《[HP官设]马尔福家族》青松枝

2、德拉科·马尔福

　　德拉科·马尔福是一名霍格沃茨学生。他有着淡金色头发，冷冷的灰色眼睛与苍白的尖脸。作为一名斯莱特林学生，他来自于一个与黑魔法有紧密联系的家庭。德拉科经常讥讽哈利和他的朋友。

　　生日：6月5日
　　魔杖：山楂树，独角兽毛，十英寸，有柔韧性
　　学院：斯莱特林
　　血统：女巫母亲、男巫父亲

　　德拉科·马尔福作为独生子在马尔福庄园长大。这座位于威尔特郡的宏伟府邸几个世纪以来都是属于马尔福家族的财产。从他牙牙学语时开始，他就清楚地被告知自己在三重意义上身份特别：首先他是一名巫师，然后是他有着纯血统，最后他是马尔福家族的一员。

　　德拉科成长在在惋惜黑魔王没能成功夺取魔法世界领导权的气氛中，但他被谨慎地提醒过这样的感叹不能在家庭和密友的小圈子外表露出来，不然“爸爸会有麻烦”。在童年时期，德拉科接触的主要是他父亲前食死徒亲信的纯血孩子，也因此在到达霍格沃茨时就已经结交了一小帮朋友，这其中就包括西奥多·诺特与文森特·克拉布。

　　同其他所有哈利·波特的同龄人一样，德拉科是听着他的故事长大的。关于哈利是如何幸存的，许多不同的理论一直流传着，其中最广为流传的之一就是哈利本人是一名强大的黑巫师。他被移出魔法世界的这一事实（对于那些还抱有希望的人来说）就能支持这一观点。而德拉科的父亲，老谋深算的卢修斯·马尔福，就是那些热切地认同这种说法的人之一。如果这个波特家的男孩的确是另一个，更加强大的纯血统拥护者，他将能有第二次成为世界统治者的机会，这个念头对于卢修斯来说是极大的安慰。因此，在清楚自己的作为不会受到父亲任何反对的情况下，德拉科·马尔福在意识到哈利波特身份时对他伸出了（友谊的）手，希望能给家里传达些有趣的新消息。哈利对德拉科友好表示的拒绝，与他已经与罗恩·韦斯莱（马尔福十分厌恶他的家族）结为好友的事实，立刻使马尔福转变了态度。德拉科正确地意识到，那些前食死徒不切实际的希望——哈利波特是另一个更伟大的伏地魔是毫无根据的，而他们的互相对立由此开始。

　　德拉科在学校的大多数表现都模仿着他认识的最为显赫的人——他的父亲，并且如实地对任何他自己小圈子以外的人复制了他父亲冷漠而傲慢的举止。

　　在列车上吸收了第二名党羽之后，在身体条件上不那么占优的德拉科开始在接下来六年的学校生活中利用克拉布和高尔作为自己的心腹与保镖。

　　德拉科面对哈利时的反应，很大一部分基于妒忌。虽然哈利从未追求出名，但他无疑使学校里最常被提及最受仰慕的人，而这一点自然地刺激到了在成长过程中一向相信占据着魔法世界几乎是贵族地位的德拉科。此外，哈利在飞行方面天赋异斌。而这正是德拉科自信能够超过所有一年级生的技能。魔药教授斯内普对马尔福有私心偏爱而对哈利鄙夷奚落只是一点很小的补偿。

　　在他长期寻求激怒哈利或是在他人眼中贬低他形象的过程中，德拉科使用了许多卑劣的小伎俩，包括但不局限于对媒体捏造哈利的事迹，制造侮辱他的徽章，从背后向他施咒，扮作摄魂怪（哈利在这种生物面前尤其脆弱）。但是马尔福自己，尤其在魁地奇比赛中，也被哈利羞辱过。而且他从未忘记过被一名黑魔法防御术教师变形成一条跳跃的白鼬的耻辱。

　　当大多数人认为声称自己目睹伏地魔归来的哈利波特是个骗子，疯子的时候，德拉科·马尔福已经是少数知道哈利所说是实情的人之一。他自己的父亲感受到了黑魔标记的烧灼，并赶去重新加入黑魔王，目击了哈利和伏地魔在墓地的决斗。

