Dark Book - Blood and Cruelty

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 177173

Bart wrote:
<snip>
> So, I have very little doubt about the ability of a smug, smart
adolescent kid to entice others to perform violent actions against him. 

Carol responds:
Within the context of the Potter books, I don't think that's Draco's
goal in going into Harry's compartment on the Hogwarts Express on the
journey home in, say, GoF or OoP. There are no teachers on board, no
one to get Harry in trouble for hexing him and his friends. If he did
the same thing at Hogwarts, I can see him expecting to get detention,
but on the train, the best he can expect is Harry's inability to
answer his taunts. A more likely response, knowing Harry, is a drawn
wand. So Draco, having apparently learned from GoF not to provoke
Harry unarmed and unprepared, decides to hex first and talk later.
Unfortunately for him, Harry's DA friends attack from behind (as the
Weasley Twins did in GoF).

Anyway, although the result in both books is Draco and his friends
having violent acts performed against them, I don't think that was
Draco's goal in either case. Somehow, I can't see the advantage of
being hexed, stepped on, and stuffed in the luggage rack for the
remainder of the return journey when your enemy won't get so much as a
detention.

Obviously, Draco's mother was unhappy about it and threatened Harry
with retaliation if he attacked her son again, and Draco himself got
revenge by Petrifying Harry, leaving him on the train covered by his
own Invisibility Cloak, and treading on his fingers for good measure.
Even so, those reactions are after the fact and could not possibly
have been Draco's goal.

Carol, who thinks that provoking a reaction when the reaction is to
your own disadvantage is a remarkably foolish thing to do