death to capslock

This is something that occurred to me based on a couple things said by me and others about Draco's "redemption" in the comments on the latest Pottermore entry. Much has been made of how in the Harry Potter books it seems as though you are either good or evil and no matter what you do this never changes. But that in and of itself isn't entirely fair--it's slightly more nuanced than that. Near as I can tell, Dan H on Ferretbrain was one of the people who first commented on this in detail, but upon revisiting the article he wrote on the subject, I realized that this was his exact wording:

"You can't change, you can't be redeemed (unless you've already had the good fortune to fall in love with a Gryffindor)..."

Emphasis mine.

So redemption is possible in the Harry Potter books, but it always comes from external forces and never from the redeemed characters themselves. Draco might become a better person because his mother loved him and vice versa. Dudley might become a better person because Harry magnanimously saved his life once. Snape became a better person because he fell in love with Harry's mother (yes, that's likely not ALL there was to it, but that's the picture Rowling seems to have intended to paint in the books). According to the abovementioned article, Voldemort himself briefly had the opportunity to "try for some remorse" simply because Harry decided to take pity on him. It's not that any of these characters made the conscious choice to become better people--it's simply that they were redeemed by the grace of the "good guys," or "love" in general (or not, in Voldy's case). So their redemption was ultimately still fated to be, even if they technically did change a little bit. Either way, whether they were good or bad was ultimately outside their own control.