To Begin With…
The Harry Potter universe is vast. For those of you, who missed out on this fantasy series by J.K Rowling, let me give you a quick introduction. In a world full of magic, witchcrafts and wizardry, witches and wizards and fantastic beasts, a baby is born. However, baby Harry doesn’t know about a prophecy that links his life with the darkest wizard to grace the earth—Lord Voldemort. To eliminate the threat to his rising power, Voldemort attempts to kill Harry. But Harry’s mother, Lily Potter, sacrifices her life to save her baby.
Harry grows up living with his cruel aunt and uncle, the Dursleys, unaware of his magical powers. Until one day, when he was 11 years old, a Hogwarts admission letter comes for him. He discovers this other hidden world—where magic is much real. In Hogwarts, Harry has tons of adventures and meets Draco Malfoy as one of his adversaries.
ORIGINS
Draco Malfoy, son of Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, was bought up at the Malfoy Manor alone, in a cold detached way. He grew up, learning he was special, superior as a pure blood wizard. He only associated with other Death Eater families and therefore only knew one particular way of living.
FRIENDSHIP
Draco offered Harry his friendship at Madam Malkin’s even before he knew who Harry was. Considering Harry had just come from the Dursley’s, there is little doubt he was in the shabbiest oversized clothes, with his messy haircut and broken glasses held together with some cello-tape. Arriving at Hogwarts, and realizing who Harry Potter was, Draco tried to offer his friendship yet again only to be refused further. And then he saw Harry make alliance with Ron Weasley, who belonged to the poor lowly Weasley family, which is why Draco turns against him. I think that it was a genuine attempt at friendship but then he had to keep up his pretences and when he saw Ron he just couldn’t help being smug and snobby.
Everything Draco did was to impress his father, Lucius. I would go as far as to say he didn’t do or say anything without thinking what his father would say. Draco’s cold and superior attitude could be the likes of him impersonating his father.
His only friends were his Slytherin house members, including Crabbe and Goyle; but were they really friends? From what is evident from the movies and the books, they acted more like henchmen and bodyguards than actual friends. They weren’t much of a friend than a sheep, just following him everywhere. That’s not how friendship works.
His other friend was Pansy Parkinson, another stuck up Slytherin girl. But she was probably after him as he was good looking, rich and pure blooded. Draco was jealous of the friendship of the trio (Harry, Ron and Hermione) and hoped for something similar.
LIFE AT HOGWARTS
Draco was bought up thinking he was the center of the world. Then he comes to Hogwarts and meets Harry, who was undeniably the most talked about person in the whole Wizarding community. Draco shows signs of being envious, jealous of not receiving the attention he thought he deserved. Harry was talented at flying and Quidditch the most, Draco was only second to Harry in the sport. (Harry was the only seeker who could defeat Draco at school.) Draco was also good at studies, second only to Hermione. But he despised her because she was a muggle-born. Draco therefore resorted to dirty tricks to discredit Harry.
Draco always had it hard at school, looked down upon for belonging to Slytherin. Even the books state Slytherin to be the most evil of all houses and to produce the most number of Death Eaters. But didn’t Horace Slughorn and Regulus Black and Severus Snape also belong to Slytherin and later Harry’s own son, Albus Severus? No one really comments on how artistic Draco was, creating “The Weasley is our King” song and the “Potter Stinks” badges which made the insults worse if someone tried to fix it. He was creative with his insults; one has to give him that!
Draco sure did his share of misdeeds, where he bullied everyone, tried his best to get Hagrid fired, called Hermione a mudblood (which is very offensive in Wizarding terms). Hating him for his shortcomings is natural and justified. Yes, he was annoying and an archetypical bully but wasn’t that a child impersonating his environment—how people in his social circle behaved, how his father expected him to behave?
No one told him to try being friends with the trio—not Snape, not his family, not his House members. People expect Slytherin to behave like Smuts. He wasn’t any different from a typical Slytherin. The point is he had a change of heart, a character development.
Having a soft spot in the heart of his house head, Severus Snape, was little compensation to the fact he was nearly alone and wasn’t living the glorious school life he imagined he would. He did take pride in few things like how he was a Prefect and Harry was not. When he became a member of Dolores Umbridge’s Inquisitiorial Squad, he made it his only motive to discover what Harry was up to. Well, not only did Harry escape from him, but during that time his father Lucius was captured and sent to Azkaban.
THE BATTLE OF HOGWARTS
Even though he knew his father was a Death Eater, facing shame from the entire Wizarding community, but being left alone to fend for himself and his mother took a toll on him. Until now, Draco had a sheltered upbringing with his father as the head of the family. Draco was mostly left to his antics, keeping in mind he didn’t do anything to bring shame to the family name. Now, with his father gone, he had to take upon his father’s role and make amends to the Dark Lord so that he and his mother could stay alive.
