exitvoid: application
character.
CHARACTER NAME: Draco Malfoy
SERIES: WIKI: Draco Malfoy, HP WIKIA: Draco Malfoy.
CANON POINT: Partway through Half-Blood Prince before chapter 24 (Sectumsempra).
AGE: 16
APPEARANCE: Have a picture.
PREVIOUS GAME HISTORY: N/A
PERSONALITY:
Draco Malfoy was born with a silver spoon in his mouth (figuratively, of course; literally would be an entirely different story, and one imagines things would have progressed slightly different if that were the case). It was this spoon that helped shape Draco into the far from fine and upstanding young man he became.
The son of Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, Draco comes from a long line of pure blood witches and wizards, a fact of which his family has been, and remains to be, very proud of to the point of bigotry against individuals without known magical ancestry. As a result, Draco harbours beliefs as to the innate superiority of 'pure-blood’ individuals despite whatever evidence there may be to the contrary - indeed, Draco’s father remarks upon the disappointment and embarrassment that Draco should feel upon consistently receiving lower grades that the Muggle-born Hermione Granger, discounting and disregarding both the effort she puts into her work, and her natural talent. In fact, Draco seems to take a particular dislike to Hermione, her Muggle-born status aside, presumably as she is capable of showing him up - repeatedly - a fact which undoubtedly serves to dent his pride.
Despite his supremacist attitude, however, there are signs that he’s not as enamoured with the reality of being a Death Eater as early as Goblet of Fire. During the attack on Muggles during the Quidditch World Cup, Malfoy makes his appearance known to Harry, Ron and Hermione, and remarks on how Hermione ought to be taking more care, and elaborates on the attacks. Draco’s attitude - arrogant, lazy and dismissve - however, confirms that he has no real feelings invested in the matter of Hermione’s safety on a conscious level, and it’s clear that he takes enjoyment from the obvious distaste that the knowledge of the Death Eater’s actions create in the other three. It could therefore be assumed that whilst Draco enjoys the panic the awareness of Death Eaters cause in others, there is, even at this early point, a disconnect between the want for that same control and the ability to wield such power over others, and the willingness to engage in the acts that warrant it. Whilst it’s something of an extreme example, it shows that Draco prefers to have - and is wholly used to having - all the trappings of status without doing anything to deserve it.
First and foremost, however, Draco is a bully. He takes great delight in causing others pain and misery, and enjoys the power and control it allows him to exert over others. Like most bullies, Draco prefers his victims to be weaker than him in some fashion, and will pick on whatever weakness appears to trouble them the most. It is for this reason that, at least in his earlier years, Draco had such little trouble in bullying Neville Longbottom; as Neville was in possession of very little self-esteem, and was wildly self-conscious of his propensity to forget more or less everything, Draco had no qualms - nor difficulty - in latching onto this fact and exploiting it as and when he could. There are similar reasons behind his frequent mentions of wealth around Ron Weasley, and the latter’s lack of it. For better or worse - and it is generally for the worse - Draco is very gifted at pinpointing others’ weaknesses.
However, again like most bullies, Draco is a coward. Rather than stand up to those more powerful than him, he’d sooner get on their good side and gain some of their influence by proxy - this is most evident in his willingness to follow Lord Voldemort, of course, but to a lesser extent with his desire to have Professor Slughorn acknowledge him and his family’s lineage. This, of course, doesn’t extend towards all, particularly if their ideologies clash with Draco’s own, or if Draco perceives the individual in question as being weaker than someone else - such as in the case of Dumbledore against Lord Voldemort; in Draco’s opinion, Dumbledore is a weaker wizard both ideologically and in terms of power.
As mentioned previously, Draco is very skilled at pinpointing the weaknesses of others and as such, his preferred method of bullying (as it were) is psychological. When confronted with physicality or when he’s on the back foot, he’s something approximate to ‘useless’; this is most evident when Hermione hits him and when she threatens him with her wand, and also when Barty Crouch Jnr., posing as Professor Moody, turns him into a ferret. Draco would much rather attack someone when their backs are turned and he’s assured victory than he would attempt the matter on an equal footing.
With regards to this and in relation to his cowardice and burgeoning disillusionment with the Death Eaters and their work and methods, Draco appears increasingly reluctant to focus on the crux of his mission: killing Dumbledore. Lord Voldemort meant for Draco to fail in his task and for the occurrence to be punishment for Draco’s father, Lucius, on his failure to procure the prophecy relating to himself and Harry Potter. Draco, who is by no means an unintelligent youth, is likely to be fully aware of this - as is evidenced by the manner in which he spends his time and effort on fixing the Vanishing Cabinet located within Hogwarts as a means to allow the Death Eaters passage into the school to the detriment of his other interests, hobbies and even friends.
It is this that is perhaps most telling as to the shift in personality and awareness within Draco; at the beginning of the sixth book, he can be seen boasting about his task to his close friends and appears to have no qualms with it at all. As time progresses, however, he grows increasingly reluctant and despondent as the reality of the situation - and his life as a whole at that moment - sinks in, and whilst he seems to try to cling to the idea that Lord Voldemort chose him and him alone for the task because he was the best suited and capable, it’s clear that it’s nothing more than a distraction. Instead, the usually smug and superior Draco Malfoy can be found hiding in a disused girl’s toilet, relating his worries and fears to a ghost. Indeed, it seems to be that it is only the knowledge that his parents will suffer should he fail that allows him to continue with his task.
However, whilst Draco is certainly committed to his family, one is hard pushed to find anyone else that he truly cares about. His belief in the Malfoy, and subsequently his own, superiority means that Draco has very little interest in making friends with others; friendship implies equality, and Draco is somewhat loathe to view others as equals. His interests, as mentioned previously, lie primarily with status, influence and power, and he has little need nor want for anything that brings him neither. In accordance with this, Draco hates to be humiliated or be subject to anything that makes him look bad.
