@redteneri's first Malfoid drawing

What does the drawing show?

A Slytherin girl leans her head to one side and looks down at someone off the page. She has long, straight blonde hair parted to one side, black hoop earrings, green eyes and a Slytherin uniform in warm browns: a green and silver tie, a knit jumper and a brown robe with a green-lined hood. Her mouth is slightly open, as if she has just finished talking and is waiting to see how much it stung.

The speech bubble does the rest: “Since when are you one of the top students in the school, Potter? Is this a school you and Longbottom have set up?” It is a Draco line in everything but source. Harry is no star pupil in the books, and Neville is one of Draco’s favorite targets, so the insult hits two people at once.

There is no blush, no second panel and no Harry. That restraint is part of why it worked. The redteneri Malfoid is pure attitude, and every artist who followed could add the blush themselves.

Why did this one take off?

It was not the first girl Draco. A Tumblr drawing from 2011 and @grizz056’s “If malfoy was a girl” from 2024 came earlier, and both are on our female Draco Malfoy page. What this one had was timing and a clean design. The face is calm, the line is quotable, and the look is easy to copy: long hair, hoops, tie.

The like count tells the story of the wave. When Know Your Meme wrote up the trend it counted about 89,000 likes. By October 8 it was at 170,000, because people kept finding it through the drawings it inspired. It is still the most-liked post in our fan art gallery.

What came after it?

Four days later redteneri posted a second drawing, “Training for the ballet, Potter?”, which showed the first was not a one-off. Over the next two weeks dozens of artists posted their own version, from masoq095’s three-pose sheet to spaz141’s love triangle. The full order of events is on the Malfoid origin timeline, and every artist who joined is listed on Malfoid artists.