he done so, he would
probably have become fanatically loyal to LV as Barty Jr. did rather
than stealing and intending to destroy a Horcrux.

Clearly, from both Sirius's words and JKR's, Regulus did not know what
he was getting into. Draco, however, had a Death Eater for a father,
was well acquainted with other DE kids, and had a DE aunt who was
arrested for Crucioing the Longbottoms. If he didn't know that before
the escape of the DEs from Azkaban, he certainly knew it after the
article on the escape was published in the Daily Prophet. And Aunt
Bellatrix would have made no secret of her deeds in the service of the
Dark Lord, including the murder of her own cousin. (Regulus, too, was
her cousin, but he died before these events occurred, and she was
considerably older than he was. I doubt that he was in her confidence
regarding the usual activities of Death Eaters.)

More canon for Regulus not knowing what he was in for:

"'Were--were your parents Death Eaters as well?' [asks Harry].
"'No, no, but believe me, they thought Voldemort had the right idea,
they were all for the purification of the wizarding race, getting rid
of Muggle-borns and having pure-bloods in charge. They weren't alone,
either, there were quite a few people *before Voldemort showed his
true colors,* who thought he had the right idea about things. . . .
*They got cold feet when they saw what he was prepared to do to get
power,* though. But I bet my parents thought Regulus was a right
little hero for joining up at first" (OoP 112, ellipsis in original).

Note "at first and "before Voldemort showed his true colors." Once it
became clear that Voldemort intended to make war, torturing and
murdering nonsupporters and generally creating a reign of terror, they
no longer thought he had the right idea. They "got cold feet." Nor did
they ever become Death Eaters. But for Regulus, who learned too late
that Voldemort's cause was really his own power (and immortality), to
be attained by whatever means, including Unforgiveable Curses and
other evil deeds, there was no way out but to seek to destroy
Voldemort by stealing one of his Horcruxes and then to refuse to do
his bidding and die.

So Regulus, having been taught from birth to believe in pureblood
superiority, almost certainly joined the DEs with no clear idea of
what he would be asked to do. And once he learned the truth, he stole
a Horcrux, knowing that he would be murdered soon whether the theft
was discovered or not. (See RAB's note, which I won't quote here.)

Draco, in contrast, knows what the DEs are all about and has no qualms
about using an (admittedly thwarted) Unforgiveable Curse on Harry (HBP
Sectumsempra chapter), whom he blames for his father's imprisonment:

"'You're going to pay,' said Malfoy in a voice barely louder than a
whisper. 'I'm going to make you pay for what you've done to my father
. . .'" (OoP 851, ellipsis and italics in original). IOW, Draco
intends to get revenge on Harry, and it sounds to me as if he intends
to do so by taking his father's place as a DE. Rather different than
merely joining up to support the pureblood ideology, which Draco
surely knows is only one component of DE life, which also involves not
only the three Unforgiveable Curses but other forms of Dark magic
(which Draco is under the delusion that "we" need no protection from,
HBP 324).

Carol earlier:
> Draco *volunteered* the information about the linked Vanishing
Cabinets as a way for the Death Eaters to enter Hogwarts, which
inevitably led to his assignment of repairing the broken cabinet. So
even if he hadn't been ordered to murder Dumbledore as well, he would
still have been voluntarily doing something very dangerous that could
well have led to the deaths of his fellow students.
> 
Magpie responded:
> It never occured to me reading the book that Draco was supposed to
have come up with the cabinet plot and brought it to Voldemort, only
then to be given the extra assignment of killing DD.  To me canon and
the way all the adults talk about what's going on suggests something
more straightforward: 
> Voldemort gave an assignment to Draco to kill Dumbledore, which
Draco eagerly accepted as an honor and a way of avenging his family
and proving himself.  His plan for doing this was the Vanishing
Cabinet. Bringing DEs into the school alone is a serious crime, but
they themselves are just there to make sure DD gets killed.

Carol again:
Draco says that he found out about the link between the Vanishing
Cabinets: "I was the one who realized there could be a way into
Hogwarts through the [vanishing] cabinets *if I fixed the broken one*"
(587). So he not only voluntarily informed Voldemort of a way for the
DEs to get into Hogwarts, he apparently volunteered to fix the cabinet
as well. What he did not anticipate was the additional task of
murdering Voldemort, which was assigned to him by Voldemort, "a great
honor," as Bellatrix calls it. Later Narcissa states that LV has
"chosen" Draco (HBP 33) for the dangerous task that she fears will
result in her son's death--clearly, not fixing the cabinet (which
isn't dangerous in itself and which she may know no more about than
Snape does) but killing Dumbledore, which, Narcissa starts to say,
"the Dark Lord himself" has failed to do (33).

That the assignment to kill Dumbledore is separate from the assignment
to fix the Vanishing Cabinet is also evident from Draco's desperate
attempts to murder Dumbledore using the cursed necklace and the
poisoned mead. Snape knows about the mission to kill Dumbledore (and
agrees with Narcissa that it was assigned to Draco as a way of
punishing Lucius), but Draco keeps him in the dark about the vanishing
cabinet, which he volunteered to fix before he knew the use to which
Voldemort would want him to put it (not just using the cabinet to get
DEs into Hogwarts, but using them as back up when he murders
Dumbledore). This second assignment is the "honor" that LV has granted
him, the means by which he'll acquire "glory" and be honored above all
others. The original assignment, fixing the cabinet to get the DEs
into Hogwarts, which he originally volunteered to do, has become the
means to that end.

Carol, who sees no evidence that Regulus ever committed any crime
worse than joining the DEs, in marked contrast to Draco, who has
recklessly endangered the lives of everyone at Hogwarts through fear
for his own skin