Why I Cannot Forgive Draco Malfoy

(And a defense of Severus Snape)

Despite the drama within the fandom in recent months, I am an unwavering Harry Potter fan. I have unconditional love for the series that transcends the problematic author. I cannot describe in words how much the characters, themes, and magical (though unfortunately fictional) world shaped my personality. I would be a very different person without Harry Potter.

In fact, one of my core memories was the day I finished the series. I finished book seven and was so distraught that I restarted the first book then and there.

I will never love anything as much as I love Harry Potter. Thus, my opinions about it are very firm.

Like other Harry Potter fans, I am somehow on “Draco Malfoy TikTok” and my algorithm has decided to feed me countless videos about the notoriously arrogant, classist bully who was Harry’s nemesis for all seven books. In these videos, a myriad of fans profess their love for the character and affirm their forgiveness for his actions, insisting that his bad behavior was derived from a troubled childhood and that he wasn’t really all that bad.

I have to disagree.

From book one, Draco Malfoy was a snake. No pun intended, since he also was sorted into Slytherin house (the “evil” house - I could write a whole essay on why I think J.K. Rowling’s decision to villainize every Slytherin character was wrong, or perhaps I’m biased because I’m a Slytherin). From the very start, he was narcissistic, rude, and existed only to be an obstacle for Harry, Ron, and Hermione. He hated people who were muggle born. He hated “blood traitors” and bullied the Weasley family for being poor. His only friends were people who feared him.

Maybe it was sad that he was brought up to believe he was superior to others and never formed genuine connections with people. But that does not excuse his behavior throughout the series. He was blatantly mean and joined the dark side to please his family and was proud of it, for the most part. He was proud to be part of a movement to wipe out muggleborns and half-bloods. That doesn’t scream “redeemable character” to me.

So, no. I don’t think he’s as redeemable as people make him out to be. He had no character arc. The only “good” things he did weren’t even deeds out of the goodness of his heart. He didn’t kill Dumbledore, sure, but that was out of fear (and a little regret, maybe) and not compassion. He didn’t tell his family that a disguised Harry was the boy they were looking for, instead saying he couldn’t be sure. Just because he couldn’t make decisions that directly led to someone’s death didn’t grant him a satisfying arc, it just made him a coward to both the light and dark sides.

What interests me about Draco Malfoy fans is that the same energy is not applied to Severus Snape. Many fans hate Snape - I understand their point. But I wonder why the same forgiveness isn’t granted to Snape as it is so liberally applied to Malfoy’s story.

Snape was a lonely, awkward kid who had one friend and was caught up with the wrong crowd in school. He made bad decisions that led to Lily Potter dropping him as a friend and falling for James Potter. He regretted those decisions and, though his world was surrounded by darkness, didn’t abandon the love and light inside of him and became a spy for Dumbledore.

Snape was cruel to Harry and his friends for six years. Students feared him and he wasn’t a kind person. He was the mean teacher we’ve all had, multiplied by ten.

But imagine a world inside his head - he spends his days passing Harry in the halls. He is an exact replica of the person who took the love of his life away from him. He is simultaneously the last thing left of Lily, who he loved, and James, who he hated. Additionally, his destiny is tied to the man who killed Lily; Harry would be an accessory in Voldemort’s return. A part of the boy who lived would always be connected to the pain Snape felt when he lost the one person he cared about. It was understandably agonizing for Harry to exist in Snape’s life.

That does not give Snape the right to be so hateful towards Harry and so many others. And his unconditional love for Lily, who wanted nothing to do with him when she died, is often pointed out to be ridiculous and borderline creepy.

I think his arc was not given enough attention. I understand that the big reveal of his importance in Voldemort’s downfall was supposed to be a twist built up from those 6 books we spent hating Snape, so it’s a hard pill to swallow that he is suddenly good. He deserved to have more in the story - not just his love for Lily.

I think unconditional, unrequited love is an interesting thought experiment, and Snape’s level of love for Lily is paralleled in stories like Romeo and Juliet and one of my favorite adaptations of that story, West Side Story (If Juliet and Maria didn’t love Romeo and Tony back, respectively). It is very hard to imagine loving someone so much that nothing else matters and you will never love again. It makes the backstory improbable and unconvincing - because very few people have ever understood that kind of love: it’s fictional. We can learn love. We can heal from lost love. A crush on a childhood friend does not qualify as a suitable reason to be a miserable, hostile person who takes his anger out on children.

But Snape led Harry to success, in small ways. He was undoubtedly essential in Voldemort’s downfall. Dumbledore and the golden trio wouldn’t have found and destroyed the horcruxes without his help. He was actively helpful to the light side.

Perhaps I’m biased because Alan Rickman’s acting as Snape, particularly in the scene containing various flashbacks from his youth and the past seven years of his employment at Hogwarts, was incredible. He portrayed all the love and complex emotions that made Snape such a difficult character to understand. He made me feel sorry for him, even after spending so much time despising him. He showed us that there was good in him - there was part of him that cared for Harry because he was the only thing left of Lily. That’s why Snape didn’t abandon the light side. It was because of Lily, and, by default, Harry.

He was in no way a perfect character. Many of his actions and words I can’t forgive. I think he could have been further developed to make his sudden and unlikely expansion make more sense. But by the logic applied to Draco Malfoy, Snape was a saint.

Of course, I enjoy them both as characters and would never tell someone who they are allowed to like. It’s fun to hate Malfoy for being a stupid, arrogant narcissist and it’s fun to watch Snape’s character develop. I would never tell someone what to enjoy, but I had to get this off my chest.

Snape changed; Draco didn’t. The difference between them is that Snape applied his actions to fit the goodness that was deep inside of him - Draco, on the other hand, was too much of a coward to do anything good, despite him having an obvious inkling of doubt in Voldemort’s cause.

Therefore, I cannot forgive Draco Malfoy. But I will defend Snape to an extent - he was a good person, deep down, despite his character’s obvious flaws.

So, the next time you come across a TikTok in which someone rates the Harry Potter characters and places Draco in the #1 spot and Snape dead last, please consider my argument.