#PotterWeek #PotterPeeps Why Draco Malfoy is My Favorite Character

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One of the best things about the Harry Potter world is that there are so many great characters that people both love and hate. They are all crafted amazingly, and many of us Potterheads find ourselves feeling rather strongly about one or two characters. This can be strong dislike for a certain character (*ahem* Umbridge) or actually liking a character people hate (does Voldemort count?).

I have a few favorite characters from the Harry Potter universe, including Remus Lupin, Hermione Granger, Ginny Weasely, Severus Snape, and Bellatrix Lestrange. However, I am going to look at my top favorite character – Draco Malfoy.

I’ll admit; I was not a fan of Draco’s in the beginning. He is a snobby bully who uses his name to get what he wants. He was definitely a pretty frustrating character at the beginning of the books, but as the stories progressed, I started to realize there was more to this character than what we saw.

We often saw Draco from Harry’s perspective, and while some things can’t be overlooked (saying mudblood being one), there are many times where Draco is “tainted” through Harry’s view.

If you take a close look at Draco, you’ll realize that while he might use his father’s name to get him places, he is also a hard worker. The only professor who would give him passing grades simply because he is a Malfoy seems to be Snape, yet Malfoy had great marks even in the OWLs. He was smart and capable.

But when Draco really became a favorite was in The Half-Blood Prince when we begin to see another side of him. Harry is so obsessed with Draco being a Death Eater that he doesn’t even think of that that entails.

Draco became a Death Eater, not just out of desire to serve Voldemort, but also out of a sense of keeping his family safe. Or so I view it. His father had screwed up majorly and the Malfoys needed something to bring them back up and out of Voldemort’s disfavor. (Also, they were pretty scared for their lives due to Lucius and his mistakes.) Draco seized an opportunity to protect his family and worked as hard as he possibly could to make sure it went right.

We see snippets of how he handles things when Harry notices that Draco is incredibly stressed and focused. We also learn a bit more about Draco when we hear Moaning Myrtle talking about him crying and needing support. Regardless of the pressure he is under, he still works to achieve half of his overall goal, and ultimately does.

While he worked hard on what he had to do, he also made poor attempts at the other half of his task. He didn’t want to kill, which I think speaks a lot for his overall character. He disarms Dumbledore instead of outright killing him, which any other Death Eater would’ve done. And as Dumbledore talks to Draco, Draco begins to lower his wand. It is clear that while he had to do it to save his family and himself, there was a major part of Draco that did not and ultimately would not, kill.

I’ve often been called arrogant and uncaring (and wrongly judged as I am often told later), so when Dumbledore started talking to Draco, saying he understood him, that was pretty powerful, as well. In the end, we learn that there was more to Draco than his arrogance and bullying ways. Even in the added stories, we learn that Draco and his wife changed their views, and even raised their children to not focus on blood status – that all witches and wizards, and even muggles, are equal.

Do you like a Harry Potter character no one else seems to?

It’s 2015, little 9-year-old Scorpius Malfoy is going through a rebellious stage. He takes some of his allowance gold from Gringotts, converts it to pounds, heads to Muggle London and purchases… a new MacBook pro. What skin or laptop cover would he get??