#malfoid The moment after the fall of Tom Riddle The green light faded and Voldemort hit the flags with the hollow, unceremonious thud of a dropped side of beef. The Hall was silent. The fighting had stopped. Draconia stalked towards Harry, directly across the room, and didn’t break stride. She planted her left heel squarely between the dead Dark Lord’s shoulder blades, the ribs cracking as she stomped over him like another flagstone, and kept moving. A choked sound came from the foot of the Hufflepuff table, Ernie Macmillan staring with his mouth open, wand dangling. She didn’t spare him half a glance. Harry was still swaying on the spot where the backfire had thrown him, the Elder Wand held loose, gray soot caked into his lashes. She reached him in three more long, predatory strides, caught two fistfuls of his ripped shirt, and shook him hard enough to snap his teeth together. “You let a giant carry you down the hill,” she said. The voice was low, viciously polite, and cold enough to strip varnish. “Like an unwashed sack of produce.” Harry blinked behind his cracked round lenses, his brain visibly struggling to catch up with the end of the war. “Draconia…” “Don’t you Draconia me, Potter. You let me think you were DEAD.” she shouted. She let go with one hand, curled it into a fist and thumped it into his shoulder. “Three years. Three agonizing years of doctoring letters, swallowing bile, smiling at an insane half-blood, and spending every night walking a razor’s edge through this moldering castle. And you strolled into the Forbidden Forest and laid down like a tired sheep.” Around them, the vast, echoing wreck of the Great Hall seemed to seize up mid-breath. Ron, half-propping up a bruised George near the splintered dais, slowly lowered his wand. His eyes tracked from Draconia’s hand clutching Harry’s chest down to the dead Dark Lord she had just used as a stepping stone. Hermione’s head snapped sideways. Her lips parted, moved without sound for two seconds, and then her brow furrowed into the terrifying, furious calculation of a girl mentally retrofitting every suspicious library run, altered roster, and near-miss since the Triwizard Tournament. “I didn't lay down,” Harry protested, his voice hoarse from shouting curses. “The H… he had to destroy the piece of himself, or…” “You let him hit you with the Killing Curse, you colossal, mutton-headed infant!” The shout rang off the hammerbeams. A few paces away, Neville was still holding the bloody Sword of Gryffindor by the hilt. He froze mid-step, looking between them as if wondering whether to intervene or back away very quietly. “It worked, didn’t it?” Harry’s temper, rusted and frayed from thirty-six hours of siege, flared back. “And don't act like it was easy from where I was standing! You were here all winter with the Carrows. You were wearing the badge, you were…” “And who do you think Severus used to blunt those two pig-ignorant brutes?” she snarled, leaning in so close her nose nearly grazed his. “Who do you think swapped out the brass knuckles Amycus kept in his desk for ones charmed to cushion on impact? Who do you think ‘accidentally’ tipped off the fifth-year Ravenclaws five minutes before Alecto raided the third-floor corridor with bloodhounds? Did you think Severus walked around brewing half-strength boiling draughts himself? The Carrows are vulgar, illiterate swine who couldn't tell a proper curse from a tavern brawl. I spent eight months keeping them from turning this school into a slaughterhouse. For you, you ungrateful lout!” Neville blinked, a strange, baffled look washing over his battered features. “The detention rosters... she told us to clean the silver in the trophy room instead of going down to the dungeons.” “Because I didn’t want blood on the runners, Longbottom, and Harry likes you for some reason,” she snapped with a quick angry glance, her knuckles trembling against Harry's collarbones. “And at the Manor. Why do you think the cellar latch was loose? Why do you think Aunt Bella spent twenty minutes shrieking for