Harry Potter Theories

DRACO MALFOY IS A WEREWOLF

One rather bonkers theory drastically reinterprets Draco Malfoy's role in the sixth and seventh books, "Brittany & Nick" claim that Draco Malfoy is a werewolf, and they feel so strongly that this must be true that they've to share their theory with everyone.

The first step to convincing other Harry Potter fans of the Werewolf Draco is to debunk a common assumption, or rather, a common misconception: Draco Malfoy is not a Death Eater. Not once is he shown to have the Dark Mark with which the Dark Lord brands all his followers, and although he threateningly reveals "something on his arm" to the shady proprietor of Borgin & Burkes, the explicit omission of what this "something" indicates that isn't the first thing to come to mind.

If Draco isn't a Death Eater, then what physical marking could he have that would scare a hardened proprietor of Dark artifacts into doing his bidding? Brittany and Nick think it's a werewolf bite. In that same interaction with Borgin, Draco even name-drops Fenrir Greyback, "a family friend" and one of Voldemort's most loyal supporters, who happens to be a bloodthirsty werewolf. That's not to say that Draco is proud of his new werewolf status, which would account for his unusually sickly appearance in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince; more likely, he was bitten by Fenrir under Voldemort's orders, as the ultimate form of punishment for Lucius Malfoy's repeated failures. (Keep in mind that the elder Malfoy's mishandling of Tom Riddle's diary led to the destruction of one-seventh of Voldemort's very soul, and it seems ludicrous that his only punishment at the Dark Lord's hands would be house arrest. Rather than punish Lucius directly and lose his unwavering support, it seems rational that Voldemort would instead inflict a horrible fate on Draco, who was more expendable.)

Brittany and Nick's final evidence pointing to the truth of Werewolf Draco is Narcissa Malfoy's inexplicable decision to turn on the Dark Lord at the final moment, proclaiming Harry Potter to be dead while fully aware that he was yet capable of fighting back. A pure-blood mother to a pure-blood son would have little reason to turn on the leader promising a world built to cater to those just like them—unless her beloved child was somehow tainted, and no longer welcome in the new pure-blood order.

Fans of the films, of course, can easily throw a wrench in this theory by pointing out that on screen, Draco does, in fact, have the Dark Mark emblazoned on his right inner forearm, as he . (It's worth noting that the sixth film came out a couple of years after the release of the last book, which is presumably when Brittany and Nick were doing their theorizing.) If the films are considered canon—and, being approved by J.K. Rowling, there is no reason they shouldn't be—then that single cinematic moment neatly debunks what was once a promising theory. Furthermore, a provided some long-awaited backstory for the teenage antagonist and confirmed that Draco did, in fact, accept "full membership of the Death Eaters," determined to return the Malfoy name to its former glory in Voldemort's regime.

Dark Mark notwithstanding, the events of the war did change Draco: if not from human to werewolf, then from a pureblood elitist to a better man than his father. Though his familial love never wavers, his hatred for Muggles fades, and he marries a fellow Slytherin with similarly reformed views (to his parents' disappointment). Rowling ultimately expresses "high hopes that he will raise [his son] Scorpius to be a much kinder and tolerant Malfoy than he was in his own youth." Unlike the werewolf theory, this transformation is for the better.