The Potter family is a very old one,but it was never (until the birth of Harry James Potter) at the very forefront of wizarding history,contenting itself with a solid and comfortable existence in the backwaters.

Potter is a not uncommon Muggle surname,and the family did not make the so-called ‘Sacred Twenty-Eight'for this reason; the anonymous compiler of that supposedly definitive list of pure-bloods suspected that they had sprung from what he considered to be tainted blood.The wizarding Potter family had illustrious beginnings,however,some of which were hinted at in Deathly Hallows .

In the Muggle world ‘Potter'is an occupational surname,meaning a man who creates pottery.The wizarding family of Potters descends from the twelfth-century wizard Linfred of Stinchcombe,a locally well-beloved and eccentric man,whose nickname,‘the Potterer',became corrupted in time to ‘Potter'.Linfred was a vague and absent-minded fellow whose Muggle neighbours often called upon his medicinal services.None of them realised that Linfred's wonderful cures for pox and ague were magical; they all thought him a harmless and lovable old chap,pottering about in his garden with all his funny plants.His reputation as a well-meaning eccentric served Linfred well,for behind closed doors he was able to continue the series of experiments that laid the foundation of the Potter family's fortune.Historians credit Linfred as the originator of a number of remedies that evolved into potions still used to this day,including Skele-gro and Pepperup Potion.His sales of such cures to fellow witches and wizards enabled him to leave a significant pile of gold to each of his seven children upon his death.

Linfred's eldest son,Hardwin,married a beautiful young witch by the name of Iolanthe Peverell,who came from the village of Godric's Hollow.She was the granddaughter of Ignotus Peverell.In the absence of male heirs,she,the eldest of her generation,had inherited her grandfather's invisibility cloak.It was,Iolanthe explained to Hardwin,a tradition in her family that the possession of this cloak remained a secret,and her new husband respected her wishes.From this time on,the cloak was handed down to the eldest in each new generation.

The Potters continued to marry their neighbours,occasionally Muggles,and to live in the West of England,for several generations,each one adding to the family coffers by their hard work and,it must be said,by the quiet brand of ingenuity that had characterised their forebear,Linfred.

Occasionally,a Potter made it all the way to London,and a member of the family has twice sat on the Wizengamot: Ralston Potter,who was a member from 1612–1652,and who was a great supporter of the Statute of Secrecy (as opposed to declaring war on the Muggles,as more militant members wished to do) and Henry Potter (Harry to his intimates),who was a direct descendant of Hardwin and Iolanthe,and served on the Wizengamot from 1913–1921.Henry caused a minor stir when he publicly condemned then Minister for Magic,Archer Evermonde,who had forbidden the magical community to help Muggles waging the First World War.His outspokenness on the behalf of the Muggle community was also a strong contributing factor in the family's exclusion from the ‘Sacred Twenty-Eight'.

Henry's son was called Fleamont Potter.Fleamont was so called because it was the dying wish of Henry's mother that he perpetuate her maiden name,which would otherwise die out.He bore the burden remarkably well; indeed,he always attributed his dexterity at duelling to the number of times he had to fight people at Hogwarts after they had made fun of his name.It was Fleamont who took the family gold and quadrupled it,by creating magical Sleekeazy's Hair Potion (‘two drops tames even the most bothersome barnet').He sold the company at a vast profit when he retired,but no amount of riches could compensate him or his wife Euphemia for their childlessness.They had quite given up hope of a son or daughter when,to their shock and surprise,Euphemia found that she was pregnant and their beloved boy,James,was born.

Fleamont and Euphemia lived long enough to see James marry a Muggle-born girl called Lily Evans,but not to meet their grandson,Harry.Dragon pox carried them off within days of each other,due to their advanced age,and James Potter then inherited Ignotus Peverell's Invisibility Cloak.

The Malfoy name comes from old French and translates as ‘bad faith'.Like many other progenitors of noble English families,the wizard Armand Malfoy arrived in Britain with William the Conqueror as part of the invading Norman army.Having rendered unknown,shady (and almost certainly magical) services to King William I,Malfoy was given a prime piece of land in Wiltshire,seized from local landowners,upon which his descendants have lived for ten consecutive centuries.

