Draco and Dumbledore/ Draco and Snape

[a_svirn]

No: HPFGUIDX 160090

> Magpie:
<snip>
> Snape's talk with him, I'd imagine, would certainly make him 
> determined to not be such a bungler--but of course he would still 
have 
> to kill Dumbledore.  It wouldn't be a deterrant against murder 
> attempts at all--in fact coming from DE!Snape it's applying more 
> pressure to Draco to do it right.  So basically it's just more of 
the 
> standard pressure he's getting from the DE side anyway. 

a_svirn:
True. Frankly I don't think that Snape's admonition really affected 
Draco in any significant way. We can't even be sure that Draco sent 
the poisoned mead before his talk with Snape. For all we know he 
could do it right after the Slughorn's party, still smarting after 
the humiliation. 

In any case, far from wasting his time on amateurish stunts he 
started from the beginning of the summer by working on a very clever 
assassination plot and had every reason to believe in its success. 
His plans, however, were too intricate and time-consuming, and 
Voldemort – who had no confidence in him anyway – started to bring 
pressure on him, threatening Narcissa. At which point Draco not 
unnaturally panicked and made a couple of desperate off-chance 
attempts. To his credit he did no go to pieces completely, and kept 
working on the main plan. He was likely to be on his way to the 
secret chamber the evening Snape chastised him for being amateurish:

" 'He's been offering me plenty of help - wanting all the glory for 
himself - wanting a bit of the action - "What are you doing? Did you 
do the necklace, that was stupid, it could have blown everything -" 
But I haven't told him what I've been doing in the Room of 
Requirement <snip> "

The only thing Draco could really infer from such an interview is 
that Snape was completely clueless and could do nothing to obstruct 
his plans.