Draco Malfoy's Name Was Almost Spungen, Plus 5 More Things We Learned About Harry Potter's Nemesis From J.K. Rowling's Latest Writing

Author is rolling out 12 new Potter-related pieces for Christmas

By Natalie Finn Dec 23, 2014 12:19 AMTags
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At least Draco Malfoy's name was pretty cool, but if it had been Spungen...

According to J.K. Rowling's latest installment in her promised rollout of 12 days of Harry Potter-related riddles on the Pottermore website, that Spungen is one of the names she had been considering for Harry's chief nemesis at Hogwarts, along with Smart and Spinks.

While it really wasn't too difficult to come up with our own list of issues that afflicted the Slytherin-sorted bully, Rowling has provided new insight into the conflicted lad's psyche—as well as shared her own conflicted feelings about the reluctant son of Deatheaters Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy.

Here are five things we learned about Draco Malfoy:

1. Rowling felt sorry for him: "I pity Draco," she wrote. "Being raised by the Malfoys would be a very damaging experience, and Draco undergoes dreadful trials as a direct result of his family's misguided principles."

2. Rowling doesn't get the appeal: She gets how cute Tom Felton is, but the author writes that she really didn't intend for Draco to be a lovable (or love-to-hate-him) bad boy.

"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)," she recalls. "Draco has all the 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."

3. It's not the size of the wand...: Though she never envisioned a personality turnaround, Rowling did plant a seed of goodness in the villain The unicorn hair in his first wand "was symbolic," she writes. "There is, after all—and at the risk of re-kindling unhealthy fantasies—some unextinguished good at the heart of Draco."

4. Rowling has hopes for the next generation, despite Draco's questionable hobby: Draco's creator likes to believe that he isn't screwing up hiskid the way papa Lucius messed with his mind. "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," she explains. "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."

5. Draco did not know how much power he was wielding when he got hold of the Elder Wand: Which makes sense, since he was more interested in the destination (ultimate power) than how to get there. "It is as well that he does not [know]," Rowling writes, "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."

What an informative holiday season it has been so far!