rope while your house-elf took half the drawing room with him? Why do you think I stood there looking at your swollen, ruined face and told them I couldn't be sure it was you?” Harry went rigid. His mouth opened, closed, then stalled. “You think I’m blind?” she shouted. “You think a Malfoy doesn't recognize the boy she’s been..” she paused, a flush forming and then continued. “Alecto and Amycus were common rabble playing at dominion, and the Dark Lord was just a jumped-up half-blood. My loyalties belong to my family and to myself, not to some grotesque lunatic. And against every scrap of my better judgment, Potter….” “You... you lied to Bella,” Harry interrupted. “Right to her face.” “Of course I lied to her, you complete cretin! I'm a Black. We lie to the mirror starting at 2 years old, but usually we do it for a reason better than a Gryffindor who possesses the survival instincts of a dead badger!” She shook him again, her voice rising in exasperated pitch. “I risked Azkaban. I risked death and worse. I risked my mother's life. Do you know how difficult it is to keep going in the face of all that? To smile at a madman who is planning to ‘gift’ you to one of his cronies?” she paused again and drew in a breath. “Of course I betrayed them.” she shouted. Over by the hourglasses, Pansy Parkinson stood with her arms crossed over a torn cloak, a slow, vindictive smirk spreading across her face. “Told you so,” she muttered loud enough to reach Blaise Zabini, who merely closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose in deep, long-suffering resignation. “Draconia,” Harry began again, softer this time. His free hand came up, hovering near her wrist, fingers twitching against the wool of her sleeve. “You didn't have to…” “Shut up.” “I’m just saying…” “I love you, you utterly insufferable, stubborn waste of oxygen.” she hissed, the words coming out fast, hot, and laced with absolute, aristocratic venom. “I love you, which makes me a fool, and I have spent three years dealing with second-rate cutthroats and illiterate Death Eaters because the alternative was spending the rest of my life without you. You do not get to die on me now. Do you understand? If you die after I stepped on that filthy half-blood's corpse to fetch you, I will drag you back out of the veil just to curse you.” The silence that settled over the hall was absolute. Ron’s jaw dropped entirely. He looked at Hermione, looked back at Draconia, then tapped his own temple with his wand-tip as though checking his ears for a Confundus charm. “Wait.” Ron blinked hard. He shook his head. “Her? Her and you?” Draconia didn’t turn around. “Weasley, if you speak another syllable, I will transfigure you into the guppy you resemble and feed you to the kneazles. Sit down and have a biscuit.” Harry didn't move. The Elder Wand slipped from his grasp, clattering uselessly against the stone. He brought both hands up, his fingers closing gently around her forearms. “You’re shouting,” he murmured, the corners of his mouth giving the faintest, exhausted twitch. “I am perfectly calm,” she snapped back, though the flush along her throat had climbed straight to the tips of her ears. “I am the picture of pureblood decorum. You, on the other hand, look like you were dragged behind the Hogwarts Express.” “Probably.” “Not probably. Definitely.” Her grip on his shirt didn’t loosen, but the furious, rigid stiffness went out of her spine in one long, trembling shudder. Her hands stayed bunched in his torn wool, and then, with an irritable little huff of breath that smelled faintly of peppermint and ash, she let her forehead drop forward against his collarbone. Harry’s arms came around her, one settling across her shoulders and the other around her waist, pulling her in. Both of them drew in deep shuddering breaths. Across the hall, Minerva McGonagall lowered her wand, pressed her lips into a tight, severe line to keep them from twitching, and addressed the room at large. “Someone,” she said crisply, “move that creature’s body out of the thoroughfare.”

