Covering for Hagrid
Dec. 8th, 2017 09:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sunnyskywalkerI've had some Real Life stuff interfere with blogging lately, but I have a few things I'd originally posted to a community but not my own journal which might be of interest. Here's one on that dragon-smuggling episode in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone.
On a re-read, specifically looking for instances when the adults ought to know more than the kids about what’s going on, a penny finally dropped. Apologies to everyone who probably figured this out years ago.
Harry and Hermione, under the Invisibility Cloak, gleefully watch as McGonagall drags Draco Malfoy off by the ear, calling his claim that Harry has a dragon “utter rubbish.” They go hand off Norbert(a) to Charlie’s friends and head back down, whereupon McGonagall nabs them too and tells them off for “[feeding] Draco Malfoy some cock-and-bull story about a dragon, trying to get him out of bed and into trouble.”
This seems like blatant unfairness. Surely Draco didn’t stop trying to explain once he was out of Harry and Hermione’s earshot—didn’t he tell McGonagall he had seen the dragon in Hagrid’s hut with his own eyes? Hasn’t Hagrid told anyone who would listen that he would love to have a dragon? Hasn’t she noticed Hagrid being strangely absent the last few weeks? It seems like enough to merit investigation, at least, so she can at least punish Harry and Hermione for their actual transgressions—i.e., being out after curfew to act as accessories in a crime. (Dragon breeding and keeping dragons is against the law, remember. No doubt smuggling them as well, especially when it’s smuggling to conceal the earlier crime.) After fifty years, doesn’t Minerva know Hagrid at all?
Er, yes, she does. That’s the problem.
What, exactly, would happen if she had uncovered evidence that Hagrid had indeed broken the law by acquiring and hatching a dragon egg? Unlike the kids, she almost certainly knows that Hagrid was expelled for raising a Class XXXXX creature in the school. What would the consequences be, were he caught raising another Class XXXXX creature—one which, this time, unquestionably harmed a student when it sent Ron to the hospital wing with that nasty bite? And then enlisted students in concealing his crimes? I don’t think you need a degree in wizarding law to say things wouldn’t look too good for Hagrid. (Plus, we’ve read Chamber of Secrets. And he was just a suspect then!)
If McGonagall lets Draco believe for one minute that she considers his story plausible, she’s essentially just given Lucius Malfoy the go-ahead to raise a stink, with all the undoubtedly negative consequences for Hagrid—and his patron, Dumbledore. (She can hardly investigate and “find no evidence,” with Ron’s hospital wing stay on record. Better to be thought too trusting of her colleagues than complicit, if it comes out anyway.) So she can’t let on if she thinks it’s plausible.
(Why didn’t Draco owl Lucius to demand an investigation anyway? One wonders whether after insisting that he saw the dragon through Hagrid’s window, Draco got an earful about how if he really had seen such a thing, and told no one but instead sneaked out of bed to get another look, he would be guilty of concealing a crime himself. So it’s lucky Professor McGonagall doesn’t believe such an absurd story. Isn’t it, Mr. Malfoy.)
To recap: not only are Harry, Ron, and Hermione covering for Hagrid (which he, an adult staff member, set them up to do), and not only are Charlie and his dragon-smuggling friends covering for Hagrid, but McGonagall is also quite possibly covering for Hagrid. Lucky Hagrid!
Now, I do have sympathy for Hagrid. Really, I do. I even wrote an essay back in 2006 about it. All his dialogue about how he’s this dangerous little monster’s “Mummy” and how “Mummy” loves him and won’t abandon him take on new meaning once you get to GoF and find out that Hagrid’s own mummy—from a species reputed to be vicious and monstrous—abandoned him, and that he keeps his heritage secret because people will think he’s potentially a vicious monster, and he would never! But working out these issues by roping his friends—including children—into dangerous, even criminal actions? Not cool, Hagrid.
And while I also sympathize with the desire to keep him out of a horrific torture-prison, the collateral damage from these cover-ups isn’t doing anyone else any favors. Harry, for one, gets one of the Dursleys’ lessons reinforced for him: nobody cares to find out the truth, and all the explanations and evidence in the world (Draco’s, not Harry’s, this time, since Harry’s not talking) won’t help you. People believe what they want to believe and punish you or not based on how they feel, and there’s nothing you can do to change anyone’s mind.
