you get the page; i get the rest

Sutematsu Oyama (1860-1919): Japan’s First College-Educated Woman

Full entry (with footnotes) here. Patreon here. Art notes behind the cut.

and the feeling that surges in harry in that moment i am convinced is not pity but rather, "this fuckin guy"

i was talking to @faiell about how "this fuckin guy" really sums up harry's pov for me. "this fuckin guy" teeth grit, "this fuckin guy" speechless, "this fuckin guy" furiously jerking off,

Harry pitying Draco and holding no animosity toward him for Dumbledore’s death (ch 30 of Half-Blood Prince):

I can’t really get this in a handy screenshot, but the entirety of the Sectumsempra incident lends a show of compassion from Harry toward Draco. Seems contradictory given what happened, I know. But, consider: Harry has been stalking Draco for months. He has a strong feeling that Draco is up to something, and he now has concrete confirmation. He hears Draco confirm that he needs to do his task, or else Voldemort is going to kill him and his family.

Harry leaves Draco alone after this. His concern is not with the person or people that Draco might harm. It’s with Draco. He sides with Draco.

I also can’t screenshot the entire Astronomy tower scene, but what was Harry feeling the entire time Draco and Dumbledore were talking? We actually don’t know! In the course of the conversation, Harry states he hears a yell from further down the castle. He struggles against the Freezing Charm cast on him. He states he saw Draco’s wand lower a fraction.

His thoughts and feelings are not shared until after Snape kills Dumbledore. Harry comes back to life. His focus is on Snape. Harry tries twice to use the Cruciatus Curse on him, and ultimately Sectumsempra.

And then, after everything has settled after Dumbledore’s death, we get the screenshots above. All of Harry’s hatred is on Snape, and he’s worried about Draco and what else Voldemort might make him do.

Harry doesn’t blame Draco for any of it in canon. Ever. He worries about Draco. He’s sickened at what he’s seen of Draco being used for Voldemort’s amusement and ends.

As for that final scene, where Draco is pleading with a Death Eater (ch 32 of Deathly Hallows):

Again, zero thoughts from Harry. He puts down the Death Eater that was bothering Draco. Draco is pleading. He’s happy when that Death Eater goes down. He’s looking around for his saviour. They, proven by their actions, are on the same side in this moment.

There is no frustration with Draco. Harry gets it. He gets Draco, because he knows what it feels like to be a tool in an old man’s war (Dumbledore vs Voldemort). He knows what it looks like for someone to be used. He knows what it looks like when a boy’s anger and weak points are exploited to manipulate him into making horrible mistakes (Sirius in the Department of Mysteries vs Draco’s 6th year task).

Harry understands. He knows what his purpose in the war is. He’s prepared for it. He sees that Draco has been groomed into the same role, and is not prepared for it. He doesn’t want it.

That’s empathy. Harry pities Draco and sees him as a victim the same way he pities himself and sees himself as a victim. Lest we forget (ch 16 of Deathly Hallows):

Harry wasn’t exactly having a good time either. He recognizes this with Draco. Across all that space and time that separates them for the final instalment of the series, they transition out of bullying, squabbling, snarking rivalry to this.

Does Harry see Draco as a victim post-HBP? Yep. Post-DH, though? Highly doubtful. By that point, Harry sees in Draco his fellow survivor. They (symbolically) defeated Voldemort together, Harry using Draco’s wand! How could everything else be anything but moot at that point?

Maybe people don’t agree with Harry, but Harry is done with all of that. It builds for a while. Until (ch 36 of Deathly Hallows):

The Malfoys as a whole, not just Draco, get mentioned by Harry no differently than anyone else on “his” side. Where’s the anger?

I agree with this. Also it's notable that in book 6 that when Harry recounts the events on the Astronomy Tower to other members of the Order he minimizes Draco's role to the point of lying by omission. And in book 7 it seems that MLE is seeking Snape, but not Draco, in connection with the events of that night which suggests that Harry left out Draco's role when he talked to Aurors despite the fact that he witnessed Draco confess to multiple crimes, including use of an Unforgivable on Rosmerta (not to mention the fact that he witnessed Draco attempt to use an Unforgivable on him during their duel, but never reported it).

having a common enemy doesn’t erase Harry’s dislike of Draco tho... it definitely is a point of connection! and i love fics that explore this. the trauma of being pressured to fight in a war is a unique circumstance to them, and it’s far from the only thing that they share.

the thing is, much of the evidence presented is about what Harry doesn’t do. he doesn’t express outright hostility towards draco. i don’t think that means he’s over it. he just isn’t thinking about it, and imo it’s nice that we don’t get many explicit thoughts bc it means we can do whatever we want… we ask ourselves how would he feel about that? and come up with our own conclusions. you could believe that he thinks draco’s actions were from cowardice, and finds him pitiful and unsavory. you could just as well believe that he suspects draco is disillusioned with voldemort’s teachings, and wants to give him a chance. both can be supported by the text, it all depends on what you wanna explore in fic. you could even skip this part of canon and read/write about them 15 years in the future, married with 3 kids, outwitting each other over xmas decorations if you like.

