Chances are, if you’ve read the Harry Potter series, you’ve read Harry Potter fan-fiction. And chances are, if you’ve READ Harry Potter fan-fiction, you’ve at least tried your hand at writing some. (In my past life as a teenage employee of a moving company, I once stumbled upon a handwritten HP fic hidden in a child’s bedroom.) Okay, so maybe writing fan-fiction isn’t as easy as a flick of the wrist and a wave of the wand—but even if you’ve never put quill to paper, you’ve almost certainly IMAGINED an alternate ending or bonus scenes to the series.
Draco Malfoy is one of the most prominent characters throughout Harry Potter fan-fiction, and I’m going down into the fandom trenches to prove this with statistics. A search for “Draco Malfoy” on one popular fan-fiction website yields 62,072 results. Though Hermione is a more central character in the source material, querying Hermione’s name yields only 54,259. Why the discrepancy? It’s not a matter of sexism: try “Ron Weasley” and you’ll find a mere 38,931. (“Harry Potter” is a bunk search term in this case since every story in the fandom would be grouped under that name, regardless of whether Harry himself plays a role.)
One of the reasons for Draco’s popularity is that, clearly, villains and antagonists are conceptually sexy—a reality that doesn’t need any statistical backing. But perhaps the more significant reason is that while Draco himself features heavily in the series, Draco’s internal monologue is largely absent. We can guess at his thoughts and feelings, but Rowling leaves a great deal of ambiguity in regards to Draco’s personal life. Often, fan-fiction seeks to close gaps in a canonical narrative, telling the stories we didn’t get to read.
Though we discover Draco is married to Astoria Greengrass in the epilogue, it’s relatively unsatisfying to see such an impactful character pair off with one to whom we have no emotional connection. We as readers see Draco’s life primarily through the lens of his interactions with the protagonists; as such, it’s more satisfying to imagine that they are central to his private thoughts and feelings. Appropriately (or, inappropriately, as the Google image results may be), Draco & Harry and Draco & Hermione are some of the most popular fan-fiction pairings.
Tom Felton himself is all aboard this ship. In an interview with AOL, Harry Potter co-stars Felton (Draco Malfoy), Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley), and Evanna Lynch (Luna Lovegood) debated whether or not Draco and Harry could have been, so to speak, ‘more than just enemies.’
“Harry Potter was constantly crushing on Draco,” Felton asserted. “He just couldn’t hide it.”
Lynch dismissed the idea of a Draco & Harry pairing, but, as Draco’s actor, Felton has more expertise on the subject. Apparently, he’s also seen for himself how the pair would get along… in the form of NSFW fan-art. “I’ve seen some pictures,” Felton clarified, “some alarming ones.” Of course, nobody really wants to see pornography of themselves and their coworker, so Felton can be Team Drarry and not Team-Fake-Nudes-of-Himself.
But it’s not that Felton is just supportive of the fans’ imaginations. When it came time to talk about another popular pairing, Felton blew the ship right out of the water. “I think that’s fan-fic,” he said when asked about Draco & Hermione as a couple. He added: “In fact, I feel like I’ve seen some fan-fics along that line. What is it with Draco and matching him up with various Gryffindors?”
Even though there’s all subtext and no text when it comes to Harry & Draco’s relationship, worry not! One day, J.K. Rowling will declare that the couple had an ‘intense sexual relationship‘ all along like Dumbledore & Grindelwald.
Featured Image Via YouTube.