Tom Felton recalls ‘painful’ memory of laughing at nine-year-old Emma Watson on Harry Potter set

Tom Felton has said he still feels “ashamed” of laughing at a young Emma Watson on the set of Harry Potter.

The Draco Malfoy star recalled the “painful” memory in his newly released memoir, Beyond the Wand: The Magic and Mayhem of Growing Up a Wizard.

Felton is three years older than Hermione Granger star Watson, whom he met at auditions when she was just nine and he was 12 years old.

The actor wrote that, in the early days, there was a real-life divide between the young Griffindor stars and their Slytherin rivals.

Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter), Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley) and Watson formed one trio while Felton, Jamie Waylett (Vincent Crabbe) and Josh Herdman (Gregory Goyle) were slightly older.

"I suppose we thought we were a bit cooler," Felton wrote. "We'd spend our free time together listening to rap music – Wu-Tang, Biggie, 2Pac.”

One day, word reached them that then-nine-year-old Watson was putting on a dance show in her dressing room that she wanted to perform to her castmates. “We were predictably dismissive,” Felton wrote.

“We sniggered our way down to Emma’s show, and the sniggers grew louder as she danced,” Felton recalled. “We were just being s***ty boys, largely out of awkwardness and because we thought taking the piss was cool, but Emma was visibly upset by our thoughtless reaction. I did feel like a bit of a d***, and rightly so.”

Afterwards, Felton said he was encouraged to go and apologise to Watson, which he did.

He wrote: “Everybody moved on. It was just a stupid, teenage act of thoughtlessness, the sort of thing that happens every day. So why does that moment stick in my memory? Why is it so painful for me to recall?

“The answer, I think, is that I’ve grown to understand with the passing of the years that of all of us, Emma had the most to deal with, the most difficult situation to negotiate, and from the earliest age.”

Felton went on to say that “the last thing she needed, in an environment that should have been – and normally was – safe and friendly and familial, was Josh and me laughing at her dance.”

“That’s why I feel ashamed by the memory of our behavior,” he said. “And that’s why I’m glad that our friendship did not founder on the rocks of my insensitivity, but became something deeper. A touchstone for both of our lives.”

In a recent interview with Louis Chilton for The Independent, Felton revealed that Watson was one of the chief proponents of him writing a memoir.

“I was encouraged by a few people, Emma Watson specifically, to tell the whole story and not just sort of cherry-pick the fluffy bits,” he says.

“Not just because it was cathartic for me. But also in the hope that sharing those parts of my story will help others that are maybe not going through the best time.”

Beyond the Wand by Tom Felton is out now, published by Ebury Spotlight.