(born in
J. K. Rowling 's ''
Harry Potter '' books and
Harry Potter 's principal rival at school. The rivalry between the two is such that Harry has at times perceived Draco to be his archnemesis. Draco is described as a pale-faced boy with white-blond hair, pointed features, and cold grey eyes. Harry describes him as a spoiled, arrogant, and selfish person.
Malfoy's intense rivalry with Harry started mainly as a product of envy, given the latter's fame and phenomenal successes at Hogwarts. Once Malfoy complained bitterly to his father about Harry's popularity and his talent as a Quidditch player, and having a superb broom. As the boys grow older, however, their mutual hostility develops far beyond petty jealousies, and expands into a much bigger wizard war.
Additionally, Malfoy taunts
Ron Weasley 's family for their poor financial situation and treats
Hermione Granger with utter disdain for being
Muggle -born, calling her by the derogatory term
Mudblood .
Draco Malfoy is played by
Tom Felton in the first four Harry Potter films.
Draco is 11 years old. He makes his first appearance in Madam Malkin's robe shop. Draco initially behaves in a friendly manner towards Harry and tries to engage him in conversation, but unfortunately only succeeds in alienating him. Draco claims that he is planning to get his parents to buy him a new racing broom. This strongly reminds Harry of
Dudley Dursley , Harry's spoiled cousin. Draco then inadvertently disparages Hagrid, whom Harry has great affection for. The two boys' mutual dislike for each other is sealed when Draco offers Harry his friendship outright and Harry refuses. They have been bitter enemies ever since.
Draco is a
Bully of the sort who uses psychological manipulation and verbal taunts. He is constantly accompanied by two obtuse
Slytherins ,
Vincent Crabbe and
Gregory Goyle , who act as his bodyguards and follow his every order.
Draco is 12 years old. He gains the position of Seeker in the Slytherin
Quidditch team. Hermione speculates that this is mainly because of his father's generous donation of seven high-quality
Nimbus 2001 brooms — enough to equip the entire team. However, he is also apparently proficient enough in this role that Slytherin's team is typically competing with Gryffindor for top ranking in the Hogwarts league. He is highly favoured by
Severus Snape , the
Potions Master and Head of Slytherin House. Because of this, Draco often gets away with behaviour (at least in Potions class) that would land Harry, or any other non-Slytherin student, in
Detention .
Malfoy is attacked by a hippogriff in Care of Magical Creatures class and subsequently tries his best to get the teacher, Rubeus Hagrid, fired. Pansy Parkinson, a Slytherin girl in his year, begins expressing considerable romantic interest in Draco and will eventually accompany him to the Yule Ball in their fourth year.
Malfoy appears to be instrumental in the creation of "Support
Cedric Diggory " badges for the
Triwizard Tournament , as he is the first one to show them to Harry out of spite. These badges switch phrases when touched to say "
Potter Stinks". He also gave malicious misinformation to
Rita Skeeter about Harry Potter and Rubeus Hagrid. Draco is also believed to be dating
Pansy Parkinson at this point.
Malfoy joins
The Inquisitorial Squad and plays an important part in the exposure of the secret
Dumbledore's Army , which Harry leads. He is devastated at the end of the book by the imprisonment of his father.
Draco plays a crucial role in ''
Half-Blood Prince '', when
Lord Voldemort orders him to murder the Headmaster of Hogwarts,
Albus Dumbledore . Like
Regulus Black , Draco is infatuated by the
Dark Arts and eagerly takes on the task as a chance for glory, of which he seems to get very little. In an effort to prove himself, Draco works alone without the help of his cronies, Crabbe and Goyle, or his favourite professor,
Severus Snape . Under his aunt
Bellatrix Lestrange 's instruction, Draco has become quite proficient in
Occlumency , a skill that Harry has never mastered.
Draco's plan is to mend the broken
Vanishing Cabinet in the
Room Of Requirement in Hogwarts, to allow Voldemort's
Death Eaters to invade and assist with Dumbledore's murder. As the school year progresses, Draco slowly comes to believe that he is unable to fix the cabinet, and in desperation he attempts to curse, then poison, the headmaster.
