Only a Matter of Time

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 27: The Lightning Struck Tower, page 585

[Dumbledore]
"Draco, Draco, you are not a killer"
"How do you know?" said Malfoy at once.
He seemed to realize how childish the words had sounded; Harry saw him flush in the Mark's greenish light.
"You don't know what I'm capable of,"said Malfoy more forcefully. You don't know what I've done!"

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 24: Sectumsempra, page 522

"No one can help me," said Malfoy. His whole body was shaking. "I can't do it...I can't...It won't work...and unless I do it soon...he says he'll kill me..."


Notice how Draco only shows how depth to his character when there is no one, or so he thinks, around. When reading HBP over again, I suddenly realize that Draco is so much more deeper, more human than all the other cast. That's right, even more than Harry. Why? It's simple, not everyone is brave and noble, not everyone has caring friends, and it doesn't always end well for everybody.

He's always been second Harry in their rivalry, in Quidditch, in the media, and even in his stronghold, potions later on. He's more interesting than Harry, it's just that we never find out what he was thinking, and all the books before make him a two-dimensional antagonist. Is he really an antagonist at all? When we read about Harry, we can see that he struggles, and and he perseveres; but in the same way, he's just too perfect, too plain. He feels sorrow when he fails, he feels unbridled joy when good things happen. It's sometimes easy to predict how he'll feel. (But then I remember this is Children's literature) He's the role-model, the success story, the comeback. Personally, I think Draco would probably have been more interesting to read about. He's the opposite, but at the same time so similar to Harry. His circumstances make him develop into such a complex yet simple character. He feels jealosy. He feels fear. He makes mistakes. Mistakes that make him human. There is uncertainty in his actions. He questions himself. He suffers many failures, and no one takes notice. He covers things up. He's not very clever. He is misunderstood at times, like we all are.

Who is Harry's enemy? Voldemort. Easy. Very straightforward; Voldemort is portrayed completely one-sided. He is evil, essentially, and that's apparently all there is to it. He is simply the force of badness that compels and amplifys the hero's goodness, so of course good will face bad and there will be fighting. That's almost the entire plotline of each book; simply put, every book has a Voldemort attack at the end, repetitively. In fact, his progress could be adapted to a video game (already has been), going in one direction, forward to giant boss battle.
What about Draco's? Not as simply defined into one entity. It could be many different aspects, and at times, you can see that he's just lost sometimes. When he saw how his family was in danger because of Voldemort, in a way his enemy could be Voldemort OR the Order. It brings him to a fork in the unfamiliar road. He has to define himself, question his identity and his side in the war. Draco's story makes for a more de-glorified, more mature, real version. It's real. It's soul-crushingly sad. It's soaring happiness from small, little triumphs. It is full of things that we are more used to, like that 'happily ever after' we've worked and wanted so hard for- in pieces. Where the road ahead is harsh and lonely, with hopes and wishes that died before they bloomed.

Draco is hard to completely understand. Yet, he is also very easy to. He just doesn't find the need to make anyone understand; he's wrapped up everything so cleanly. Even so, his Sectumsempra episode proves how the pressures of his problems wear holes in his facades. In those exceedingly rare moments when the pretenses fall, we are faced with how human he is. How imperfect his character is. He is not the perfect, simple villain we have all grown accustomed to. It's as if we are intruding in a private sanctuary, something embarassing kept secret. We are unhinged at the fact that even someone like him, supposedly 'evil', has times of open vulnerability. It makes us realize that the line between good and evil is all a matter of perception, and that we may have been wrong the whole time.

The times we do catch a glimpse of what lies underneath, we find that he is actually easy to understand and relate to. For some of us, simply by suppressing bad emotions and memories is something that we can feel for. Despair and doubt has not only plagued him, but readers too. Think; has Harry ever shown emotion the way Draco did? Sometimes, it's just a matter of reading between the lines. Going back and reading throught books again, I pick up more and more pieces of character he left behind. He's like a painting which, the more you look at it, the more details you discover. We see more each time. Except that, the whole picture will be never be uncovered because there aren't explanations for everything, and vast expanses are left to the imagination. We may never understand.

He never really tried really hard to be evil. He had to have Dumbledore console him with his failed attempts at murdering said person. Instead of bringing Harry to Voldemort on the train after catching him in his compartment, he stomps on his face, citing personal revenge for putting his father in Azkaban. Even when he has to verify Harry's identity at Malfoy Manor, he shys away from the decision. (Though it's questionable whether does recognize him) At the death eater meeting at Malfoy manor, he sticks out because he is still a scared, lonely child, the only one in the room with a conscience. Though he may deny it, and erect his bravado around him like walls, he has faults, and slip-ups that serve as windows into the well-hidden Draco that we have all overlooked.

I imagine that he might have considered switching loyalties, not that he really felt much loyalty to the Voldemort, because he was mature enough to look past his father's influence. Draco grew up under much of his father's influence, and you can see that he works to achieve his father's standards. He wants to please. He wants even the smallest bit of non-materialistic form of care from his parents. It doesn't help that he's been so conditioned, so used to recieving comfort based on his lineage, rather than his traits and virtue as an individual. I doubt he's been praised for loving or caring. It might explain why he completely disregards some characteristics, because he's never found them to be of importance in his upbringing.

Much of his behaviour is influenced by his father, and in the beginning of the books he often quotes his father, "father says that, father says this," but then he stops referring to him so much later on when Lucius lowers himself to begging Voldemort. Later, he begins to separate himself from his father, comming into his own and finding himself. I can only imagine the complicated revelations in his head as he reflects back upon his father again, his progression from his revered role-model to a weary old man. I wish JKR could have written what he was thinking about after the war.

Draco is my favorite character, because he shows the sad, gritty side of the story; the one that doesn't end well. He is essentially almost the same boy as Harry as he sat on the Hogwarts Express on his way to his first year. They both lacked parental affection, both had no idea what was about to happen next. They both had the same potential, same wide future, but it's as Dumbledore says about choices, and how they define you. And in the end we see Draco, miserable, and caught in between, and Harry leading the victory. But think about how much of a say Draco has in making a choice; he doesn't realize it until it's almost too late. What if, under different circumstances, Harry was the pureblood with the stoic parents? What if Draco was the scarred orphan? What if sorting had gone differently, with Harry in Slytherin, and Draco in Gryffindor? Maybe, if history played out differently they could have been even friends?






There. I'm finished. End of rant.
PS I know I've been switching past and present tenses like crazy. Pardon me.
Keep in my mind that these are simply my mundane thoughts, so try not to be offended.