august

Amidst the solid ice that still gripped the North Sea, I witnessed the furious blooming of the plum blossoms.

[august @furiousflorbqb]

@LobonilFoxy @Takyuu_

[TrayaCath @CrusaderTraya]

Dracaena Malfoy felt as if she had died in the forest. She had watched as that insufferable Potter had walked right towards his death. She had stood there, letting her parents hold her back, letting her fears hold her back. Proving once and for all that everyone in the Wizarding World was right: Dracaena Malfoy was unworthy of the Love that had been offered to her by the heroic, magnanimous, idiotic Harry Potter.

She barely noticed that the procession, led by the
Dark Lord and the quietly sobbing Hagrid, had stopped. It was not until her mother's hands on her shoulders gripped tight and pulled her to a stop near the front that she realized with a jolt that the Dark Lord had led them to the courtyard of Hogwarts, where every single one of the rebellious Wizards and Witches within would be able to see the broken corpse of the lanky, stupid, brave Wizard in Hagrid's arms.

She watched the Dark Lord pass close by Harry, his snake-like face sneering down at the body of the only one who could have defeated him. He raised his wand, and a moment later his voice magically magnified so that it swelled through the grounds.

“Harry Potter is dead. He was killed as he ran away, trying to save himself while you lay down your lives for him. We bring you his body as proof that your hero is gone.”

Dracaena tensed at that. A lie. A lie? Everyone knew that only Harry could defeat the Dark Lord. So why would he lie? Ease? Yes. Her mother's grounding grip on her shoulders reminded her of that much. He had already defeated the rebels; it was only a question of how many of his own followers had to shed blood in order to make it known permanently in the bones of the defeated. She shrank into herself; passive, choiceless, and utterly undeserving of looking even at the corpse of the boy she had... she refused to finish the thought. It hurt far too much.

The Dark Lord continued speaking,“The battle is won.
You have lost half of your fighters. My Death Eaters outnumber you, and the Boy Who Lived is finished. There must be no more war. Anyone who continues to resist, man, woman, or child, will be slaughtered, as will every member of their family. Come out of the castle now, kneel before me, and you shall be spared. Your parents and children, your brothers and sisters will live and be forgiven, and you will join me in the new world we shall build together.”

There was silence in the grounds and from the castle. Dracaena did not dare look up at any of them, to see the agony of Harry's death in their eyes. The disappointment with her, as ever, being nothing but one who could never do anything but watch and obey, even when Harry Potter himself had told them that she was more. She clenched her fists at her sides. Her ultimate legacy: proving Harry Potter was an idiot.

In First Year she probably would have found that funny. In First Year.

“Come,” said the Dark Lord. His voice demanded eyes, and Dracaena watched as Hagrid was forced to follow. The Dark Lord strode in front of him, wearing the great snake Nagini around his shoulders, now free of her enchanted cage.

“Follow, Dracy,” her father urged quietly, his voice the only thing that forced her leaden feet to stumble forward on the cobblestone after the Dark Lord.

“Harry,” sobbed Hagrid. “Oh, Harry... Harry ...”

Dracaena heard the sobs of the half giant and felt as if they were echoes of some deep part of her that she was desperately trying to not let out. She did not deserve to mourn him, after all. She had not defended him when no one else was there to even try. She... had not loved him enough.

“Stop.”

The Death Eaters came to a halt in a large semicircle behind their Lord in the courtyard of the school. Bellatrix, with her ever present mad cruelty, had ensured that Lucius could not take his family to the edges. They were forced to remain directly near the Dark Lord as the doors of the Entrance Hall were pulled open. Any moment, the people that Harry had died to protect would see him. And they would see her. A Death Eater. The greatest traitor to the Boy who Lived.

“You chose well,” Bellatrix whispered to Dracaena in the moment of silence, as if her public refusal to stand with a boy everyone had known she cared for had redeemed the failures of the Malfoy family in the eyes of the Death Eaters. Dracaena should have felt relieved. It meant her family would survive. Instead she felt a violent urge to vomit.

“NO!”

The scream was a blessing to Dracaena, for it acted as
a distraction from her disgust with her own weakness.
She had never expected or dreamed that Professor McGonagall could make such a sound, though. Her only memories of the woman were of a stern face and spells cast in the heat of battle against Death Eaters this year and the prior year.

She flinched when she heard another woman laughing at her side, and saw Bellatrix was nearly taking pleasure in McGonagall’s despair.

