Draco's Allegiance

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

God, I feel an idiot. When I was writing "Protean Charm" I looked very carefully at evidence for Draco's having started working against the Dark Lord. But I totally missed the biggest clue of all.



When the Trio, Dean, and Griphook were thrown into the basement of Malfoy Manor, Luna used a nail to untie the new prisoners.

And Draco fully expected her to.

When Draco was sent to fetch the goblin, he ordered the captives, "Stand back. Line up against the back wall. Don't try anything or I'll kill you!"

He expected them to be free, not tied together in a clump. And sure enough, they were; he was able to seize "the little goblin by the arm and back[] out again, dragging Griphook with him" without untying him first.

And he didn't warn his fellow Death Eaters that the prisoners were unbound, or cast Incarcereous on them to remedy the matter.

For that matter, how did Luna get hold of that conveniently large nail, anyhow? It's a weapon as well as a tool.

Comments

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Considering that Snape's first words to Dumbles on that hillside were, "Don't kill me!" I think we can infer that Severus didn't consider DD a safe go-to guy for repentent Slytherin Death Eaters.

Only one whom he assumed (incorrectly, as it transpired) would care about the safety of Snape's hostage to Tom.

I think when we compare those who turned from supporting Riddle to working against his interests, the difference is the situation of their various hostages.

Narcissa (who may never have been a firm supporter; she might have just gone along with her hustand's politics) overtly disobeys Tom's orders--but not in front of him-- to try to win Snape's help to save Draco's life, and later lies in Tom's face to keep Harry alive when he'd survived another AK, in order to get to Draco. In both cases, Draco was presumably otherwise doomed anyhow. (Remember that Tom claimed Draco's absence from the DE's side that night indicated that Draco was disloyal.) So Narcissa's disobedience endangered herself, but did not further endanger her son. (And note that she trusted Snape both not to turn her in to Tom, and to care more about Draco's life than Tom's pleasure.)

Regulus committed suicide-by-cave in a failed attempt to take out a ("the," he probably thought) Horcrux, And I've speculated he might have thought his death necessary to save his mother and Kreacher from Tom's retribution, that he might have thought his Dark Mark a chink in the armor protecting 12 Grimmauld from.Death Eater incursions.

Snape turned to DD because Lily was doomed if he did not, and he hoped DD would save her, at whatever cost to Snape himself.

Draco worked covertly against Tom's interests (refusing to ID the Trio, not telling the Carrows how the DA was communicating, not bringing the Carrows into DA headquarters), but his parents were Tom's prisoners. Anything he did overtly would result in punishment to them as well as to himself.

If you consider more carefully, the only one of the four who had someone on any of the other sides to whom s/he might safely turn (besides, to a very limited extent, Severus for Narcissa) was Regulus. His parents were opposed to Lord Thingy, and would surely have done whatever they could to extricate Reg from Tom's clutches. But they were the ones he himself wanted to protect, so he refused to involve them.

[corycides.livejournal.com]

Whether Severus was wary or not though, he was willing to approach Dumbledore and had some level of trust that he would be heard out. Dumbledore was the face of the Order of the Phoenix, the one who dealt with politics and diplomacy. It isn't about whether or not he'd be kind - they were enemies. He was just there. Any Death-eater who got the collywobbles and needed someone to appeal to could run to Dumbledore.

Yes, there would probably be a price. Why shouldn't there be? (I always felt that Regulus could have gone to Dumbledore, he was still a kid after all and Sirius brother, but that he weighed the price to his family and decided against it.)

Once Dumbledore dies there's really no such figurehead. Harry is hardly a diplomatic sort, Arthur's viewed as a bit of a fool generally and Moody is definitely not the diplomatic sort.

So when Draco started to doubt that Riddle was a good bet and looked around - where could he go that would give him even a fighting chance of surviving and protecting the people important to him? Of course, it was a different sort of fight this time since Dumbledore was beating it all on a face-off between Harry and Tom.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

I don't think it was so much 'trust that he would be heard out' as pure desperation - turning to literally the only powerful person he could be certain wasn't secretly on Tom's side for help because his other clear alternative was to do nothing. He may have held little or no hope or trust of actually being heard out, and done it anyway because when someone you love is at risk, trying and failing, or trying even when you're certain you'll fail, is better than not trying at all. The fact that he went to Dumbledore doesn't necessarily indicate *trust* on his part, not at all. Desperation and courage, yes.

