sistermagpie (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sistermagpie) wrote2004-10-04 09:58 pm
sistermagpie) wrote2004-10-04 09:58 pm
H/D, post-OotP
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wayfairer asks the state of H/D in the wake of OotP. She makes a lot of great points about how writers are dealing with the questions OotP leaves us with, and asked other people's opinions of H/D in light of that...and my comment got long enough that I figured it was really a post. Basically, I'm You know, I wonder if part of the problem too is that on Harry's side we know he's gutted at the moment--faced with Draco he feels detached, and what do you do with that? (Detached, but able to feel a distant pleasure in seeing Malfoy so angry)
On Draco's side, we've got Harry having just taken his father away--the ultimate thing, based on Draco's limited dialogue in canon so far. This must be dealt with if you're dealing with sixth year, and Aja wonders how many writers actually are. It strikes me, though, that they really can't because we have no canon to go on. Up until now H/D has dealt with Lucius whatever way the author wanted. Draco could secretly hate his father, or have grown out of his attachment, or Lucius could just be a regular rich parent or could abuse him. Because we really have no idea. Draco's a big performer, so must of what we hear about Lucius is an act. This is not to say the truth must be the opposite of what Draco is saying, but clearly he mostly invokes Lucius' name for effect, to impress, to threaten, etc. The very first thing we hear about Lucius is that he's going to buy Draco a broom whether he likes it or not-and it's an untruth.
There's only one scene of Draco and Lucius in canon and it's in front of a shopkeeper so even that, while more relaxed, isn't completely honest. I would say there's only one single unguarded moment between Lucius and Draco in canon and Lucius isn't even there--it's when Draco calls him "Dad." It's one word, but hey, apparently the entire dynamic of R/S was changed by just a few words in OotP (Sit down, Sirius!--and Remus becomes a dom at last;-) )
I know when I finished reading OotP, when I thought of Draco the scene that drew me had nothing to do with Harry either--I just had this picture in my mind of his being taken home and unsluggified, probably set out on a bench in the garden or on a couch inside, maybe with Crabbe and Goyle, humiliated, and facing his mother and an empty house for the first time. Yet I couldn't be sure how to even imagine Narcissa because we don't know her. Truth be told, we don't know how the dynamic between Lucius and Draco worked either. So while Draco seems canonically to have had the most important thing in the world taken away from him, we know nothing about how to approach it. Even if you're confident in your general impressions of their relationship (it's positive/it's negative/it's abusive/it's not) you've got no Draco/Lucius interaction to jump off from, like you would with the Weasleys.
Perhaps this is why Fanon!Draco, is often unattached to Lucius. The tiny hint we get in OotP suggests something different, a relationship that, imo, can change the way H/D has to work, one where Draco is the underdog in ways he hasn't been before. I don't mean to suggest Harry has completely triumphed within the *series.* He's still fighting his Big Bad, Voldemort. But from Draco's pov, it's all about Potter, who's taken just about everything. Up until now, "everything" has meant popularity, school power, Quidditch stardom. It could be funny. Draco could still strut around in fanfic, or be fanon!Draco and just a brat. But losing a father...that demands some respect. And no, I don't mean OMG HARRY IS SO MEEN AND DRACO IZ TOTALLY TEH VICTUM NOW!!!111 I just mean: you've got a character who's always been defined by family, whose family and personal god has been taken away by this person. Doesn't matter that Lucius had it coming or chose to break the law, because to me we're more in Godfather/Sopranos territory now. If Draco just let's Harry take his father and does nothing, he's not a man and can't ever be.
I think that's why, oddly, the one post-OotP fic that I remember really feeling was onto something was Cassie Claire's How to Disappear, which is unfortunately still incomplete as far as I know. What I loved about this fic is that Draco is, in his way, the hero. He hasn't been given any special powers, or become cooler. Harry isn't torn down to build him up, though he's in that same place as he was at the end of OotP, numb, but able to feel an echo of pleasure in seeing Malfoy suffer. What makes Draco a hero--to me--is just that he makes the decision to do something for his father, something very small and therefore able to be done by him. He grovels to Harry. Iow, he agrees to endure, to suffer, for somebody else. For someone believable--for Lucius, for his family.
