What if Draco was born premature and was originally due in late July and was almost the subject of the prophecy? What if despite that the prophecy still applies to him in a way because it is his wand that ultimately kills Voldemort? and if you feel like putting on Drarry glasses, what if Draco’s wand working so well for Harry in the transfer of the Elder Wand’s ownership means that Draco’s love for Harry is in fact the “power to vanquish the Dark Lord” referenced in the prophecy?
Okay, yes, this, but I really need to go through the prophecy to explain exactly why I think this is true, should you accept the headcanon that Draco was a premee and due in late July.
So the prophecy goes as follows:
The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies....
And such, into order to be a potential-but-missed Chosen One, Draco would have to meet certain requirements to match what Trelawney predicts alongside Harry and Neville. But at the same time, we also have to acknowledge that (a) half of the requirements only kick in once Voldemort chose Harry and (b) there’s a lot of room for interpretation both Watsonianly and Doylistically as to what the requirements actually are. And that second point is very important regarding the ‘born to those that have thrice defied him’ thing because while Narcissa and Lucius absolutely do defy Voldemort, they only do it after his first ‘death’ in 1980.
Lucius, for example, doesn’t look for Voldemort after his first fall, going as far as to denounce him entirely as a master in order to avoid an Azkaban sentence. He also gives away one of Voldemort’s horcruxes, which leads to Dumbledore figuring out that he had them in the first place and putting Harry on the hunt that eventually destroys him. Narcissa goes behind Voldemort’s back to set up an alliance with Snape to protect her son and then lies to his face about Harry being dead. That’s two each right there, with the third defiance being something they undertake together when Lucius and Narcissa refuse to fight for Voldemort in the final battle and instead look for Draco amidst the chaos.
It’s only after his parents commit their third defiance that Draco’s ‘power the Dark Lord knows not’ is revealed: he was the secret master of the Elder Wand and his ownership of it is what kept Voldemort from using it to its fullest potential before ownership was transferred to Harry after the Skirmish at Malfoy Manor. At the same time, you can also look at ‘the power the Dark Lord knows not’ to be love, the same as Harry’s power, especially if you’re going down the Drarry angle because it certainly says something about how Draco’s wand works better for Harry than any other wand ever does despite how the wand lore that surrounds Hawthorne and unicorn hair wands telling us that it shouldn’t. Also, given that it was Narcissa’s love for Draco that eventually ends up protecting Harry when she does the utterly miraculous task of lying to known mindreader Lord Voldemort, it’s also possible that some of her ability to out-Occlumence Voldemort had to do with a sort of extension of Harry’s love shield through Draco onto Narcissa— a sort of “I care about you and therefore the people you love are protected by-proxy of you” thing. Love ultimately is what protects Draco, as well as how he protects others in turn as both his parents and Harry would not be alive if it weren’t for his love and loyalty for them (though what type of love he feels for Harry is up to reader interpretation).
That last one might be a stretch, but I do think that it’s an important angle to examine not just because the requirements of the prophecy are wish-washy in canon, but because the whole idea of ‘Draco as the Missed Child of Prophecy’ revolves around the idea that he misses the marks for requirement by a few inches to the left. Take, for example, the line about how ‘the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal.’ Well, Draco isn’t marked as an equal, but he is certainly Marked. Yes, Draco carrying the Dark Mark was not officially confirmed in Book!Canon but given that Harry does believe that he has been Marked and that he’s generally correct about everything Draco does throughout HBP, I’d say that there is a very high likelihood that he is and that JKR just never got around to confirming it for real. So I’d argue that he does meet that requirement, but in the same way that he was born too prematurely and thus misses the exact requirements by a hair.
