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

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 152189

> 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.

Magpie:
I admit that I lean towards assuming that killing was a line that Regulus 
wouldn't cross, but I don't think we can assume that killing your brother is 
nothing to someone who kills strangers.  I could absolutely believe that a 
Regulus who had killed Muggles would see the light in being asked to kill 
his Pureblood, traitor brother, just as I believe that it meant something 
different to Snape to realize he'd gotten James and Lily Potter targeted for 
death.  Regulus' own philosophy rests on there being a huge difference 
between Purebloods and killing Muggles.

Carol:
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.

Magpie:
I do suspect that he found killing just as difficult and possibly never did 
it--but that doesn't make him so different than Draco to begin with. 
Regulus could, like Draco, not have realized he found killing impossible 
until he was faced with actually doing it. The DEs are not the least bit shy 
about letting people know murder is on the agenda.  They even put "death" in 
their name and float their sign over murder sites.  I don't think they get 
too many people mistakenly thinking they're just going to be distributing 
flyers for Pureblood Rights.  And if someone does join the DEs thinking he's 
going to be handing out flyers that's not a case of not realizing what they 
were really about. That's having to do yourself what you're supporting 
others do. Pureblood rights isn't even mentioned in canon that I recall. 
They want to get rid of Muggleborns and purify the race.

Carol:
>
> 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.)

Magpie:
So Draco has a father who was a DE--that doesn't mean he knows what it's 
like to experience being a DE. In CoS Draco's kept completely out of the 
loop--but all the students experience having classmates petrified.  He's not 
even involved in the Muggle baiting at the QWC--a cruel joke that 
nonetheless consisted of performing a spell known to be used as a joke on 
other wizards.  The Muggles aren't murdered.  Draco's friends wouldn't have 
experienced the real thing any more than he would have. Each book up until 
Book VI has Draco being clueless about death as a real thing, and the 
author's always made sure he hasn't actually killed anyone.

Regulus had former housemates who were DEs, and a cousin, and was living in 
a time when the news was full of Voldemort's doings. Everyone pretty much 
knows the type of stuff the DEs are about.  Regulus would have read stuff in 
the papers too.  The Longbottoms happened after Voldemort was vanquished. 
It wasn't the first horrible act.

Basically, it's easy for me to imagine a boy joining the DEs with a 
romanticized view of what they were like, and a misguided idea of how he 
himself will take to the life.  But that's different than joining the DEs 
thinking they're not what they are.

Carol:
>
> 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."

Magpie:
It's your interpretation to say that what Sirius means by "what he was 
willing to do to gain power" refers to his family having a problem with 
murdering nonsupporters and waging war and torturing--a reaction that makes 
them more like good people.  But it could just as easily refer to 
Voldemort's willingness to murder and torture supporters or their families.

The first part of what Sirius says about "purifying the wizard race" and 
"getting rid of the Muggleborns" is flat-out genocide talk.  It's a group 
dedicated to purifying the race and getting rid of people not of that race 
and Regulus joined it.  His family's not becoming DEs doesn't necessarily 
come out of a moral decision on their part. Even if they had trouble with 
the murdering of nonsupporters and war, they still absolutely support the 
core of what Voldemort is about.  There's no pretty illusion there.

Carol:
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.

Magpie:
That beginning part "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," can easily 
apply to Draco Malfoy.  There's no reason to assume that he knew that 
Voldemort's cause was really his own immortality.  That Voldemort is willing 
to use Unforgivable curses and other evil deeds was, imo, just as known to 
Regulus Black as Draco.

Carol:
> 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.

Magpie:
Depends on what you mean by "no clear idea what he would be asked to do." 
Nobody has a clear idea what they will be asked to do until they're asked. 
And then once they've been asked they might not have a clear idea of what 
that really means until they try to do it.  Regulus did know, apparently, 
that he was joining up to purify the wizard race and get rid of Muggleborns. 
That's what the DEs are about and Regulus and Draco both grew up being told 
this was a good thing.

Carol:>
> 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:

Magpie:
And Harry throws Crucios at Bella and Snape--because Crucio is a very 
attractive curse for teenaged boys who want to throw their own pain at other 
people.  I see no reason to imagine Regulus Black so different from either 
of them, and shocked at the mere idea of using an Unforgivable.

Carol:
>
> "'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).

Magpie:
Are you suggesting that joining the DEs soley for racist reasons somehow 
makes it better than having a personal desire to take one's father's place 
and avenge one's family?  And why assume that Dark Magic is something only 
Draco--who does not have any more practical experience in being a DE than 
Regulus did--knows the DEs are about?  JKR says Regulus was "attracted to 
it" as Draco is--attracted to what? I think the Dark Arts, which Snape too 
was supposedly so attracted to, is a part of the DEs known to everybody.

> 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.

Magpie:
I don't see how we go from Draco saying that he was the one who figured out 
the possibility of the Cabinet being a portal to the idea that he went to 
Voldemort with this information and then was given the additional task of 
killing Dumbledore. It seemed to me that what we were told was that his task 
was killing Dumbledore, period, without any details about the scene where he 
was given it.  He was supposed to fail at it and so be killed.  Draco 
thought he could actually do it because he could get DEs into Hogwarts for 
backup--and yes, freely offered this information.

Carol:
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.
>


Magpie:
No, I think canon suggests the assignment to fix the cabinets is not 
separate to the plan to kill Voldemort at all.  Draco has one assignment: 
kill Dumbledore.  Snape, Narcissa, DD and Bella all know this.  Draco's plan 
to kill Dumbledore involves fixing the Vanishing cabinet and getting DEs 
into the castle for backup.  That's the only thing they're there for that 
night. Snape knows Draco is trying to kill Dumbledore, but never knows any 
of the ways he's going about it until they happen.

When Draco has trouble fixing the cabinet he tries other ways of killing. 
Had the necklace or the mead worked, it doesn't seem that he would have had 
to fix the cabinet at all.  If the cabinet plot were separate from the 
murder the DEs would have had some orders once they were in the castle, but 
they were only there to give Draco a shot at Dumbledore.  If the big plan 
was just getting them into Hogwarts, they completely wasted a golden 
opportunity by standing around telling Draco to kill Dumbledore and then 
leaving, never to get that shot inside the castle again.

Carol:
> 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

Magpie:
Well, of course we've got no evidence of Regulus committing any crime except 
joining the DEs.  That's all we know about him is that he joined them and 
then left them with a parting shot at Voldemort.  My point is that joining 
the DEs is a significant act in itself and can't be explained away into 
something not so bad.  I don't take his later enlightenment and heroic act 
to mean he never thought the DEs would use Dark Magic because he himself was 
above such things.  I think he was a real, enthusiastic DE recruit, as was 
Snape and as was Draco.  There's no evidence as of yet to assume that any 
one boy was more aware of what he was getting into, or less in control of 
his will, or just not a Death Eater really.  Regulus supported exactly what 
the Death Eaters were about: the purification of the wizard race.  Iow, 
genocide.

-m