Saving Private Draco SPOILERS for Dresden files

[montavilla47]

No: HPFGUIDX 183647

> Pippin:
> <SNIP>
> > Harry's code was basically the same tit for tat as Malfoy's: love
> > your friends, hate your enemies. Harry just had a longer list of
> > friends.  It wasn't until Harry realized they were about to die in
> > such a terrible way that he thought an enemy was worth saving in his
> > own right.
> 
> Alla:
> Right, agreed. You know, I keep wondering again what character 
> development means exactly, since maybe we are again thinking of 
> different definitions. (Not Pippin and me, but Montavilla and me and 
> whoever thinks that Harry's character just did not develop).

Montavilla47:
I'm hard pressed to find an enemy to prove that Harry would have
saved an enemy's life before he saves Draco from the fire.  But 
I don't think that proves that he wouldn't have.

The only example I can think of is Peter.  Harry intervenes to 
save his miserable hide, even when he knows that Peter 
directly told Voldemort how to find his parents, knowing that
Voldemort would kill them.

But I do think that if Harry would have let Draco burn to death in
the fire, it would have put him pretty much on the same moral
level as Snape was when he came to Dumbledore begging for
Lily's life, but not for James and Harry's.  Perhaps this is just
one more thing that Harry and Snape have in common.  But, it 
seems from the text that we're supposed to think Snape pretty
low and heartless to hold such indifference towards his enemy.

And did Draco ever come up to the level of enemy?  He was 
an annoyance and a bully, but was he an *enemy*?  The closest
he came to being Harry's enemy was in HBP, when Harry thinks 
that Draco is up to something and that he is a Death Eater.

And yet, Harry is still horrorstruck when he accidently slashes
Draco.  If he doesn't seek help at that point, it's because it 
arrives before he gets out of the shock of what he did.  I didn't
get the slightest hint, reading that scene, that Harry would have
let Draco die without trying to help.

There's really only one place in the whole series where I think
Harry watches someone die without trying to help.  That's when
Snape dies.  That's after the moment when he saves Draco, so
I don't think Harry had really made that growth moment from
saving friends to saving enemies yet.  Assuming that he had
that jump to make in the first place.

Alla:
> I guess all I am asking is why if you think that Harry did not change 
> in the ways you (generic you) wanted him to change, that must mean 
> that Harry did not change at all? ( This is from no particular post, 
> but the general sense I get from several)

Montavilla47:
I do think Harry changed from the beginning of the series to the end.
I think he did become more thoughtful and less rash.  You could 
even say that Harry changed from being horrified at the Dark Arts, to
finding them useful and kind of awesome.

Which puts a little different spin on those Unforgivables.  Maybe 
they aren't evil at all.  Maybe they're just *adult* and it's a sign of
Harry's maturity that he's able to use them with impunity.

Or, maybe it's to show that he's *better* than Dumbledore, since
he's able to use spells that are too much of a temptation for 
Dumbledore.