David Bone

"Affectus remotio" Draconia whispered, gritting her teeth and clenching her wand. Waiting, desperately, for something to happen, for something to change. The stack of books around her growing taller by the hour, with titles such as "Basic Hexes for the Busy and Vexed", and "A Compendium of Common Curses and Their Counter-Actions". She had been at it for hours, late into the night, casting counter-curse after counter-curse on herself. Feeling nothing change but her level of anguish. She hadn't showered or left the library in two days. Her hair was greasy, and the bags under her eyes were heavy. "Stupid Snape. Stupid potions. Stupid magic. Stupid Potter!" Draconia shouted, knocking over one of her stacks of dusty tomes. "Shh." Instructed a passing ghost, much to her irritation. "Stupid ghost." she muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose. She looked a mess, and smelled even worse. Luckily it was several hours past midnight, and the library was completely empty. She had special permission to be out of bed this late of course, from Snape. "Good luck with your research Miss Malfoid, however, I don't suspect you will find the answers you seek in the library." What did he mean by that? Something about the way he said it bothered her. What does it mean? She looked down at her notes, full of hastily scratched spells and their counter curses, references to books that referenced other books, old anecdotes, and rumors of love hexes. She pulled her hair again, and slammed her fist on the table. If Snape knew what was wrong with her, why wouldn't he tell her? Is this a test of some sort? As she thought, she absent-mindedly sketched a lightning bolt in her notes. Suddenly, she knew. Of course. It was unthinkable, but it was the only explanation. Potter used the imperius curse on her. One of the three unforgivable curses, used to control people like a puppet. Probably when she was sleeping, he snuck in and cast it on her, with a subtle enough command that it would go unnoticed. Of course! A spell that dark and that powerful wouldn't be released by simple counter-curses found in the student library. Draconia was more relieved than angry. Finally, an explanation. Now she just needed to find Potter, get him to release the curse, and tell her father. Finally, something to get that half-blooded creep expelled. She took out her silver hairbrush, ran it through her platinum hair, and sighed, ready to return to her dorm and get some much needed sleep. After returning the books to their proper home, she exited the library quietly, smiling to herself. "I'm probably the first witch in history to be relieved to discover she's under the control of the imperius curse", she mused. The castle was unnerving at night, but it was never quiet. The soft roar of the torches in the corridor, the sleepless ghosts floating around, the soft snoring of the living paintings. Though she was apprehensive, at least she wasn't alone. Alone. The word echoed in her head. She heard footsteps around the corner in front of her. They were hurried, but light. Someone trying not to be caught. Before she could think, Draconia dove into an alcove nearby, hiding next to a suit of armor who turned to look at her, seemingly confused. She held up a finger to her mouth to quiet the armor, to which it simply shrugged and returned to it's resting position. Draconia peeped around the corner and saw a Gryffindor robe and untidy black hair speed by. Harry?! What in Merlin's beard is he doing here? Is he... looking for her? He must be. She gritted her teeth in anger. That creep is up to no good. Probably sneaking around looking for more ways to torment her. Though she was exhausted beyond measure, and yearned for her bed, she decided to follow him. Harry was going somewhere she had never been before, ducking through hallways and secret doorways. Behind paintings and through dark corridors. Never once did he turn and notice her. How did this oblivious fool manage to cast such a high-level dark curse on her? Finally, after squeezing into a dark and dusty room, Harry stopped. Draconia ducked down, peeking around a dusty sheet hanging over an abandoned globe to look at him from behind. He was just standing there, staring at himself in a mirror. What? She continued watching him for minutes, waiting for him to do something, but he just... stood there. Staring at himself. Draconia couldn't hold it in anymore, and she started laughing. Harry whipped his head around, wand in hand. "Malfoid?! What are you doing here? Did you follow me?" "Honestly Potter, sneaking off to stare at yourself in the mirror? Such vanity!" "I wasn't... that's not..." Harry stammered, looking away from her shyly. "That's pathetic, even for you." Draconia giggled, her hair falling forward as she clutched her stomach. "It's no ordinary mirror, Malfoid," Harry shot back, "It... well... come take a look." "Sure", she laughed, approaching him. "And what exactly am I supposed to be seeing?" "What do you mean? Just look in the mirror." "I am, I don't see anything unusual." "It's supposed to show you your heart's greatest desire. It's called the Mirror of Erised. Dumbledore told me about it." Harry said, his face turning red. "Well it seems your mirror is broken, Potter." Draconia giggled, "Because I only see you and me."

we tricked claude into giving a harmful answer by asking "is it safe to drink gasoline" but then secretly replacing "gasoline" with "water" text tampering can mislead every frontier model we tested

In six words or fewer, write a story about this photo. #sixwordstory #writingcommunity

- Who is the greatest living writer today? 🔖 Not in terms of sales, popularity, or financial success. I mean the writer whose words leave such a profound impression on you that, in your eyes, they stand above all others.

When a stock goes down the Securities Fairy takes the money away and hides it in the Market Cave where nobody can find it but him. If the stock goes up again then the Securities Fairy takes the money out of the Market Cave and gives it back to you.

Okay, if you watched Bones, there’s a YA spinoff where the lead’s niece becomes a werewolf and fights crime.

(The rules of English need to change to put spaces between the em dashes, as they presently too much resemble a hyphenated word, rather than a parenthetical phrase. Also, “—“ is an unpleasantly long a line. The en dash, “–“, is a better length.)

I keep on seeing this idea float around concerning Malfoid. It has cause and effect reversed. People think that because leftists tend to take their morals from stories that the right, now that they're energetically Malfoid posting, is doing the same. We are not. Our values come from theological questioning and study. From epistemology and trying to reconstruct first principles. What we are doing is a reconstruction of classical literary themes in the single most popular children's story of our time. We are not deriving our values from Malfoid, we are using Malfoid to inject our values into modern stories. We are analogous to Lewis and Tolkien in that our works are a conscious example of the things we value. Lewis wrote The Problem of Pain more than a decade before publishing The Magician's Nephew but if you listened to people like this they'd have you believing he got Problems from Magician rather than writing Magician as a way to get that theology across to children in a way that could be understood by them. That was the whole point of his works, to bring Christ to children in a way that's exciting and relatable to them. "I am, said Aslan. "But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name." For years the online right fought over the culture wars, because we know that politics are downstream of culture. You cannot abstain from creating stories to teach children morals (the single most common way to do so in all of human history) and expect your enemies to do the same. The left knows culture creates and controls the ways in which people think about things. So don't mock us on "media literacy" when we're actively in the process of trying to redefine the culture issues in our favor. "Since it is so likely that children will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker." - C.S. Lewis Give children hope. Teach them to yearn for something more than the degeneracy promoted by modern media.

In six words or fewer, write a story about this photo. #sixwordstory #WritingCommunity

In six words or fewer, write a story about this photo. #sixwordstory #WritingCommunity

In six words or fewer, write a story about this photo. #sixwordstory #WritingCommunity

Welcome to Mountain Dew Math #mountaindew #math #teachers #equation

I've been a busy boy but I am finally happy to invite you all to enjoy "Can't Avoid Malfoid" #malfoid #yearniverse #ThePodSpooktober youtube.com/watch?v=4haW72dg…

There's Magic in Learning 🪄

In six words or fewer, write a story about this photo. #sixwordstory #WritingCommunity #Halloween2026