And as to other Death Eaters getting cold feet: Regulus felt dying in the cave and thus giving up the chance of directly doing anything further to help his family himself - in a situation in which he knew they were dealing with a monster worse than they knew, and who deliberately targeted family members as punishment - was better than whatever price Dumbledore might exact from them (not Regulus himself, his family, according to your own words? And Dumbledore is still supposed to be a figure who inspires trust and at least has the reputation of treating the genuinely repentant with some measure of consideration? See, those two things seem to me to be contradictory. That Regulus felt better about dying and leaving his parents, unknowing, to chance and the possibility of Voldie's wrath with only Kreacher to help them, than he did about asking help from Dumbledore says everything right there about how far Dumbledore's compassion extended, at least as far as those best placed to know it knew. So no, not every DE who got uncertain could run to Dumbles. Only a DE who was willing to risk everything *for someone else* might run to him - and notice the key fact here that that other person was a Gryffindor and already one of Dumbledore's own, and thus probably less likely to face demands for 'payment' herself than any Slytherin would.

Also, Severus wasn't running to Dumbledore in order to get out himself; he volunteers no such request. He was going to Dumbledore because one of Dumbledore's people was in danger in way that Dumbles (Severus assumed) didn't know about. And he was surprised (as was I) to discover that Dumbledore expected payment for protecting one of his own fighters - but paid anyway.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

gah hmtl fail. Sorry.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

When you say, Yes, there would probably be a price. Why shouldn't there be? , you pinpoint, wittingly or not, a major weakness both in Dumbledore's character and in the books.

These books are loaded with Christian symbols. In my brand of the faith, there is no cost to redemption except the cost of a broken, repentant heart - a price Snape pays. Dumbledore has no right to ask for anything more.

Quite aside from that, in the story world, young Severus has just told an enemy leader to protect one of that leader's soldiers. Why wouldn't the leader simply do so? why bargain with this boy or exact further costs from him? He has already risked his life - twice.

My two cents!

[malic-ba.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, why not?

Dumbledore cares not at all about what happens to this enemy. The warning has been passed on, but why not see what else can be squeezed from this windfall? Severus has already put his life in Dumbledore's hands by this meeting, but DD can easily see that Lily's life is a more effective lever.

I suspect that DD has deliberately pretended to be indifferent to protecting his own people here in order to keep Severus spying for him (until he is caught and tortured to death, which I'm sure DD is sanguine about), and that if SS had not fallen for it, he would have threatened to expose him instead.

Any other *war leader* - not headmaster or human being, perhaps - would probably have done the same.

Harry might be supposedly a Christ figure (choke!) but I don't think Dumbledore was ever supposed to be interested in redemption of anyone at all. He might sigh to himself about how the realities of war stop him from being the kindly grandfather he really wants to be, perhaps, but those are crocodile tears. I agree wiht the posts above, he showed no interest in helping Draco when it was possible to do so.

No, if you're a Slytherin you're S.O.L.

Really, why couldn't he have kept his pet spy just as Potions Master? Was it necessary to have him as Head of House? If Slughorn had stayed on, or if just about anyone else was in that position, the Slytherins might have had someone to talk to. Some of them might have been kept out of the DE trap.

[aasaylva.livejournal.com]

I don't think Dumbledore was ever supposed to be interested in redemption of anyone at all
That may be, but he certainly was meant to be a God figure (choke even more) - you know: the all knowing epitome of goodness... who for some unfathomable reason doesn't do anything to further good or protect the weak.

[sunnyskywalker]

Would keeping Slughorn on have kept anyone out of the DE trap, though? Do we know of anyone in the 1970s who didn't join thanks to Slughorn? We know one of his Slug Club stars, Regulus, was gung-ho to join - and moreover didn't seem to think going to Slughorn (who iirc hadn't retired yet and was at least theoretically safe at Hogwarts) for help was a viable option once he wanted out. (Unless he only stayed away because Slughorn had been Imperiused or otherwise co-opted and Regulus knew about it.) And anyone who doesn't catch his attention doesn't seem to get any kind of guidance, though I'll grant that Harry wouldn't see a lot of what goes on behind the scenes in Slytherin, so maybe there's at least some basic... something, anyway. Having Snape around as an ostensible example of how being a Dark wizard makes you an ugly mean bastard might have been more effective, I don't know.