What the heck. #Malfoid 4th year. Harry crossed the flagstones with three versions of the request ready, but when she looked up he lost the thread of the second one and the rest went with it. Draconia was sitting on the low stone coping beneath the cloister arches. An open copy of Theories of Transubstantial Transfiguration rested across her knees, her thumbs marking the margin. Near the heavy oak doors, three third-years were pitching Gobstones against the wall; one stone hissed and spat a jet of foul green slime that sent a boy scrambling sideways into the dirt. “Malfoy,” Harry said. She did not set the book down. “Potter. If you’re here to accuse me of stealing Creevey’s badge, he lost it by the lake. I had nothing to do with it. This time.” “It’s not about Creevey.” His knuckles hit the wool lining of his robes, stayed there, then pulled free. “The Ball. I don’t have anyone to go with.” He grimaced. “And I have been told I have to go. And I have to have a date. Rules of this bloody contest.” Her gaze dropped to the text, then rose again, flat and pale. The silence lasted long enough for one of the boys by the door to swear over a missed throw. “You’re telling me this because you want help finding someone?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. “Fred and George said I wouldn’t ask you. Apparently they already took bets on me asking anyone.” The words came out shorter than he meant. “So I’m asking.” The book shut with a heavy, hollow thud against her skirt. “That isn’t an invitation. If you’re going to be an idiot, do it with some dignity.” “I’m just telling you why I’m here.” “You’re telling me Weasleys have bets on you, which I don’t care about.” She slid the book into the leather satchel at her feet and pulled the strap tight. A thin patch of red had caught at the collar of her shirt, but her voice stayed hard. “You look at me. You use my name. You ask if I will attend the dance with you. You leave out your housemates, your nerves, and the fact that you’d rather embrace the squid in the lake. Try it.” Harry’s jaw tightened. He glanced back toward the doors, the boys were still crouched over the gravel and not watching, then forced his eyes level with the bridge of her nose. “Draconia.” The syllables caught on his teeth. She went entirely still, the leather strap frozen between two fingers. He cleared his throat and said, “Draconia, will you go to the Ball with me?” He paused just a beat. “Please.” The yard seemed very wide and suddenly very quiet. A jackdaw dropped off the guttering overhead, rustled its feathers, and took off toward the owlery. For a moment she didn’t answer. Her fingers finished tucking the strap through the brass buckle, slow and precise. When she spoke, the edge was still there, but thinner. “Pansy made a wager of her own,” she said. “A dare I suppose that I would give in and go with Nott before stooping to being seen with a Gryffindor.” She stood, shaking out the gray wool of her skirts with two sharp snaps. “Nott’s asked me twice. Zabini spent forty minutes yesterday explaining why his mother’s dressmaker was coming up from London. If I have to invent another reason to say no, I’m going to say something I’ll have to explain in a letter, and I’d rather not. Though, I suppose I’ll have to explain this too.” She picked up the bag by the handle. The flush at her collar hadn’t faded. “Be on time. Don’t make me stand on the landing waiting for you.” She paused, thumb worrying the edge of the satchel strap, then added, as if the thought had only just occurred to her, “You have time to get proper dress robes. Gladrags, if you have to buy off the rack.” “I don’t…” Harry cleared his throat. The relief sat oddly next to the fresh urge to say something that would undo it. He sighed. “What color?” “Yours should be black, mine are green. You don’t need to strain yourself trying to match.” She paused, then added, almost as an afterthought, “And if you change your mind, tell me before dinner tomorrow. I’d rather know.” She turned toward the cloister walk. Her shoes struck the flags in a quick, regular rhythm that didn’t slow until she reached the shade of the archway, her shoulder brushing past the boys by the door without looking at them. Harry remained by the coping. His palms were slick against the rough wool of his pockets. He stayed there until the sound of her steps had faded.

