Draco's task (For Magpie and those who agree with her)

[Sydney]

No: HPFGUIDX 157743


> > Sydney:

> Snape seems to have no idea what's going on, aside from Draco flailing
> around with unknown plans to kill D-dore.  <snip>
> 
> Carol again:
> Not necessarily. I think LV has told Snape only as much as he wants
> Snape to know--that he's assigned Draco the task of killing
> Dumbledore. He doesn't want Snape to know the details, either to help
> Draco or to hinder him. 

Sydney:

Yes, but if this plan is all about efficiently killing Dumbledore, not
about killing Draco (which is the story that is repeatedly sold in
canon), then why would Voldemort keep critical details away from
Snape, his Big Gun, the guy who is, in the "Draco is just a sideline"
idea, it's all about?  If Voldemort was all about killing Dumbledore
via Snape and using Draco to facilitate it, why would Snape be
desperately trying to find out what's going on, and not even have a
clue when the sh** hits the fan, despite his life being at stake?  


Carol:

> Draco buys the Peruvian Darkness powder at that time, AFWK. He
> doesn't, however, buy the necklace until later. It's still there when
> Hermione walks in to see if she can figure out what he bought.
<snip> Look how cocksure he is on the
> Hogwarts Express. He thinks he has everything under control. And he
> later tells Snape that he has a plan but that it's taking longer than
> he thought. The plan is clearly to fix the cabinet and let the DEs in,
> Peruvian Darkness Powder, Hand of Glory and all. And then, of course,
> to dispatch the old man, but he's not thinking about that part yet.


Sydney:

None of this hits on the crux of the 'alternate' theory, that Draco
initially approached Voldemort.  It just means that at the start of
the year, after he has been given the assingment, Draco was already
thinking about backup.  This sounds in character for Draco to me.


 Carol:

> Look again at "the Unbreakable Vow." That chapter occurs just before
> the Christmas holiday, and Katie Bell is already in St. Mungo's
> (having been saved by Snape). Draco expresses no remorse or regret
> whatever regarding her, instead denying involvement and telling Snape
> that "that Bell girl" must have had an enemy." 

Sydney:

But Draco is already looking drawn and hollow-eyed and pale at the
Christmas party.  He has "dark shadows under his eyes and a distinctly
greyish tinge to his skin".  Harry is surprised by how different he
looks, and how he's pulling away from Snape.  I think Draco expressing
remorse or regret to Snape in that scene would be bizarre-- Snape is
exactly the person Draco is trying to hide his true feelings from. 
Because, IMO, his true feelings are something he thinks Snape would
disapprove of (Snape as Draco thinks he is, a cold-hearted,
death-loving Death Eater, that is).  Snape asks him what feelings he's
trying to hide from his master, and Draco deflects it into being all
about Snape butting in; but I think Snape is right.  That line, "What
feelings are you trying to hide from your master?" is too poignant,
IMO, to be off the mark.


Carol:

Ron's poisoning occurs
> on his birthday, March 1. I don't recall any reaction from Draco
> regarding it. Since he stated back in CoS that he hoped "Granger" will
> be one of the "Mudbloods" killed by the monster and actually wants to
> help the Heir of Slytherin, I doubt that he'd feel any grief or guilt
> if the poison went astray and accidentally killed another of Harry's
> friends, the "Blood Traitor" Ron Weasley. 

Sydney:

See, this is the crux at which the resistance to the story, as
sketched out in canon, start, I think.  Draco has always looked pale
(or flushed and glittery eyed) and a bit hysterical when these things
happen to other people.  It sounds like he's gloating but at the same
time he's very stressed out.  There's the way his smile is 'quivering'
at the end of GoF when he's taunting them about Cedric.  

What I love about JKR is how very *specific* she is about character. 
Draco isn't the guy who is totally cool and has a 6-foot-thick wall
between himself and compassion.  I think we've seen again and again
that Draco has a 6-inch-thick balsa wood wall between his "Ooooh I'm a
cool DE kid" persona and his "OMG V-mort is scary and I'm stressed by
what's going on" feelings.   That's why he can't seem to help himself
from leaping to the front of the line and screaming "You'll be next,
mudbloods!!" with a white face.  It's bravado.  

It's *why* to Voldemort he wasn't a potential resource in terms of
Doing Evil Things, but a patsy to bump off to punish someone else.
Voldemort would have looked into his brain and seen a piece of kleenex.

