Draco Malfoy: Harry Potter Character Profile

Draco Malfoy is the rival student who clashes with Harry from the first film, and Tom Felton plays him in the Harry Potter films. He debuts in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001), directed by Chris Columbus, where Felton is billed fifth behind Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson and Richard Harris.

The films present Draco as the son of a prominent family. His father is Lucius Malfoy, played by Jason Isaacs in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Snape promises Draco's mother that he will protect her son. So, if you are asking about the Malfoy family, the films give you a father who schemes and a son who ends up shielded by a promise made to his mother.

Felton is credited as Draco Malfoy from the first film through the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 epilogue. A wand also follows Draco into the late story: in that final film, Ollivander tells Harry that the wand he took from Draco now answers to him, which turns an old school rivalry into a plot point about who owns what.

Draco's arc runs from schoolyard rival to a teenager handed a secret task he cannot finish. In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone he is simply the student Harry clashes with while Harry, Ron and Hermione chase the Stone.

In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), the trio use Polyjuice Potion to question Draco, who turns out not to be the heir of Slytherin. In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), directed by Alfonso Cuarón, Draco provokes Buckbeak the hippogriff, and Buckbeak is sentenced to death as a result. That sets up the rescue Harry and Hermione stage later in the film.

The turn comes in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009), directed by David Yates. Voldemort's Death Eaters attack London, and Draco is given a secret task at Hogwarts. Harry becomes convinced that Draco is plotting something, follows him, and wounds him badly with an unknown spell from the borrowed potions book. Death Eaters enter the school through a magical cabinet that Draco repaired, and he corners the weakened Dumbledore but cannot bring himself to kill him.

In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011), Harry explains that the Elder Wand became his when he disarmed Draco.

Draco's relationships are defined by his family, his rivalry with Harry and the protection offered by Snape. His father is Lucius Malfoy, who in Chamber of Secrets slips a book into Ginny Weasley's cauldron in Diagon Alley. Harry later exposes him as the one who planted the diary and tricks him into freeing Dobby, in the same film that clears Draco of being the Slytherin heir.

Why did Draco not like Harry? The films show a rivalry that starts in the first film and keeps going, and they give no single reason for it. In Prisoner of Azkaban it brings real harm to Buckbeak, and in Half-Blood Prince it becomes suspicion on Harry's side and a dangerous assignment on Draco's.

Snape is the other key link. In Half-Blood Prince he promises Draco's mother that he will protect her son. That promise matters on the night Draco cannot finish Dumbledore, because Snape arrives and does what Draco could not. As a result, the teacher who vowed to protect Draco is the one who steps in for him.

Draco survives the war and appears in the closing scene of the saga. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, directed by David Yates, Harry explains that the Elder Wand became his when he disarmed Draco, and he then chooses to destroy it rather than keep it.

The film closes nineteen years later at King's Cross station. Harry, Ginny, Ron, Hermione and Draco watch their children board the Hogwarts Express.

Is Draco Malfoy a Death Eater? The films tie him to the Death Eaters' plot in Half-Blood Prince, but they show him failing to carry out the order to kill Dumbledore. Did Draco ever marry? The epilogue shows him seeing children off, and the film does not make a spouse part of the story. His death is not shown anywhere in the films, and the series ends with him alive.

In my opinion, Draco's best scene is the standoff with Dumbledore in Half-Blood Prince, because it takes a character who has been Harry's rival through the earlier films and shows him unable to finish the job. It could be argued that this is the one moment the audience is asked to feel something for him, and the film earns it by building up the cabinet, the secrecy and Harry's suspicion first.

The Polyjuice questioning in Chamber of Secrets comes second, a clever and funny sequence that clears him of being the Slytherin heir. Third is the Buckbeak incident in Prisoner of Azkaban, the most unpleasant thing he does, and the event that starts the clock on the film's rescue plot.

Perhaps the most underrated beat is the disarming in Deathly Hallows: Part 2, because it explains why the Elder Wand ends up with Harry. Felton plays all of these without mocking the character, which is why Draco works as a rival and not as a cartoon. If you are new to him, start with Chamber of Secrets, then use our guide to the harry potter movies in order to see where each film sits.