And as for the whole ‘neither can live while the other survives, one must die at the hands of the other’ thing, yes, Draco doesn’t match up with that either. But that being said, he is still heavily involved in the final battle between Harry and Voldemort. Both of the wands in that duel formerly belonged to Draco Malfoy. Voldemort’s penultimate words on this earth are literally threatening to murder him in order to take his power, while Harry’s penultimate words in that battle are to talk about the technicalities involving the ownership of both of Draco’s former wands. Harry literally would not have been able to win on so many levels had it not been for Draco, whether we’re talking about the wands or lying for him at the Manor or Narcissa protecting Harry or even how Sectumsempra and Draco’s time in the Room of Hidden Things allowed for Harry to know where the diadem was. So, yes, Draco might not have physically fought in the final battle between Harry and Voldemort, but his presence was undoubtedly there and is the deciding force on who died at whose hands— and Harry absolutely would not have been able to defeat a Voldemort without the help of the little boy with the pale face who threw Neville Longbottom’s remembrall and set up the opportunity for Harry to gain “the unerring skill of a Seeker” that allowed him to finally take physical possession of the Elder Wand.
So, yeah. I think that Harry was the Chosen Child of Prophecy, Neville was the Rejected Child of Prophecy, and Draco was the Missed Child of Prophecy. And it took the three of them working together in their own ways to take down Voldemort as the three who thrice defied him.
Okay, I was re-reading some stuff in HBP for another post today, and I came across something that reminded me of this theory here.
Specifically, the section was regarding the diary and how Harry and Dumbledore think Voldemort planned on using it:
"What intrigued and alarmed me the most was that the diary had been intended as a weapon as much as a safeguard." "I still don't understand," said Harry. "Well, it worked as a Horcrux is supposed to work-- in other words, the fragment of soul concealed inside it was kept safe and undoubtedly played its part in preventing the death of its owner. But there could be no doubt that Riddle really wanted the diary read, wanted the piece of his soul to inhabit or possess somebody else, so that Slytherin's monster would be unleashed again." "Well, he didn't want his hard work to be wasted," said Harry. "He wanted people to know he was Slytherin's heir, because he couldn't take credit at the time." "Quite correct," said Dumbledore, nodding. "But don't you see, Harry, that if he intended the diary to be passed to, or planted on, some future Hogwarts student, he was being remarkably blasé about that precious fragment of his soul concealed within it. The point of a Horcrux is, as Professor Slughorn explained, to keep part of the soul hidden and safe, not to fling it into somebody else's path and run the risk that they might destroy it-- as indeed happened: that partiulcar fragment of soul is no more; you saw to that." - Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 23
Both Harry and Dumbledore assume that Voldemort planned to use the diary as a weapon with the clear intent of having the soul inside possess the person reading it. And what I find really interesting about that is that while the person that did end up getting possessed was Ginny, that the person that Voldemort gave this Horcrux to was Lucius Malfoy after telling him that it would eventually open the Chamber of Secrets.
"But I thought he meant for Lucius Malfoy to smuggle it into Hogwarts?" "Yes, he did, years ago, when he was sure he would be able to create more Horcruxes, but still Lucius was supposed to wait for Voldemort's say-so, and he never received it, for Voldemort vanished shortly after giving him the diary. He doubt he thought that Lucius would not dare do anything with the Horcrux other than guard it carefully, but he was counting too much upon Lucius's fear of a master who had been gone for years and whom Lucius believed dead. Of course, Lucius did not know what the diary really was. I understand that Voldemort had told him the diary would cause the Chamber of Secrets to reopen because it was cleverly enchanted." - Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 23
So Lucius was aware of the diary's ability to open the Chamber, but was in the dark about its true nature as a Horcrux. He was given it shortly before Voldemort's fall and was told to wait until ordered to smuggle it into the castle by planting it onto future student. Tom had not only bound his soul in the diary and put certain protective measures onto it but also intended to use it as a weapon, having the soul fragment possess the reader and utilize their body to open up the Chamber as a means of proving that he was the Heir of Slytherin. That was the plan, made sometime prior to Voldemort's original defeat at the hands of Lily Potter. So I think that the questions that we should now be asking are why did Tom chose Lucius to guard the diary and who was Lucius supposed to give the diary to in order to open up the Chamber for a second time?
"I wish I knew who it was," said Malfoy petulantly. "I could help them." - Chapter of Secrets, Chapter 12
What if Draco was originally meant to?