This is not going to be the last breach.

A bit of a post war/Hogwarts #malfoid moment. Ambiguous year. The interviewer from Witch Weekly had already used the word “statement” twice before the tea arrived. Draconia Potter watched the woman rearrange her notes and decided, not for the first time that afternoon, that she was going to answer the next question exactly as she felt like answering it. “Some of our readers have noticed,” the interviewer said carefully, “that you almost never wear heels high enough to put you over your husband’s height. Given your… history, and the family’s public profile, a number of people have wondered whether that’s deliberate. A quiet statement about equality, or modern marriage, or...” “It’s really rather simple,” Draconia said. She stirred her tea once and set the spoon down. “It’s easier for him to put his arm around my shoulders.” The interviewer blinked. “I beg your pardon?” “Harry is not especially tall,” Draconia said, as if this were widely known information that the entire wizarding world had somehow managed to miss. “If I’m in four inch heels I have to lean. Or he has to reach. Neither of us particularly enjoys that. In flats, or low heels, he can just… do it. When we’re standing around at things. When the children are being loud. When we’re waiting for the train. It’s convenient.” “Convenient,” the interviewer repeated. “Yes.” Draconia’s mouth curved. “Is it that foreign to people that I simply love my husband and like being around him? I assure you, the novelty has not, so far, worn off for me.” She took a sip of tea. Outside the drawing room windows, two of the younger Potters were attempting to convince a third that the garden hedge was, in fact, a dragon. Harry’s voice drifted in from the corridor. Calm, faintly amused, followed by the distinct sound of someone being told, gently, to put the broom down before someone lost an eye. The interviewer's head tracked from window to hall. “We have five, you know.” Draconia said, watching the woman count silently. “Six if you count the Lupin who insists he is only 'crashing' with us temporarily. Plenty of times the both of us need a 'moment'.” The interviewer smiled despite herself. “And the height thing isn’t… symbolic?” “Of what?” Draconia asked, genuinely curious. “That I enjoy my husband being able to reach me without either of us performing gymnastics in the middle of a Ministry reception? I suppose that is a statement, if one insists on calling it one. Mostly it means I can lean into him when my feet hurt and he doesn’t have to pretend he isn’t doing the same thing when his back does. We are not, I’m afraid, a particularly complicated household.” She glanced toward the door as Harry appeared in it, one small Potter under each arm and a third trailing behind him with a fistful of what looked like stolen biscuits. He caught her eye. Something in his face softened the way it still did, even now, when he found her looking at him. Draconia felt the familiar warmth of it settle under her ribs. “Excuse me a moment,” she said to the interviewer, and rose. She crossed the room in the low heels she had chosen that morning and let Harry’s arm settle across her shoulders exactly as it always did easy, unhurried, precisely the right height. One of the children immediately tried to climb her. Harry adjusted his hold without comment. “Everything all right?” he asked, low enough that only she heard it. “Perfectly,” she said. She tipped her head against his shoulder for half a second, then straightened again for the sake of the interviewer’s notes. “We were just discussing footwear.” Harry’s mouth twitched. “Thrilling.” “It has its moments,” Draconia said.

Fifth year? Seems like people are doing Fifth year these days. Draconia caught his sleeve as he started past her and pulled hard enough that he stumbled. The corridor was empty enough. She shoved the nearest classroom door open with her free hand and dragged him through it before he could get his balance, then shut it behind them with her heel. Harry yanked free the second they were inside. “What the hell...” “Quiet.” She turned the lock. The room was one of the smaller ones, unused this hour, desks still stacked from last term. Light came in through the high windows and caught the raw mess of his right hand. He had not managed to pull the sleeve all the way down again. The letters were still wet in places. He saw her looking and closed his fist. “If this is about the Squad...” “It isn’t.” “Then what.” His voice was low and sharp. “You’ve spent months acting like I don’t exist. You won’t look at me in the Great Hall. You walk the other way when I’m in the corridor, when you're not hexing my friends. Now you’re dragging me into empty rooms. So what is it, Malfoy.” She crossed the space between them in three steps and took his wrist before he could move it away. He flinched, but she didn’t let go. The cuts were worse up close. The word lies had gone deepest. Blood had dried in the lines and cracked when he moved. Her thumb pressed just below the worst of it, careful of the open skin, and she felt the heat of it under her fingers. “Who,” she said. “You know who.” “Say it.” “Umbridge.” He watched her face. “She makes me write it. Over and over. Until it sticks. Happy?” Draconia’s jaw tightened. She turned his hand over, checking the palm, then the back again. The anger sat high in her throat, tight and hot. Not the clean kind she could use in a duel. The kind that made her want to hex something until it stopped moving. She had heard Umbridge was doing this. She had not known it looked like this. And if she was honest, had not cared until it was him. “Why do you care,” Harry said. He didn’t pull away this time. His voice had gone quieter. “You’ve made it very clear you don’t. So why.” She looked up. Grey eyes on green. The distance she had kept since felt thin and stupid in the empty room, with his blood under her thumb and the memory of the Ball still sitting between them like something neither of them had managed to put down. He had asked her. She had said yes. Neither of them had pretended it was a favor or a joke or a dare. Three songs. His hand careful on hers. And then the third task, and the summer, and the letters from home, and she had spent every day since trying to make the distance look natural. It had kept her safe in the circle of the Dark Lord's adherents. It felt like dying by inches. “Because I care about you, you imbecile,” she said. The words came out low and furious. “And it’s going to get me killed.” Harry went still. His wrist stayed in her hand. She could feel his pulse under her fingers, fast and steady. “Draconia” “Don’t.” She let go of him. Her hands were shaking. She hated that. She hated the way hearing her name in that tone felt. The way the cuts on his skin made her want to do something irreversible to the woman who had put them there. She hated that she had spent months walking the other way and it had not made any of this smaller. “Keep your sleeve down. And if she does it again, you tell me. Not Weasley. Not Granger. Me.” He studied her for a long moment. The anger was still there in his face, but something else had settled under it. He flexed his fingers once, carefully. “All right,” he said. She unlocked the door and stepped out into the corridor before he could say anything else. Her face was smooth by the time she reached the corner. Her shaking hands... she hoped no one noticed.

