12 little-known secrets about Draco Malfoy even die-hard 'Harry Potter' fans may not know
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- Draco Malfoy is prevalent in the "Harry Potter" series, but we don't learn that much about him.
- His family has always been powerful, and his ancestors even have ties to British royalty.
- The young wizard is skilled at Occlumency, and his wand says a lot about him.
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Voldemort may have been the primary villain in the "Harry Potter" series, but Draco Malfoy was Harry's nemesis.
Before using her platform to spread transphobic messages, the series' controversial author, JK Rowling, was known to use Twitter, interviews, and the official Wizarding World website to expand the "Harry Potter" canon beyond the seven books.
With this information and the original series in mind, read on for some facts about Draco Malfoy that even the biggest "Harry Potter" fans might not know.
Draco's wand says a lot about his inner feelings
As Ollivander says in the series, "the wand chooses the wizard," and there seems to be a deeper meaning behind Draco's hawthorn wand.
According to a 2015 essay Rowling published on Pottermore (now Wizarding World), hawthorn wands are "most at home" with a witch or wizard who is conflicted or in a moment of turmoil.
The unicorn hair core of Draco's wand is also the "most difficult" to turn to the dark arts, per Rowling, which may explain why he couldn't get himself to kill Dumbledore in his greatest moment of inner turmoil.
He's very good at Occlumency
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Occlumency is the practice of defending your mind from anyone using Legilimency to penetrate it for information.
Harry wasn't particularly good at repelling Voldemort's Legilimency attacks, but according to Wizarding World, Draco had a knack for the skill.
Unlike Harry, Draco found "it easy to shut down emotion, to compartmentalise, and to deny essential parts of himself" - all helpful skills for Occlumency.
The Malfoy family has ties to British royalty
With all the money and influence of the Malfoy family, it's no surprise that they have some pretty powerful connections. According to a 2015 feature on Pottermore, one of those connections is the British monarchy.
Draco's ancestor Armand Malfoy performed "shady (and almost certainly magical) services to King William I" in exchange for the family's first lot of land in England.
The first Lucius Malfoy (who came before Draco's father) also offered his hand to Queen Elizabeth I, and there are even rumors that the Malfoys jinxed the queen after she refused him.
The name Malfoy tells us a lot about the family
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The Malfoy family is known for being powerful and conniving with very little regard for others, and the last name practically tells the reader to expect this from them.
According to Wizarding World, Malfoy comes from the old French words "mal" ("bad" or "evil") and "foi" ("faith" or "trust").
Even Voldemort's trust in the Malfoy's ends up being in bad faith because they run and hide at the first sign of trouble.
But the name wasn't the author's first choice for the family
In 2015, Rowling posted a list of the first 40 names she came up with for the series, some that made it in and others that were cut or changed.
The first two surnames she came up with for Draco were Spungen and Spinks, but both were crossed out when she settled on Malfoy.
The Malfoys' mental instability may be the result of their pure-blood ideals
The Malfoys believe in pure-blood supremacy, and according to Rowling, that contributed to some of the mental instability in the later generations of the family.
Their commitment to marrying pure-bloods left them with an increasingly small gene pool to choose from, so the Malfoys, along with the Gaunts and Lestranges, became "enfeebled and unstable."
This may be why some of the characters we encounter in the series, like Bellatrix Lestrange and Draco, seem mentally unbalanced at times.
Draco married Astoria Greengrass and had one child
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The epilogue of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" flashes forward 19 years after the Battle of Hogwarts.
In that scene and in additional interviews, Rowling has shared details about Draco's future, including that he married Astoria Greengrass. They went on to have a blond son named Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy.
His marriage was a disappointment to his parents
The Malfoy family believed Muggles were inferior to wizards, which is why they worked so hard to maintain their pure-blood status.
But despite both being pure-blood themselves, Draco and Astoria refused to raise Scorpius to hate Muggles, which was a point of contention between Draco and his family.
According to Wizarding World, "family gatherings were often fraught with tension."
Draco almost didn't attend Hogwarts
In "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," Draco brags about the fact that his father, Lucius, originally wanted to send him to Durmstrang because the European school doesn't admit Muggle-born students.
He also says that they give students a better education in the Dark Arts.
But his mother, Narcissa, disagreed. She didn't want her son so far from home, so they sent him to Hogwarts.
Tom Felton and Ralph Fiennes improvised a major scene between Draco and Voldemort
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At the climax of "Deathly Hallows," Voldemort invites students and faculty to join his side during the Battle of Hogwarts.
Predictably, the response to his offer is not very warm. In fact, the only person who walks over to him, at the urging of his own parents, is Draco.
This leads to a very awkward hug between Draco (played by Tom Felton) and Voldemort (played by Ralph Fiennes).
Per CheatSheet, during a 2011 Dragon Con panel, Felton said that the interaction was improvised. Out of the over 20 takes of the scene, Fiennes only embraced the actor once, but that's what ended up in the final film.
His birthday is June 5, 1980
According to a 2015 tweet from Rowling, Draco's birthday is June 5, 1980.
This explains why he was in attendance in Slughorn's class with Harry (whose birthday is July 31) on the day of the Apparition Test in "Half-Blood Prince."
The test took place on April 21, and only wizards who already turned 17 could get their license to apparate.
Draco is probably related to Harry Potter
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The British Wizarding World isn't terribly large, so many families are related.
According to the Black family tree that's referenced multiple times throughout the series, Draco's great-great-aunt, Dorea Black, married Charlus Potter, who was most likely a relation of Harry's grandfather.
The Malfoys are one of the oldest pure-blood families in the Wizarding World, so Draco also has familial ties to Bellatrix Lestrange, Sirius Black, Nymphadora Tonks, and even the Weasleys.