It is said Draco loved only himself; but I disagree. He didn’t just love himself. He loved his mother more than anything else in the world. He also wanted his father’s approval; and to gain that and the status of a true Slytherin, he sold his soul to Voldemort.
Worse was yet to come as Draco was asked to kill Dumbledore to prove that he was loyal to the cause. And if he failed, he would have to pay with his life. Now Dumbledore was a wizard even Voldemort was afraid of and couldn’t think of defeating him in a one on one duel. How a fifth year student was to kill him was not told to him. He was to figure that out himself. Draco had little choice in making a decision. He was being set up to fail indeed.
Initially, Draco might have liked the idea of a Dumbledore-free Hogwarts— something which represented everything his father disliked. But eventually the impossibility and the consequence of his actions dawned upon him. But alas, it was too late. He became depressed under the pressure of the task. Having killed two other people instead of Dumbledore, he might have discovered his distaste for killings. But it is again something his father would have disliked being such a strong advocate of violence.
Draco was also the only person in the history of Hogwarts to bypass Dumbledore’s defense spells. He invited a whole bunch of Death Eaters to Hogwarts. It resulted in the death of Dumbledore, although not by his own hands. Facing Dumbledore, even if he was weak and wandless, Draco couldn’t bring himself to do what was required by him. Draco was adept at Occlumency (the ability to shut your thoughts out from others) which also indicate how emotionless, closed and damaged he was.
A CHANGED DRACO
Depressed, confused, scared for his life, Draco had no option but to go along with what he was told to do. Even so, we see acts of defiance in him—parts where he saved Harry in the mansion. He recognized him right away but didn’t say it. If it weren’t for that day, Harry would be dead. Harry owes his life to many people, Draco being one of them. The pain in his eyes is evident when his aunt Bellatrix was torturing Hermione. He still refused to reveal their identity even though he knew exactly who they were.
Then I think about how he was raised, in that cold, heartless manor. Everything he was taught to believe in. Everything he was asked to do, and sacrifice. Many people compare him to Sirius, saying he was from a pure-blood family too.
Maybe Draco wasn’t brave, he was a coward. But cowardice means survival, and survivors live to tell the tales. Dead men tell no tales. Maybe it took him long to understand who was wrong; maybe it was too late when he finally did. But he were just a teen, he was allowed to make mistakes and learn from them.
Draco changed, having seen the bitter dark parts of the world he grew up in. We could see his reluctance to cross over to the Death Eaters when Voldemort comes back with a dead Harry in Hagrid’s arms. He even went to the extent of running to give Harry his wand to fight off Voldemort as soon as he realized Harry was alive. That took guts, defying years of his upbringing, doing something his father would have disliked.
AFTERMATH OF THE BATTLE
Draco married Astoria Greengrass who, even though a Slytherin, was not the first choice of his parents. Even after whatever he was taught to believe in, and the way of living he was accustomed to, Draco changed and lived a much more liberal life and adopted a more tolerable way of living. He and Astoria raised Scorpius to be much better a Malfoy than Draco himself.
In The End…
Draco is what we call an antagonist. And I refuse to believe that if he had a different upbringing, he would not have turned out differently. Perhaps a version of how Fred and George were. Who’s to say James Potter didn’t make mistakes? He was a bully until Lily’s love changed him.
Alright, so Draco loved attention and he did everything to get what he wanted. I think these are petty human qualities. And despite all these external petty drama, his personal life was a mess. Whenever he was angry or confused or jealous he turned mean like any other teen I know.
No one notices how he was suffering from depression. Draco quit Quidditch, something he was really good at. He stopped seeing his friends. He even looked sick, paler and hallowed than he did before. What teenage boy has the pressure of the entire Wizarding community on him—always fearing for his life and his family’s, if he made a wrong move? Draco never had a Patronus, because he couldn’t think of enough happy memories to cast a Patronus charm and this brings tears to my eyes.
No one really noticed how guilty he was. Everyone saw the pain he caused, but none saw the pain he himself was in. Everyone hated him for the destruction he brought. No one realized how he hated himself because of it. He was hated just because he came from a certain family of Death eaters. But then, how can you judge someone for the deeds of their parents?
He was raised by two vile human beings in an environment of gloom and sadness as a result of the dark lord’s failure. He was instilled with all sorts of horrible values. And even though he was doomed from the beginning to be the villain of the story, he changed the narrative, preferring to break away from his family’s legacy of hatred and violence.
So, all I see in Draco is not a monster, but a boy broken by years of tragedy and pain, forced to do the unspeakable. He was never the villain, he was just a simple boy—a product of toxic parenting and a victim of dreadful circumstances.
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