Hey everyone,
Welcome to another installment of Harry Potter Theory. In this video, we’re going to be
discussing one of the most loved/hated characters in the series, Draco Malfoy.
Draco Malfoy was a british pure-blood wizard born in the year 1980, the son of Narcissa
Malfoy and death eater Lucius Malfoy. Draco started at Hogwarts in the same year as Harry,
Ron, Hermione, and many of the other characters that we’re all so familiar with. Right from
the beginning, we get a sense that Draco is the archetypal bully.
JK Rowling describes Draco’s character as follows:
“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 point in time or another.”
Draco’s character development throughout the films is quite extraordinary, as he goes
from playful school bully, to a confused young man that is slowly driven to the dark side.
Draco of course hails from the Malfoy family, a family of elitist pure-bloods that look
down upon anyone that comes from muggle descent. His father Lucius was a two-faced death eater
that worked for the ministry of the magic, but still secretly served the dark lord. I
feel sorry for Draco’s character because he became the product of his environment.
He was constantly surrounded by dark, evil wizards, and as a young and impressionable
young man it was almost as if he had no choice but to go down a dark path.
The catalyst that really set him off was when his father was imprisoned after the battle
of the department of mysteries- a battle that effectively served as the catalyst and first
major conflict of the second wizarding war. With the imprisonment of his father, Draco
felt the pressure, and knew that he would need to step up to the plate and fulfill the
Malfoy name, even if deep down that wasn’t something that he wanted to do.
So, to answer the question: what would Draco Malfoy see in the mirror of erised, I think
that it would be most appropriate to first determine WHICH draco we are addressing. Are
we addressing the young and impressionable Draco Malfoy-who had his whole life ahead
of him and had not yet entirely succumbed to dark forces, or are we addressing the confused
young man that felt the pressure of the dark forces surrounding him.
In case you’ve forgotten how the mirror of erised works, it’s a magical mirror that
shows us the ‘deepest, most desperate desires’ of our hearts. This is reflected in the mirror’s
name, no pun intended, as ‘Erised’ flipped around reads as ‘desire’.The mirror itself
was made sometime before the end of the nineteenth century, and is located in the room of requirement
in Hogwarts. Engraved on the mirror are the words ‘Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt
on wohsi, which, backwards, reads as ‘I show not your face but your hearts desire’.
If we were to look at Draco Malfoy in the timespan of first to fourth year, when he
still showed a fair bit of innocence, I think that we’d see a young man that just sought
validation, attention, and respect. He was the leader of his clique of Slytherins, and
quite popular in his own house, but was always secretly envious of the attention that Harry
received from the student body as a whole. Additionally, Harry would frequently best
Draco in things like duels and Quidditch, which got in the way of his perception that
he was the best-that he was ‘the guy’. Draco wanted to be adored by all, and wanted
everyone to have the perception that he was the best young wizard around. Additionally,
he desperately wanted his parents to be proud of him- and this was part of the reason that
he always wanted to the be the ‘best’-because he knew that it was what his father wanted.
So, I think that if he were to have looked in to the mirror during this time frame, he
would have seen himself in his Quidditch robes, surrounded by the student body cheering on
his success. His parents would be in the stands, cheering and clapping for their son. Dumbledore
would be smiling , and the score card would read Slytherin 150, Gryffindor 0.
If we were to look at Draco Malfoy in the timespan of fifth year to nearer the end of
the Battle of Hogwarts, we would see a very different Draco. His priorities had changed,
and things had gotten much more severe. His father was imprisoned, the playful ‘pranks’
that he played on Harry were no longer quite so innocent, and the presence of the dark
lord was looming. The pressure was on Draco to pick up the slack for the Malfoy family,
and he was tasked with the burden of killing Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore, the
same headmaster that he had known since he was just a small boy. At this point in time,
Draco felt more pressure than ever, he was continuously pulled towards the darkness by
the people that he associated himself with, but really, he was not evil. His internal
conflict was all that he could focus on, and he had a hard time coming to terms with his
own identity. Was he a Malfoy, destined to advocate pure blood supremacy and follow the
dark lord? Or was he just like everyone else?
As Draco’s internal struggle intensified, he missed classes, stopped attending quidditch
practice, and did not fulfill any of his duties as a prefect. These were all things that he
would previously enjoy, and it became apparent that the pressure was affecting him. By the
end of the wizarding war, Draco’s life is in shambles. The dark side that he had chosen
had proved unsuccessful, and his family were probably more ashamed than ever. I think that
if he were to have looked in the mirror at this point, he would have just seen himself,
his mother, and his father all living a normal life, as they had done before. There would
have been no resurgence of the dark lord, and his father would have left his life as
a death eater behind him. They would have all been happy and healthy, and their family’s
reputation would be in good standing. Most importantly, there would no longer be any
pressure on him to follow dark pursuits.
And that’s it for this video! What do you guys think? What do YOU think Draco would
see in the Mirror of Erised? Let me know down in the comment section below.
Until next time,
YER A WIZARD ARRY