Through J.K. Rowling’s seven part epic, we watch a group of young children evolve into adults, heroes, and villains. Teens in the wizarding world tackle the same stresses that Muggle teens go through (like hitting puberty and managing hormones), but Rowling created teens who can manage all of that and more. We see Harry Potter preparing to take on the most evil wizard there ever was, but we also see Draco Malfoy helping Voldemort in his father’s place. Draco’s evolution through the series is the most interesting to me because it is much more intense than everyone else’s. In Sorcerer’s Stone, we are introduced to Draco the Bully. His first impression on Harry, and ourselves as readers, is insulting Hagird, a character we are predisposed to love. Immediately after, Draco insults Harry’s blood status and what are soon to be his best friends. We as readers who support Harry spend five years building up a vengeance toward Draco and the Malfoy family. It isn’t until Half Blood Prince when Draco’s character and our opinions of him start to change.
Lucius Malfoy failed to retrieve the prophecy for Lord Voldemort, and as punishment, Voldemort commands young Draco to murder Dumbledore, fully expecting him to die in the process. Half Blood Prince begins with Draco as arrogant as ever, but as the year progresses, he is paler, off the map, and less of a bully to Harry and the others. Although he attempts to maintain his usual stand-offish attitude, in the chapter ‘Sectumsempra,’ we see him break down and ‘become human.’ Harry walks in on Draco crying in the bathroom because of the stress he is under to not only save his family, but literally stay alive. This scene, beautifully portrayed in the movie, shows a lot of depth to Draco’s character that we as readers and viewers never cared to see because of his initial impression. As we read from Harry’s perspective, it is hard to see Draco as a (somewhat) good guy. But when we walk into that bathroom and see him crying into the sink, even Harry realizes that he is human.
We watch Draco change from the bad guy to the troubled guy, and we hate ourselves for pitying him. He is doing these horrible things that we hate him for, but Rowling builds such a strong sense of apathy that our heart goes out to him. We want to pat him on the back, tell him it will be okay, his family is proud of him- but we’ll never admit these out loud because we’ve spent five years conditioning ourselves to hate him.
Coming of age is a theme that all of the younger characters embody in one way or another. For Harry, it’s realizing the journey before him and accepting it with his head held high. For Draco, it becomes doing what is necessary to protect and save his family. What we need to step up to and how we face it speaks volumes for who we are. It is hard to hate Draco for going to extreme lengths to save his family, as I’m sure anyone would do. His actions are not good, but his overall intentions are admirable. In the final book, we see Draco in yet another light- many other lights at that. I won’t go into details, but he goes from scared victim with no way out, to sympathizer, to victim, to ally. Seeing the changes Draco goes through makes it difficult to hate him… completely.
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