Tom Felton recalls stealing DVD after first Harry Potter movie

Tom Felton once stole a DVD.

At the age of 14, Tom Felton displayed some of Draco Malfoy's bad-boy tendencies.

In his recently released memoir Beyond the Wand: The Magic and Mayhem of Growing up a Wizard, the Harry Potter actor shares personal details about his upbringing and career.

The book also includes frank and amusing anecdotes about his time on and off the set of the adored film series.

Felton says that as a young man, he had a few encounters with the law, including one incident at a DVD store that he was concerned might reach Warner Bros. employees and endanger his role as Draco.

Felton tells the story of taking a DVD of an "adult nature" from his neighborhood HMV, the equivalent of a Best Buy in the UK, in EW's first, listen to the audiobook.

Between the first and second Harry Potter movies, on a busy Saturday afternoon in a shopping center in England, Felton was just beginning his wizarding career.

According to Felton, "clusters of teenagers" controlled the shopping center and were "doing what teenagers do," Felton says, and "they pay no attention to a skinny 14-year-old boy with a pale complexion and bleached hair loitering in the vicinity, surrounded by his crew."

"You might think, and rightly so, that with my distinct blonde hairdo I'd be well advised to avoid trouble," he says, "but teenagers don't do sensible things."

In order to impress the popular kids, Felton and his team "had trouble in mind," which means Felton offered to steal an adult DVD.

Felton entered the store with "excruciating casualness" despite the "potential for extreme embarrassment" while having "palms sweating, pulse racing."

Felton claims that instead of "executing a fast, discreet robbery," he anxiously trailed the DVD, making around 50 trips up and down the aisles. He tried to convince a stranger to buy the DVD for him so he could pretend to be successful, but the stranger refused, so he had to carry on with his hour-long stakeout.

He says, "I wish I hadn't volunteered."

“I realized it was foolish." Finally, courageously, Felton snatched the disc from the shelf, slipped it into his pocket, and hurried out of the shop.

"Then, disaster," says Felton. The young Felton was led back to the shop by three security guards, who demanded that he empty his pockets.

The security took a photo of Felton, but they agreed not to notify his mother so they could add it to their wall of "hardened criminals who tried to rip off the record store," the actor claims, adding that he was permanently banned from the store.

Felton doesn't know if his Polaroid picture is still hanging on the HMV's walls. He was "terrified" that Warner Bros. or the media would learn about his transgression for weeks after the occurrence.

"I never told a single soul," Felton adds. "But what would happen if someone recognized my mugshot? Would they fire me? Would the next film see Harry, Ron, and Hermione terrorized by a different Draco?"

Felton also shares stories from his time in recovery and anecdotes about his fellow Harry Potter co-stars Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson. He claims that Watson inspired him to write about some of his more difficult memories.