Their wily ancestor Armand encapsulated many of the qualities that have distinguished the Malfoy family to the present day.The Malfoys have always had the reputation,hinted at by their not altogether complimentary surname,of being a slippery bunch,to be found courting power and riches wherever they might be found.In spite of their espousal of pure-blood values and their undoubtedly genuine belief in wizards'superiority over Muggles,the Malfoys have never been above ingratiating themselves with the non-magical community when it suits them.The result is that they are one of the richest wizarding families in Britain,and it has been rumoured for many years (though never proven) that over the centuries the family has dabbled successfully in Muggle currency and assets.Over hundreds of years,they have managed to add to their lands in Wiltshire by annexing those of neighbouring Muggles,and the favour they curried with royalty added Muggle treasures and works of art to an ever-expanding collection.

Historically,the Malfoys drew a sharp distinction between poor Muggles and those with wealth and authority.Until the imposition of the Statute of Secrecy in 1692,the Malfoy family was active within high-born Muggle circles,and it is said that their fervent opposition to the imposition of the Statute was due,in part,to the fact that they would have to withdraw from this enjoyable sphere of social life.Though hotly denied by subsequent generations,there is ample evidence to suggest that the first Lucius Malfoy was an unsuccessful aspirant to the hand of Elizabeth I,and some wizarding historians allege that the Queen's subsequent opposition to marriage was due to a jinx placed upon her by the thwarted Malfoy.

With that healthy degree of self-preservation that has characterised most of their actions over the centuries,once the Statute of Secrecy had passed into law the Malfoys ceased fraternising with Muggles,however well-born,and accepted that further opposition and protests could only distance them from the new heart of power: the newly created Ministry of Magic.They performed an abrupt volte-face,and became as vocally supportive of the Statute as any of those who had championed it from the beginning,hastening to deny that they had ever been on speaking (or marrying) terms with Muggles.

The substantial wealth at their disposal ensured them considerable (and much resented) influence at the Ministry for generations to come,though no Malfoy has ever aspired to the role of Minister for Magic.It is often said of the Malfoy family that you will never find one at the scene of the crime,though their fingerprints might be all over the guilty wand.Independently wealthy,with no need to work for a living,they have generally preferred the role of power behind the throne,happy for others to do the donkey work and to take the responsibility for failure.They have helped finance many of their preferred candidates'election campaigns,which have (it is alleged) included paying for dirty work such as hexing the opposition.

The Malfoys'unfeigned contempt for all Muggles who could not offer them jewels or influence,and for the majority of their fellow wizards,drew them naturally towards the pure-blood doctrine,which seemed for several years in the twentieth century to be their likeliest source of untrammelled power.From the imposition of the Statute of Secrecy onwards,no Malfoy has married a Muggle or Muggle-born.The family has,however,eschewed the somewhat dangerous practice of inter-marrying within such a small pool of pure-bloods that they become enfeebled or unstable,unlike a small minority of fanatic families such as the Gaunts and Lestranges,and many a half-blood appears on the Malfoy family tree.

Notable Malfoys of past generations include the fourteenth-century Nicholas Malfoy,who is believed to have dispatched many a fractious Muggle tenant under the guise of the Black Death,though escaping censure by the Wizards'Council; Septimus Malfoy,who was greatly influential at the Ministry in the late eighteenth century,many claiming that Minister for Magic Unctuous Osbert was little more than his puppet; and Abraxas Malfoy,who was widely believed to be part of the shady plot that saw the first Muggle-born Minister (Nobby Leach) leave his post prematurely in 1968 (nothing was ever proven against Malfoy).

Abraxas's son,Lucius,achieved notoriety as one of Lord Voldemort's Death Eaters,though he successfully evaded prison after both of Lord Voldemort's attempted coups.On the first occasion,he claimed to have been acting under the Imperius Curse (though many claimed he called in favours from high-placed Ministry officials); on the second occasion,he provided evidence against fellow Death Eaters and helped ensure the capture of many of Lord Voldemort's followers who had fled into hiding.