After all, I think that it's interesting that Draco knows a lot about the Chamber despite how the information about what happened the last time that it was opened seems to have been suppressed, both within wizarding world and within the Malfoy family by Lucius himself.
"You know I haven't, Goyle, how many times do I have to tell you?" snapped Malfoy. "And Father won't tell me anything about the last time the Chamber was opened either. Of course, it was fifty years ago, so it was before his time, but he knows all about it, and he says that it was all kept quiet and it'll look suspicious if I know too much about it. But I know one thing-- last time the Chamber of Secrets was opened, a Mudblood died. So I bet it's a matter of time before one of them's killed this time... I hope it's Granger," he said with relish. - Chamber of Secrets, Chapter 12
However, despite that, Lucius does seem to be sharing some things about the Chamber with Draco regardless of his concerns about his son knowing too much.
Ron was clenching Crabbe's gigantic fists. Feeling that it would be a bit of a giveaway if Ron punched Malfoy, Harry shot him a warning look and said, "D'you know if the person who opened the Chamber last time was caught?" "Oh, yeah... whoever it was was expelled," said Malfoy. "They're probably still in Azkaban." "Azkaban?" said Harry, puzzled. "Azkaban-- the wizard prison, Goyle," said Malfoy, looking at him in disbelief. "Honestly, if you were any slower, you'd be going backwards." He shifted restlessly in his chair and said, "Father says to keep my head down and let the Heir of Slytherin get on with it. He says the school needs ridding of all the Mudblood filth, but not to get mixed up in it." - Chamber of Secrets, Chapter 12
So Lucius knows what happened the last time that the Chamber was opened, knows that the Heir is actually present and controlling the monster, knows that the last person was caught and should have gone to Azkaban, and has transferred all that knowledge onto Draco while also wanting his son to keep away from it all. Draco might want to help, but Lucius wants him nowhere near the Heir even though he not only agrees but supports what the Heir is doing. And he does this while knowing exactly who is controlling the beast this time and that Ginny not the Heir of Slytherin at all, but rather a convenient fall-guy for his own political machinations as opposed to the target that Voldemort originally wanted him to use.
After all, we know that Tom gave the diary to Lucius shortly before his fall. If we want to narrow it down, Dumbledore assumes that Lucius was given the diary back when Voldemort assumed that he could still make more Horcruxes. And given that he was probably planning to make another with Harry's death had things gone his way at Godric's Hollow - and, in fact, did do so, however unintentionally - we can assume that this was probably done sometime after he gained knowledge of the prophecy.
"However, if my calculations are correct, Voldemort was still at least one Horcrux short of his goal of six when he entered your parents' house with the intention of killing you. He seems to have reserved the process of making Horcruxes for particularly significant deaths. You would certainly been that. He believed that in killing you, he was destroying the danger the prophecy had outlined. He believed he was making himself invincible. I am sure that he was intended to make his final Horcrux with your death." - Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 23
So Lucius was given the diary sometime after the prophecy was given, maybe even before Harry and Neville were ever identified as potential candidates for the prophecy given that Trelawny makes it on a "cold and wet" night in 1980, which many have taken to mean early spring. So what might have happened in between spring 1980 and the end of July of the same year that might prompt Voldemort to give Lucius something like the diary? Well, Draco was born on right in the middle of that on June 3rd, so maybe he gave it to Lucius as part of a congratulations regarding the birth of his first son. And specifically, he might have gave it to Lucius as a means of publicly honouring him amongst his followers, because of what Dumbledore and Harry assume the diary meant to Tom:
"Well, he didn't want his hard work to be wasted," said Harry. "He wanted people to know he was Slytherin's heir, because he couldn't take credit at the time." - Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 23
"The diary, as you have said yourself, was proof that he was the Heir of Slytherin. I am sure that Voldemort considered it of stupendous importance." - Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 23
If we take the title of Heir literally, giving anyone the diary was basically adopting that person into the line of Slytherin by allowing them to gain access to the Chamber, to control the monster within, and most importantly, to speak Parseltongue. After all, this is the reason why most people believe Harry to be the Heir following the reveal of his ability to speak to snakes after his Dueling Club match with Draco. It's a visible marker as a descendant of Slytherin, and specifically one that Dumbledore believes that Tom may have been using to impress his fellow Slytherins shortly after coming to Hogwarts.
