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

[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.