　　在马尔福庄园对这一系列事件的讨论在德拉科·马尔福心中激起了矛盾的感受。一方面，他激动于伏地魔的秘密回归，那意味着他父亲描述中的家族辉煌时期的再现。而另一方面，关于哈利再次逃脱了黑魔王毒手的窃窃私语让德拉科感到更加的气愤和嫉妒。尽管许多厌恶哈利的食死徒将他看做一种阻碍与象征，可他在讨论中被严肃地当成敌人，而德拉科在那些登门拜访的食死徒眼里仍被归为在上学的孩子。即使他们在蓄势待发的战争中处于对立的两方，德拉科还是眼热哈利的身份。他用对伏地魔的胜利的想象为自己鼓劲——家族在新政权下的荣耀，而他本人，作为伏地魔副指挥的重要显赫的儿子，将被霍格沃茨款待。

　　学校生活在德拉科第五年学校生活时开始好转。尽管他被禁止在学校谈论在家所闻，德拉科在多方面的胜利中获得了满足：他成为级长（而哈利不是）；多洛雷斯·乌姆里奇，新的黑魔法防御术教师，似乎与他一样憎恶哈利。他成为了多洛雷斯乌姆里奇的调查行动组的一员，而且尝试，并且成功地发现了哈利与一帮与他们完全不同的学生组织并训练了被禁止的社团-邓布利多军。但是就在德拉科将哈利和他的同伴逼到死角，当哈利看上去一定会被乌姆里奇开除时，他却再次逃过一劫。最糟的是，哈利阻挠了卢修斯马尔福企图杀死他的尝试，并导致德拉科的父亲被捕，并被送入了阿兹卡班。

　　现在德拉科的世界支离破碎。在（他和父亲相信的）权利与声望从未到达的顶点上，他的父亲被带离家中到偏远之处被囚禁在由摄魂怪看守的可怕的巫师监狱。卢修斯是德拉科从出生起的模范与英雄，而现在，他与母亲在食死徒中成了弃子。卢修斯的失败使他失信于黑魔王。

　　德拉科的存在直到此前都是被隔离保护的，他一直拥有特权，少有烦扰，有着在魔法世界中确立的地位，脑子里思考的只是细枝末节。而现在，父亲不在，母亲忧心如焚无计可施，他必须承担作为男人的责任。

　　更糟的是，为了进一步的惩罚放走了哈利的卢修斯，伏地魔坚持让德拉科完成一项他几乎不可能成功的任务-然后为此送命。德拉科将要去谋杀阿不思·邓布利多。而怎么才能做到？伏地魔没有费心说明。德拉科只有孤身一人。纳西莎猜测，事实也的确是这样，他的儿子被一名毫无怜悯而且不容忍失败的巫师派上了注定失败的路途。

　　被突然转变得开始针对他父亲的世界所激怒，德拉科接受了正式的食死徒身份，而且同意去执行伏地魔要求的谋杀。刚开始的时候，满心渴望着复仇与恢复父亲在伏地魔眼中地位的德拉科完全没有意识到他接下了怎样的任务。他只知道邓布利多代表着他入狱的父亲所厌恶的一切东西；德拉科相当轻易地使自己相信，世上没有这位霍格沃茨的校长会更好，尤其是在他周围总是聚集着反对伏地魔的力量。

　　为成为正式食死徒的想法所拘，德拉科带着狂热的目的性踏上了霍格沃茨特快。但他最后发现这项任务比他预计的困难得多，而且在险些杀死两个无关的人后，他的神经开始承受不住了。在伤害他的家人和他自己的威胁之下，德拉科开始在巨大的压力下崩溃。他对自我的认知与定位逐渐瓦解。他尊为偶像的父亲倡导暴力而且毫不犹豫地亲自使用，而现在，他的儿子却发现自己嫌恶谋杀。这简直是可耻的失败。即使这样，他还是无法让自己从当前的状态中解脱：他反复拒绝西弗勒斯斯内普的协助，只是因为担心斯内普会抢走他的功劳。

　　伏地魔和斯内普都低估了德拉科。他证实自己精通于大脑封闭术（防御摄神取念的魔法）。这对于隐蔽他接下的任务极为重要。在两次失败的尝试之后，德拉科成功的实施了他巧妙的计划，带领一群食死徒进入了霍格沃茨，从而导致了邓布利多最终的死亡，虽然德拉科并没有亲手杀他。