Blocked replies like a coward. Because he knows her comments, on record, are indefensible.

But the French people voted for those members of parliament. For their leadership. And didn't stand up to place new leaders.

Oh no. Who could possibly have predicted this?

Two things. First the guy is a self proclaimed "feminist". Countdown to some women coming out with allegations starts now. Second. Locked replies after getting brutally hammered in the comments. Which means he likes the special corner chair in the hotel room.

Yeah. Fuck @NexusSites

The Great Hall had settled into the usual noise of the welcome feast when Dumbledore rose. Conversation thinned as he lifted a hand. “Before we begin,” he said, “the school has instituted a small experiment this year. A cross-house collaborative project. Each of you will be paired with a compatible person selected by a combination of random factors and carefully calibrated Arithmantic measures. You will share knowledge, complete a term-long assignment together, and, it is hoped, discover that the Sorting Hat’s decisions need not govern every hour of your education.” A murmur of curiosity moved through the tables. At the Slytherin end, Dracaena Malfoy kept her attention on the precise arrangement of her silverware and did not look up. Dumbledore set the Sorting Hat beside a plain wooden bucket. “The names were prepared this afternoon and placed within the Hat for the final selection. It will announce the pairings.” What no one in the Hall knew was that the slips had not remained untouched. While they still lay loose in the bucket, a hand that was not quite solid had rearranged certain names until the desired combinations sat together. Only then had they been tipped into the Hat. The Hat cleared its throat. Most pairings drew only mild interest. Then— “Harry Potter and Dracaena Malfoy.” The Hall went still. Harry’s fork paused halfway to his mouth. Across the tables, Dracaena’s head came up. Their eyes met. Color rose high on her cheeks; she looked away almost at once, chin lifting. “Oh, brilliant,” she said, voice sharp enough to carry. “Just what I needed. A year of explaining basic things to the Boy Who Can’t Follow Directions. Try not to set anything on fire, Potter.” A few nearby Slytherins snickered. Harry set his fork down and met her glare without flinching. At the high table, Dumbledore’s expression remained mild. Beneath it, Fawkes shifted and made a soft, knowing sound. Somewhere far from the castle, Lord Voldemort watched the cracked surface of a mirror and permitted himself the smallest of smiles. The Hat coughed and moved on. Conversation resumed, louder than before.

“Listen to me, Harry. Did she cast a Stinging Jinx or a Bat-Bogey Hex?” “A Stinging Jinx, but Sirius..." “Elegant. Restrained. Stinging Jinx means she noticed your cheekbones and resented herself for it. Did she look away immediately after?” “She called me insufferable and sprinted down the corridor.” “Textbook Black-family foreplay. Bella did the exact same thing to Rodolphus right before their betrothal ball, only with a bone-breaker. You’re doing brilliantly, pup. Send her an unlabeled box of Belgian chocolate and casually mention you’re fond of emerald silk. Then run.”

I see that HIV deaths are up in Kenya. I also don't care that HIV deaths are up in Kenya. I'm sure its of great interest to Kenyans. But its no business of the United States.

What der fer?