I just don't see where there ever existed this character who was a
stone-cold  DE-in-embryo until he transformed on top of the tower. 
Draco, to me, has always been the guy who talked a big game but runs
screaming like a girl when he's face-to-face with it.  He's been that
character since PS.  I saw a character with a thin facade that was
ready to crumble; and the surprising thing is not so much the 'you're
not a killer' part, which was forgone, but the 'I got this far.. I'm
the one with the wand" part-- the part, it is important to point out,
that *Dumbledore praises him for*.  That's Draco growing a spine and
becoming an individual, not a follower, and getting the strength to
make a choice consistent with his basic not-a-killer nature.  Given
the screen-time Draco gets to complete his arc, this is more
appropriate level of change, IMO, than one from
totally-not-caring-about-collateral-damage professional to not a killer.


Carol:

> At any rate, Draco isn't crying about Katie and Ron or about being
> unable to kill Dumbledore because he's not a killer. He's crying
> because he thinks that he and his family will be killed if he fails to
> fix the cabinet and get the DEs into Hogwarts so he can kill
> Dumbledore with them as backup--the only seemingly foolproof method of
> killing a wizard who has already defeated Voldemort in the MoM. 

Sydney:

I don't think we can state for a surety *when* the extra layer of
stress was put on.  Draco's stress to me seems to come from the
totality of the situation, and, canonically, starts after the
near-deaths of Katie and Ron.

Carol:

 He boasts to Dumbledore that he's going to get all the "glory"
> and Snape will get none. He tells Dumbledore that he's going to kill
> him, and at first I think he really believes that he will....
> But then something Draco didn't anticipate happens. Here's
> Dumbledore--weak, disarmed, totally helpless--and Draco can't kill
> him. He finds out then and only then that killing isn't as easy as he
> had thought it would be--exactly the same lesson Harry learned when he
> stood over Sirius Black with a wand in PoA
> 
> BetsyHP was talking about the poignancy of this scene. I think the
> poignancy is spoiled if he's already learned that he's not a killer.
> It's Dumbledore's mercy which teaches him that lesson.

Sydney:

But Dumbledore says confidently that Draco's not a killer at the very
start of their scene together, and Draco reacts defensively:

*
Draco Malfoy did nothing but stare at Albus Dumbledore, who,
incredibly, smiled.
"Draco, Draco, you're not a killer."
"How do you know?" said Malfoy at once.
He seemed to realize how childish the words had sounded; Harry saw him
flush in the Mark's greenish light."
*

To me, Dumbledore's smiling and Draco's sharp reaction mean that they
both already know that Draco is not a killer.  D-dore says, 

*
"Forgive me, Draco, but they have been feeble attempts... so feeble,
to be honest, that I wonder whether your heart has been really in it.."

The scene would read so differently to me if I saw Draco up to this
point as being sure of being hard-core and this is first inkling that
he's not.  Draco's already in pieces by this point.  That's where, to
me, the relationship between Dumbledore and Draco makes sense--
Dumbledore doesn't see Draco as a guy who nearly killed two people and
didn't care.  He sees him, tenderly, as someone who is lost and broken
and needs reassurance.  He praises his ingenuity and perseverance. He
speaks 'mildly' about the murder attempts because he knows that
Draco's already miserable about them.  I think Dumbledore would be
hitting an entirely different note if he wasn't facing a Draco who was
*already* broken down-- a stern, authoritative note, to start to break
him up and bring him around.  

But Dumbledore's attitude is soft, understanding, embracing,
forgiving.  He speaks "kindly" to him.  Draco is already where
Dumbledore wants him.  There's no need to berate him about Katie and
Ron.  


> Carol, hoping that Sydney will rethink her reaction to the
> "Sectumsempra" chapter given the timeline

Sydney:

I'm not much of a one for poring over exact timelines-- I seriously
think JKR is not famous for that either.  I'm also not a Draco fan by
any stretch of the imagination.  I'm just relating two impressions--
my initial impression from reading the book twice on first encounter,
and my impression on re-reading the critical, emotional reactions of
the characters as the author seems to want us to understand them. 
>From that-- and not, I confess, from careful calendar study-- I get
the overwhelming impression that on the main the story is the following:

-- Voldemort was enraged at Lucius Malfoy and:
--  decided to set his son a suicide mission to punish him and:
-- the son, in 'innocent' ignorance, began his mission with excitement
but:
-- became horrified with the reality of the situation after nearly
killing two people, but:
-- was threatened with death for himself and his family if he did not
persevere and so:
-- continued because he felt there was no source of sympathetic help
and he needed to 'be a man', which resulted in:
-- the scene on the tower where he acknowledged that who he thought he
was, and who he actually was, were incompatible and:
-- met with the already present and waiting mercy of Dumbledore, who
spoke to him as a lost sheep all along and embraced him.

Before I am prepared to abandon this story, I need 'canon' in the
sense of how JKR typically presents it:  in terms of the emotional
reactions of other characters, and scenes that sell the alternate
story.  In the absence of such reactions or scenes, and in the
presence of reactions and scenes that present the above, that's what
I'm going with.

-- Sydney