Dracaena felt the urge to vomit return, and instead looked
towards the open doorway filling with people, as the survivors of the battle came out onto the front steps to face their vanquishers and see the truth of Harry’s death for themselves. The Dark Lord took an inhumanly smooth step to the side to make sure everyone could see the dead body. He began stroking Nagini’s head with a single white finger. He seemed to be bathing in the agonized despair of those present like it was a good wine.

“No!”

“Harry! HARRY!”

Weasley's and Granger's voices were worse than McGonagall’s; McGonagall's agony had been that of a mentor. Perhaps a grandmother, in some respect. But the screams of Harry's friends were like those of Hagrid; they felt
as if they had been torn from Dracaena's own heart. Yet she
forced herself to stand silent even as their gazes turned on her. She made herself see the disappointment. The hate. And... ah. Betrayal. Harry's word had been enough for them to think of her...
perhaps not as a friend, but as one who could become a friend. And now even that had been killed in the cradle.

The pair's cries acted like a trigger; the crowd of survivors took up the cause, screaming and yelling abuse at the Death Eaters, and even more directly at Dracaena herself. Mentions of her dance with Harry at the Yule Ball that now felt like a lifetime ago were common. His mother had died for him and you could not even speak for him. The focus on her seemed to draw some level of ire from the Dark Lord.

“SILENCE!” he cried, and there was a bang and a flash of bright light, and silence was forced upon them all. “It is over! Set him down, Hagrid, at my feet, where he belongs!”

Dracaena watched the lanky, messy haired idiot be lowered to the grass. Hagrid, despite his size, was gentle. As if he was gently placing an infant upon the front step of a home so many years ago.

“You see?” said the Dark Lord as he paced theatrically in front of Harry's corpse. “Harry Potter is dead! Even the woman he claimed to love stands among my ranks. Do you understand now, deluded ones? He was nothing, ever, but a boy who relied on others to sacrifice themselves for him!”

“He beat you!” yelled Weasley, and the charm broke, and the defenders of Hogwarts were shouting and screaming again until a second, more powerful bang extinguished their voices once more.

“He was killed while trying to sneak out of the castle grounds,” said Voldemort, and there was relish in his voice for the lie, “killed while trying to save himself — ”

But he broke off. Longbottom was charging through the line of and had cast a hex right at the Dark Lord himself as if it had been the simplest thing. Dracaena felt her stomach lurch once more. It was that easy? How was it that easy to try, even knowing you would fail? The Dark Lord did not even bother looking as he deflected the spell and cast his own to bring Longbottom to his knees. A wave of his wand and Longbottom's wand was sent skittering across the stone while the Dark Lord laughed.

“And who is this?” he said in his soft snake’s hiss. “Who has volunteered to demonstrate what happens to those who continue to fight when the battle is lost?”

Bellatrix gave a delighted laugh.

“It is Neville Longbottom, my Lord! The boy who has been giving the Carrows so much trouble! The son of the Aurors, remember?”

“Ah, yes, I remember,” said the Dark Lord, looking down at Neville, who was struggling back to his feet, unarmed and unprotected, standing in the no-man’s- land between the survivors and the Death Eaters.

“But you are a pureblood, aren’t you, my brave boy?” the Dark Lord asked Longbottom, who stood facing him, his empty hands curled in fists.

“So what if I am?” said Longbottom loudly.

Dracaena hated Longbottom in that moment. Not for any rational reason. Envy. He was standing up for Harry's memory. Against the absurd lie that the Dark Lord was spinning that Harry was a coward.
That he had abandoned those he loved. That he was anything like the
girl he had claimed to love that now stood among the ranks of the
Death Eaters.

“You show spirit and bravery, and you come of noble stock. You will make a very valuable Death Eater. We need your kind, Neville Longbottom.”

“I’ll join you when hell freezes over,” said Neville. Dracaena noted with a start she had just called him Neville in her mind. “Dumbledore’s Army!” he shouted, and there was an answering cheer from the crowd, whom the Dark Lord's Silencing Charms seemed unable to hold.

“Very well,” said the Dark Lord, and Dracaena heard in his voice a danger that even a Cruciatus Curse could not replicate fully. “If that is your choice, Longbottom, we revert to the original plan. On your head,” he said quietly, “be it.”

The Dark Lord waved his wand. Seconds later, out of one of the castle’s shattered windows, something that looked like a misshapen bird flew through the half light and landed in his outstretched claw. He shook the mildewed object by its pointed end and it dangled, empty and ragged: the Sorting Hat.

“There will be no more Sorting at Hogwarts School,” said the Dark Lord. “There will be no more Houses. The emblem, shield, and colors of my noble ancestor, Salazar Slytherin, will suffice for everyone. Won’t they, Neville Longbottom?”