Whilst Draco has no regard for the friends and family of others, his own is utterly paramount to him, and once his father is sent to the Wizarding prison Azkaban for being found participating in Death Eater activities, Draco swears vengeance against Harry Potter, the individual he blames for his father’s imprisonment; in his eyes, his father can do no wrong.
Draco aspires to make his father proud and, as a result, takes many of his cues from the man, particularly with regards to beliefs and lifestyle. This continues even when Lucius is imprisoned in Azkaban and, in this respect, it seems reasonable to assume that beyond the fear of failure for failure’s sake and the punishment Lord Voldemort has hanging over his head, Draco is - at this point - having to contend with the knowledge that his growing distaste, dislike and fear of Death Eater activities and Lord Voldemort is in direct opposition of not only what he’d believed for many of his formative years, it’s also in opposition to the beliefs and values his father had sought to instil in him.
Of course, one can barely mention Draco Malfoy without also mentioning Harry Potter; when they first met, Draco, entirely unaware of who he was speaking to, was reasonably polite despite making some of his many unappealing traits visible - that is, that he’s judgemental and biased against non-Wizarding folk and Muggle-borns, as well as those who appear less sophisticated and urbane than those that he’s prone to approving, as it were. Later, once he’s aware that it was, in fact, Harry Potter that he’d spoken to, he goes out of his way to offer his friendship, which is promptly rejected. It could be seen to be this rejection - a short, swift, public blow to his pride and ego - that sparked off the enmity and rivalry between the two that would later grow into something more resembling hatred.
Draco is particularly skilled at compartmentalising his emotions, and it’s said to be this that enables him to be a Death Eater - at least, at the beginning - and it is likely that it is this trait that also enables him to be an effective bully. Receiving training from his aunt Bellatrix Lestrange, Draco is able to master the art of Occlumency - that is, shielding his thoughts from others - where Harry Potter could not. It therefore seems reasonable to assume that Draco has a fairly competent understanding of his emotions in a broad sense and, to a certain extent, others, but he doesn’t bother to consider anyone else’s feelings - except how to hurt them - believing it to be beneath him.
It helps, of course, where Draco has never had to bother ‘lowering’ himself to such a level, riding instead on the coattails of his father’s and his family’s reputation and status, and that what they were unable to gain through influence, they could usually get through their sheer wealth - such as a position on the Slytherin Quidditch team, which Draco received as a result of his father buying the entire team new racing brooms.
Despite all of this, though, Malfoy does have some vaguely positive traits (in that they’re more positive than cowardice and a penchant for bullying); he is an intelligent young lad, and it’s implied that he’s one of the top students in the year - behind Hermione Granger, of course, but still up there, and he has a fair degree of talent for subjects such as Potions and Transfiguration. If his actions are to be believed on face value, it seems likely that Draco has rarely struggled academically as he makes no bones of mocking those academically weaker than him, and there are no references to his own by other students beyond his arrogance and tendency to ignore professors he doesn’t believe are worth the time, such as Hagrid, when he teaches Care of Magical Creatures. Finally, it can be assumed that he’s a generally diligent student - when Harry believes it is Draco that is trying to bring cursed objects into Hogwarts, he shares his concerns with Professor McGonagall who responds by telling Harry his theory is impossible as Draco was serving detention with her for failing to complete his Transfigurations homework for the second time, an occurrence which is implied to be wholly unusual. Furthermore, although it’s later in the book than I intend on playing him from, Professor Dumbledore acknowledges Draco’s ingenuity in both being able to think of using the Vanishing Cabinet to get Death Eaters into the school, and going so far as to be able to fix it personally.
…In short, Draco is an incredibly flawed and generally unlikeable young man.
ABILITIES:
→ Magic
Draco Malfoy is a wizard in his sixth year at Hogwarts and is competent and effective with his use of magic, showing a degree of natural ability with Potions, Transfiguration and Charms. He’s also able to master the art of Occlumency - that is, shielding his thoughts from others - a relatively difficult form of magic not routinely taught at Hogwarts. He’s also shown to be familiar with the Cruciatus Curse, an Unforgivable Curse used for torture, however it’s not known to what extent he’d be able to use it as an individual ‘must mean it’, and Malfoy is a coward. By his sixth year, Draco has also succeeded in mastering non-verbal spells and defences.
→ Compartmentalising emotions and feelings
As mentioned previously, Draco has a degree of skill in compartmentalising his emotions, a trait that enables him to be an effective bully and that allows for him to become a Death Eater (in this case, he’s not particularly effective, but he did become one…).
→ Perceptive
Draco’s remarkably skilled at picking up on what bothers another individual and using it to his advantage.
→ Dense, Stubborn & Proud
For as much as Draco is subjectively intelligent - certainly in terms of academia - he’s also somewhat dense, stubborn and ridiculously proud, none of which works in his favour. He’s blind to his family’s faults and refuses point blank to develop his own identity, views and beliefs outside of that which his parents propagate until the Half-Blood Prince and even then, the development is slow and the result of dire necessity.
→ Other
...He's also a reasonable Quidditch player.
POSSESSIONS:
→ Clothes
shirt: school, white; tie: school, Slytherin colours; jumper: school, grey, v-neck, Slytherin colours; trousers: school, black; shoes: smart, black; wizarding robes: school: Hogwarts, Slytherin colours.
→ Wand
Hawthorn, 10", unicorn hair. "Reasonably springy."
→ Money (loose change)
A handful of Galleons, Sickles and Knuts.
samples.
JOURNAL ENTRY SAMPLE:
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THIRD-PERSON SAMPLE:
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