Draco's Plot (was: Re: Ginny Haters/ a bit of Draco)

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 152261

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at ...> 
wrote:
>
> Magpie:
> > Well, for me it's a matter of believability: up to the end of 
OOTP,
> > Draco is immature, hiding behind Crabbe and Goyle for physical
> > protection almost always, striking from behind, always looking 
out
> > for a teacher, waving the banner of "my father says..." at every
> > opportunity and being surprised that no one else seems to be
> > impressed by it.  This is not a kid who's going to come up with a
> > scheme of any kind and take the initiative to approach Voldemort 
with
> > it.  
> 
> Pippin:
> The vanishing cabinet is a strike from behind idea. But we do see
> in canon the moment when Draco tells Harry that Harry is going to
> pay. That's played up as a significant deepening of Draco's 
hostility.
> He's gone far beyond trying to get Harry in trouble for breaking 
> rules.
> 
> After the ambush at the end of OOP fails, he sees that he needs 
> backup. But how to get it?
> 
> I can see Draco approaching Voldemort thinking that the vc's
> could be used against *Harry.* Perhaps he approached
> Auntie Bella with his brilliant idea, and she, being in need of a 
way
> to redeem herself in her master's eyes, brought him before 
Voldemort.
> She wouldn't be able to use the idea herself because she doesn't
> have access to Hogwarts and she can't very well show up in 
Knockturn
> Alley either. 
> 
> But of course Voldemort comes up with one of his usual needlessly
> elaborate schemes, both to punish the Malfoy family and 
> to put Snape on the spot. Draco must forget his childish rivalry
> with Potter, that jumped up halfblood who owes his successs only
> to luck and  clever friends. There is a more important target 
> for Draco. Thus the Plan. 
> 
> But Draco must first learn  enough occlumency to conceal his 
> purposes from the Order, because Knockturn Alley could  be watched.
> That would be why Draco doesn't make his appearance  there
> until term is almost ready to start.

Magpie:
Just because I'm anal, that part above is not actually me.  I think 
it was Magda (understandable mistake--the name's pretty close!) 
talking about Draco's personality not fitting his going to Voldemort.

Personally, while I think Voldemort simply came up with the 
assignment to kill DD and gave it to Draco, I do think that Draco's 
threats at the end of OotP represent a deepening of hostility and 
are there to foreshadow his story in HBP.  It's not that I think 
it's impossible that Draco could come up with a plan to get Harry 
(though I actually don't really think the Cabinet Plot fits that--if 
Draco was bent on getting Harry I can't really imagine him saying he 
needs a crowd of grown ups to do it) or that Voldemort would then 
turn it around to do something else with it.  

I just see no evidence that any such thing happened in HBP.  To me 
it seems like the things link up in a more general, straightforward 
way: Draco ends OotP feeling impotent and furious and wanting to get 
involved--that probably starts earlier when the DE kids are looking 
at the newspaper etc.  I wondered in that book if JKR was showing us 
signs of those kids starting to feel like they needed to act on 
behalf of their families and I now do think that was the idea.  But 
I think HBP shows that Draco's rage at the end of OotP channels 
itself into a desire to be a good DE.  If Draco had come up with a 
plan to get Harry that Voldemort turned to his own ends I think that 
would be important enough to Draco's arc that we'd have to see some 
references to it.

-m