"How soon Riddle learned that the famous founder of the House could talk to snakes, I do not know-- perhaps that very evening [of his Sorting]. The knowledge can only have excited him and increased his sense of self-importance. "However, if he was frightening or impressing fellow Slytherins with displays of Parseltongue in their common room, no hint of it ever reached the staff." - Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 15
[ Also, if we're looking for more food for thought on the matter, Draco is the one that not only reveals Harry's Parseltongue status to the school by giving him a snake to control but is also seemingly one of the few that outright rejects the idea of him being the Heir. ]
Given that Draco was a child that Voldemort knew would eventually attend Hogwarts and thus be in the perfect position for the diary's activation, gifting Lucius the diary and telling him to give it to Draco when the time finally came really puts a very interesting spin on everything, doesn't it? After all, it would certainly be a great honour to have his master effectively tie his son and family to the famous lineage of Salazar Slytherin by granting Draco the power to visibly identify himself as the Heir alongside Lord Voldemort. At the same time, it's also a very foreboding warning of ownership because Voldemort had staked a claim on Draco at birth. That's probably why Lucius did pass some information about the Chamber onto his son but otherwise seems to want him to stay as far away from it as possible, to the point where Lucius didn't originally even want his kid to attend Hogwarts. We know that Voldemort inducts Draco as a follower as a punishment for his father, but if Tom ever had a sneaking doubt that slippery Lucius "My surname literally means Bad Faith" Malfoy might not entirely trustful beyond his fear, basically stamping 'Property of the House of Slytherin' onto his son's forehead shortly after his birth would certainly keep him in line.
"He doubt he thought that Lucius would not dare do anything with the Horcrux other than guard it carefully, but he was counting too much upon Lucius's fear of a master who had been gone for years and whom Lucius believed dead." - Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 23
[ Also, technically speaking, you could make a case for this being the first of many times that Voldemort humiliates Lucius sexually, with the crowning moment being when he takes Lucius's wand in Dark Lord Ascending in what's a barely concealed castration metaphor. Claiming Draco as his own heir is effectively him magically cuckholding Lucius, basically stealing the child that he had with his Lady Black wife and saying that this is his heir now-- which is something that he's absolutely known to do if you look at the text through the lens of Bellamort and think that he's having an open affair with Rodolphus Lestrange's Lady Black wife throughout the entire series too. ]
But if Voldemort's original intent was to possess Draco and open up the Chamber through him and his use of the diary, then I think that it's also important to remember just what the diary does to it's reader.
"If I say it myself, Harry, I've always been able to charm the people I needed. So Ginny poured out her soul to me, and her soul happened to be exactly what I needed... I grew stronger and stronger on a diet of her deepest fears, her darkest secrets. I grew powerful, far more powerful than little Miss Weasley. Powerful enough to start feeding Miss Weasley a few of my secrets, to start pouring a little of my soul back into her..." - Chamber of Secrets, Chapter 17
But there could be no doubt that Riddle really wanted the diary read, wanted the piece of his soul to inhabit or possess somebody else, so that Slytherin's monster would be unleashed again." - Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 23
Because it sure is one hell of a coincidence that the moment we're introduced to the idea of Voldemort wanting to use Harry's death to create the Horcrux that he might have to wanted to use to replace the diary should it be destroyed, that we're also introduced to the idea of Voldemort shoving his soul into another living being.
"I think I know what the sixth Horcrux is. I wonder what you will say when I confess that I have been curious for a while about the behaviour of the snake, Nagini?" "The snake?" said Harry, startled. "You can use animals as Horcruxes?" "Well, it is inadvisable to do so," said Dumbledore, "because to confine a part of your soul to something that can think and move for itself is obviously a very risky business." - Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 23
After all, Nagini's presense at Voldemort's side connects him directly to Slytherin, in a way that is supposed to parallel his control over the Basilisk (with Frank Bryce's death and transformation into his last Horcrux paralleling the murder of Myrtle Warren and her transformation into his first).
