ivyblossom | The Redemption of Draco Malfoy: a Theory

I was rereading the sorting hat song, and I know a few others have been pointing this out as well:

And at last there came a morning
When Old Slytherin departed
And though the fighting then died out
He left us quite downhearted.
And never since the founders four
Were whittled down to three
Have the houses been united
As they once were meant to be.

Sure it's a history lesson. But it's followed by a warning:

The warning history shows,
For our Hogwarts is in danger
From external, deadly foes
And we must unite inside her
Or we'll crumble from within
I have told you, I have warned you...

I'm inclined to believe that the Sorting Hat is generally right about such things, so I will pay close attention to these predictions.

I think the warning itself is directed at Harry. The first time through I read the song pretty literally. Yes, Hogwarts has to unite against an external foe. But the second time I read through, it seems to me that what's being addressed there is Dumbledore's Army. No wonder we got Luna and Zacharias added in this book; we needed a Ravenclaw and a Hufflepuff so that the DA isn't just made up of Gryffindors. We even need Cho for that reason. So now the DA consists entirely of the three traditional houses, minus the fourth, just as the Sorting Hat said had happened in history. Sure, there's less fighting, but a school divided against itself cannot stand, isn't that right? And it's the Slytherins who side against the DA with Umbridge, it's the Slytherins who threaten it's existence. Harry (and the others, Slytherins included) did not heed the hat's warning; Harry is spinning his wheels because he will fail in the end unless he leans on the skills, strength and knowledge of the Slytherins. That's what the hat says.

This isn't just an issue in OoTP, of course. In PS, Draco comes to Harry and says, "I'll help you get the right connections." In OoTP, Draco is again pointing out that "it's not what you know, it's who you know." The concept of connections is obviously very important to him; and that is in fact what he offered to Harry in first year, the one thing he considers his greatest asset.

But surely Draco Malfoy was not honestly trying to be friends with Harry in PS. His father is a Death Eater, his mother is sympathetic to their cause, as is most of her family. How could Draco possibly even consider actually being friendly with Harry?

Well, as we know from CoS in particular, Draco isn't really in the know most of the time. His father doesn't trust him with actual Death Eater knowledge; Draco doesn't know who the heir of Slytherin is in CoS and clearly doesn't know that his father slipped Riddle's diary into Ginny's cauldron. In fact, Draco seems to be unaware of the Tom Riddle's story and history, and his summation of the Chamber of Secrets myth is pretty incomplete. He knows just about as much as any child in the wizarding world.

Yes, Draco's father is a Death Eater, but remember that not all children follow in the footsteps of their fathers. "Like father, like son," is not one of the themes of OoTP. Sirius' family were Voldemort supporters, but he's not. James was a cruel bully, just like Draco. Harry is not. Arthur Weasley is prepared to give his life for the Order, but Percy has betrayed them all. Genetic history doesn't always repeat itself, and that fact seems to be driven home pretty hard in this book.

But yes, Draco adores his father, and joins in on the Umbridge side. Remember of course that Umbridge is Ministry, not Death Eater, and Draco sure does value his Ministry connections. How close is Draco to the Death Eaters? He can't see the Thestrals, and therefore has never seen anyone die. In spite of being a jerk (like Sirius, like James), Draco is at present an innocent. His father is obviously a Death Eater, and a high ranking one, but Draco has been pretty carefully protected from all of that. He has the beliefs but not the knowledge nor the affiliation. My suspicion is that Lucius doesn't entirely trust his son yet, and I think he's right not to. Draco is liable to blab if it will help him jockey for position at school, and he is just a kid.

To wit: my suggestion is that it's entirely possible that Draco doesn't need to be redeemed yet, because he has not yet fallen; also, that he will fall, and that he will be redeemed through Harry.

What if Draco meant to be Harry's friend in PS? In sympbolic terms, this is like ancient history about to be overturned and repaired, a great Hogwarts victory; Slytherin offers a truce, but Gryffindor doesn't accept it. Draco offers his hand in friendship and Harry refuses it. If they houses do not unite, Hogwarts will crumble. From PS onward, Harry has been actively rejecting all things Slytherin. "There wasn't a wizard that went bad that wasn't in Slytherin," right? Not so, not so. We already know that's a lie, but Harry hasn't stopped to consider that yet. Harry's prejudice against Slytherins runs so high he can't even see how ridiculous it's become.

So why did Draco get no character development in this book?

Because he can't develop yet. Consider: if we got a full backstory on Draco, I suspect he would become extremely sympathetic, much like Snape. Though he might not want to admit it later, Harry takes Snape's side emotionally in that moment he witnesses between Snape, Sirius, and James, and so do we. It gets harder to hate someone blindly when you can see their point. It's hard to know in your heart that you can't trust someone when you can sense their humanity.

If JKR wants to complete this historical/character/hogwarts arc the Sorting Hat is suggesting by forcing Harry to break down his own prejudice against Slytherins and ask for Draco's help or collaboration in the future, she cannot develop Draco's character at this time. If the plot is heading toward a point where Gryffindor and Slytherin resolve their differences, which it certainly appears as though it might be, she cannot redeem Draco now. In fact, Harry has to hate Draco even more in book 6. At the end of OoTP JKR gives Draco a million more reasons to hate Harry, which will make things even more difficult for Harry when the time comes. I expect to see Draco lashing out at Harry as much as possible in book 6, being vicious, cruel, and possibly even downright evil. I expect Draco to turn as evil as he can at school, to look as much like the enemy as possible. I think he has his own reasons for that, and I'm starting to feel pretty certain that, in the end, we will know all about them.

It seems to me that in a narrative arc like the one I'm proposing, the author would need to make sure that the reader hates Draco as much as Harry does. We cannot get a backstory on Draco and still hate him utterly and truly, therefore we need to keep a distance from him. We should not be able to see secondary reasons for his actions just yet, we cannot get the impression that possibly Harry needs Draco's help, or that he would ever get it. For Harry's act of reaching out to a Slytherin to be properly heroic, he needs to be sacrificing something, it needs to look like a mortal risk. Risks are what Gryffindors are supposed to do best, are they not?