I think the more important factor is that keeping Slughorn around would have given Snape someone else to talk to (since Slughorn would have more reason to pay attention to Junior Colleague Snape than to Outcast Student Snape). And we wouldn't want anyone lessening Snape's dependence on Dumbledore. Or any possibility of Slughorn finding out any history about Dumbledore's Men and their adolescent "prank" and Dumbledore's cover-up giving young Sev extra motive to join a bigger, meaner gang. Or any chance for Slughorn to have an attack of conscience and possibly tell Snape anything he knows about the adventures of Young Tom, because that trail might lead Snape back to another example of Dumbledore not protecting people from Voldemort, and that couldn't go anywhere good for Dumbledore.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Or any chance for Slughorn to have an attack of conscience and possibly tell Snape anything he knows about the adventures of Young Tom, because that trail might lead Snape back to another example of Dumbledore not protecting people from Voldemort, and that couldn't go anywhere good for Dumbledore.

Now this makes me want to write fanfic where exactly that happens. Heh. Which is to say, I think you're quite right about the Snape/Slughorn angle.

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

While I totally agree that Dumbles would want Severus cut off from any other source of support and information, and therefore want Sluggy away from him, I feel constrained to point out that there is also a practical consideration.

We all laud Sev for being a polymath near-genius, of course, but even he has his limits. He was evidently brilliant at both Potions and the Dark Arts/Defense, mastering the work taught and innovating in both fields. But at age 21, was even he established as good enough in yet a third field--Runes, Arithmancy, Transfiguration..?---to be seriously considered as a plausible replacement for a seasoned teacher?

Moreover, look at it from the other side: how many of Dumbledore's staff (most of whom were inherited from Dippet or whomever), could Albus expect to lean upon to retire at Twinkle's convenience? Slughorn, if he had started to suspect that Lord Thingy was really lost Tom Riddle, or spotted a disproportionate number of Slytherins supporting that upstart, was vulnerable. Who else would have been?

Tom sent Severus to apply for the perennially-vacant DADA post. Presumably he expected Severus to fulfill his REAL mission (the assassination of Albus, I imagine) and fall to the curse within a year. (Thus neatly ridding Tom of the following generation's most talented half-blood [potential rival] in the course of taking out the previous generation's ....)

But if Albus hoped to make the game play out longer, he'd hardly want to lose his shiny new double agent to Tom's curse, so the DADA position would be flat out.

Potions was Snape's other known area of expertise, and Slughorn was the professor whom we KNOW Albus had dirt on. (When DID Albus obtain that altered memory about Horcruxes, after all?)

So, there were pragmatic reasons to install Severus as Potions master.

[sunnyskywalker]

Well, going by Hogwarts Logic of 1 teacher per class, yes, that does make Potions pretty much the only slot. In the real world, he would just have two Potions professors, with Slughorn as department head. (My high school was smaller than Hogwarts, even the lowest-estimate Hogwarts, and even we had more than one teacher per department.)

Which makes you wonder... maybe the Hogwarts population was small enough in centuries past for that to be a practical faculty arrangement, but nowadays? Maybe having more than one teacher per department would lead to too much cooperation in general. If you only have one Potions professor, no one's going to question his lesson plans too much, because it isn't their area of expertise and they're too busy anyway. And the Potions professor is too busy to do much more than copy-paste old lesson plans, and probably doesn't have the time or energy to protest too many of the headmaster's requests about what to include or omit. If you had two Potions professors, they might start trying to innovate in the curriculum or have time to ask why (insert topic) is or isn't being taught.

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

From a Doylist perspective, JKR doesn't really "get" Christianity, hence why a lot of the book's messages are incompatible with mainstream Christian theology.

From a Watsonian perspective, Dumbledore's reaction actually makes sound strategic sense. Learning about the danger to two of your followers is good, but learning about the danger to two of your followers and winning one of your enemy's followers over to your side is even better. So from the perspective of a war leader, I think Dumbledore was probably right to try and get Snape to defect.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

There are multiple possible ways of doing that, and not all of them involve being an uncaring, manipulative arse who coerces and uses other people without remorse.

