For the span of seven and a half movies, Tom Felton played the role of spoiled, bratty Slytherin house student Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter series. Malfoy represented everything about Slytherin that fans have come to detest, from a huge sense of entitlement to bigotry towards non-pure bloods. But through an online sorting hat test that Felton took recently, he proved he was nothing like his obnoxious screen role when he got sorted into Hufflepuff instead of Slytherin. The actor took to Instagram to share his disappointment about the test result.
“A sad day….on so many levels.”
The test is a part of the Harry Potter at Home hub, which was established last month in an effort to allow Harry Potter fans to engage with their favorite series in a new way while in lockdown. The site includes quizzes and puzzles which test your knowledge of the franchise, and occasional appearances from the cast of the films, like the time Daniel Radcliffe did a read-through of the first novel in the series.
Tom Felton was careful to put his name down for the test as Draco Malfoy instead of his actual name, to give the impression that it was Draco who got sorted into Hufflepuff, which would have been a source of great shame for the character and his entire family.
The four houses at Hogwarts are much more than simple groups. Each represents a long, proud history that started with the four founders of the school, and each house values a different set of values that a student must possess in order to belong to the house.
In many ways, Slytherin and Hufflepuff lie on opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to what they find of worth in a student. Slytherins value cunning, opportunistic behavior, and a natural belief in their own superiority, while Hupplepuffs believe in selfless giving, and treating everyone equally and with kindness.
There is also the general impression among students that Hupplepuffs, who never particularly shine either in sports or academics, are by and large the least impressive house in the school, and a kid with the fantastic amount of arrogance that Draco Malfoy possessed would rather leave Hogwarts than stay on as a Hufflepuff.
It seems Tom Felton was well aware of how horrified Draco would have been with the results of the test, hence his statement about being sad to be cast into Hufflepuff. But of course, Felton in real life is nothing like his character in Harry Potter.
The actor remains good friends with the rest of the cast of the series and has spoken with great affection of his time spent making the movies, even if he was so good at his job that he frequently got bullied in real life by fans who were unable to differentiate between the actor and the role he was playing. Nowadays, Felton has moved on to other work, appearing in a recurring role in CW’s The Flash, and recently starring in the indie dramedy Braking for Whales.