　　就算是面对虚弱的，被解除了武器的邓布利多，德拉科发现自己无法作出最后一击，不论他的本心，邓布利多对即将杀害他的人表现出的温和与怜悯触动了他。斯内普随后为德拉科掩护，在德拉科在他到达之前就降低了魔杖这一点上对伏地魔说谎。斯内普强调了德拉科在将食死徒引进学校时展现的才能，而且将邓布利多逼入困境后，由他来杀死。

　　当卢修斯短时间后从阿兹卡班被释放后，马尔福一家被允许回到马尔福庄园生活。但是现在他们的声誉完全败坏了。从伏地魔政权下最高地位的梦想马尔福们发现他们直接掉到了食死徒阶级的最底层。软弱而失败的他们从此收到伏地魔的讥讽与不屑。

　　德拉科改变了，但他的内心依然在挣扎。他在伏地魔与尝试阻止他的人们之间战斗的收尾阶段的表现体现了他的另一面人格。虽然德拉科仍没有放弃使他的家庭回到以往高位的希望，他好不容易觉醒的良知使他,也许是半心半意地，但是已经是那样的环境下他能尽的最大努力去解救被抓获后拖到马尔福庄园的哈利。而在霍格沃茨最后一役时，马尔福却再次试图抓获哈利来挽救他父母的威信，也可能是生命。关于他是否真的能让自己交出哈利的争论仍然未决，而我认为，就像先前试图谋杀邓布利多时一样，他会再次发现在现实中取走他人的生命比理论上困难得多。

　　凭借哈利和罗恩的帮助，德拉科才得以在伏地魔对霍格沃茨的围攻中幸存。在决战之后，他的父亲用同伙食死徒的线索，和帮助抓捕了许多伏地魔的追随者来交换不必入狱的条件。

　　在德拉科少年时代的后期发生的时间深远地改变了他的一生。他从小到大被灌输而深信的东西以一种可怕的方式被挑战：他经历了恐惧与绝望，看见父母为他们的忠诚而受到惩罚，目睹了他家庭信仰的完全坍塌。他被培养，或是以其他方式学到去仇恨的人，比如邓布利多，给予他善意与帮助，哈利波特，救了他的性命。在魔法世界的第二次战斗之后，卢修斯一如既往地深爱他的儿子，但后者开始拒绝继续跟随同样的古老的纯血作风。

　　德拉科与比他小几岁的斯莱特林阿斯托利亚·格林格拉斯结婚。她同样经历了（不那么暴力而骇人地）纯血思想到更为让人接受的生活观念的转变。作为儿媳，阿斯托利亚·格林格拉斯让纳西莎和卢修斯有些失望。他们本希望那会是一个来自出现在“高贵的二十八个家族”中的女孩。因为阿斯托利亚拒绝用‘麻瓜们都一文不值’的理念教育他们的孙子斯科皮，家庭聚会上总是气氛紧张。

　　Draco Malfoy is a Hogwarts student with white-blond hair, cold grey eyes and a pale,pointed face. A Slytherin whose family has been linked to the Dark Arts, Draco often taunts Harry and his friends.

　　Birthday：5lh June
　　Wand：Hawthorn and Unicorn,Ten inches,Springy
　　Hogwarts House：Slytherin
　　Parentage：Witch mother, wizard father

　　Draco Malfoy grew up as an only child at Malfoy Manor, the magnificent mansion in Wiltshire which had been in his family’s possession for many centuries. From the time when he could talk, it was made clear to him that he was triply special: firstly as a wizard, secondly as a pure-blood, and thirdly as a member of the Malfoy family.
　　Draco was raised in an atmosphere of regret that the Dark Lord had not succeeded in taking command of the wizarding community, although he was prudently reminded that such sentiments ought not to be expressed outside the small circle of the family and their close friends ‘or Daddy might get into trouble’. In childhood, Draco associated mainly with the pure-blood children of his father’s ex-Death Eater cronies, and therefore arrived at Hogwarts with a small gang of friends already made, including Theodore Nott and Vincent Crabbe.