But that's a very different dynamic from pervious H/D, which was about rivalry, often with Draco characterized as having nothing to really feel anything about. Even when people discuss Draco's position in sixth year they more often talk about the school and the other Slytherins rejecting him and how he will deal with the loss of status, which is the way fanfic usually focused on it when it got rid of Lucius and Narcissa as well.
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I know when I finished reading OotP, when I thought of Draco the scene that drew me had nothing to do with Harry either--I just had this picture in my mind of his being taken home and unsluggified, probably set out on a bench in the garden or on a couch inside, maybe with Crabbe and Goyle, humiliated, and facing his mother and an empty house for the first time.
What really gets me is the idea-- since we know from that very short scene in CoS that Lucius at the very least pushed Draco to achieve-- of Draco receiving the scores of his NEWTs and having no Father to show them to. No matter how evil the man is, Draco has still lost the most defining figure in his life, who seems to be his sounding board for just about everything.
I think what struck me the most with the ending of OotP regarding these two, is just how very parallel they seem to be, even more so than before. Harry loses his father figure; Draco loses his father. If anything it almost seems to put them on even footing now for the beginning of the next book: they've both lost something extremely important to them, they've both been had their worlds turned upside down and been horribly disillusioned. For Harry, it was realising that Dumbledore is just as fallible as anyone else, instead of the ultimate source of protection and wisdom Harry always thought him to be. For Draco, it is having to face the fact that his father, who he clearly idolizes in canon, was beaten-- he is not all-powerful, either. I really can't wait to see how it all plays out, myself :-)
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You and I seem to be thinking on the same lines, although you're about 20 or so minutes faster to the draw. ;) Harry also lost that dream of the father he never knew. It also forced him to see his father figure in another light before, literally, losing him. One could say Harry already "lost him" with that pensieve scene.
H/D... possibly coming to an understanding thanks to a mutual disillusionment? I could see it. In regards, I've suspected a potential enemy of my enemy is my friend sort of scenario coming about. It would be very interesting how the cards would fall to make that happen.
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I really want to try to tie in Percy and his fixations on Arthur and especially Barty Crouch Sr., but that's meandering away from OOTP. Of course, there's also "Expecto patronum", Riddle Jr. vs. Riddle Sr. and Riddle Jr's idolization of Salazar Slytherin. Riddle's situation mirrored in Barty Crouch Jr. Harry being the mirror image of his father. Draco's "father said *this*", "wait until I tell my father", (similar behavior displayed amongst some of the Weasley kids, "I'll ask dad", blah blah). If I keep going, I'll probably be babbling on forever. Really thinking about it, the rampantness of daddy issues in HP is kind of crazy.
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Yes! This seems to be something Draco was literally raised to need. For most readers who don't consider any other aspect of Malfoy other than what Harry does, I don't think this is a question. But it's interesting that some of us are focusing on it--who will he show his grades to, what will he say to his mother, and all that. It's mundane, but then that's something Malfoy doesn't often get to be. I mean, it's weird because he is mundane as a villain, worried about Quidditch and house points instead of the end of the world, but his homelife has always been blown up into something more OTT.
I think what struck me the most with the ending of OotP regarding these two, is just how very parallel they seem to be, even more so than before.
Yes, I was just saying something like that somewhere else. I don't know if it's intentional or not but it's just too perfect that this happened in the book. And not only did they both lose father figures (Harry not only lost his idealized version of James but Sirius as well), they both lost them in some way to the other. Lucius was indirectly involved in taking away Sirius; the Pensieve scene did connect to Draco in many ways--he was an absent presence who came up. Harry, obviously, was connected to Lucius' imprisonment. Arthur was another father threatened in OotP, but not only did he live, but his family got to be there with him. It just seemed like surely this whole father-fixation thing has always been meant to tie these two characters together.
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Exactly-- on one hand, you have the Weasleys, who are left at the end of canon as this cohesive, loving family unit who remains as strong as ever despite a stray lamb or two from the fold. On the other you have both Harry and Draco, whose families have disintegrated around them. Or at least for Harry, what he had left of a family-- both his idealized father watching over him, and the last flesh-and-blood embodiment of this. Both of their protectors are gone, and they're going to have to stand up and really make their own choices for once. Neither has a paternal figure standing over them (Dumbledore, Lucius) to make these decisions for them, now. I think in canon, this obvious connection will be what causes them to face off in the end. But at least in fan-fiction, I would love to see it used to bind them together instead (isn't that what fanfic is here for? ;-) ).