Draco and Dumbledore/ Molly and Harry-Treated like Family

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 159900

> a_svirn:
> Actually, it wasn't "by accident". It was very much "by design". 
> Certainly Katie and Ron weren't Draco's primarily targets, yet he 
knew
> his plans could prove fatal to any number of innocent bystanders. 
Knew
> it and went for it nonetheless. It's no different from a terrorist
> attack. For instance, in Brighton hotel bombing Thatcher survived, 
but
> five people died. I don't think you can call their 
death "accidental".
> Same thing here.  Just because Draco's murder attempts  weren't
> particularly discriminative it doesn't make them less premeditated.

Magpie:
Sorry--yes, that's true.  I was using "accident" in response to the 
idea that Dumbledore might have assumed that he was the only person 
in danger because he was the one Draco was targetting.  But 
absolutely the deadliness of the mead and necklace were both 
intentional--which is why there is a real danger of Draco hurting or 
killing someone as long as he's doing this.  Ironically, as far as I 
can see what keeps Draco from killing anyone else the way he almost 
killed Ron and Katie isn't Dumbledore's or Snape's precautions at 
all, but the fact that Draco doesn't try any more stunts like that.  
So he's batting two for two up until the cabinet--two murder 
attempts and two near-deaths. Their surveillance seems to be fairly 
useless. The only time we see it having any effect is when Draco is 
unable to work on the Cabinet the night of the Christmas party (we 
assume).

Steve:
So, I think of Molly suddenly treated Harry 'like one of the
family', Harry would be very touched by it. It would instill
in him a true sense of belonging, which I think is very
important to Harry, or at least will be.

Magpie:
While I think Harry has it in him to appreciate that Molly's 
scolding would be like treating him like family, I think he's shown 
in canon to take advantage of his role as not family just as much 
and not really have a problem with not belonging in that way.  He 
does not recognize Molly's authority as a mother over himself and if 
she tried asserting it Harry would reject it in no uncertain terms, 
imo.  

Actually, I don't really think he's all that desirous of belonging 
to the Weasleys to that extent.  I mean, he loves them for what they 
are and is touched when they are thoughtful in including him and 
show they care about them.  But I don't think he feels there's 
something missing because he's not one of the kids. He's aware that 
the line drawn between actual family and not is drawn on both sides. 
He sees a clear difference in the way he reacts to Arthur's attack 
in OotP and the way his children do, for instance. He doesn't think 
of Molly as his mother, he thinks of her as Mrs. Weasley--his only 
mother is his mother. If there was any person he really thought of 
as family in a positive way it was Sirius. Other people in his life 
are certainly like family in being a constant support system he 
counts on, but Harry doesn't seem to need for them to be more than 
that, imo.  I thought he saws Sirius as family because of his 
official status as appointed godfather by his parents.  

-m