He pointed his wand at Neville, who grew rigid and
still and walked a half step forward. Then... he stopped and smiled like a snake preparing to bite. “No... Dracaena.” He turned and the horrible weight of his gaze was suddenly squarely on her. Just another chance to twist the knife by showing that the woman Harry had loved was wholeheartedly on his side.

She felt a surge of anger. Had she not done enough for him!? She had betrayed the man she loved with her fear! She had failed to be the woman he claimed she was deep down! She... Her indignation deflated into self loathing. What else could she do? Her path had been chosen. Refusal would kill her parents. And then what would all of this have even been for? She felt her parents hesitate themselves. But, slowly, they let her go.

She moved forward with a grace that had been drilled into her in years of etiquette classes as a young girl. 'A Malfoy never stumbles, Dracaena. And you are the consummate Malfoy,' her father had once told her. She stopped and bowed her head in front of the Dark Lord, who placed the hat in her hand like it was a weapon. “Place it upon the Blood Traitor, my dear,” he hissed triumphantly above her.

“Y-Yes, my lord,” she whispered. The Girl who Betrayed the Boy who Lived held the hat in both hands and turned to Neville. Brave Neville. Far braver than her. She remembered suddenly when she had taken his Remembrall in First Year. A stupid memory. Except... looking back, that was when it had started, wasn't it? A girlish crush on the one boy who had told her no. Who had refused to do the wrong thing even if it was going to cost him the one place in the entire world he finally felt at home. Knowing now what she knew about the Dursleys, he had essentially risked the only happiness he could have to do what was right. And he had been rewarded for it, infuriating her and impressing her and... And making her want to be like him, deep down.

She stopped for a moment a few feet from the Dark Lord.

“Well?” his silky voice was becoming impatient. Angry. The hat was heavy in her hands. She held it sideways in her and ran her fingers along the inner brim. It had not even touched her skull before it had screamed 'Slytherin!' to the Great Hall. She was where Slytherins belonged. With the Heir of Salazar Slytherin. With the Dark...

With...

“Dracy, go...” Lucius Malfoy urged, voice terrified for the first time in a long time not for himself, but for the young woman he had raised.

“Voldemort.” The courtyard went silent when someone said that word. Who? Dracaena saw all eyes on her and realized, somehow, that it had been her voice! She looked down at the hat and swore almost that she could see... red and silver within. Impossible. No. Harry had told her the story about the Chamber. About the Sword only a True Gryffindor could pull from the hat. Only someone who had decided upon bravery and self sacrifice and... and all the infuriatingly 'Harry Potter' behaviors that would end with one dying on the ground. She turned around and took a shuddering breath. “Voldemort.” Not 'Dark Lord' not 'my Lord' not even 'Lord Voldemort,' as his position demanded. “No.”

“Bloody Hell...” Weasley muttered, his whisper breaking the silence charm again.

But no else one said anything, as if afraid it would shatter the odd, impossible charm of seeing Malfoy, cruel and capricious and demanding and born to be a Death Eater say 'No' to Voldemort when every Death Eater was watching and his Snake was looking right at her.

“Dracaena -!” Lucius snapped, only to freeze as Voldemort's hand came up to silence him.

“No?” Voldemort seemed caught between amusement and a pure, blinding, hateful rage. But his self control won out. “I would hope this is a poorly timed joke, Dracaena.”

An out. She should take it. She should. Any Slytherin would take that out so they could survive, so – Her eyes flicked to Harry's body. And in that moment, she felt decidedly unlike a Slytherin. Or, rather, she was perhaps what a Slytherin should have been. Cunning and Ambition and Leadership were the marks of a Slytherin. Following a Dark Lord who had been afraid of an infant? It was unbecoming of any who bore the name of Salazar Slytherin upon their robes! And... and it would be an insult to the man who had been perhaps the most Gryffindor boy to ever live since the man himself. “No.” The hat felt even heavier now. She felt her fingers curl around cool, dangerous metal within the hat.

“No...” Voldemort sighed and turned to his Death Eaters. “Very well.” He raised his wand right at Narcissa Malfoy. Lucius' eyes went wide and he tried to pull his wife behind him.

“NO!” Dracaena shrieked. But she did not pull back from her decision. The die had been cast and, despite the agony that would soon come, it offered a sort of... clarity. No matter what she did now, Voldemort would not change his course. And so, neither would she. Not in this moment that was far too important to her.

Bellatrix was clapping. Clapping! At the impending death of her own family! Voldemort's voice rose with a cruel joy as he prepared to snuff out one of the twenty eight pureblood families he claimed to champion. “Avada -!”

