Harry Potter and the LJ of Doom

[bubosquared]

Okay, then. More or less cut-and-pasted from my post to HPslash, here is Melle's Ramblings about Draco and Harry/Draco. For the record, the actual post was about a third longer than this.

Warning: I'm not sure if I have a lot of points with all this, and both run-on sentences and capital letters abuse abound, but there you have it.

A lot of the reason I like the Harry Potter books is Draco. I want to know what happens to him, with him. See, I see Draco as an obnoxious, irritating git, but you know, he's fourteen. My youngest brother is that age, and I can therefore say with something of authority that just about all boys that age are rather obnoxious, irritating gits. Doesn't mean they're irredeemable or just plain bad.

I mean, Draco's been brought up to believe he's better than everybody else, so of course that's gonna affect his behaviour a lot. Combine that with the fact that he first time they met, Harry refused Draco's offer of friendship, so I think most of his antagonism towards Harry is wounded pride and jealousy.

Draco also really looks up to his father, and i think he's very much romanticised the idea of being a Death Eater. I mean, at fourteen, I wanted to be a vampire (ignoring the fact that, being born on a Saturday, I'm supposedly immune to vampire-bites.) Draco wants to be like his hero-worshipped father, and since everyone's already expecting him to become a Death Eater, I think he's somewhat enjoying his role of Evil Slytherin (and I'm kind of annoyed at the anti-Slytherin prejudice, but that's another rant for another time.)

But his romantic ideas of becoming a Servant to the Dark Lord are just that, romantic. With the unicorn incident in the Forbidden Forest, Draco has already demonstrated his inability to face actual, real bloodshed. I keep thinking something's gonna happen to Draco, something ... big. Something that really makes him realise that while the idea of being a Death Eater may sound romantic and attractive, but reality is much more gruesome and vile. Make him realise the reality and finality of death.

I honestly can't really see anything in the character of Draco as he is now that predestines (is that even a word?) him to becoming a DE. In fact, I have a hard time seeing it as a possibility. For one thing, there's the aversion to actual bloodshed (see above). For another, I just don't think he has it in him to be an unquestioningly loyal servant to anyone, even Voldemort. Draco's no longer a kid now, and he's getting to an age where he'll start questioning his parents. I can't really see him just following in his father's footsteps because he's told to do so.

That doesn't necessarily mean he'll not end up on Voldie's side, of course, just that I can't see him ending up there by default. He's too much of a "Fuck authority" person to me. (Punk!Draco? Hm.) But as I said above, he doesn't strike me as the type of person who'd be, effectively, a slave to the Dark Lord. He's more of a sleazy lawyer type, trying to get as much money and power as he can, and under Voldemort, there wouldn't really be much power to be had. (Or money, I think. Voldie doesn't strike me as the type to stimulate the economy. Heh.)

Aaand I seem to have digressed myself onto the North Pole. Whoops.

As for Harry', he's too noble for me, really, especially considering the circumstances. I can't wait for future books, in which he (hopefully) finds out that there are no puree black and whites, just shades of grey, that sometimes, the "good" thing to do may seem rather bad (and you don't always get recognition for doing it, either), and that sometimes, there simply is no "good" thing you can do.

That's a large part of the appeal of H/D interaction (slash or otherwise) for me, the exploration of what they have in common, how they're different, them realising the other isn't wholly good/bad, etc.

I had this snippet randomly float through my head, ages ago, that went something like this:

Draco (although now I'm thinking Voldie would be more likely to be saying this): "I can give you power you've never even dreamed of." Harry: "I don't want power." Draco/Voldie (um): "You're just afraid of it."

I don't kow if Harry would really want any power, from Voldemort or from being The Boy Who Lives. I think if they try to make him into the hero of the resistance (why am I suddenly having 'Allo 'Allo flashbacks?), he's going to need someone to keep his feet on the ground, to make sure not everyone thinks he's All Things To All People. Ron and Hermione, I think, would be too concerned about hurting Harry (and thus adding to his problems) to do that, but Draco could fill that role.

Okay, so I'm venturing into dangerously hypothetical territory, there, but it's a scenario I could sort of see happening in the books. (Or not. It's entirely possible I'm talking out of the wrong end of my body, here.)

One of the things that drove me out of HP(slash) fandom was the fact that when it came to Draco, there seemed to be no middle ground. Either he's Irredeemably Evil, or he's Just Misunderstood, and there was just no room for middle ground people like me.

(And on a related and slightly bitter note, why is it that the same polarisation doesn't exist around Snape? I mean, he used to be a Death Eater, so presumably he's done things Draco's never even dreamed of, and yet he redeemed himself, it seems. That's the thing I don't get about the Draco-bashers: they seem to forget that Snape was a lot older and a lot further down the slippery slope of evil than Draco is, and redeemed himself. Yet somehow, at fourteen, Draco is already completely lost to the dark side (um, mixing my fandoms, here). I don't get that.)

I don't really read all that much H/D, to be honest. I think it's mostly that I can see so much possibilities for good character interaction and development, plots, etc., but most of the H/D I've seen is of the shmoopy dreck variety. (I like some shmoop every now and then, but I like good shmoop.)

I'm starting to think that maybe I'll have more luck finding good H/D interaction in genfic.<p