Draco is quite the wizard

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 160539

Eddie wrote:

> Has anybody noticed that Draco is a pretty talented wizard?  He made
> it into the 6th year Potions and DADA classes, manages the Protean
> charm on the coins to communicate with the Death Eaters (which Terry
> Boot says is N.E.W.T level spellwork), manages to fix the vanishing
> cabinet, disapparates when on the run at the end of HBP... and I'm not
> sure what else.
> 
> Sure, there are extenuating circumstances: Snape coddled Draco through
> Potions, the Protean charm idea came from Hermione (although Hermione
> said she got the idea from the Death Eaters marks), it took all year
> for Draco to fix the cabinet.  Nevertheless, he _DID_ these things.
> 
> Thoughts?
> Eddie

Carol responds:

I would have posted this response yesterday but I'd already
(accidentally) exceeded my quota, so my apologies if it overlaps with
what others have already said. They hadn't said it yet when the
message was composed!

There are also the badges he made in GoF, changing from "Support
Cedric Diggory, the real Hogwarts champion" to "Potter Stinks!"

As for his Potions performance, can you cite your evidence for Snape
coddling him? I recall his pointing to Draco's perfectly stewed slugs
on the very first day of class in SS/PS, as he certainly wouldn't have
done unless they really were perfect. I doubt that Snape coddles
anybody, Lucius Malfoy's son or not. I think the fact that Draco
excels in and likes Potions contributes to Snape's favoritism, which
would be greatly diminished if Draco were a dolt like his friends
Crabbe and Goyle. Moreover, you need an O to get into Snape's NEWT
Potions class, and Draco came prepared with his book and cauldron to
take the class, not knowing that Slughorn would be teaching it and
only required an E. AFWK, Harry and Ron are the only E students in
that class. Draco must have scored an O, on his own, with no coddling
from Snape or anyone else.

Lucius Malfoy seems to have high expectations for his son, whose marks
may not be as high as Hermione's but must be reasonably high or Lucius
would be a lot angrier. We don't see him in any classes except Potions
and COMC (except for flying in SS/PS, which he does very well), but if
his Potions performance is any indication, he probably does very well
in most of his classes. We've yet to see his potion orange when it
ought to be green or giving off smoke when it ought to give off vapor.
In fact, the narrator often describes Ron's, Harry's, Neville's and
Goyle's Potions failures, but I don't recall ever reading that Draco's
potion wasn't up to snuff in Snape's class, as the narrator would
certainly have noted (and Snape's attitude toward Draco might have
altered as well). Granted, Draco's performance isn't quite as good in
Slughorn's class as it was in Snape's, but neither is Hermione's, and
Snape certainly didn't coddle her. (I think it's because Snape wrote
his Potions instructions on the board, probably indicating that
they're his own improved versions rather than standard textbook
spells, whereas Slughorn is still using the same fifty-year-old
textbook he must have used when Snape's mother was his student, with
no improvements of his own. (The students follow the instructions in
the book. Slughorn doesn't use the board.) Still, Draco must have
learned a lot from Snape to be in the NEWT Potions class since Snape
would have taken only the very best.

I'm not sure that we can judge Draco's abilities from the fact that
he's in NEWT DADA, however. Snape seems to have lowered his standards
there, certainly taking the E students and possibly the A's. The only
students who seem to be taking remedial DADA are Crabbe and Goyle, who
didn't pass their OWLs. However, Draco could cast Serpensortia as a
second-year and has always had a fair number of imaginative hexes at
his command (for example, Densuageo, the tooth-elongating spell, in
GoF). And, as I said, making those badges took talent. I'd say he
probably excels in Charms and Transfiguration, and would probably do
quite well in DADA if it weren't for his DEs-don't-need-this-trash
attitude in HBP. Maybe he does well anyway because Snape's DADA class
gives him a chance to duel and practice nonverbal spells. He certainly
did well enough against Harry in the bathroom scene before he stupidly
resorted to Crucio and prompted Harry to try out Sectumsempra.

Oh, and we forgot. He's a fair to middling Occlumens thanks to Aunt
Bellatrix. Not, of course, a "superb Occlumens" like Snape, but he
seems to have a natural aptitude for it.

Carol, agreeing that Draco is a pretty talented wizard though not a
genius like Snape so far as we know