ETA: In fact, given someone with a slightly stronger sense of self-esteem and slightly less willingness to be abused, behaving like an uncaring and openly manipulative arse is likely to backfire and send the potential defector away with even less reason to help you. So it doesn't even make strategic sense; it's just Dumbledore's lack of empathy and end-justifies-the-means thinking being put on display, and he ends up with Severus in his pocket only due to contingent aspects of Severus' personality.

Also, your reading fails to take into account that what Dumbledore may think is good strategy might be very far from that in reality, given that he never allows for genuine criticism or review of his ideas by anyone else.

[malic-ba.livejournal.com]

Fair point. In this case, though, DD is dealing with someone who already knows that he is uncaring and manipulative. SS knows after the Prank that his own life means nothing to this man. The idea that Lily's - let alone James' - might not either would be a shock, but would he dare dismiss it? OTOH, would compassion or welcome have any chance of being believed?

I'm not sure how much SS would look like a potential defector anyway. He hasn't come in saying that he wants out, that he disagrees with the group's goals or methods (although we gather later that he does). He just wants to protect a specific person who is a target for his side. If DD had just taken the warning, would SS have gone back to being a loyal DE?

Your point about DD thinking his strategies are great because he doesn't discuss them with anyone is a good one, and we see that effect plenty of times in the books I think :) . But in this case, I think the strategy of squeezing everything possible out of the contact is pragmatically right. The tactic of being an open tyrant might have been risky (though I think SS was already dead if VM found out about that meeting and was therefore in no position to refuse, self-esteem or not), but in this case it did work.

(Wonder if there were other cases where it didn't? What if Regulus did contact DD but was put off? :) )

Say, do you suppose DD knows he has much less empathy than most people? Perhaps he knows he is better at sticks than carrots. (Maybe that's why he was so OTT in setting up Harry's environment!)

[corycides.livejournal.com]

Except that Dumbledore isn't a religious leader, he's fighting a terrorist organization with a dangerous, charismatic leader. As the leader of the opposing force he would have been remiss not to have taken full advantage of having a hold over a in-good-standing member of the Death-Eaters.

Why would he forfeit a chance to lessen the danger to his own people by letting a young man who had been a-ok with killing people until it turned out to be people he knew?*

*I don't think Severus was gleefully homicidal, simply that once the theoretical victim was given a face he realised he couldn't do it.

[corycides.livejournal.com]

My point?

That having a tout gave Dumbledore's side an immeasurable advantage in the fight against the Death-eaters. He would have been a criminally negligent fool not to take full advantage of that situation. More people on his side would be saved by squeezing all the use of Snape he could.

That's what you do with informers.

Harsh? Yes, but necessary. And Snape had made his bed when he joined the Death-eaters - no matter whether the decision was informed or something he only came to when he realised what the cost was - so he was just going to have to lie it at that point.

Not entirely sure what your point is with the Nazis is though? Are you comparing Snape to Schindler? Because a: indulging in a bit of hyperbole there and b: I didn't condemn Snape for not realising exactly what he'd signed on for, just said that as far as moral high ground went at that point he was on shaky ground.

[oryx_leucoryx]

The point is that normal people treat those who repent with admiration, not scorn. In Judaism at least, a repentant person is considered to be on a higher moral ground than a completely righteous one.

There was a debate among rabbis why in Genesis it says "Noah was in his generations a man righteous and whole-hearted" - why 'in his generations'? The common view was that Noah would have been considered righteous in his generation but not in other times, when people were less sinful. But Resh Lakish, who himself spent some time as a gladiator (and some say a bandit) before returning to scholarship, said that if Noah was righteous in his very sinful generation then he'd have found it easier to be righteous in other times.

[oryx_leucoryx]

If Dumbles were shown to actually have made good use of Severus' information your argument might have stood. All we have is that a handful of DEs were arrested, but Dumbles didn't even share with the Ministry (or even the Order) the fact that DEs could be identified by their Dark Marks. So it looks more like he was playing games with Severus for the heck of it.