Mugglenet.com's Harry Potter Should Have Died - Emerson Spartz [29]
And the reason he turns against the Dark Side in the first place is one of the biggest surprises of the series: He loves the girl next door, Lily Evans, who grew up to be Harry’s mother. Snape’s request to spare her life is the only reason Lily is given a choice to either step away from Harry or die. And, of course, Lily did choose to die, which is the reason for other surprising scenes of Snape weeping over her death and weeping over an old letter. When Harry sees Snape’s memories, he finally understands, and he takes the surprising role as Snape’s champion in front of the whole school, the Death Eaters, and Lord Voldemort. It’s an astonishing plot twist for the ages.
Draco Malfoy
Draco is always just the stereotyped school bully at Hogwarts and the pureblood Slytherin opposite of Harry, so it was a big surprise that we actually began to care about his fate in HBP. The catalyst for change in his character first comes about at the end of OotP, when Dumbledore tosses Draco’s wealthy and powerful father into Azkaban. After that, Draco is mad at the world and determined to join forces with Voldemort to get back at Harry and the Order of the Phoenix. But it all backfires, leaving Draco alone with his problems in HBP, pouring out his sadness to none other than the ghostly Moaning Myrtle. Being a Death Eater is more like torture than some glorious quest, plus Voldemort’s price for not following orders is certain death. And the assignment from the Dark Lord is not exactly for a beginner: Draco has to figure out a way to kill Headmaster Dumbledore. Trying to become a murderer nearly drives Draco to despair, especially when his plans keep failing and others such as Katie Bell and Ron Weasley are hurt during the attempts.
The surprise is not that Draco’s life goes down the wrong path, but that he regrets it so quickly. He is smart enough to realize something his parents never taught him—that serving the Dark Lord is a dead-end job, just as Regulus Black and Severus Snape learned years before. Draco never wants to kill Dumbledore, and when push comes to shove, he can’t do it. He doesn’t seem too thrilled either when Voldemort kills Charity Burbage, the Muggle Studies teacher, before his eyes in DH; in fact, he can’t bear to look at her. And more importantly, even though Draco recognizes the Trio at Malfoy Manor, he doesn’t blow their cover to the Death Eaters or even his own parents, which is what he would have done before his own suffering began. That’s especially amazing since Harry almost kills Draco with the Sectumsempra spell the year before in HBP, and they hate each other’s guts. So Draco is just not the evil kid that he seems, and it is justice that he survives the Battle of Hogwarts.
Plus, Tom Felton is so dreamy.
Narcissa Malfoy
Narcissa Malfoy is the big surprise of the series because who would expect to sympathize with a rich, pureblood snob who has her nose in the air? Her son is a spoiled-brat bully, her husband is a Death Eater, and her abused house-elf Dobby ran away from home. Yet, over the course of the last two books in the series, we learn that she, surprisingly, has a heart and it is breaking because she has nearly lost Draco to the Dark Lord. She may be Bellatrix Lestrange’s sister, but she’s as different from her sister as night and day. Narcissa stays loyal to her husband even when he is in Azkaban, and she is willing to risk the anger of Voldemort to save her only son. In HBP, she sees the good in her friend Severus Snape, trusting him as the only one of the Death Eaters who will help her in her time of grief.