DEFENCE AGAINST THE DARK ARTS--AS IF WE NEED IT!
What exactly does fighting the Dark Arts mean? At the simplest level, it involves fighting against the straightforward attacks of the Dark Arts. Infact, that is all that students learn in DADA: how to fight against dark creatures and how to shield themselves against curses and counterattack with anti-curses and anti-jinxes.
A more profound aspect of DADA that does not seem to be actively taught in the Hogwarts class is how to resist the lure of the Dark Arts, how to resist the desire to use the Dark Arts. The only way this second skill is taught at Hogwarts is indirectly, through ignorance. Draco expressed once on the train ride his interest going to Drumstrang because at that school children were allowed to get closer to the Dark Arts and actually practice them.
Dumbledore tells Harry, that his love, which, unlike Harry he thinks is both "uncommon skill and power" costitutes the greatest defense against the Dark Arts, in the profound sense.
"You even understand the snake like language in which he gives orders, and yet, Harry, despite your previliged insight to Vodemort's world (which, incidentally, is a gift any Death Eater would kill to have) you have never been seduced by the Dark Arts, never, even for a second, shown the desire to become one of Voldemort's followers!" (Chapter 23, Horcruxes)
Of course, Harry has used some dark magic, but has not been lured by it, has not found it attractive. So when he used Crucio on Bellatrix, he was distraught in the extreme, and even so could not do it properly, while when he used Sectumsempra on Draco, he didn't realise what he was doing, and he immediately regretted it and kneeled beside his victim, apologising. He did try Sectumsempra again on Snape, when he knew what it did, but that was a very special circumstance and does not shw that he was lured.
Snape underestimates Harry's power to resist the lure of the Dark Arts. Ironically, it is when Snape claims that he has underestimated Harry (but implicitly no longer does) that he begins to underestimate him:
"Apparently, I underestimated you, Potter, who would have thought you knew such Dark Magic? Who taught you that spell?"
Notice that this statement is in the chapter directly following the chapter in which Dumbledore tells Harry that he admires his ability to resist the lure of Dark Arts. I am sure, that although Snape told the entire faculty what Harry had done in the bathroom, Dumbledore didn't jump to any conclusions about Harry's relationship with the Dark Arts as Snape did.
Snape is, after Voldemort, the weakest character in the novel in his relationship with the Dark Arts. The weakness is ironic, considering his great power in the sense of his defense against the attacks of the Dark Arts, but it is a weakness in th profound sense. Snape cannot resist the lure. We find that Snape was up to his eyes in the Dark Arts when he entered Hogwarts. I think that because love protects Harry against them, we can deduce that it is hate that weakened Snape's character and made him suspectible to the Dark Arts. Again ironically, the only time the word"love" is applied to Snape is in relation to the Dark Arts. Harry detects a "loving caress" in his voice as he describes them:
"The Dark Arts are many, varied, ever-changing, and eternal. Fighting them, is like fighting a many-headed monster, which, each time a neck is severed, sprouts a head even fiercer and cleverer that before. You are fighting against that which is unfixed, mutating, indestructable."
I think these two views of DADA, one in the sense of defense against their attack, and the other in the sense of defense against their lure, might help us interpret what I found to be a puzzling and intriguing comment that Draco made, when he was talking to Snape in the dark classroom, overheard by Harry.
Snape: If your friends Crabbe and Goyle intend to pass their Defense Against the Dark Arts O.W.L. this time around, they will need to work a little harder than they are doing at pres-?
Draco: What does it matter? Defense Against the Dark Arts? It's all just a joke, isn't it, an act? Like any of us need protecting against the Dark Arts?
Snape: It is an act that is crucial to success, Draco!"
Draco's comment seems almost outrageously absurd. Although, by us, he probably meant Crabbe, Goyle and himself, and maybe even Snape-that is anyone with Death Eater connections, and people who therefore use the Dark Arts-he still shows himself naive if he thinks he has nothing to fear as far as "attacks" from the Dark Arts go. Does Draco think his "buddies" will never turn their Dark Arts against him? Infact, wasn't Draco sobbing in the bathroom regularly about being bullied and threatened with death? Wouldn't he need protecting then? Moreover, does Draco think that the world is divided into Voldemort's followers and people who can never use the Dark Arts? As we see in the "Sectumsempra" chapter, it can even happen out of sheer ignorance that any enemy in the good camp will use Dark Arts to attack, and Draco needed prtecting against that point what Harry had done; he would have either died or have been horribly scarred if Snape had not been there in time.
I think the only way Draco's comment can make sense when he says this, especially considering his past comments about the more sensible attitudes towards the Dark Arts especially about Durmstrang, is that he means that no one needs protecting against the lure of Dark Arts, no one needs to be kept from using them, that they are a great source of knowledge and power. This attitude towards the Dark Arts reveals a weakness in Draco's character. We know that he has less ability to ove than quite a few people, which explains why he bacame Voldemort's follower. But he is not entirely devoid of love, and thus he hesitated on the tower and sabotaged his own murder plans a number of times even before then. Perhaps Rowling put that absurd comment in Draco's mouth to illustrate in what grave danger his soul was.
Have fun reading...will post continuation soon. Was too tired to write.😊
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