Draco Malfoy grew up as an only child at Malfoy Manor,the magnificent mansion in Wiltshire which had been in his family's possession for many centuries.From the time when he could talk,it was made clear to him that he was triply special: firstly as a wizard,secondly as a pure-blood,and thirdly as a member of the Malfoy family.

Draco was raised in an atmosphere of regret that the Dark Lord had not succeeded in taking command of the wizarding community,although he was prudently reminded that such sentiments ought not to be expressed outside the small circle of the family and their close friends ‘or Daddy might get into trouble'.In childhood,Draco associated mainly with the pure-blood children of his father's ex-Death Eater cronies,and therefore arrived at Hogwarts with a small gang of friends already made,including Theodore Nott and Vincent Crabbe.

Like every other child of Harry Potter's age,Draco heard stories of the Boy Who Lived through his youth.Many different theories had been in circulation for years as to how Harry survived what should have been a lethal attack,and one of the most persistent was that Harry himself was a great Dark wizard.The fact that he had been removed from the wizarding community seemed (to wishful thinkers) to support this view,and Draco's father,wily Lucius Malfoy,was one of those who subscribed most eagerly to the theory.It was comforting to think that he,Lucius,might be in for a second chance of world domination,should this Potter boy prove to be another,and greater,pure-blood champion.It was,therefore,in the knowledge that he was doing nothing of which his father would disapprove,and in the hope that he might be able to relay some interesting news home,that Draco Malfoy offered Harry Potter his hand when he realised who he was on the Hogwarts Express.Harry's refusal of Draco's friendly overtures,and the fact that he had already formed an allegiance to Ron Weasley,whose family is anathema to the Malfoys,turns Malfoy against him at once.Draco realised,correctly,that the wild hopes of the ex-Death Eaters–that Harry Potter was another,and better,Voldemort–are completely unfounded,and their mutual enmity is assured from that point.

Much of Draco's behaviour at school was modelled on the most impressive person he knew–his father–and he faithfully copied Lucius's cold and contemptuous manner to everyone outside his inner circle.Having recruited a second henchman (Crabbe being already in position pre-Hogwarts) on the train to school,the less physically imposing Malfoy used Crabbe and Goyle as a combination of henchman and bodyguard throughout his six years of school life.

Draco's feelings for Harry were always based,in a great part,on envy.Though he never sought fame,Harry was unquestionably the most talked-about and admired person at school,and this naturally jarred with a boy who had been brought up to believe that he occupied an almost royal position within the wizarding community.What was more,Harry was most talented at flying,the one skill at which Malfoy had been confident he would outshine all the other first-years.The fact that the Potions master,Snape,had a soft spot for Malfoy,and despised Harry,was only slight compensation.

Draco resorted to many different dirty tactics in his perpetual quest to get under Harry's skin,or discredit him in the eyes of others including,but not limited to,telling lies about him to the press,manufacturing insulting badges to wear about him,attempting to curse him from behind,and dressing up as one of the Dementors (to which Harry had shown himself particularly vulnerable).However,Malfoy had his own moments of humiliation at Harry's hands,notably on the Quidditch pitch,and never forgot the shame of being turned into a bouncing ferret by a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher.

While many people thought that Harry Potter,who had witnessed the Dark Lord's rebirth,was a liar or a fantasist,Draco Malfoy was one of the few who knew that Harry was telling the truth.His own father had felt his Dark Mark burn and had flown to rejoin the Dark Lord,witnessing Harry and Voldemort's graveyard duel.

