December posting meme: Day 19

[lokifan]

alley_skywalker asked ‘did Harry ever return Draco’s wand? In person?’

Sorry for the delay… She Who Must Not Be Named’s most recent run of terribleness knocked me off course. I don’t think meta or fic or w/e about Potter is endorsing her, to be clear, but the ‘ugh’ can taint it for me :(



So - I think yes. I tend to think Harry would feel like having Draco’s wand was something unfinished, and he’d return it.

Which could be more or less awkward depending on how things were going legally. (Was Lucius in Azkaban? Was Draco facing trial?)

I think in that conversation Draco might ask about Snape, and perhaps be some combination of pleased and relieved and mightily pissed off. This is actually something I touched on in my fic Sparking Like The Perfect Match, which is Snape/Draco set during DH. It’s relatively close to canon in that Snape is a spy who’s betraying Voldemort, and Draco doesn’t know. He hates Voldemort, but he doesn’t dare fight against him, especially since he’s increasingly close to Snape the Death Eater. When he finds out, part of his reaction is anger: if you’d told me, I could’ve helped you, and been better, and hated myself so much less.

Man, I still think the climax of Harry vs Voldemort would’ve been better if it was Draco throwing the Elder Wand to Harry. That would’ve been great. This moment of Harry and Malfoy’s weird parallel-yet-opposite thing bearing fruit, as they swap wands, this moment of their Seeker skills coming into play as the wand went end over end and Harry caught it, like he always does. Not to mention theme/character-wise: Harry wins because he’s kinder. Draco’s literally marked with the loyalty he swore to Voldemort, but Harry’s the one who saved Draco’s life, who managed to save one of his best friends, not the one who threatened Draco’s family. So Harry wins because he deserves to.

I very rarely do ‘it should’ve been x instead!’ type criticism but in this case I’ll make an exception :) I just love it when themes and character and plot all come together nicely - that’s why I love the ending of Cursed Child so much. “I’ve never fought alone and I never will!” <333

(More days available over here if you'd like to ask a question.)

Comments

[princessofgeeks]

I read all the books and saw all the movies and this detail utterly escaped me! Harry used Draco's wand at some point in DH???

Can you summarize canon for me, who was apparently oblivious? Because that would have been quite important!!!

[lokifan]

Yep - you probably knew this at the time and forgot, lol. Basically, when Harry, Ron and Hermione get captured and taken to Malfoy Manor, they're wandless, and in the moments before they escape with Dobby, Harry grabs Draco's wand. He then keeps it for the rest of the book, and finds it works for him at least as well as Hermione's. (Hermione gets Bellatrix's, if I remember rightly, which isn't nearly as good a fit.) Which is why Harry, by the end, is master of the Elder Wand even though it's in Voldemort's hand - Draco defeated Dumbledore (at the end of HBP, when he disarmed him), and Harry defeated Draco at Malfoy Manor. So even though Voldemort stole the wand out of Dumbledore's tomb, it still won't act against Harry properly.

LOL all the musical chairs of wands...

[princessofgeeks]

Thank you for the reminder. I need to read the last book again. Really fascinating thing to work with.

[lokifan]

Yeah, totally agreed! My Harry/Draco tag on Tumblr is ship: the wand chooses the wizard cos of this, lol. There's a lot of fun identity and connection stuff to play with.

[lunabee34]

Ooooh, I like that idea a lot.

I also really liked Cursed Child, but I get the sense that it wasn't hugely popular in fandom. I don't see people talking about it a lot.

[lokifan]

Thanks!

Oh yeah, it got a ton of hate at the time. I think it was partly the really initial reports included one REALLY mean and misleading one, and partly that a lot of readers weren't used to reading scripts. I'm not either, tbf - I was just lucky enough to live in London and grab a ticket pretty early on. I've seen it live multiple times, which makes me VERY lucky and I'm sure had a real impact on how much I love it.

I also just think it's fantastically well-constructed around its themes and I'm a total sucker for that. "You need a parent or a friend." "I've never fought alone and I never will." "You'll always be an orphan. That never leaves you." "He (Cedric) was stolen." Like, omg, parents and kids and friends, just fuck me up why don't you

[lunabee34]

I never heard about the misleading and mean initial reports. That's terrible.

I would have loved to see the play; I read several people's reviews of seeing the play and it sounded like the special effects were just wonderful.

I love the whole multiverse thing, so that is always going to be a draw for me in a story.