Harry is increasingly suspicious of Draco, and may be the only person who believes that Draco could do major harm: Narcissa, Snape, and perhaps even Voldemort believe he will fail.
Though Harry always thinks of Draco as an arrogant, selfish person, he encounters another side of him, actually crying in a lavatory with none other than
Moaning Myrtle . For Draco, the stakes are impossibly high: he must either carry out Voldemort's orders or risk the murder of his family in retribution.
Against all odds, Draco succeeds in mending the cabinet and allowing the Death Eaters into Hogwarts. Unfortunately for him, Harry instructs his friends to watch Draco and Snape, and they are able to alert the
Order Of The Phoenix to the Death Eaters' presence. Despite this, Draco manages to reach the North Tower to confront Dumbledore, with Harry as a helpless and invisible witness. Though Draco is initially exhilarated at his apparent achievements, he ultimately proves unable to complete his task; instead, Snape steps in and kills Dumbledore for him. Draco's ultimate inability to commit murder is evidence that he still retains some innocence, leading some fans to believe that he may be redeemed in the future. On the
Hogwarts Express Pansy is shown stroking Malfoy's hair, leading to beliefs of them going out.
Draco is the only child of
Lucius and
Narcissa Malfoy (née
Black ).
The
Malfoy Family Lexicon Black Family Tree symbolises prejudice; Rowling once compared them to the Nazis. The family is old, aristocratic, formal, clannish, very affluent, and extremely proud of their pure bloodlines. Most, if not all, of them were in the Slytherin House. They harbor a very intense distaste against Muggle-born witches and wizards and Muggles in general. Interestingly, however, this distaste does not seem to extend to people of other colors. A conversation between Draco and Blaise Zabini, a black Slytherin, is portrayed as one between equals.
The family manor is in
Wiltshire in southwest England and was once staffed by the family house-elf Dobby, whom Harry Potter frees from enslavement in ''
Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets ''. It can be assumed that the Malfoys have lived in the manor for generations, as they seem to have secret chambers (not unlike Salazar Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets at Hogwarts) in the house where they hide Dark objects and heirlooms that could damage the family name.
By making the Malfoy family rather small, Rowling re-enforces the idea that prejudice dies out. The Malfoys have a very limited selection of people to marry, since they refuse to marry anyone who is not a pure-blood.
Though he is very proud of his family, as he was taught to be, Draco's relationship with his father,
Lucius Malfoy , is somewhat unclear; while Draco is very loyal and boasts about his father's power, he is often stung by Lucius's strict rebukes and critical remarks.
Lucius Malfoy's capture at the end of
Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix is a turning point for the family. Draco replaces his father (possibly) as a
Death Eater , and Narcissa convinces
Severus Snape to make the Unbreakable Vow to protect her only son.
"Draco Malfoy" is an invented name by
J. K. Rowling .
''Draco'' can be derived from the
Latin word meaning "
Dragon " (or serpent/
Snake ). In parallel, the
Hogwarts motto is ''"Draco dormiens numquam titillandus"'', which is roughly translated to ''"Never tickle a sleeping dragon"''. Draco is also the name of a
Snakelike Constellation , keeping with the traditions of the
Black family that name their descendants after stars/constellations. Notably, "
Draco " is the first lawgiver of
Athens , who enforced a harsh legal code. The English adjective, draconian, meaning 'cruel', is inherited from that lawgiver. Variations on the name "Draco" are also translated to "devil" in some
Biblical and other ancient texts. Since Rowling's knowledge of Latin is basically self-taught
October 16, 2000 Scholastic Interview with J.K. Rowling , some of her translations may not come out precisely as intended.
''Malfoy'' is derived from Old French ''Mal Foi'' or ''Mal Foy'', which means "Bad Faith".
While many adult wizards and witches in the series have invented names (Nymphadora Tonks, etc.), Draco Malfoy is one of two Hogwarts students who has such a name (the other is
Luna Lovegood ); even his followers have conventional names such as Vincent, Gregory, and Pansy. Both of the students' names are from Latin. Rowling enjoys the feeling that wizards would continue to use this dead language in their everyday life.