　　Like every other child of Harry Potter’s age, Draco heard stories of the Boy Who Lived through his youth. Many different theories had been in circulation for years as to how Harry survived what should have been a lethal attack, and one of the most persistent was that Harry himself was a great Dark wizard. The fact that he had been removed from the wizarding community seemed (to wishful thinkers) to support this view, and Draco’s father, wily Lucius Malfoy, was one of those who subscribed most eagerly to the theory. It was comforting to think that he, Lucius, might be in for a second chance of world domination, should this Potter boy prove to be another, and greater, pure-blood champion. It was, therefore, in the knowledge that he was doing nothing of which his father would disapprove, and in the hope that he might be able to relay some interesting news home, that Draco Malfoy offered Harry Potter his hand when he realised who he was on the Hogwarts Express. Harry’s refusal of Draco’s friendly overtures, and the fact that he had already formed allegiance to Ron Weasley, whose family is anathema to the Malfoys, turns Malfoy against him at once. Draco realised, correctly, that the wild hopes of the ex-Death Eaters – that Harry Potter was another, and better, Voldemort – are completely unfounded, and their mutual enmity is assured from that point.

　　Much of Draco’s behaviour at school was modelled on the most impressive person he knew – his father – and he faithfully copied Lucius’s cold and contemptuous manner to everyone outside his inner circle. Having recruited a second henchman (Crabbe being already in position pre-Hogwarts) on the train to school, the less physically imposing Malfoy used Crabbe and Goyle as a combination of henchman and bodyguard throughout his six years of school life.

　　Draco’s feelings for Harry were always based, in a great part, on envy. Though he never sought fame, Harry was unquestionably the most talked-about and admired person at school, and this naturally jarred with a boy who had been brought up to believe that he occupied an almost royal position within the wizarding community. What was more, Harry was most talented at flying, the one skill at which Malfoy had been confident he would outshine all the other first-years. The fact that the Potions master, Snape, had a soft spot for Malfoy, and despised Harry, was only slight compensation.

　　Draco resorted to many different dirty tactics in his perpetual quest to get under Harry’s skin, or discredit him in the eyes of others including, but not limited to, telling lies about him to the press, manufacturing insulting badges to wear about him, attempting to curse him from behind, and dressing up as one of the Dementors (to which Harry had shown himself particularly vulnerable). However, Malfoy had his own moments of humiliation at Harry’s hands, notably on the Quidditch pitch, and never forgot the shame of being turned into a bouncing ferret by a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher.

　　While many people thought that Harry Potter, who had witnessed the Dark Lord’s rebirth, was a liar or a fantasist, Draco Malfoy was one of the few who knew that Harry was telling the truth. His own father had felt his Dark Mark burn and had flown to rejoin the Dark Lord, witnessing Harry and Voldemort’s graveyard duel.

　　The discussions of these events at Malfoy Manor gave rise to conflicting sensations in Draco Malfoy. On the one hand, he was thrilled by the secret knowledge that Voldemort had returned, and that what his father had always described as the family’s glory days were back once more. On the other, the whispered discussions about the way that Harry had, again, evaded the Dark Lord’s attempts to kill him, caused Draco further twinges of anger and envy. Much as the Death Eaters disliked Harry as an obstacle and as a symbol, he was discussed seriously as an adversary, whereas Draco was still relegated to the status of schoolboy by Death Eaters who met at his parents’ house. Though they were on opposing sides of the gathering battle, Draco felt envious of Harry’s status. He cheered himself up by imagining Voldemort’s triumph, seeing his family honoured under a new regime, and he himself feted at Hogwarts as the important and impressive son of Voldemort’s second-in-command.

　　School life took an upturn in Draco’s fifth year. Although forbidden to discuss at Hogwarts what he had heard at home, Draco took pleasure in petty triumphs: he was a Prefect (and Harry was not) and Dolores Umbridge, the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, seemed to loathe Harry quite as much as he did. He became a member of Dolores Umbridge’s Inquisitorial Squad, and made it his business to try and discover what Harry and a gang of disparate students were up to, as they formed and trained, in secret, as the forbidden organisation, Dumbledore’s Army. However, at the very moment of triumph, when Draco had cornered Harry and his comrades, and when it seemed that Harry must be expelled by Umbridge, Harry slipped through his fingers. Worse still, Harry managed to thwart Lucius Malfoy’s attempt to kill him, and Draco’s father was captured and sent to Azkaban.

　　Draco’s world now fell apart. From having been, as he and his father had believed, on the cusp of authority and prestige such as they had never known before, his father was taken from the family home and imprisoned, far away, in the fearsome wizard prison guarded by Dementors. Lucius had been Draco’s role model and hero since birth. Now he and his mother were pariahs among the Death Eaters; Lucius was a failure and discredited in the eyes of the furious Lord Voldemort.

