An addendum: some people are commenting again that Draco gets married, he has kids, those kids go back to Hogwarts with Harry’s. People said the same thing last time I talked about this. But that is not redemption.
Respectfully, that is simply the closure of Draco’s story. He does what many boys do: he grows up, he gets married, he has offspring. That is his story ending. He has not been redeemed of anything. He did bad things and the villain was slain, but we see next to nothing about how he is redeemed, or even that he has been redeemed at all. He got married and likes his wife. I’m all for matrimony, but redemption, that is not.
This isn’t a small detail, either. The entire point of this Malfoid phenomena is watching this character make the same mistakes Draco makes, but she is redeemed through choices that the audience can witness themselves, and by the choices Harry makes to help her or on her behalf. Whether it’s the last battle (which has been rewritten or shown via AI plenty of times already) or scenes I’ve seen less of but do exist, such as where she would be charged with killing Dumbledore. It’s a question of agency.
Presumably, Malfoid will make many of the same mistakes Draco made, but we (as readers and/or viewers) will see her learn from them and watch her rise above them. She transforms from an elitist brat, to a reluctant love interest, to a heartbroken villainess, and finally into a heroine who helps defeats the villain through the power of love.
That is redemption, guys.
Accept no substitutes.
I commented very early on when the Malfoid craze started that this character works precisely because everybody knows how Draco Malfoy’s story ends. He doesn’t get a happy ending. I’ve been told that the books and extended lore do some work to alleviate this and try to file down some of his rougher edges, so take that for what it’s worth.
It also doesn’t matter that Draco wasn’t the main character, in my opinion—readers and viewers invested multiple years in his story, and there were some people who still wanted him to have one. Now they can. Redemption finally takes place, albeit in a different way than what the original story allowed for. That’s why the number of fan projects has exploded in just a matter of days, all to get to the ending everybody already knows is coming.
Malfoid is interesting for any number of reasons, not the least of which is because now she gets the ending she deserved (or that people want her male counterpart to have, if you prefer): a happy one. You also don’t have to invest years in waiting for the story to end if you don’t want to—you can tweak this part or that part of the story and get right to the immediate gratification of where she and Harry have their happy ending.
And please note how that ending is a normal, traditional, white picket fence sort that has become so subverted in our time. That can’t be ignored. No amount of Tumblr-cum-BlueSky-esque pushback can change that. A hundred years ago, their ending would’ve been completely normal. Now, it’s practically counter-cultural.
So give them a daughter that has his eyes, or a son with hers. Give them a minivan full of kids, or a whole Quidditch match’s worth. Whatever your happy ending of choice is, it’s there for the taking. Their world is your oyster.
I’ve made no secret that I’m working on an original story based on the Malfoid-HP pairing. I don’t think it’s spoiling anything that, when it’s finished, it’s my hope to have written a romance worthy of the source material. Hopefully readers will feel the same way. Readers deserve a real, genuine effort from me, just as they deserve it from anyone writing Malfoid fanfic, or OC, or anything else. I can do no less. So make your art, but make it mindfully. Respect the fans, and they will do the same in return.
It’ll be a long road getting there, but until then, we’ll always have Malfoid.