And then many things happened at the same
moment.

They heard uproar from the distant boundary of the
school as what sounded like hundreds of people came
swarming over the out-of-sight walls and pelted
toward the castle, uttering loud war cries. At the
same time, Grawp came lumbering around the side of
the castle and yelled, “HAGGER!” His cry was answered by roars from Voldemort’s giants: They ran at Grawp like bull elephants, making the earth quake. Then came hooves and the twangs of bows, and
arrows were suddenly falling amongst the Death
Eaters, who broke ranks, shouting their surprise.
A moment of distraction.

In one swift, fluid motion that only a noblewoman could truly unleash, Dracaena pulled her hand from within the hat and drew drew from its depths something that only a True Gryffindorcould ever pull from within the hat's brim.

The slash of the silver blade could not be heard over
the roar of the oncoming crowd or the sounds of the
clashing giants or of the stampeding centaurs, and
yet it seemed to draw every eye. With a single stroke
Dracaena Malfoy – Slytherin, traitor twice over, and the unworthy Girl who Loved the Boy who Lived - sliced off the great snake’s head, which spun high into the air, gleaming in the light flooding from the entrance hall.

Voldemort’s mouth opened in a scream of fury that nobody could hear, but that Dracaena could feel in the marrow of her bones. Her heart was pounding in her chest and even as Voldemort raised his wand towards her when the snake’s body thudded to the ground at his feet, she could not find it in herself to regret this decision. She was going to die. Her parents, likely, would also pay the price. She did regret that, perhaps. But for the first time, she felt as if Dracaena Malfoy was worthy of the look in Harry's eyes when he had seen her at the Yule Ball. When he had argued with his own friends that she was worthy of being among them. She felt... free.

And then the curse that Voldemort cast bounced off of a shield charm that had appeared between them from nothing. Battle began. Screams, spells... War, returned to Hogwarts. But there was only one thing that her ears noticed. “HARRY!” Hagrid shouted. “HARRY — WHERE’S HARRY?” Her eyes flicked to the ground. Gone. His corpse was gone– no... no, not his corpse. Harry. Harry!

And surrounded by the most dangerous and cruel wizards in the world hurling curses, Dracaena could only look up at the sky and laugh. Even when Neville grabbed her and dragged her back, she kept laughing – crying, maybe. “He's alive!” she sobbed. All was right in the world. She'd been rewarded for doing the right thing? Her? “Potter, you... you idiot!”
“Bloody hell, Malfoy, get it together!” Weasley snapped as he helped Neville drag her back inside the great hall of the castle. She just kept laughing the whole way in like a madwoman.

[august @furiousflorbqb]

@lososo290701 @YlYpBKkt3257198 give me speaking permissions pls

[august @furiousflorbqb]

@lososo290701 @lososo290701 给我说话权

[august @furiousflorbqb]

@naugletink 王夫之的书忘加进去了

[august @furiousflorbqb]

@ParacelsusII What paper is this

[august @furiousflorbqb]

@Cairos2002 这如何semiotics了？

[august @furiousflorbqb]

国际共运的至暗时刻

[弹钢琴 @tangangqinmao18]

ba这个游戏我看很好啊

[august @furiousflorbqb]

@Sue3456331996 他还特别有钱，所以就算在延安时期他的鞋子和衣服都是看起来像国外比较流行的。

[august @furiousflorbqb]

@wuerbangbang how's your head game mr erbang

[august @furiousflorbqb]

@CuiMao 凡是猫姐的视频我都看
凡是猫姐的视频我都点赞🫡

[august @furiousflorbqb]

@teortaxesTex @Bluebearmonkey why do you think tencent will be in hot water over this when millions of wechat and qq accounts get leaked every other week? QQ accounts getting hacked is like another regular tuesday. stop being terminally online and start touching grass. your schizoposting's gotta stop

[august @furiousflorbqb]

@teortaxesTex It's time to take your meds you schizophrenic femboy
One dumbass on twitter isn't enough sample data for you to generalize an entire population
If you want to see more discourse start using Chinese SMS

[august @furiousflorbqb]

@alicirce Tysm

[august @furiousflorbqb]

@CelineTism goated tysm

[august @furiousflorbqb]

@CelineTism Send setup

[august @furiousflorbqb]

@youhuanxiangle @zhiyun114514 @cswxiaowei6302 Bro thinks the Boston Tea Party and subsequent American Revolution were legal under British provisions 🤣

[august @furiousflorbqb]

@MingBu231218 春桥和文元呢？