Lesson learned.
On a re-read, specifically looking for instances when the adults ought to know more than the kids about what’s going on, a penny finally dropped. Apologies to everyone who probably figured this out years ago.
Harry and Hermione, under the Invisibility Cloak, gleefully watch as McGonagall drags Draco Malfoy off by the ear, calling his claim that Harry has a dragon “utter rubbish.” They go hand off Norbert(a) to Charlie’s friends and head back down, whereupon McGonagall nabs them too and tells them off for “[feeding] Draco Malfoy some cock-and-bull story about a dragon, trying to get him out of bed and into trouble.”
This seems like blatant unfairness. Surely Draco didn’t stop trying to explain once he was out of Harry and Hermione’s earshot—didn’t he tell McGonagall he had seen the dragon in Hagrid’s hut with his own eyes? Hasn’t Hagrid told anyone who would listen that he would love to have a dragon? Hasn’t she noticed Hagrid being strangely absent the last few weeks? It seems like enough to merit investigation, at least, so she can at least punish Harry and Hermione for their actual transgressions—i.e., being out after curfew to act as accessories in a crime. (Dragon breeding and keeping dragons is against the law, remember. No doubt smuggling them as well, especially when it’s smuggling to conceal the earlier crime.) After fifty years, doesn’t Minerva know Hagrid at all?
Er, yes, she does. That’s the problem.
What, exactly, would happen if she had uncovered evidence that Hagrid had indeed broken the law by acquiring and hatching a dragon egg? Unlike the kids, she almost certainly knows that Hagrid was expelled for raising a Class XXXXX creature in the school. What would the consequences be, were he caught raising another Class XXXXX creature—one which, this time, unquestionably harmed a student when it sent Ron to the hospital wing with that nasty bite? And then enlisted students in concealing his crimes? I don’t think you need a degree in wizarding law to say things wouldn’t look too good for Hagrid. (Plus, we’ve read Chamber of Secrets. And he was just a suspect then!)
If McGonagall lets Draco believe for one minute that she considers his story plausible, she’s essentially just given Lucius Malfoy the go-ahead to raise a stink, with all the undoubtedly negative consequences for Hagrid—and his patron, Dumbledore. (She can hardly investigate and “find no evidence,” with Ron’s hospital wing stay on record. Better to be thought too trusting of her colleagues than complicit, if it comes out anyway.) So she can’t let on if she thinks it’s plausible.
(Why didn’t Draco owl Lucius to demand an investigation anyway? One wonders whether after insisting that he saw the dragon through Hagrid’s window, Draco got an earful about how if he really had seen such a thing, and told no one but instead sneaked out of bed to get another look, he would be guilty of concealing a crime himself. So it’s lucky Professor McGonagall doesn’t believe such an absurd story. Isn’t it, Mr. Malfoy.)
To recap: not only are Harry, Ron, and Hermione covering for Hagrid (which he, an adult staff member, set them up to do), and not only are Charlie and his dragon-smuggling friends covering for Hagrid, but McGonagall is also quite possibly covering for Hagrid. Lucky Hagrid!
Now, I do have sympathy for Hagrid. Really, I do. I even wrote an essay back in 2006 about it. All his dialogue about how he’s this dangerous little monster’s “Mummy” and how “Mummy” loves him and won’t abandon him take on new meaning once you get to GoF and find out that Hagrid’s own mummy—from a species reputed to be vicious and monstrous—abandoned him, and that he keeps his heritage secret because people will think he’s potentially a vicious monster, and he would never! But working out these issues by roping his friends—including children—into dangerous, even criminal actions? Not cool, Hagrid.
And while I also sympathize with the desire to keep him out of a horrific torture-prison, the collateral damage from these cover-ups isn’t doing anyone else any favors. Harry, for one, gets one of the Dursleys’ lessons reinforced for him: nobody cares to find out the truth, and all the explanations and evidence in the world (Draco’s, not Harry’s, this time, since Harry’s not talking) won’t help you. People believe what they want to believe and punish you or not based on how they feel, and there’s nothing you can do to change anyone’s mind.
Lesson learned.