　　Draco’s existence had been cloistered and protected until this point; he had been a privileged boy with little to trouble him, assured of his status in the world and with his head full of petty concerns. Now, with his father gone and his mother distraught and afraid, he had to assume a man’s responsibilities.

　　Worse was to come. Voldemort, seeking to punish Lucius Malfoy still further for the botched capture of Harry, demanded that Draco perform a task so difficult that he would almost certainly fail – and pay with his life. Draco was to murder Albus Dumbledore – how, Voldemort did not trouble to say. Draco was to be left to his own initiative and Narcissa guessed, correctly, that her son was being set up to fail by a wizard who was devoid of pity and could not tolerate failure.

　　Furious at the world that seemed suddenly to have turned on his father, Draco accepted full membership of the Death Eaters and agreed to perform the murder Voldemort ordered. At this early stage, full of the desire for revenge and to return his father to Voldemort’s favour, Draco barely comprehended what he was being asked to do. All he knew was that Dumbledore represented everything his imprisoned father disliked; Draco managed, quite easily, to convince himself that he, too, thought the world would be a better place without the Hogwarts Headmaster, around whom opposition to Voldemort had always rallied.

　　In thrall to the idea of himself as a real Death Eater, Draco set off for Hogwarts with a burning sense of purpose. Gradually, however, as he found that his task was much more difficult than he had anticipated, and after he had come close to accidentally killing two other people instead of Dumbledore, Draco’s nerve began to fail. With the threat of harm to his family and himself hanging over him, he began to crumble under the pressure. The ideas that Draco had about himself, and his place in the world, were disintegrating. All his life, he had idolised a father who advocated violence and was not afraid to use it himself, and now that his son discovered in himself a distaste for murder, he felt it to be a shameful failing. Even so, he could not free himself from his conditioning: he repeatedly refused the assistance of Severus Snape, because he was afraid that Snape would attempt to steal his ‘glory’.

　　Voldemort and Snape underestimated Draco. He proved an adept at Occlumency (the magical art of repelling attempts to read the mind), which was essential for the undercover work he had undertaken. After two doomed attempts on Dumbledore’s life, Draco succeeded in his ingenious plan to introduce a whole group of Death Eaters into Hogwarts, with the result that Dumbledore was, indeed, killed – though not by Draco’s hand.

　　Even when faced with a weak and wandless Dumbledore, Draco found himself unable to deliver the coup de gr?ce because, in spite of himself, he was touched by Dumbledore’s kindness and pity for his would-be killer. Snape subsequently covered for Draco, lying to Voldemort about Draco lowering his wand prior to his own arrival at the top of the Astronomy Tower; Snape emphasised Draco’s skill in introducing the Death Eaters into the school, and cornering Dumbledore for him, Snape, to kill.

　　When Lucius was freed from Azkaban shortly afterwards, the family was allowed to return to Malfoy Manor with their lives. However, they were now completely discredited. From dreams of the highest status under Voldemort’s new regime, the Malfoys found themselves the lowest in the ranks of the Death Eaters; weaklings and failures, to whom Voldemort was henceforth derisive and contemptuous.

　　Draco’s changed, yet still conflicted, personality revealed itself in his actions during the remainder of the war between Voldemort and those who were trying to stop him. Although Draco had still not rid himself of the hope of returning the family to their former high position, his inconveniently awakened conscience led him to try – half-heartedly, perhaps, but arguably as best he could in the circumstances – to save Harry from Voldemort when the former was captured and dragged to Malfoy Manor. During the final battle at Hogwarts however, Malfoy made yet another attempt to capture Harry and thereby save his parents’ prestige, and possibly their lives. Whether he could have brought himself to actually hand over Harry is a moot point; I suspect that, as with his attempted murder of Dumbledore, he would again have found the reality of bringing about another person’s death much more difficult in practice than in theory.

　　Draco survived Voldemort’s siege of Hogwarts because Harry and Ron saved his life. Following the battle, his father evaded prison by providing evidence against fellow Death Eaters, helping to ensure the capture of many of Lord Voldemort’s followers who had fled into hiding.