In a very early draft of ''Philosopher's Stone'' (around 1994), Draco's last name was originally "Spungen", before, like Hermione Granger's, being changed.
Below are the author's quotes about her character from the Connection Interview (October 1999, transcribed by Catwoman at SQ) and the Leaky Cauldron/Mugglenet Interview 2005.
"He is the bully of the most refined type in that unlike Dudley, Harry's cousin who is a physical bully, but really not bright enough to access all of your weak points. Draco is, um, he's a snob. He's a bigot and he's a bully, and as I say, in the most refined sense, he knows exactly what will hurt people."
"I think Draco would be very gifted in Occlumency, unlike Harry. I thought of Draco as someone who is very capable of compartmentalizing his life and his emotions, and always has done. So he's shut down his pity, enabling him to bully effectively. He's shut down compassion — how else would you become a Death Eater? So he suppresses virtually all of the good side of himself.
But then he's playing with the big boys, as the phrase has it, and suddenly, having talked the talk he's asked to walk it for the first time and it is absolutely terrifying. And I think that that is an accurate depiction of how some people fall into that kind of way of life and they realize what they're in for. I felt sorry for Draco. Well, I’ve always known this was coming for Draco, obviously, however nasty he was.
Harry is correct in believing that Draco would not have killed Dumbledore, which I think is clear when he starts to lower his wand, when the matter is taken out of his hands."
Draco Malfoy exhibits stereotypical pointed features as the main
Villain ous student. Rowling uses Malfoy as the personification of one of her major plotlines,
Prejudice , by introducing him as Harry's first classmate upon entering the Wizarding World. He and his cronies,
Vincent Crabbe and
Gregory Goyle , represent the
Antithesis to the trio of Ron, Hermione, and Harry.
However, in the sixth book, Draco Malfoy's character undergoes a major shift. While still attempting to maintain his characteristic arrogance, the difficult task set to him by
Lord Voldemort and the capture of his father,
Lucius Malfoy , turns him into a more sympathetic character, and in the end, after orchestrating the entire plan perfectly, he finds himself incapable of completing his mission of murdering
Albus Dumbledore , thus forcing
Severus Snape to do it for him.
Draco Malfoy has developed a large
Following among many Harry Potter fans as a popular figure in
Fan Fiction , where he is often portrayed as the
Anti-hero in a romantic relationship with Hermione
Opposites Attract Why ... do so many passionate shippers still write and read about a possible romance between Harry's best friend and worst enemy?, Ginny, Harry, or even Luna.
Actor Thomas Felton escalated the character's claim to fame among fans by giving them a visual portrayal of Harry's nemesis. Felton received more fanmail than the other actors (including the protagonist's actor) yet ironically had never read any ''
Harry Potter '' books until after the filming of ''
Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets ''.
Author
J. K. Rowling also has attributed Draco's popularity to the "bad boy" persona he has on film. To Rowling's despair, many female Harry Potter fans became obsessed with Draco. They deeply admired Malfoy's cunning, ambition, and arrogant streak. "The trouble is, of course, that girls fancy Tom Felton, but Draco is NOT Tom Felton!" Rowling said in an interview
World Day Chat (March 2004 Interview) .
Others agree with Rowling and feel that those fans were merely projecting appealing traits onto him that were hitherto nonexistant. This cynical view inspired the mocking, derisive term "Leather-Pants Draco
"Leather-Pants Draco" is a derisive term immortalized by the popular "Draco Sinister" fanfiction by Cassandra Claire". On the other hand, Malfoy gained even greater fandom sympathy than before due to the events in ''Half-Blood Prince'' that showed that he was not completely evil.
However, there are many fans who took a liking to Draco Malfoy even before the films' creation and Felton's cast. Many of these fans tend to be older and prolific in fanfiction writing and character analysis essays. Some of them rather resent the misconception that all fans of Draco Malfoy are thought as all fans of Tom Felton. These fans realize Malfoy's potential as a dynamic character (since he was developed so little until the sixth book), and they would like to believe that he is not a cardboard black-and-white character. Some preferred Malfoy due to their dislike for the principle protagnists.
