Nineteen years later

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 191589


> Nikkalmati
> 
> I think we can reach a couple of conclusions from just the fact that Draco is standing at the train station with his son about to head off to Hogwarts.  Draco and his family are an accepted part of the WW.  He wasn't given life in Azkaban and he wants to be part of the new world order.  He didn't decide to move to France or to Bulgaria or whereever.  He has adapted.  The nod to Harry & company displays some sense of obligation, a recognition of their joint past, but it falls short of friendship.  They are acquaintences only.  All the talk aabout Slytherins and houses indicates that little has changed.  (Maybe just a little, if you listen to Harry and Hermione.)  Not so different from when James and Sirius were extolling the virtues of Gryffindor on the train to Hogwarts more than 40 years before.


Pippin:
JKR characterized her books as a plea for tolerance. And that puzzled a lot of people.

It's not that Harry doesn't learn tolerance. He certainly behaves as if Dudley, Draco, Snape, Kreacher and Slytherins in general aren't as bad as he thought they were, and deserved more understanding from him than they got. 

It's that the rewards of tolerance seem so meagre, at least for the WW at large. 

Dudley no longer thinks Harry is a waste of space, but Muggles in general seem barely better than a waste of space themselves. Draco has learned that dark magic and evil overlords are more trouble than they're worth, but he's probably still a bigot and might be a violent bigot if  he got the chance. Kreacher is still a slave. Snape's dead. 

 Harry won't let anyone say that Slytherin isn't a legitimate choice, but he thoroughly sympathizes with  Al's fervent desire not to be one.  

But, and this is important, the adults are not trying to use the kids as a  proxy for their own conflicts, the way the adults in their time used them. For the adults, the war is over. James has done a good job scaring his little brother about Slytherins, but at least Harry isn't  helping him do it. 

It's a little scary that we don't know whether Draco was thinking of a constellation or a cold-blooded deadly creature when he named his son, but then, Albus and Severus had their cold-blooded deadly aspect too. And Scorpius appears with his mom and dad, not a pair of hulking bodyguards. So neither set of parents act like they are sending the kids into a war zone. 

I'd like it better if we could meet a Gryffindor and a Slytherin who stayed friends. Some would like it better if the houses were abolished. But that's not actually what tolerance is about, IMO.  

Tolerance isn't about getting everybody to like you, or to be like you. It would be a very Muggle world if we all had to be the same. It's about learning to treat people you don't like as Dumbledore said they should be treated, with kindness and respect. And the reward is that your children's school may not be full of  people who want to kill them.  Which, if you 
think about it in real world terms, is huge.

Pippin