butterfly | Draco Malfoy: Character Study (Reply)

I'm used to being the only person I know with this instinctive recoil specifically against unwarranted violence -- I suspect it isn't so much inate character as experience. All I know is, if the violence doesn't have a damn good reason (Buffy with Faith in Dirty Girls falls under this heading for me, because Buffy had a lot of pent-up pain about Faith that she hadn't been allowed to express) and isn't capable of being reciprocated (As Ray's punch in Mountie on the Bounty ended up being), then it strikes me as... beyond the pale. So where most people saw a 'loathsome cockroach' being put in his place, I saw a boy being dehumanised in order to inflict violence on him, as happens more literally in Goblet of Fire (and, of course, the words 'put in his/her/their place' always hit me badly).

And I'm used to looking at characters and asking, "Okay, what the fuck was that reaction for?" BtVS, as a general fandom, thought that Xander's parents were at least verbally abusive long before we heard about the fact on the show, because no one is that quick to the offensive with words unless they've had both reason and example (his harshness with Buffy in Prophecy Girl, when she turned him down, for example -- which he follows with, "I don't deal well with rejection. Funny, considering all the practice I've had.").

Draco's quick verbal manner and his drama queen tendencies speak of someone who is ignored at home unless he makes a big deal out of things. His reaction to Hermione (in the books, it's to the Dementors, which bring out memories in a more direct sence) is so extreme that it has to indicate prior trauma. No one would be that terrified of a wand unless they knew, first-hand, the damage that it can do. And that boy was terrified.

Which is why, if they do the bouncing ferret part of Goblet of Fire, I will be a) torn up inside and b) probably frothing at the mouth at the hordes of people who will find it funny. Because, god, the number of ways in which that scene breaks my heart and boils my blood... if there was ever a scene that confirmed my total and complete love for Draco, it was that one. He's abused by a teacher. Until he's wincing with pain. And he still tries to maintain a level of dignity, still tries to show that he's above it all (and can't, poor, sweet darling). And the worst part is that I know Tom Felton can pull it off and break my heart into even more pieces than Draco does just in the book, because the thin length of distance that I can put between myself and Draco when reading the books disappears when I can see his face and see his pain.

Then there's the matter of Harry punching Draco in the Order of the Phoenix and Draco never mentioning it again. He never taunts Harry about losing control. Then, he sees Harry with Snape and Harry has to allow stand the claim that he's in 'remedial Potions' and Harry mentions that he's sure that Draco will spread it around the school. Again, he never does. So he a) pretty much passively accepts Harry's violence on himself and b) doesn't humilate Harry unless, as has always been the case before, the knowledge is already well known. This last example is the only time that Draco has had something private over on Harry and he doesn't use it. He only uses public information to try to hurt Harry with.

Draco Malfoy is not a violent person. He's often verbally cruel, but he is almost never the person who introduces violence into a situation. It's Harry who escalates to threats of physical violence during the Remembrall incident. It's Hermione who does in the PoA 'mudblood' incident.

What's more, his words always show a marked lack of... reality. We hear him speak of bullying his father into buying him a racing broom in Philosopher's Stone and when we meet Lucius in Chamber of Secrets, we learn that he isn't the sort of father who's capable of that. Draco talks like a Dudley, but it's all talk. His father doesn't spoil him shamelessly, doesn't dote over him the way that Vernon and Petunia do over Dudley. We find out that he's a true-blue Slytherin and so what? Peter Pettigrew was almost certainly Gryffindor (since I can't see James and Sirius being friends with anything not in their own house and they come across as pure Gyrffindor -- besides, Dumbledore said it -- it takes a great deal of courage to stand up to your enemies, but even more to stand up to your friends.) and Snape is Slytherin through and through.

Ron is the first person to be hurtful (to Draco on the train) -- he laughs at Draco's name and Draco's instinctive offensiveness tells me that he's heard people laugh at him before and he hates it. He immediately says all the mean things about Ron that he can think of. Then, of course, the famous Harry Potter chooses the Weasley Boy Who Laughed at Him. And the Weasley/Malfoy hate is two-sided (as proven by the Lucius/Authur fight in Chamber of Secrets, where we see where Ron became so easy with violence).

Neville complains about Malfoy using the leg-locker curse on him, but that's no worse than a lot of what the Weasley twins pull (oh, the Weasley twins -- I enjoyed their 'escape' scene in OotP as much as anyone, but I do not like them).

Again and again, Draco says words and people react with violence. Draco never, to my recollection, seems terribly surprised at this -- I expect his words have been met with violence before and once he's at Hogwarts, he knows that it's a possibility. Yet he continues to needle the very people that he knows will attack him. Draco tells on the Trio -- when they have, in fact, broken the rules of the school.

And Draco's terrified of Voldemort, the one time we see them together, in the unicorn blood-drinking scene in Philosopher's Stone. And, honestly, I wouldn't have been shocked if Draco scared Neville because he'd feel safer with the famous Boy Who Lived, even if that boy despised him.

And, of course, he brings in the horrid 'Mudblood' insult when Hermione's given what must feel to him an equal insult -- that he can't fly well enough to be on Slytherin's team. We know that Malfoy can fly well, and he must know that he can fly well, but he immediately gets verbally vicious when this possibility is mentioned, probably because he's afraid that it's true. That they let him on the team because of his father and because his father was expecting him to beat Harry Potter in something.

The only times that Draco is the one to introduce violence into the equation is when it's about his parents. That gets a huge reaction, which is very telling of Draco. His defense of his mother reminded me that his mother is the one in the family who does pamper him -- who wants him to go to Durmstrang so that he'll be closer and who sends him sweets. To attack Draco's mother is probably to attack the one person in the world who shows him unconditional love. And even in that case, it isn't a punch, but a curse. And the reaction by the fake Mad-Eye Moody eclipses any possible harm that Draco could have done. And his reaction to his father being placed in Azkaban... his father was put in prison. That's a horrible upset.

And the violence against Draco escalates with each book, as it becomes more and more obvious that he isn't a match for Harry (one of the really powerful wizards, to cast a strong Patronus at thirteen). And not only that, but Harry brings in other people to beat up Malfoy more, as if he needed more (which he didn't). And the fact that Harry thinks about how it's never right to mistreat someone for just being... unless, of course, it's Malfoy. Not realizing that there was probably a point when his father would have said the exact same thing with Snape in Malfoy's place And Malfoy is, often, mistreated for just being. Just being a brat, yes, but that's his personality. He's a brat. He probably wouldn't know how to be anything else at this point, nor does he have any reason to. Who would want to switch to such a violent side? Who'd want to be on the same side as the Weasley twins, who find laughs in playing practical jokes on so-called friends? On Dumbledore's side, who is fully willing to send children into mortal peril? On incompetent Hagrid's side? On the side of people who are, again, so very casually violent?

Whatever Draco faces... at home or wherever... that gave him such a strong reaction when he came up against the Dementors... he still has to think that it's better than what he'd be trading to, because he hasn't seen the worst of what Voldemort has to offer. Draco has, of the fifth book, never seen death. We know that for a fact.

Especially in comparision to Harry, Draco is such a little boy. Such a child.