‘Harry Potter’: Tom Felton Unsuccessfully Tries to Recruit Matthew Lewis to Slytherin

Seven years after the final Harry Potter movie broke box office records, one of Slytherin’s most prominent members is still trying to recruit a fan-favorite Gryffindor alum to the dark side. Fortunately, he isn’t taking the bait.

Former Harry Potter stars Tom Felton, who played Draco Malfoy, and Matthew Lewis, a.k.a. Neville Longbottom, spent some time together in Venice Beach over the weekend. Both shared a photo of their experience on Instagram, with two very different accounts of what happened.

In his post, Felton held a Slytherin jacket up to Lewis and put his arm around him, seemingly trying to convince him to give the jacket a try.

“See how close he was to converting,” Felton wrote. He ended the post with a snarky hashtag that poked fun at the rival house: “#griffyndork.”

The post from Lewis contains a nearly identical photo, except this time, Lewis is staring back at Felton as his rival persuades him to convert houses.

“Take your Slytherin paws off me, you damn dirty ape,” Lewis wrote, quoting Charlton Heston’s infamous line from Planet of the Apes.

Just like in the Harry Potter movies, it looks as though Matthew Lewis couldn’t be swayed to fall on the wrong side of history. In the franchise, Neville Longbottom was often the butt of jokes, constantly at the mercy of Draco Malfoy and his goons. However, Neville stood up for himself and his friends in the final film, becoming one of the series’ biggest heroes.

It’s good to know that, while they may have played rivals in one of the biggest movie franchises of all time, both Felton and Lewis remain good buddies in real life.

Did you side with Tom Felton or Matthew Lewis in this friendly Instagram battle? Let us know in the comments below!