The discussions of these events at Malfoy Manor gave rise to conflicting sensations in Draco Malfoy.On the one hand,he was thrilled by the secret knowledge that Voldemort had returned,and that what his father had always described as the family's glory days were back once more.On the other,the whispered discussions about the way that Harry had,again,evaded the Dark Lord's attempts to kill him,caused Draco further twinges of anger and envy.Much as the Death Eaters disliked Harry as an obstacle and as a symbol,he was discussed seriously as an adversary,whereas Draco was still relegated to the status of schoolboy by Death Eaters who met at his parents'house.Though they were on opposing sides of the gathering battle,Draco felt envious of Harry's status.He cheered himself up by imagining Voldemort's triumph,seeing his family honoured under a new regime,and he himself feted at Hogwarts as the important and impressive son of Voldemort's second-in-command.

School life took an upturn in Draco's fifth year.Although forbidden to discuss at Hogwarts what he had heard at home,Draco took pleasure in petty triumphs: he was a Prefect (and Harry was not) and Dolores Umbridge,the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher,seemed to loathe Harry quite as much as he did.He became a member of Dolores Umbridge's Inquisitorial Squad,and made it his business to try and discover what Harry and a gang of disparate students were up to,as they formed and trained,in secret,as the forbidden organisation,Dumbledore's Army.However,at the very moment of triumph,when Draco had cornered Harry and his comrades,and when it seemed that Harry must be expelled by Umbridge,Harry slipped through his fingers.Worse still,Harry managed to thwart Lucius Malfoy's attempt to kill him,and Draco's father was captured and sent to Azkaban.

Draco's world now fell apart.From having been,as he and his father had believed,on the cusp of authority and prestige such as they had never known before,his father was taken from the family home and imprisoned,far away,in the fearsome wizard prison guarded by Dementors.Lucius had been Draco's role model and hero since birth.Now he and his mother were pariahs among the Death Eaters; Lucius was a failure and discredited in the eyes of the furious Lord Voldemort.

Draco's existence had been cloistered and protected until this point; he had been a privileged boy with little to trouble him,assured of his status in the world and with his head full of petty concerns.Now,with his father gone and his mother distraught and afraid,he had to assume a man's responsibilities.

Worse was to come.Voldemort,seeking to punish Lucius Malfoy still further for the botched capture of Harry,demanded that Draco perform a task so difficult that he would almost certainly fail–and pay with his life.Draco was to murder Albus Dumbledore–how,Voldemort did not trouble to say.Draco was to be left to his own initiative and Narcissa guessed,correctly,that her son was being set up to fail by a wizard who was devoid of pity and could not tolerate failure.

Furious at the world that seemed suddenly to have turned on his father,Draco accepted full membership of the Death Eaters and agreed to perform the murder Voldemort ordered.At this early stage,full of the desire for revenge and to return his father to Voldemort's favour,Draco barely comprehended what he was being asked to do.All he knew was that Dumbledore represented everything his imprisoned father disliked; Draco managed,quite easily,to convince himself that he,too,thought the world would be a better place without the Hogwarts Headmaster,around whom opposition to Voldemort had always rallied.

In thrall to the idea of himself as a real Death Eater,Draco set off for Hogwarts with a burning sense of purpose.Gradually,however,as he found that his task was much more difficult than he had anticipated,and after he had come close to accidentally killing two other people instead of Dumbledore,Draco's nerve began to fail.With the threat of harm to his family and himself hanging over him,he began to crumble under the pressure.The ideas that Draco had about himself,and his place in the world,were disintegrating.All his life,he had idolised a father who advocated violence and was not afraid to use it himself,and now that his son discovered in himself a distaste for murder,he felt it to be a shameful failing.Even so,he could not free himself from his conditioning: he repeatedly refused the assistance of Severus Snape,because he was afraid that Snape would attempt to steal his ‘glory'.

Voldemort and Snape underestimated Draco.He proved adept at Occlumency (the magical art of repelling attempts to read the mind),which was essential for the undercover work he had undertaken.After two doomed attempts on Dumbledore's life,Draco succeeded in his ingenious plan to introduce a whole group of Death Eaters into Hogwarts,with the result that Dumbledore was,indeed,killed–though not by Draco's hand.

