Draco and The Plan

[kerravonsen]

I'm still on a Harry Potter obsessed streak, and something occurred to me about events in Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows, something that I'm kicking myself for not realizing at the time, since it's bloomin' obvious.

Draco Malfoy was a dead man walking. I can't get that anguished expression out of my mind, when he said to Dumbledore (in the movie), jerking down his sleeve to reveal the Dark Mark, and saying that if he doesn't kill Dumbledore, he'll die.

And the question occurred to me, why would Voldemort send a schoolboy to kill the most powerful wizard of the age? Hardly likely to succeed, is he?

Then I realized. Of course Voldemort was going to send an ignorant schoolboy to kill Dumbledore, because Voldemort was after the Elder Wand. So he'd want to send someone weak, who didn't know about the Elder Wand, so that Voldemort could kill the minion and take the Elder Wand from him. Draco was screwed either way, but he didn't know it.

Comments

[l-the-fangirl.livejournal.com]

...

BRILLIANT!

Seriously, yes, yes, yes, that makes sense!

[kerravonsen]

I'm sure someone else has already thought of it before me, it just hit me like a bludger in the last few days.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

Ah, this is the character that those books have - this unpacking - I think you are quite right in this analysis

[kerravonsen]

But are we finding things that the author didn't think of?

[l-the-fangirl.livejournal.com]

It doesn't matter. What you bring to a work is, in the end, more important than what was put into it.

I've always thought that the mark of a good artist is that they realize that.

[dawnmist]

Yes!

It was also a way to punish Lucius Malfoy for not bothering to try to find him after he'd failed to kill Harry & for failing to keep his horcrux in the diary safe while he was missing. Lucius knew that his son was given an impossible task with a death threat over his head if he failed...and given that Voldemort had been unable to take on Dumbledore, would have known it was unlikely that Voldemort would have let Draco live if Draco HAD succeeded. Voldemort wouldn't have let Draco grow up to challenge him one day (which if he killed Dumbledore he presumably could do), regardless of the wand.