note: i use the sortinghatchats system - +here’s a link to their ‘basics’ post. to briefly summarize, though, they sort everyone on two different (and equally important) aspects of their personality: the first (your “primary” house) is why you do things, where the second (your “secondary” house) is how you do things. i'm getting back into my +drastorias, so i thought i'd tackle the more fucked up side of the pairing first.

sidenote!draco is a fucking mess of a sorting, because The War. he has a lot of (earned, warranted) guilt about it, and it's fucked with his head and at times burned him to a crisp.

Primary (the "why")

canon!draco was a hufflepuff primary:

If a Hufflepuff values people, then they value all people and they try to do it equally. They value community. Many Hufflepuffs bond to groups (rather than solely individuals). They value fairness because no person is more worthwhile than any other, no matter if the Hufflepuff likes some people better than others. They feel best when they give everyone that fair chance. Even directly wronged, a Hufflepuff will often give someone a second (or fifth) chance.

if that seems off-base, stop and look at it this way: what if only people in his pureblood supremacist community count as people? what if no one else is a person?

In order to cut off someone or to ignore certain groups, without feeling guilty about it, Hufflepuffs can often turn to dehumanization. They other whole groups– this is how you get racist Hufflepuffs, but also how you get Hufflepuffs who unapologetically deny they have any debt of fairness to, say, abusers.

here's where i'm coming from: draco never really acted like a proper slytherin primary. slytherin primaries are all about personal loyalties first, like narcissa choosing her son over her community without any hesitation. we don't really see a "my individual people first" approach from draco, though - his focus revolves more around recognition from his community than it does around power. in hbp, for example, he accuses snape of wanting to steal his glory on multiple occasions, and he's clearly desperate for dumbledore's approval even when draco has come to murder him - he takes pride when dumbledore compliments his cleverness and he immediately says that he didn't know greyback would be coming when dumbledore expresses disappointment that draco would welcome him. none of that has anything to do with ambition or individual loyalties - it has to do with community.

and there's also that if anyone was desensitized enough to violence against "the other" to commit murder at the age of 16, it was draco. draco was raised by pureblood supremacists who actively promoted genocide. his father was almost certainly a murderer. his life and the lives of the people he loved were directly threatened. plenty of other people his age in his community, including his closest friends, were comfortable with torture and murder under far less duress - and yet not only does draco not do it, we see him putting the humanity of people he doesn't even like over his family's wishes, his own ambition, and their safety at other points, too - for example, he pretends that he can't reliably identify harry, hermione, and ron when the snatchers bring them to the malfoy manor in dh, he tries to stop his friends from using any unforgivables in the room of requirement (not just avada kedavra), and he refuses to abandon his unconscious friend even when they're about to be burned alive - he doesn't get on harry's broom until ron and hermione get goyle onto theirs. he didn't even leave hogwarts after the battle, even though self-preservation dictated that the malfoys really should have.

it's not that draco is a profile in courage - he's not! - but that doesn't look like the "me and mine first" approach of a slytherin primary or even the "me first" approach of a burned slytherin primary. that looks like a hufflepuff primary struggling with the idea that who counts as a person is a lot broader than they thought it was in the midst of a lot of personal trauma.

i think that draco dehumanized people outside of his community prior to hbp, but when the things he'd been taught stopped just being words and started having tangible (and deadly) consequences, that dehumanization started to break down. he did his best to supress that during hbp and dh, but we can see it peeking through. he feels like he should want to do what it takes to protect his family - that's what he's been taught, after all - but it's not what he does want to do.

and for sidenote! purposes, the aftermath of that is when his primary charred to a crisp and he became a burned hufflepuff primary:

A burned Hufflepuff can look a lot like an unburned Slytherin: a small, close-knit community of friends and family who they will do anything for; someone who doesn’t hold themselves responsible for the plights and struggles of strangers. A burned Hufflepuff has shrunk their circle of responsibility down to a manageable level. However, while that set-up is morally satisfying to a Slytherin, a Hufflepuff who has burned feels selfish when they abandon people who need them in order to prioritize the people they love most.

when he's no longer in survival mode, he really has to fully process that what he'd been taught and spent years promoting wasn't just wrong - it was monstrous. the people he'd trusted are not trustworthy, and the people he'd hated are who keep him out of prison. he has no idea what's right, just a list of what's wrong, and the circle he finds manageable is zero people - including himself, because he doesn't think he really deserves anything.

but deep down, while he doesn't miss that specific community, he does miss being part of a community - even if he feels like he doesn't deserve it and (correctly) believes that there isn't really any community that he'd fit into. he wants to help his newly-broadened definition of "people" (especially since he has a lot of deserved guilt), but he feels like anything he might try to do would be futile… so he just shuts down.

and that's where the slew of idealist primaries come in, which is where his +gryffindor primary model comes from:

Gryffindor House is the house of justice and bravery. If you model Gryffindor Primary, you also value these things and like to live by them-- but you wouldn't feel guilty for dropping those goals in the service of your own priorities (whether that's sticking by your chosen family or stopping your emotional biases from sending you down the wrong path). But you'd like to value these things. They're good, solid, and satisfying. If the phrase "some things are just wrong" appeals to you, you might be a Gryffindor or have Gryffindor model.

passing information to harry, hermione, and brendon greengrass does not really endear him to anyone. people who'd been on the right side in the war do not like or trust him, because he'd been on the wrong side. people who'd been on the wrong side in the war do not like or trust him because harry potter stuck up for him and helped him avoid prison… and then they start to suspect that he's responsible for giving the aurors and werewolf capture all the super secret information that they suddenly had access to. so there's no community for him, and while he thinks he knows what the right thing is and how to treat people, he can't rest easy in it, because he thought he knew that before and he was wrong.

