HP and Moral Choices

[Zara]

No: HPFGUIDX 176091

> MusicalBetsy here:
> "Beauty and the Beast" is a perfect example of this.  As the Beast 
> and Gaston are fighting atop a tower, Gaston starts to fall off, 
but 
> the Beast catches him and pulls him up.  Then as soon as the Beast 
> turns away to face Belle, Gaston tries to kill the Beast...talk 
about 
> being ungrateful.

zgirnius:
Thanks! And Gaston was singularly lacking in redeeming features
(My 
what a Guy
<g>)

> Musicalbetsy said:
> My one big question, though, is WHY was Draco in the
> RoR anyway? 

> Sharon:
> Voldy didn't order them to stay at Hogwarts, they chose to
> so they could capture Harry and deliver him to Voldy
> so Draco could get back into Voldy's good books.

zgirnius:
Yes, in "The Elder Wand" Voldemort questions Lucius about Draco's 
absence, suggesting Draco might have turned traitor. He would not 
have, if Draco was at the school on his orders. Draco's back in the 
same situation he was in during the latter part of HBP. Then, he knew 
he and his parents would be killed if the mission to murder 
Dumbledore failed. In DH, Draco can see that they will all be killed 
if they don't prove their use to Voldemort in some way. 

What we don't know, is whether Draco is any more able to follow 
through on his plans than he was in HBP. He did have Dumbledore dead 
to rights, after all, but did not bring himself to kill him. In the 
RoR he tries to get his friends interested in the diadem (shades of 
his focus on repairing cabinets in HBP
focusing on anything but 
actually doing Very Bad Things to people), uses no offensive spells, 
an quickly loses his wand. So my own view is that he is again driven 
by his desperation, but remains unable to do what he must to be a 
useful Death Eater.

> Sharon:
> I am not
> sure if Draco hung back in the ROR to save Goyle
> though -- I thought they were just stuck there.

zgirnius:
I'm happy to provide the reference. Draco grabs Goyle before starting 
to run; he is found with his arms wrapped protectively around his 
friend, so he has stuck with him.

> DH, "The Battle of Hogwarts" (p.631 US Ed.):
> Malfoy grabbed the Stunned Goyle and dragged him along; Crabbe 
outstripped them all; Harry, Ron, and Hermione pelted along in his 
wake, and the fire pursued them

> DH (p. 633):
> And he saw them: Malfoy, with his arms around the unconscious 
Goyle, the pair of them perched on a fragile tower of charred desks. 

> Sharon:
> I'll have to go back and reread HPB again as well. I
> don't really remember Harry pitying Draco in HBP in
> the tower scene –

zgirnius:
He did not, in the Tower scene. The scene I quoted was the morning of 
Dumbledore's funeral – Harry is reminded of Draco when he sees Crabbe 
and Goyle at breakfast that day. It would seem that the contrast to 
Snape, who (Harry thinks) was happy to do the murder for the glory 
may have made Harry think more about Draco's reluctance and his 
difficult situation.