The Boy Who Needed More: Why I Support Draco Malfoy

Draco Malfoy: one of the main antagonists of our favorite wizarding world. There is a huge bulk of the fandom who think that Draco is the most infuriating, inconsiderate, arrogant, daddy’s boy of all time. However, there are a few of us who agree that he is the most misunderstood character of the series. I am getting pretty sick of people blindly accusing him of being the worst without fully understanding his story and giving him props for his character development along the way. (A small disclaimer: I am only going to be referencing the movies for this article because of the controversy surrounding the books, as well as the fact that most people have seen the movies compared to reading the books).

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To understand Draco Malfoy, we must first understand his past. To start this off, let’s take a look into Draco’s home/family life. The Malfoy family is and always has been a big supporter of the dark lord and his ideals—knowing this— it sets the stage for the way Draco was raised and how he was taught to behave growing up. In the first movie, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, we are introduced to Draco Malfoy with a key line, “you need to make the right sort of friends. I can help you there.” Right off the bat, this seems like an arrogant thing to say to somebody, especially when you are supposed to be an 11 year old child. However, we need not only to think about how this sounds to us, but about how Draco perceives this as well.

From our point of view, Draco is being rude and needs to check himself; but from his point of view, he is giving genuine advice. In his world, Draco was raised into a classist society of self centered people, who had one common goal: to please the dark lord. No mistakes of his went unpunished and no actions went unnoticed. He isn’t allowed to have friends at Hogwarts because none of them are in his social class (he does have Crab and Goyle, however they act more as his henchmen rather than his friends). Now, he meets Harry Potter. Finally! Somebody who is in his social class with the same amount of fame and popularity as his family name. Draco sees this as his chance to make a real, socially acceptable friend. The problem is, Harry was raised differently. He was raised like the rest of us and has his own manners and ideals that he lives by. So— as the rest of us did— he sees this comment to be rude and offensive. This crucial moment is what initially starts their feud. Not the dark lord, not the Potter/Malfoy family name. This. Obviously, it does grow into something more intense because of the difference in families, but this is what kicked it off.

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Let’s look into a few more instances where Draco took influence off of his father. One simple example is in the fourth movie, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. In this movie, there is a moment where Harry is in the courtyard and is spotted by Draco and his goons. This is the following line: “Father and I have bet you see. I don’t think you’ll last 10 minutes in this tournament. He disagrees…he thinks you won’t last 5—” At this point, he is interrupted by Harry who defends himself, however, we can see here that Harry Potter’s failure is the epitome of Draco and his father’s bond together. Another example of this is in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince when Draco is caught crying in the bathrooms. In this scene, Harry and Draco end up fighting (of course), however I want to shift our focus to why Draco is crying in this scene to begin with. Draco Malfoy is this character whom we have gotten to know as heartless, cruel, and stubborn throughout the film series. So why is he now showing this sudden outburst of emotion? What they don’t tell you right away in the movies is that Draco having the dark mark is excruciatingly painful. So not only is this whole dark mark situation taking a toll on his metal health, it is also taking a toll on his physical health as well. In this scene, we are seeing Draco crack. We see the thick walls he has built up start to come down just a bit. Just enough to see this situation for what it really is: a teenage boy with the pressure of his school, his peers, his family— and the dark lord himself— resting on his shoulders. We also see this in his countless attempts to belittle Hogwarts as a whole. Saying things about the teachers they hire, the classes they teach, and even Dumbledore as well. He does this, of course, seeking the approval of his father. Draco doesn’t hate the school, he hates his relationship with the school. He doesn’t hate the teachers, he hates that he isn’t praised by the teachers. He doesn’t hate his peers, he hates that he can never seem to get involved with them. However, there is one shining beacon of hope in Draco’s character development that almost helps to outshine the bad.

In the movie Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, when Harry was caught by Bellatrix, there is a moment where the death eaters in the room are unsure if the boy they have captured is in fact Harry Potter. In this uncertainty, Bellatrix asks Draco to identify the boy in front of them. Draco looks the boy in the eyes, and he knows this is Harry. He knows this is the boy he has rivaled with since they were 11, and he knows it quick. But what does Draco do in this titular moment in the films? He tells the death eaters they have the wrong person. They’ve made a mistake. As I stated before: we’ve gotten to know Draco as a terrible person, incapable of being nice or compassionate, let alone sympathetic. But here we are, as he makes the decision he knows could get him killed. But he saves Harry anyways; he knows he deserves to be saved just as he hopes to be saved in the end.

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Draco Malfoy wasn’t born a terrible person. He is a person who was taught so much hatred in his childhood that he thought it was just normal. He was raised by death eaters, Voldemort’s ideals, and nobody to pull him up when he was so clearly drowning. I’m not going to pretend that Draco didn’t do bad things. He is racist, sexist, and an overall douche. But my point of this article is to get you to look past it for a moment, and fins its root. To see why Draco grew to be the person he is/was. None of this excuses his actions. However, it is important to see that he was deeply traumatized his entire childhood. And he is capable of changing for the better. We see this when he saves Harry Potter from death, and we see this from the hesitation in his step to Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. In this movie, Draco is standing with the other Hogwarts students during the final battle. He is very visibly scared for himself and his peers while being stared down by the possibility of tyranny and death. In this moment, Draco is called over by Voldemort and his family to join them “where he belongs” and there is a small pause between him deciding to stay or leave. There is a very important pause that tells us he wants to stay but knows he shouldn’t. He knows it’s safer for everyone if he goes, so he does. Draco Malfoy saved lives, wanted friends, was a good student, and only wanted the approval of his family. He knew his limits and knew where to draw the line in the end.

I think Draco has a shot at change. I think if he had a chance to really reflect and think on life, he could be better. If he didn’t have this constant pressure to be perfect and make the choices his father wants him to make, he might have a shot. What do you think? Do you agree with me or do you think something else? I hope you guys enjoyed this article and that it got you thinking a bit more on character depth and growth! Thank you for reading, I love you guys!