Nineteen years later

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 191531



--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, sigurd at ... wrote:
>
> Dear List
> 
> Now-- one of the interesting possibilities for a "What If" would be  to consider the personality of Draco Malfoy Nineteen years later. We do not get that, and one cannot really write much on it without couching it in speculation. However such speculation must reserve itself totally to the unwritten and the future. You cannot go back and undo the past. Even God can't do that.
> 
> We have a character here, Draco,  who has gone through several "transformative events." Many of which we have enumerated and the greatest of which is of course the collapse of Voldemort and his circle. ...
> 
> 
> Otto
>


Steve:

Ah... Otto, we both know you are not going to like my answer because it touches back on a previous, though recent, discussion we've had. 

It has to do with twisted Mythology. Draco is living out the twisted mythology of Slytherin the man and Slytherin House. His version of it is twisted by his own sense of wealth, rank, privilege, and superiority. 

But, this is an easy mythology for Draco to try and live out because it is a school boy's version of that mythology. It is like when kids pick up stick on the ground and begin play cowboys and Indians, or cops and robbers. They are playing out a fantasy of a stock mythology. 

That is what Draco starts by doing, knowing he is insulated by his father's power and wealth, he has not problem being a snarky ass, and playing schoolboy bully, humiliating his classmates. 

In his mind, at the time, that's what it means to be Slytherin, to be superior to others. But the first and greatest transformation comes in Draco after the fight at the Ministry of Magic in which is all powerful father is arrested. Draco assumes he can step in and comfortably play the Slytherin, nor Voldemort, game. 

In that moment, his version of the myth comes crashing down on him, and he is engulf in the cold dank mist of reality. From that point on, it is no longer about schoolboy pranks and schoolyard bullying. As Draco gets pulled in deeper and deeper, he becomes more unwilling to play the game. Yet, he is in so deep he simply can't change sides or walk away. He is now trapped in a nightmarish version of his own twisted mythology. 

In the beginning, he eagerly played the Slytherin game, but when the game becomes reality, hard cold deadly cruel reality, he is no longer willing to play, but is none the less compelled to do so. 

I think the next transition came when Draco was given the opportunity to identify Harry, when Harry was brought to Malfoy Manor. He did his best to remain non-committal, to avoid doing the terrible thing he was being compelled to do. Still he is trapped. 

In the battle of Hogwarts, we see the Draco is still trying to redeem his mythology. He is willing to capture Harry and give him over to Voldemort. But only as an act of desperation, an act of self-preservation. In his friends Grabbe and Goyle, he sees that he and his family have lost their respect. They no longer bow to him. That had to be a blow, that had to send the message that is position of privilege was hanging by the most fragile of threads, and always had been.  

Then Harry does the unforgivable thing, he selflessly saves Draco's life, when he would have been completely justified in abandoning Draco to his death. How could Draco fight on after that? Who would he even fight against?  

Yes, Draco when through many transformations, each crushing the false version of his own mythology even harder. But the biggest was when the transformed from insignificant school yard bully to being a full fledged Death Eater. Then the harsh realities of his fantasy life fell on him like a ton of bricks. In that moment, he realized just what he had previously only pretended to stand for. 

I think in the end, we see Draco and his parents huddling in the corner clinging to each other, uncertain as to where they stood in the new world order. Given all that had gone down, they could no longer fall back on their sense of privilege and entitlement, and without that they were completely lost.

I think that was the second transformation; Draco in defeat, with no swagger or power or wealth to fall back on. Completely stripped bare and vulnerable. I think in that moment Draco, and likely his parent took on a HUGE dose oh humility. 

I think once Draco became a Death Eater and reality crashed down on him, he because a reluctant Death Eater desperate for some way out. And the deeper he was pulled into this world, the more desperately he wanted out ... but HOW? And that was the dilemma, his family was so deeply entrenched that all exists were blocked. 

On the tower, Dumbledore had given Draco a way out, and probably the best option possible, yet, fate intervened and he was never able to accept it. Another trans-formative point, to know he was so close to being out, yet the opportunity slipped away.

In all honesty, I think once Draco became a Death Eater and was tasked with killing Dumbledore, Draco became a broken man, all the cords that held him to his mythology snapped, and from that point on we was simply at the mercy of the tides of fate. 

But then, that's just my opinion.

Steve/bboyminn