Lucius Malfoy (b. 1954) was a pure-blood wizard, and son of Abraxas Malfoy and his wife, as well as the husband of Narcissa Black and the father of Draco Malfoy. Lucius was educated at Hogwarts, where he was a prefect in Slytherin House. As an adult, Lucius was an aristocratic wizard and head of the Malfoy family, believing strongly in notions of blood purity and the superiority of pure-blood wizards. He joined the Death Eaters, who shared his views on blood purity, and participated in the First Wizarding War.
After Lord Voldemort's first defeat, Lucius managed to avoid imprisonment by claiming that he had been acting under the Imperius Curse. He and his family remained members of the social elite, though Lucius continued to demonstrate his prejudice. He attempted to sabotage Arthur Weasley's career by slipping Arthur's daughter an old school diary of Tom Riddle's, opening the Chamber of Secrets in 1992, and in 1994, he participated in the humiliation of a Muggle family after the Quidditch World Cup.
When Voldemort returned, Lucius once again served him as a Death Eater, leading the efforts to obtain the prophecy Voldemort sought. In the battle that ensued, the prophecy was destroyed, and Lucius and his comrades were imprisoned in Azkaban in 1996. Although Voldemort broke them out of prison in 1997, he was displeased with Lucius for his failure and treated the Malfoys with disdain. Lucius and his family defected at the end of the Second Wizarding War and were thus pardoned for their crimes after Voldemort's final defeat. He and Narcissa later had a grandson, Scorpius Malfoy, after Draco married Astoria Greengrass.