one thing i’m not a fan of is when draco is victimized to the point that he no longer has agency… like. unfortunately he did sign up to be a death eater! and, no matter if his family was threatened, no matter how hard he fumbled attempted murder, he did attempt it and in the process almost killed a few people, including harry’s #1 bestie ron. as almost-dead dumbledore said, he basically only got lucky that nobody died. but yeah, draco is fully someone who would do that, and i like that about him…—meanwhile harry is someone who wouldn’t do that, and so i find it fun to smash them together.

assume people are trying their best, want to be good and treat others well, and that when their behavior doesn’t align with those goals, it’s because of outside factors that are pushing them to their limit

i have a patron who is mean as a snake. won’t respond when you greet her, barks orders at you, and is generally nasty

i couldn’t stand her & dreaded the moment she walked in the door, until i stopped one day & went “wow, to walk around feeling unhappy enough to treat people so horribly every day. what a difficult way to live.”

and so my tactics changed. i made a point to be extra kind & friendly to her. she changed her hair color one day & when i complimented her on it, she was very caught off guard & said “oh, thank you. my whole life i’ve thought i was ugly.”

now we’re at the point where she shows me pictures of watercolor paintings she made & says hi when she walks in the door. she’s not my favorite patron, but she’s perfectly okay. most unpleasant people aren’t inherently rotten, they’re just unhappy & coping with it poorly

Who the fuck do you think creates the majority of fanworks?  And who the fuck do you think built and funds the AO3?  Adults.  Not teenagers, not children, not even young adults.  Adults.  Fandom is not for kids and has never been for kids.  It has always been by and for adults, with some spaces that allowed children in them.

When I joined fandom as a teenager, I was introduced to it by an adult, a librarian.  The majority of the people writing fics and running archives and email lists were adults, many of them significantly older than I am.  Many of them were explicitly adult-only and banned children and teens from participating.  Some of the fannish people I first met as a teen have since left fandom, but many of them are still around.   That was the 90s.   One of the email lists I joined way back when is still going, and there are a number of grandparents on that list.  I’m a young whippersnapper compared to many on the list, and I’m 38.

Naomi Novik, the woman who was the driving force behind the creation of AO3, is 47.  She was in her late 30s when the archive was built.  Most of the volunteers who run AO3 are in their late 30s-40s.

He asked somebody to raise their hand and ask him when we would use calculus in our everyday life. So one student rose their hand and asked, “When are we going to use this in our everyday life?”

“NEVER!!” the teacher exclaimed. “You will never use calculus in your normal, everyday life. In fact, very few of you will use it in your professional careers either.” Then he paused. “So would you like to know why should care?”

Several us nodded.

He picked out one of the varsity football players in the class. “You practice football a lot during the week, right Tim?” asked the teacher.

“Yeah,” replied Tim. “Almost every day.”

“Do you and your teammates ever lift weights during practice?”

“Yeah. Tuesdays and Thursdays we spend a lot of practice in the weight room.”

“But why?” asked the teacher. “Is there ever going to be a play your coach tells you use during a game that requires you to bench press the other team?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then why lift weights?”

“Because it makes us stronger,” said Tim.

“Bingo!!” said the teacher. “It’s the same thing with calculus. You’re not here because you’re going to use calculus in your everyday life. You’re here because calculus is weightlifting for your brain.”

When it’s taught right, learning math teaches you logic and how to organize your brain, how to take a problem one step at a time and make sure every step can bear weight before you move to the next one.  Most adults don’t need to know integrals, but goddamn if I don’t wish everyone making arguments on the internet understood geometric proofs.

Scientific concepts broaden our understanding of how the world is put together, which does not mean that most adults ever really understand how light is refracted through a lens or why spinning copper wire creates electricity–and they don’t need to.  But science classes in general are meant to teach the scientific method: how to make observations and use them to draw conclusions, how to test those conclusions, how to be wrong and grow stronger from it.

History isn’t about dates and names of battles, it’s about people, patterns, things we’ve tried before and ought to learn from.  It’s about how everything is linked, how changing one circumstance can lead to changes in fifty others, cascading infinitely.  Literature is about critical thinking, pattern recognition, learning to listen to what somebody is saying and decide what it means to you, how you feel about it, and what you want to do with it.

Some facts matter: every adult should know how to read a graph, how global warming works, some of the basic themes and symbols that crop up in every piece of fiction.  But ultimately, content is less important later in life than context.

松生 理乃 Rino Matsuike (JPN)