"After an interval of some years, however, he used Nagini to kill an old Muggle man, and it might have occurred to him to turn her into his last Horcrux. She underlines the Slytherin connection, which enhances Lord Voldemort's mystique. I think he is perhaps as fond of her as he can be of anything; he certainly liked to keep her close, and seems to have an unusual amount of control over her, even for a Parselmouth." - Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 23
But also given that the weaponization of the diary is considered very risky, Nagini's status as a Horcrux is also similarly fraught with danger-- to the point where Voldemort feels the need to protect her when it becomes clear to him that Harry is hunting his Horcruxes. Presumably, Ginny's retreat into the Chamber at the end of CoS was a similar defensive mechanism employed by the diary's soul shard, as Diary!Riddle knew that Harry was pursuing him at this point and had plans to lure him into the Chamber to kill him himself (he admits that this was why Hermione was targeted, after all). This is also the disadvantage that Voldemort faces with Harry being a Horcrux, given that he literally decides to kill himself to attack the soul shard he houses within his body. Ginny fights Tom's as well, causing him to not be at his full power when Harry eventually confronts him, and Quirrell's body is vulnerable to Lily's protective spells when Harry fights him in front of the Mirror of Erised. Just like how having a living Horcrux is risky, weaponizing the diary to basically transfer the soul shard out of it's pages and into a living person, possessing them and transforming them into the new Heir of Slytherin, is equally as risky-- if not far more. But that still was Voldemort's plan, to use the diary to create a living Horcrux... just like he does with Harry when he gives him the lightning bolt scar and marked him as his equal by turning him into a living Horcrux too.
So I don't think that it's a coincidence that he gives the diary to Lucius around the time of his son's birth with the intent of having Lucius give it to a future student of Hogwarts so that they might open the Chamber again and become his own living Horcrux, with knowledge that Draco might one day attend Hogwarts and be in the prime position to carry out this mission, and that this was probably all set up because Voldemort learned of the prophecy and was planning on using the death of the Chosen Child to create his final Horcrux and then did, but just not in the way he intended. I think that Voldemort's plan was to have Draco become the living Horcrux instead of Harry and then use Harry's death as the fuel to create his seventh and final Horcrux as an eventual replacement of the diary. And finally, I think that Voldemort planned to have Draco take possession of the diary when he was sixteen, which was how old Tom was when originally opened up the Chamber of Secret and how old Draco was when he was given the Dark Mark as a punishment for Lucius's failures during the interim period of the war, and why Voldemort specifically asks Lucius about the fate of the diary sometime after his revival.
"But I wasn't going to waste those long years I'd spent searching for [the Chamber of Secrets]. I decided to leave behind a diary, preserving my sixteen-year-old self in its pages, so that one day, with luck, I would be able to lead another in my footsteps, and finish Salazar Slytherin's noble work." - Chamber of Secrets, Chapter 17
"I wish I knew who it was," said Malfoy petulantly. "I could help them." - Chapter of Secrets, Chapter 12
"That's because he is sixteen and has no idea what lies in store! Why, Severus? Why my son? It is too dangerous! This is vengeance for Lucius's mistake, I know it!" - Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 2
"But he was not aware, for instance, that the diary had been destroyed until he forced the truth out of Lucius Malfoy. When Voldemort discovered that the diary had been mutilated and robbed of all its powers, I am told that his anger was terrible to behold." - Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 23
"Ah, poor Lucius... what with Voldemort's fury about the fact that he threw away the Horcrux for his own gain, and the fiasco at the Ministry last year, I would not be surprised if he is not secretly glad to be safe in Azkaban at the moment." - Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 23
Draco Malfoy was supposed to be marked as an equal in the exact same way that Harry was, where he was transformed into a living Horcrux because of Voldemort's reaction to the prophecy, and was both chosen and passed over because Tom Riddle looked for his equal in someone else. Because while Harry is the Chosen Child and Neville was the Rejected Child, Draco was the Hidden Child who only meets the requirements of the prophecy if you realized that he misses every single one of them them by ever-so-slight twist of fate.
This is absolutely brilliant. Canon to me now.
