Apologia pro Draco (was Re: Wizarding Top Ten)

[Geoff]

No: HPFGUIDX 188466

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, sistermagpie at ... wrote:

Nikkalmati:
> > He turned down his chance at redemption, so I still consider him a bad guy even if he was neutralized.  
 
Magpie:
> I thought it was pretty clear that Draco wasn't fighting *for* LV at the end there, and  
> So I'd basically agree with you--neutralized. Though I'd disagree in that I don't see him neutralized because he just didn't get the chance to fight for LV like he wanted. His failure, imo, wasn't that he just didn't have the means to fight for LV, but that he didn't have the courage to take the next step and declare for the other side.

Geoff:
Members who have been on the group for some time will 
know that I have on a number of occasions said that I have 
a sneaking regard for Draco and that I had hoped that JKR 
would introduce some sort of rapprochement with Harry in 
the books - which really didn't materialise.

I think that there is a measure of unfairness in the views 
expressed above.

I think it is obvious by the end of Deathly Hallows that Draco 
is suffering some degree of internal turmoil. Until the end of 
Half Blood Prince, he has indeed been an unpleasant person, 
with blinkered and obsessive views which are then violently 
undermined on the Tower. 

But consider: he is an only child and has been influenced by 
his parents who brainwash him about pureblood status, 
power, anti-Muggleism and the omnipotence of Voldemort 
over Dumbledore and, by implication, Harry. So, by the time 
he enters Hogwarts, his outlook on life has been deeply 
moulded. Then, on the Tower, these foundations of Dark 
philosophy are challenged.

A kind of mirror image comparison occurred to me: that of 
British soldiers in the First World War. Before conscription 
was introduced, thousands of civilians volunteered to join 
the armed services, urged on by the wave of patriotism, 
Kitchener's "Your country needs you" posters and the ideas 
of warfare as being a gallant battle against evil enemies - 
"Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori". Later, when those 
guys were in the trenches, knee deep in mud, with thousands
of their compatriots dead around them as the reality , I wonder 
how many of them thought "God, what persuaded me that this 
was the right thing to do?"

I see Draco reaching this point. He has gone through the sixth year
trying to cpmplete Voldemort's task and then facing Dumbledore 
and the reality kicking in as to what he was supposed to do.

I don't think, as Magpie suggests, that "he didn't have the courage to 
take the next step and declare for the other side". He didn't get the 
opportunity to do this. On the Tower, he appeared to be about to do 
that when he was interrupted by the arrival of the Death Eaters. He 
was then hauled away by Snape and, throughout Deathly Hallows, is 
hardly in a position to make a move.

He is obviously moving away from accepting Voldemort's actions from 
the very beginning of the last book. Even  before Draco's failure to 
"recognise" Harry at Malfoy Manor or the Fiendfyre incident, Draco 
is shown to be present, almost as a prisoner, terrified of Voldemort 
when he kills Charity Burbage.

We all have elements of evil or good within us and we are influenced 
to choose which way we prefer, which harks back to Dumbledore's  
famous remark about their effect on us.

But looking at it from a Christian angle, the opportunity is there to 
change our direction and move towards good; there are innumerable
examples of this happening in the real world, one classic being St.Paul.
Draco was beginning to see that he had followed a false trail. Some of 
his actions show that lessons had been learned although how much 
would change after Voldemort's death we are not told. I am sometimes 
intrigued by the nod - albeit curt - given to Harry by Draco in the 
epilogue. But that is perhaps another story.