Armand Malfoy, ancestor of the Malfoy family, came to England with William I the Conqueror. The King William of 1098 was William II, the second son of William the Conqueror, famed for his cold-blooded ruthlessness and violent temper.
His father, William the Conqueror, was Britain's first Norman king. So although the Malfoys appeared very Anglo-Saxon, they were actually Normans. After years of intermarriage with Anglo-Saxons, they had become Anglo-Normans.
A close look at Malfoy Manor revealed its Anglo-Norman style—the so-called Norman Romanesque architecture. Even the Vikings had been influenced by Roman culture. But if one asked Lucius Malfoy whether he missed Odin more or Jupiter more, he did not care in the slightest. At a meeting in Malfoy Manor, Voldemort had once mocked the relationship between the Malfoy family and the Tonks family, because Nymphadora Tonks had married a Werewolf, while Andromeda Black had married Ted, a Muggle-born.
Being mocked before everyone, in his own home, over his wife—and being unable to answer back or resist—had utterly stripped Lucius of the dignity of a family head. That period had been the bleakest time in Lucius's life. After the war, Aurors came to his home every few days looking for "evidence" and even forced his family to use Muggle appliances, which felt just as awful. But the latter was merely annoying, while the former was deeply humiliating. Even though Voldemort had once sent Dementors to rescue Lucius from Azkaban, it was difficult to say whether Azkaban or Malfoy Manor under Voldemort's control had been the more comfortable place.
The roses in the garden had withered, and the peacocks pacing the courtyard had been eaten by someone unknown. The entire manor decayed into ruins at a visible pace. Yet those Romanesque buildings did not become like Rome itself, where once-grand structures remained