Even when faced with a weak and wandless Dumbledore,Draco found himself unable to deliver the coup de grâce because,in spite of himself,he was touched by Dumbledore's kindness and pity for his would-be killer.Snape subsequently covered for Draco,lying to Voldemort about Draco lowering his wand prior to his own arrival at the top of the Astronomy Tower; Snape emphasised Draco's skill in introducing the Death Eaters into the school,and cornering Dumbledore for him,Snape,to kill.

When Lucius was freed from Azkaban shortly afterwards,the family was allowed to return to Malfoy Manor with their lives.However,they were now completely discredited.From dreams of the highest status under Voldemort's new regime,the Malfoys found themselves the lowest in the ranks of the Death Eaters; weaklings and failures,to whom Voldemort was henceforth derisive and contemptuous.

Draco's changed,yet still conflicted,personality revealed itself in his actions during the remainder of the war between Voldemort and those who were trying to stop him.Although Draco had still not rid himself of the hope of returning the family to their former high position,his inconveniently awakened conscience led him to try–half-heartedly,perhaps,but arguably as best he could in the circumstances–to save Harry from Voldemort when the former was captured and dragged to Malfoy Manor.During the final battle at Hogwarts however,Malfoy made yet another attempt to capture Harry and thereby save his parents'prestige,and possibly their lives.Whether he could have brought himself to actually hand over Harry is a moot point; I suspect that,as with his attempted murder of Dumbledore,he would again have found the reality of bringing about another person's death much more difficult in practice than in theory.

Draco survived Voldemort's siege of Hogwarts because Harry and Ron saved his life.Following the battle,his father evaded prison by providing evidence against fellow Death Eaters,helping to ensure the capture of many of Lord Voldemort's followers who had fled into hiding.

The events of Draco's late teens forever changed his life.He had had the beliefs with which he had grown up challenged in the most frightening way: he had experienced terror and despair,seen his parents suffer for their allegiance,and had witnessed the crumbling of all that his family had believed in.People whom Draco had been raised,or else had learned,to hate,such as Dumbledore,had offered him help and kindness,and Harry Potter had given him his life.After the events of the second wizarding war,Lucius found his son as affectionate as ever,but refusing to follow the same old pure-blood line.

Draco married the younger sister of a fellow Slytherin.Astoria Greengrass,who had gone through a similar (though less violent and frightening) conversion from pure-blood ideals to a more tolerant life view,was felt by Narcissa and Lucius to be something of a disappointment as a daughter-in-law.They had had high hopes of a girl whose family featured on the ‘Sacred Twenty-Eight',but as Astoria refused to raise their grandson Scorpius in the belief that Muggles were scum,family gatherings were often fraught with tension.

When the series begins,Draco is,in almost every way,the archetypal bully.With the unquestioning belief in his own superior status he has imbibed from his pure-blood parents,he initially offers Harry friendship on the assumption that the offer needs only to be made to be accepted.The wealth of his family stands in contrast to the poverty of the Weasleys; this too,is a source of pride to Draco,even though the Weasleys'blood credentials are identical to his own.

Everybody recognises Draco because everybody has known somebody like him.Such people's belief in their own superiority can be infuriating,laughable or intimidating,depending on the circumstances in which one meets them.Draco succeeds in provoking all of these feelings in Harry,Ron and Hermione at one time or another.

My British editor questioned the fact that Draco was so accomplished at Occlumency,which Harry (for all his ability in producing a Patronus so young) never mastered.I argued that it was perfectly consistent with Draco's character that he would find it easy to shut down emotion,to compartmentalise,and to deny essential parts of himself.Dumbledore tells Harry,at the end of Order of the Phoenix ,that it is an essential part of his humanity that he can feel such pain; with Draco,I was attempting to show that the denial of pain and the suppression of inner conflict can only lead to a damaged person (who is much more likely to inflict damage on other people).

Draco never realises that he becomes,for the best part of a year,the true owner of the Elder Wand.It is as well that he does not,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.

