deathtocapslock | Deathly Hallows, Chapter 35: King's Cross, Part 1 A (Reply)

Or, My Skinned Baby/My Self

“My doctrine is this, that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt.”

Anna Sewell, Black Beauty

“Noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as cooperation with good.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Harry wakes up dead and naked. It’s too bad this didn’t happen on July 31st, since he’s in his birthday suit anyway. He also can see well without his glasses. So all he had to do to correct his vision was to die? That seems a rather extreme treatment. Surely surgery is a better alternative, if more expensive.

This chapter reminded me of the first one, in that it has repeated references to someone who’s suffering, and whose pain is being ignored while people nearby sit on their cans and flap their jaws. This chapter exhibits a refined cruelty that was absent in the first chapter, however, towards both the character and readers. In the first chapter, Charity Burbage was apparently unconscious for most of the chapter; she was looked at and mentioned six times and finally discussed for two pages at the end of the chapter before she was killed quickly and painlessly. That’s not the case here: The skinned baby is fully conscious and mentioned eleven times as flopping around, moaning, whimpering, and choking, but it is given neither succor nor an easy death. It just lies there as it and we are tortured with the jawbonings of asses.

I’ll be honest and admit the tortured baby didn’t bother me the first time I read this book. Part of that is because when I read, I usually get caught up in the author’s point of view, and it’s only upon later reflection that I see problems. Another reason is that I can be very cold-blooded. Since this wasn’t a real baby, I was inclined to agree with Dumbledore’s verdict that nothing could be done for it. The fact I’d long since decided he was a narcissistic psychopath didn’t change that. Even the pathologically dishonest tell the truth sometimes, usually when it won’t cause problems for them.

Over the years of reading HP critiques, I moderated my position a little and decided Harry and Albus should have at least tried to help the child. But it wasn’t until I reread this chapter and compared it with chapter 1 that I began to truly understand how screwed up this situation is. I made a table for this chapter to make the sequence of baby-related events clearer to me. That worked so well I made another table for chapter 1. They are both reproduced below. The remarks in the boxes are quotations or slight paraphrases from the book’s text. Page numbers refer to the American Scholastic hardcover edition of DH.

CHAPTER 1

Page Number of Description of Other people’s Voldemort’s

number times Burbage’s body reaction reaction

mentioned to body to body

3 1 apparently Draco is unable none

unconscious to prevent mentioned

human figure himself from

hanging upside looking at it

down over the every minute or

table, reflected so. No one else

in mirror and table looks at it

4 1 body slowly none mentioned gaze wanders

revolving overhead upward, seems

lost in thought

6 2 1) slowly revolving none mentioned 1) looked up,

body spoke to self

2) unconscious 2) spoke to self,

body above appeared to be

addressing body

9 1 inert body Draco gazes upward none

overhead at body. No one else mentioned

is mentioned.

11 passim body comes to 1) “Now that the 1) asks if

life, struggles, woman had woken, Severus

speaks to [Draco] seemed recognizes her

Severus begging unable to look 2) asks Draco

for help at her anymore.” same question

2) Snape admits to 3) explains who

knowing her. Draco she is to other

shakes his head. members of

3) A woman cackles. group

12 passim 1) revolves to face 1) DE spits on 1) flicks wand to

Snape and asks the floor. silence her

for his help 2) none mentioned 2) discusses

2) is silenced by 3) Snape is “quite Burbage’s ideas

Voldemort impassive.” and beliefs

3) tears run from 4) When body falls, 3) none

eyes into hair several DEs leap mentioned

4) when killed, back in their chairs; 4) AKs her

body falls with Draco falls out of 5) invites Nagini

crash onto table chair onto floor. to eat her body

5) none mentioned

In this chapter, the victim appears to be unconscious until right before her murder. That may be a false impression because she’s not talking, but there is also no reference to her crying or struggling, so it’s probably accurate. Whatever the truth is, the captive is not overtly suffering until the end of the chapter. This person is also referred to as an object--e.g., “a slowly revolving body”--which dehumanizes her further.

The audience’s reactions are also interesting. Snape appears to be indifferent, but that means nothing because we know he has to appear callous as part of his cover. Voldemort really is indifferent, but he’s a sadistic narcissistic psychopath, so we don’t expect any better from him. The nameless Death Eaters--the cackling woman and the spitter--are presumably villains sucking up their lord, so their behavior is expected, also.

But look at Harry’s contemporary, Draco. He has a strong and apparently uncontrollable reaction to the prisoner. As long as she is unconscious, he seems compelled to look at her, even though everyone else but Voldemort ignores her. Once the victim wakes up, he is no longer able to look at her. When she is killed and her body crashes to the table, he falls out of his chair.

What does this mean? Draco’s compulsive staring is probably the “train wreck effect,” that feeling you get when a disaster is happening in front of you, and you just have to look. Voldemort had been staying with the Malfoys for several months at this point. Draco had probably seen several people being tortured, but this may be the first cold-blooded murder he was forced to witness. On top of that, he knows this woman, if only in passing. She’s also a witch, not some nameless muggle. With all those undercurrents flowing, it’s no wonder he can’t look away.

Once she wakes up, he becomes even more uncomfortable. That is, once the inert form starts overtly, consciously suffering, once it goes from being a seemingly lifeless body to an individual human being, his discomfort prevents him from witnessing that suffering. Then she recognizes Snape and asks him for help. Draco must be wondering, What if she recognizes me and asks for help? How awful would that be?

When Burbage is killed, and her body (ridiculously) falls to the table, several DEs leap backwards in their chairs, and Draco is so upset he falls out of his chair and onto the floor. I don’t blame them. If an object as large as an adult human suddenly fell in front of me, I’d jump out of the way, too. That’s just the startle reflex operating the way it’s supposed to. They were probably also wondering what I was: Why did an AK make the body fall? Shouldn’t it still be hanging there?

I’m sure Rowling intended Draco’s falling on the floor to be an overreaction, since no one else behaved that way. It’s also probably supposed to be comic relief showing what a coward he is for the same reason. It wouldn’t surprise me if his behavior throughout this scene is supposed to be cowardly. It’s as if Rowling is saying to him, “So racist boy, now that you see what you really signed up for, it’s not so much fun, is it?”

Rowling may call that cowardice. I call it empathy and compassion. It speaks well of Draco that he is profoundly uncomfortable with the kidnapping and murder of an innocent person, however illegitimate he may regard her ideas. It shows he is not so far gone that he can’t be rehabilitated and become a decent young man.