and the people willing to put up with him during the most acute part of this crisis were all idealist primaries. harry, hermione, and brendon greengrass are all strong gryffindor primaries, and astoria is a ravenclaw primary who refuses to tolerate questions to her system because people who have challenge her system have not generally been acting in good faith. draco isn't sure of a whole lot, but he's sure that the community he'd rejected absolutely hates these four people specifically, and he's sure that they're all definitely Good People. astoria is also incredibly pushy about calling him out on every single thing he says that unconsciously parrots the superiority of his old community, which makes her someone he can trust - if she thinks he's doing the wrong thing, he knows that she'll tell him. (also, there was definitely some self-loathing mixed up in his initial attachment to her.)

answers like this:

Something feels wrong about this. I've got to trust myself, within reason. I'll think about it, but you can convince anyone of anything if you talk pretty enough.

aren't about his hufflepuff primary - they're directly informed by that gryffindor model, because draco has seen people talk in convincing ways about how other people don't count as people a whole lot, and he knows that it wasn't true. an objective right and wrong is something he needs to believe in post-war, and as he starts to gain more confidence in his ability to tell right from wrong, that's something he internalizes.

over time, he does start to integrate into the community the greengrasses are part of - it's slow going, but it does happen, especially after he and astoria get married and he takes her name (i need to do some edits to a whole lot of stuff now that i've decided that happens) - there wasn't not the same kneejerk reaction to the name malfoy, and people who weren't around back then didn't necessarily even realize what his name used to be. eventually, he came to a reasonable equilibrium where he internalized some parts of the gryffindor primary model and unburned the rest of his hufflepuff primary around it.

secondary (the "how")

after the war, draco is a burned slytherin secondary:

A Slytherin Secondary’s defining constant is to change. They adapt to the situation, going with the flow and making use of advantages as they come. They are good at spotting unexpected opportunities and rapidly shifting their aim and approach in order to snatch up the possibilities in front of them. Sometimes this leads them to appear lucky where they are actually better described as opportunistic.

A Burned Slytherin Secondary might want to be flexible, adaptable, and clever, but they feel like they are (or like people think they are) clumsy, unobservant, or blunt. Adapting to fit the needs of their situation is the right way to achieve their goals, but Burned Slytherins know that's not going to work within their capabilities.

he isn't entirely wrong - he is clumsy, unobservant, and blunt, because traumatized people are not known for being smooth. his confidence in himself breaks, so he ends up spending a lot of time in the slytherin neutral state, because he is truly done with everyone and everything.

Most of the time, most Slytherin Secondaries live comfortably in a system of shifting facades and able code-switching, singing a different tune to every situation. But when they are feeling safe, in the company of trusted people, or when they are feeling particularly apathetic and done with the world, Slytherin Secondaries often let all those shifting layers drop—this is the neutral state.

he does regain his confidence as time goes on, in part thanks to finding that he's capable of it through work. for example, when he and astoria are ambushed by former Voldemort supporters in (i always) leave the light on, he's able to slip into the arrogant pureblood supremacist role very, very easily:

Quote

“I suppose as long as a blood traitor keeps quiet, she’s better than a Mudblood,” the thinner man said. “Is this one mouthy?”

“Not when I don’t want her to be.” Draco sounded dismissive. “She does what she’s told.”

The bigger man glanced at me. “Don’t think she liked that,” he told Draco. Draco didn’t look at me, but I wished I had a better poker face. “Sweetheart, if he’s not treating you right, you can always come with us.”

I opened my mouth, but before I could speak, Draco spat, “I’m a Malfoy. I don’t share, and I’m not done with her yet.” Even though I knew it was an act, his tone made my blood run cold.

he had a ravenclaw secondary model even pre-war:

Ravenclaw is the House of data collection, analysis, and study, and Ravenclaws use those values to help them live, act, and succeed. If you model Ravenclaw Secondary, you also value these things and like to live by them. You like to be prepared, skilled, and knowledgeable-- but you wouldn't feel guilty for abandoning those values in the service of other, higher priorities. It would be nice if you could prioritize aquiring skills and experiences, learning, and preparing, but sometimes other things are more important or come more easily to your hand.

If you model Ravenclaw secondary, then you use these tools primarily when you think they will help or when they will be fun, but are less likely to jump to them when another way could be just as effective—- whether that’s confronting your problem head-on, playing things by ear, toiling, or calling on your community.

and he ends up leaning on it more after the war than he did in school in part because he's lost some of his confidence and in part because he needs to - being good at adapting can only get him so far when everyone knows exactly who he is and what his deal is. the ravenclaw model is good for both on those things. even if he's not confident in his abilities, he's confident in his knowledge. he knows whether his spells work. he knows whether he can brew a potion. he knows whether someone was a death eater, and where they were during the war, and what they did. he likes being able to prepare and plan, because it gives him a way forward even when slipping through things isn't really a option. eventually, he's able to come to a pretty recent equilibrium with these, too (which is good, because it's a combo that's pretty effective and common):

When a Ravenclaw Secondary adopts a Slytherin Secondary model (or vice versa), you tend to get "the chessmaster" or "the evil mastermind" trope (or “the gentleman thief”). Having both these skill sets and values lends particularly well to this– the quick-thinking adaptability of the Slytherin and the preparedness of the Ravenclaw. They are clever, adaptive, even manipulative, and good at planning and prep.

in summary: sidenote!draco is a (burned) hufflepuff primary with a +gryffindor primary model, and a (burned) slytherin secondary with a ravenclaw secondary model. so he's kind of all the houses, though he does continue to identify most strongly with slytherin by a wide margin.