　　The events of Draco’s late teens forever changed his life. He had had the beliefs with which he had grown up challenged in the most frightening way: he had experienced terror and despair, seen his parents suffer for their allegiance, and had witnessed the crumbling of all that his family had believed in. People whom Draco had been raised, or else had learned, to hate, such as Dumbledore, had offered him help and kindness, and Harry Potter had given him his life. After the events of the second wizarding war, Lucius found his son as affectionate as ever, but refusing to follow the same old pure-blood line.

　　Draco married the younger sister of a fellow Slytherin. Astoria Greengrass, who had gone through a similar (though less violent and frightening) conversion from pure-blood ideals to a more tolerant life view, was felt by Narcissa and Lucius to be something of a disappointment as a daughter-in-law. They had had high hopes of a girl whose family featured on the ‘Sacred Twenty-Eight’, but as Astoria refused to raise their grandson Scorpius in the belief that Muggles were scum, family gatherings were often fraught with tension.

　　J.K. Rowling’s thoughts
　　When the series begins, Draco is, in almost every way, the archetypal bully. With the unquestioning belief in his own superior status he has imbibed from his pure-blood parents, he initially offers Harry friendship on the assumption that the offer needs only to be made to be accepted. The wealth of his family stands in contrast to the poverty of the Weasleys; this too, is a source of pride to Draco, even though the Weasleys’ blood credentials are identical to his own.

　　Everybody recognises Draco because everybody has known somebody like him. Such people’s belief in their own superiority can be infuriating, laughable or intimidating, depending on the circumstances in which one meets them. Draco succeeds in provoking all of these feelings in Harry, Ron and Hermione at one time or another.

　　My British editor questioned the fact that Draco was so accomplished at Occlumency, which Harry (for all his ability in producing a Patronus so young) never mastered. I argued that it was perfectly consistent with Draco’s character that he would find it easy to shut down emotion, to compartmentalise, and to deny essential parts of himself. Dumbledore tells Harry, at the end of Order of the Phoenix, that it is an essential part of his humanity that he can feel such pain; with Draco, I was attempting to show that the denial of pain and the suppression of inner conflict can only lead to a damaged person (who is much more likely to inflict damage on other people).

　　Draco never realises that he becomes, for the best part of a year, the true owner of the Elder Wand. It is as well that he does not, partly because the Dark Lord is skilled in Legilimency, and would have killed Draco in a heartbeat if he had had an inkling of the truth, but also because, his latent conscience notwithstanding, Draco remains prey to all the temptations that he has been taught to admire – violence and power among them.

　　I pity Draco, just as I feel sorry for Dudley. Being raised by either the Malfoys or the Dursleys would be a very damaging experience, and Draco undergoes dreadful trials as a direct result of his family’s misguided principles. However, the Malfoys do have a saving grace: they love each other. Draco is motivated quite as much by fear of something happening to his parents as to himself, while Narcissa risks everything when she lies to Voldemort at the end of Deathly Hallows and tells him that Harry is dead, merely so that she can get to her son.

　　For all this, Draco remains a person of dubious morality in the seven published books, and I have often had cause to remark on how unnerved I have been by the number of girls who fell for this particular fictional character (although I do not discount the appeal of Tom Felton, who plays Draco brilliantly in the films and, ironically, is about the nicest person you could meet). Draco has all the dark glamour of the anti-hero; girls are very apt to romanticise such people. All of this left me in the unenviable position of pouring cold common sense on ardent readers’ daydreams as I told them, rather severely, that Draco was not concealing a heart of gold under all that sneering and prejudice and that no, he and Harry were not destined to end up best friends.

　　I imagine that Draco grew up to lead a modified version of his father’s existence; independently wealthy, without any need to work, Draco inhabits Malfoy Manor with his wife and son. I see in his hobbies further confirmation of his dual nature. The collection of Dark artefacts harks back to family history, even though he keeps them in glass cases and does not use them. However, his strange interest in alchemical manuscripts, from which he never attempts to make a Philosopher’s Stone, hints at a wish for something other than wealth, perhaps even the wish to be a better man. I have high hopes that he will raise Scorpius to be a much kinder and more tolerant Malfoy than he was in his own youth.

　　Draco had many surnames before I settled on ‘Malfoy’. At various times in the earliest drafts he is Smart, Spinks or Spungen. His Christian name comes from a constellation – the dragon – and yet his wand core is of unicorn.

　　This was symbolic. There is, after all – and at the risk of re-kindling unhealthy fantasies – some unextinguished good at the heart of Draco.