Education Department Shares Harry Potter Post Tied to Malfoid Meme

The U.S. Department of Education published an image on its X account on October 27 showing three students walking toward a Hogwarts-style castle, with a young girl who has long, white-blonde hair watching from the foreground. The text overlay read "There's Magic in Learning!" and "Make Education Great Again," according to Wired.

What is the "Malfoid" meme the post is accused of referencing?

"Malfoid" is a portmanteau of "Malfoy" — the surname of Harry Potter's rival Draco Malfoy — and "foid," shorthand for "femoid," an incel-coined term for women, Wired reports. The concept originated in fan fiction on sites such as Archive of Our Own, where writers gender-swap Draco into a female character. In the original novels, Draco's prejudice against mixed-heritage wizards is written as a flaw to be corrected. In Malfoid fiction, that same bigotry is romanticized rather than condemned, turning the character into what Wired describes as "a potent avatar for toxic elitism" built around "blood purity." The fan-fiction Malfoid is also depicted as explicitly anti-queer and anti-trans, with "foid" used by the far right to frame the gender swap as a correction rather than a narrative choice, per the outlet.

Who flagged the connection, and what did they say?

Bulwark reporter Will Sommer identified the resemblance on X, writing that the Department of Education was "embracing the 'malfoid' meme, a right-wing fan fiction idea about a female Draco Malfoy who Harry Potter could fall in love with," Wired reported.

"Embracing the 'malfoid' meme, a right-wing fan fiction idea about a female Draco Malfoy who Harry Potter could fall in love with." — Will Sommer, The Bulwark, via Wired

Wired notes that other users responded with Malfoid-themed art and AI-generated clips, including some featuring President Donald Trump, after Sommer's post circulated.

How did the Department of Education respond?

When Wired asked the agency about the imagery, the department responded by quoting Dumbledore, the outlet reported. Wired's account does not include the specific line used, and the department's reply did not directly address whether the Malfoid fan-fiction trend informed the post's design.

Why does the visual resemblance matter to online researchers?

Wired describes the Malfoid as a ready-made mascot that lets far-right and incel-adjacent communities package ethno-nationalist and anti-trans ideas into shareable, pop-culture-literate content, pairing a "guy's girl" aesthetic with themes the outlet says are more palatable to a "terminally online" audience than conventional political messaging.

What to watch

• Whether the Department of Education issues a fuller public statement clarifying the image's design origin, beyond the Dumbledore quote described by Wired.
• Whether additional reporting surfaces the artist or source file behind the October 27 graphic.
• How fan-fiction communities and researchers who track incel-coded terminology respond to a federal agency's account engaging with imagery tied to the meme.
• Whether other federal or political accounts adopt similar Harry Potter-styled visuals in future posts.

For readers tracking how government communications intersect with online subcultures, the underlying question — whether agency staff recognized the meme's coded history before posting — remains unanswered in the department's response to Wired.

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