The Harry Potter franchise has some incredibly complex characters and Draco Malfoy may be one of the most challenging ones to understand. He's developed significantly as the series has progressed across the years.
Draco has definitely gotten worse as the series has gone on. His choices have become more difficult and violent, with so many more people becoming endangered by him. Here are 10 ways that Draco got worse and worse.
Draco started the series a simple bully. His bullying got quite out of a hand quickly as his pranks, tricks, and emotional abuse lead to some dangerous circumstances. There's been plenty of times where his choices hurt those around him.
Whether it's some injuries that Neville sustained or how he made people like Hermione feel, his bullying only fed into his more sinister personality traits that developed.
Draco started getting more aggressive in his attitude, using racist language against other Hogwarts students around him. The phrase mudblood was one that he used a few times.
This kind of language is absolutely despicable and certainly showed many fans what kind of person Draco is. He's bought into this idea of superiority amongst wizards and witches. It really should have lead to his expulsion.
The use of violence is something that Draco relied upon more as his emotions seemed to over-spill. He especially turned his aggressive magic towards Harry, who had to defend himself numerous times.
He could have really hurt someone as he was using this dangerous magic at quite a young age when he didn't fully understand it. It could have ended a lot worse for those he used his magic against.
The people that someone surrounds themselves with says a lot about their personality. Draco started surrounding himself with yes-men, thugs, and more sinister individuals.
His friendship group expanded to include all sorts of unsavory people, which only made Draco worse in his attitudes as these friends started to warp his thoughts. Of course, one even started a dangerous fire in the room of requirement, that actually resulted in their death.
Voldemort has been an inspirational figure for many dark wizards. Draco Malfoy, in particular, has a strange obsession with him and his followers, after his family has become so involved with the dark lord.
As time went on this obsession put him and his friends in danger. As he continued to get involved with these dark wizards he brought these forces of evil into the school.
Draco's morals completely collapsed when he started being lead by his fear. There were some moments of heroism but these were overshadowed by the terrible decisions he made.
His own school was essentially ruined and he saw countless murders, even encouraging some. When he knew how wrong his actions were he never stood up to stop it.
The worst decision that Draco ever made was killing Dumbledore and therefore leaving the wizarding world vulnerable. His choice did luckily stop Voldemort from accessing the full powers of the Elder Wand though.
To actually murder someone shows how far Draco has fallen, but the fact it was this inspirational and merciful man which he knew was good and just inside, shows how dangerous he really is.
During the Battle of Hogwarts, even though Draco must have had a change of heart at this point, he fled leaving his potential friends behind. He fled rather than standing up for what's right which isn't too surprising for the character.
He actually managed to get away with his crimes as well, demonstrating how much of a snake he really is! The character was at a real low here and there was very little to redeem; even when he had the opportunity to help he left instead.
Draco's actions severely risked his friends and family. He not only made mistakes in his dark work, endangering his parents, but he also led the death eaters to the school with all his peers.
His friends and even enemies were literally tortured by the Death Eaters. He must have felt guilty that he was responsible for this. But he still allowed it to happen and even celebrated in some ways the fact that Voldemort was taking control of the school.
Throughout his life, Draco has fed his father's ego. Whether it was giving him the illusion of power at his school or making other families feel terrible because of who his father is; Draco really did encourage him to go further.
This likely fuelled the choices of Lucious, who continued to go even deeper into the dark lord's world and was even around when the dark lord was actually resurrected. Part of those decisions are due to Draco's actions.
