[HPforGrownups] Re: Regulus - dead or alive/Dobby and Horcruxes

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 170084

> Magpie:
> Actually, Draco didn't take his offer primarily because the DEs 
> came in,which took it off the table. Draco says he hasn't got any 
> options *before* Dumbledore explains about protecting him. Draco 
> thinks his options are only that he kills DD or he and his family 
> die themselves. 
<snip>

Dana now:

DD offers to help Draco before he specifically states what he could 
do for Draco but Draco states in responds that nobody can help him. 

Pg 552 UKed Paperback chapter "the lightning - struck tower"

` no harm has been done, you have hurt nobody, though you are very 
lucky your unintentional victims survived  I can help you, Draco.'

`No, you can't,' said Malfoy, his wand hand shaking very badly 
indeed. `Nobody can. He told me to do it or he'll kill me. I've got 
no choice.'

End quote from canon 

Draco specifically states that nobody can help him because LV will 
kill him if he does not perform his task as ordered. He does not 
state that nobody can help him because LV threatened to kill his 
parents.

Magpie:
I re-read the section before I posted.  Draco is moving in the scene from
someone who feels hopeless and trapped to a person who sees a possibility
of something else. It doesn't happen all at once, but it is hapepning.

Draco thinks he only has two options: kill Dumbledore or he will be killed
(he has already said that LV will kill his whole family in the line before
the one you quoted). This is what he's been living with for a while.
Dumbledore has not yet explained about protecting him and his parents. He's
just said he can "help" him and at this point that seems impossible to
Draco.

However, after Dumbledore talks about hiding him and his family so that
Voldemort can't get him, he gets to the point where he starts to lower his
wand. Now he does see it as an actual option.

Dana:
Only then does DD try to persuade Draco with what he might 
be able to do for Draco but Draco still declines. Draco by that time 
is already struggling with his own inability to kill DD. Draco 
believing that nobody not even DD can help him, makes him chose to 
keep trying to convince himself, he will be able to do it but 
eventually when the other DEs show up he truly realizes he can't. 

Magpie:
I don't know what you mean "he still declines." He doesn't decline:

'I did not dare speak to you of the mission with which I knew you had been
entrusted, in case he used Legilimency against you,' continued Dumbledore.
'But now at last we can speak plainly to each other ... no harm has been
done, you have hurt nobody, though you are very lucky that your
unintentional victims survived ... I can help you, Draco.'

'No, you can't,' said Malfoy, his wand hand shaking very badly indeed.
'Nobody can. He told me to do it or he'll kill me. I've got no choice.'

Magpie:
Draco is not seeing the possibility of help. He has to kill or be killed.
Then:

'Come over to the right side, Draco, and we can hide you more completely
than you can possibly imagine. What is more, I can send members of the
Order to your mother tonight to hide her likewise. Your father is safe at
the moment in Azkaban ... when the time comes we can protect him too ...
come over to the right side, Draco ... you are not a killer ...'

Malfoy stared at Dumbledore.

Magpie:
He's staring at Dumbledore--now it's taking shape as a real possibility.
He's no longer saying it's impossible.

HBP:
'But I got this far, didn't I?' he said slowly. They thought I'd die in the
attempt, but I'm here ... and you're in my power ... I'm the one with the
wand ... you're at my mercy ...'

Magpie:
And here Draco's changing his thought process. He's no longer stuck in
thinking he's only got two options. Now he's actually considering the
possibility of being helped, but going over the stuff he supposedly
*wanted* with all this--if he takes Dumbledore's help he's rejecting the
glory and making a choice about what he's going to be. He's looking at his
own position with regards to Dumbledore--not one of submission, but the one
of the guy with the wand. According to his own understanding and what he's
been taught, he's in a position of power here--Dumbledore's at his mercy. A
DE doesn't make this kind of bargain. But Dumbledore corrects him:

'No, Draco,' said Dumbledore quietly. 'It is my mercy, and not yours, that
matters now.'

Malfoy did not speak. His mouth was open, his wand hand still trembling.
Harry thought he saw it drop by a fraction -

Magpie
And however much he understood what Dumbledore meant about mercy, he begins
to lower his wand. This is what Harry remembers later, that he would not
have killed Dumbledore. He doesn't get a chance to go through with
accepting since the DEs come in, but he begins to lower his wand. If he's
lowering his wand, he's not declining the offer. Then the DEs come in and
whatever chance he had to do that was lost.

Dana:
I'm not suggesting it therefore is true that no DE can escape LV's 
punishment by faking his own dead but that I just can imagine LV 
putting such an magical enchantment upon the Mark and that he lets 
his DEs know that you can run but you can never hide and if Draco 
indeed has the mark on his arm then he would have told him this too. 
It would not just be because of DD's potential offer to help as Draco 
could have made a run for it himself in an attempt to get away. 

Magpie:
That's certainly possible. Snape seems to "feel" things about his mark at
different times when Voldemort is alive. It gets darker when LV comes back.
We don't know that Draco actually is marked. But I don't see in this scene
that Draco seems to be referring to any specific enchantment put on him. He
has good reason to fear that Voldemort will get him whether or not he knows
the means. When LV says if you don't do what he says he'll kill you and
your family, I would think you'd have good reason to think he could do it
without knowing the details. This is a guy whose mere name makes Draco
flinch and we know nothing really happens when you say his name. But we
can't use Draco's refusing Dumbledore's offer as proof of this theory,
because as far as I can see Draco doesn't refuse it. He's lowering his wand
when the DEs enter. Nor does he say anything about it to DD when DD is
making plans to protect him.

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