An unusual Lunar New Year mascot has appeared in China.
It features Draco Malfoy, the famous villain from the Harry Potter film series.
Actor Tom Felton's face appears in some Chinese homes, as well as on websites selling holiday decorations.
The translation of his name into Chinese is responsible for his sudden popularity.
It contains words for horse and luck, which sounds especially auspicious for the upcoming year of the horse.
Harry Potter is extremely popular in China, where hundreds of millions of books have been sold.
Since the re-release of the first film in 2020, the creators of the series have earned more than $13,6 million in three days.
Before the Lunar New Year, Chinese households usually decorate with a scroll that heralds health and prosperity.
Others decorate their homes with fuji - square-shaped red papers with the Chinese word for prosperity printed on them.
Fuzi are usually hung upside down and symbolize good luck coming to the household, as the Chinese word for upside down has the same pronunciation as the word for arrival.
On Chinese social media, images show some users pasting stickers or photos of Malfoy's signature smile on their doors.
Merchants on e-commerce site Taobao are also tapping into the trend, creating stickers and magnets featuring Harry Potter characters.
"Share this picture for luck," some social media users write.
"Oriental New Year with magical elements," read a comment on the social network Weibo.
"Felix Felicis!" others wrote, a reference to the potion from the show that makes the drinker happy for a certain period of time.
The Lunar New Year decoration also caught the eye of Felton, who posted on Instagram how his character had become "a symbol of Chinese New Year."
This reaction caused even greater excitement on Chinese social media.
The young wizard franchise has a huge fan base in China, and Warner Bros. Discovery plans to open a study tour Harry Potter in Shanghai in 2027
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