I pity Draco,just as I feel sorry for Dudley.Being raised by either the Malfoys or the Dursleys would be a very damaging experience,and Draco undergoes dreadful trials as a direct result of his family's misguided principles.However,the Malfoys do have a saving grace: they love each other.Draco is motivated quite as much by fear of something happening to his parents as to himself,while Narcissa risks everything when she lies to Voldemort at the end of Deathly Hallows and tells him that Harry is dead,merely so that she can get to her son.

For all this,Draco remains a person of dubious morality in the seven published books,and 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).Draco has all the dark 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.

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.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.

Draco had many surnames before I settled on ‘Malfoy'.At various times in the earliest drafts he is Smart,Spinks or Spungen.His Christian name comes from a constellation–the dragon–and yet his wand core is of unicorn.

This was symbolic.There is,after all–and at the risk of re-kindling unhealthy fantasies–some unextinguished good at the heart of Draco.

The term ‘pure-blood'refers to a family or individual without Muggle (non-magic) blood.The concept is generally associated with Salazar Slytherin,one of the four founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,whose aversion to teaching anybody of Muggle parentage eventually led to a breach with his three fellow founders,and his resignation from the school.

Slytherin's discrimination on the basis of parentage was considered an unusual and misguided view by the majority of wizards at the time.Contemporary literature suggests that Muggle-borns were not only accepted,but often considered to be particularly gifted.They went by the affectionate name of ‘Magbobs'(there has been much debate about the origin of the term,but it seems most likely to be that in such a case,magic ‘bobbed up'out of nowhere).

Magical opinion underwent something of a shift after the International Statute of Secrecy became effective in 1692,when the magical community went into voluntary hiding following persecution by Muggles.This was a traumatic time for witches and wizards,and marriages with Muggles dropped to their lowest level ever known,mainly because of fears that intermarriage would lead inevitably to discovery,and,consequently,to a serious infraction of wizarding law.

Under such conditions of uncertainty,fear and resentment,the pure-blood doctrine began to gain followers.As a general rule,those who adopted it were also those who had most strenuously opposed the International Statute of Secrecy,advocating instead for outright war on the Muggles.Increasing numbers of wizards now preached that marriage with a Muggle did not merely risk a possible breach of the new Statute,but that it was shameful,unnatural and would lead to ‘contamination'of magical blood.

As Muggle/wizard marriage had been common for centuries,those now self-describing as pure-bloods were unlikely to have any higher proportion of wizarding ancestors than those who did not.To call oneself a pure-blood was more accurately a declaration of political or social intent (‘I will not marry a Muggle and I consider Muggle/wizard marriage reprehensible') than a statement of biological fact.

Several works of dubious scholarship,published around the early eighteenth century and drawing partly on the writings of Salazar Slytherin himself,make reference to supposed indicators of pure-blood status,aside from the family tree.The most commonly cited signs were: onset of magical ability before the age of three,early (before aged seven) prowess on a broomstick,dislike or fear of pigs and those who tend them (the pig is often considered a particularly non-magical animal and is notoriously difficult to charm),resistance to common childhood illnesses,outstanding physical attractiveness and an aversion to Muggles observable even in the pure-blood baby,which supposedly shows signs of fear and disgust in their presence.

Successive studies produced by the Department of Mysteries have proven that these supposed hallmarks of pure-blood status have no basis in fact.Nevertheless,many pure-bloods continue to cite them as evidence of their own higher status within the wizarding community.

In the early 1930s,a ‘Pure-Blood Directory'was published anonymously in Britain,which listed the twenty-eight truly pure-blood families,as judged by the unknown authority who had written the book ,with ‘the aim of helping such families maintain the purity of their bloodlines'.The so-called ‘Sacred Twenty-Eight'comprised the families of:

A minority of these families publicly deplored their inclusion on the list,declaring that their ancestors certainly included Muggles,a fact of which they were not ashamed.Most vocally indignant was the numerous Weasley family,which,in spite of its connections with almost every old wizarding family in Britain,was proud of its ancestral ties to many interesting Muggles.Their protests earned these families the opprobrium of advocates of the pure-blood doctrine,and the epithet ‘blood traitor'.Meanwhile,a larger number of families were protesting that they were not on the pure-blood list.