Give Me a Character (and I will break their ass down)
This is a really long post, so I put it under a Read More.
How I feel about this character:
I actually really like Draco Malfoy as a character, though I don't like the kind of person that he is. He's a character that is someone in the middle between "good" and "evil."
He is an elitist, a bigot, prejudice, talks the talk but can't walk the walk, a coward, and really isn't all that smart (this is probably more of an unpopular opinion than the one I actually wrote about). Nevertheless, he loves his mother and father, he can't kill, he can't torture, he gets put in a very scary and difficult situation at a very confusing and emotionally awkward time (commonly referred to as adolescence), and he does seem to try hard at his schoolwork...when he wants to anyway.
He's a character who's actions cannot be simply excused. He is a bully, like Dudley, who grew up in an environment that encouraged his inappropriate behavior, but as we get reminded of very often in the series: we always have a choice even when we think that we don't. Of course, Draco, just like Dudley, showed us all a moment when he was ready to make the right choice, when he was ready to go against the horrible teachings he was brought up with, and both of these characters gave us fans a small bit of hope and potential for them to really change.
Sadly, we never got to see the full effects of those moments. But, going off of what J.K. Rowling has said about these characters in interviews (about them post series) I would like to think that they did become better people than they were when they were teenagers and that they both became better people than the parents that brought them up.
All the people I ship romantically with this character:
I've also been meaning to check out Draco/Luna fanfics some more. I just think they would be oddly fascinating together.
Occasionally I'll ship (and read) Dramione. The fanfic for it has to be really, really good though.
And, rarely, I'll ship (and read) Drarry. Usually I find the characterizations of both Harry and Draco in these fics to be awful and the plots are usually types that I can't stand; such as ones that include overpowered Harry or veela Draco or something of that sort, but when I do find one that I like, I really like to read them.
My non-romantic OTP for this character:
Harry/Draco. I find fics where these two have a friendship or a semi-friendship to be extremely intriguing and I usually like the dynamics and characterizations. I also think it is something that could happen in the actual series, since, by the end of the series, Harry has become a character that has learned to forgive quite a bit and Draco has learned a lot about humility, therefore lowering his elitist attitude, at least a little bit...Or so I think.
My unpopular opinion about this character:
Hmm, I really don't know if I have any unpopular opinions about Draco. The HP fandom is so huge that every opinion is both popular and unpopular, but I guess I have an unpopular opinion when it comes to such things as people assuming that Draco got abused by Lucius and other such things.
At the beginning of the series I can kinda see how some people might draw that conclusion, after all, Lucius seemed very stern with Draco and he was a Death Eater, too, but by the seventh book it became extremely clear that Lucius has his limits too and he cares more about his family than Voldemort. So, I really don't think that Lucius would physically abuse Draco.
This same token goes to Next Gen writers who make Draco an awful and/or abusive father to Scorpius. I think he would be a much better father than his father was to him, and I really don't think he would harm Scorpius, but would actually be extremely grateful that he had him and even a bit worried because his actions (and Lucius' actions) definitely destroyed the Malfoy family name and prestige.
Of course, I do realize that some people write fanfics with these events purely for exploration purposes, but it annoys me when I see it so much and when people take it as some kind of face value fact.
One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.
I do wish we got to see a bit more of interaction between Harry and Draco post war, or that we could have gotten to see Draco's interactions with his future wife. I would love to know more about the Draco that we saw, very briefly, at Kings Cross Station in the epilogue. How much of that Draco is the same as the child/teenager that we last saw him as and how much of him is different?
J.K. Rowling did mention in an interview (after DH ended) that Scorpius is a much better kid than Draco had been, so I am assuming that Draco changed a bit and brought up his son slightly differently than the way his father brought him up. But, I do also have to wonder how much influence Astoria had on that, so I would have liked to have seen some more of Draco's transition from teenager to adult, though that is something that we couldn't have really seen because the book series is limited to Harry's perspective.
