#cw: discussion of canon-typical prejudice/blood purity/racism

[phoebe-delia]

cw: discussion of canon-typical prejudice/blood purity/racism

I have a developing headcanon about Draco.

So I think Lucius is a piece of shit father, right? Very cold and mean and distant, and controlling. He showers Draco with gifts, but not affection, you get the gist.

But Lucius’s father, Draco’s paternal grandfather, is very different. He’s warm with Draco. He's kind. Doesn’t get angry when Draco draws on the walls, or has an episode of accidental magic, or doesn’t get the highest grade. Maybe Lucius was impacted by his mother to be the way he was, or became that way for some other reason. Or maybe his father is just better at being a grandfather than he was a father.

Regardless, Draco grows up not idolizing his mean, harsh, demanding father, but his doting, loving, patient grandfather.

His grandfather is also a raging, horrible racist/pureblood supremacist.

His grandfather sits Draco on his knee and tells him how wonderful he is, how special and "pure." He shows his prejudice in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. Draco hears him rant about blood purity shit at the dinner table. When they're in public, he notices his grandfather steer him away from anyone who he might know or assume to be a non-pureblood. The grandfather dies before the war, let's say like 4th year, but he has a BIG impact on Draco.

So Draco doesn’t (only) get his blood supremacy/racism from his father (and mother). He also gets it from his grandfather.

I think I like this headcanon because—while it's not at all easy to unlearn prejudices one sees modeled from basically birth—it's probably made a bit easier when the person you learned it from is also someone you don't like when you get older. I don't see Draco liking Lucius all that much; sure he has love for him, but even in the small scenes where we see how Lucius treats Draco, it's clear that, at the very least, he's not very nice to his son. And, in my own head, Draco doesn't have a good relationship with him, pretty much ever. So maybe, in a universe that only presents Draco's relationship with his parents, Draco could have an easier time in adulthood recognizing that he'd been indoctrinated into the blood supremacist ideology; it could be compatible with an overall rejection of his parents.

But in this headcanon, where Draco learned and saw a lot of that prejudice modeled for him in someone who showed him seemingly unconditional love and kindness and affection, how hard is that for him to grapple with? That's a reality for a lot of people; coming to terms with the fact that someone you love—someone who's nice to you—isn't "nice" to people who aren't like you. And that everything they taught you about that was wrong.

Which brings me to Drarry. Because in a Drarry universe—which is endgame in just about every universe I wanna explore—Draco would fall in love with someone who his grandfather would've hated.

Give me a Draco who has to realize that someone with whom he didn't have a complicated, toxic relationship, was also a shitty person, and that he would've HATED the person he loves.