The Malfoy Hypocrisy: Here's Why This Noble Family Owes Everything to Muggles
In Harry Potter, the Malfoys are notorious wizard supremacists who believe that even interacting with Muggles is a disgrace — but a while back, their attitude was completely opposite.
When we first enter the world of Harry Potter, the International Statute of Secrecy is already well in place, and the Wizarding and Muggle worlds are as separated as possible. Wizards can't allow themselves to be discovered by their mundane peers, and many of them even consider Muggles inferior to them — especially, the Pureblood noble families like the Blacks and the Malfoys.
However, before the Statute was signed in 1689, the Malfoys were oh so connected with Muggles... In fact, this family owed everything they had to Muggles since the Malfoys were working for them.
The story of this family in Britain began with Armand Malfoy who arrived on the island with William the Conqueror in 1066. Armand's wizarding services helped the Norman army take over the British Isles, and he continued serving the king for years to come. Armand's Dark Magic was of great help to the royalty, so he was awarded with a prime property in Wiltshire. This place will later be known as the Malfoy Manor.
For generations to come, Armand's successors kept serving the British royalty, continuing to expand their influence over both wizards and Muggles alike and gathering more and more riches as their awards. At some point, the Malfoys even tried to marry into the Royal family, but that attempt failed. Still, the collaboration with kings and queens was most fruitful.
When the talks about signing the International Statute of Secrecy began centuries later, the Malfoys were the main opposition to the idea, but they had to give in eventually. The choice between the Wizarding and the Muggle worlds was obvious for them, so they presented themselves as most noble and aristocratic mages with no Muggle connections.
Like many other rich wizarding families, the Malfoys started radicalizing as time went on, and in the end, they arrived to the point where we first met them: they became one of the most supremacist families in the Wizarding World who despised the very idea of interactioning with Muggles, and denied their history which started with Armand's serving to the Muggle king.
But now you know that the Malfoys were nothing but hypocrites when it came to the Muggle issue, and they owed literally everything to the very people they publicly hated. And we bet, the Malfoys knew it, too.
Source: Wizarding World