Sketching and Thinking
Finally got a contract job, but it was cancelled an hour later, so I sort of drifted through the afternoon. I found an image that caught my eye on fashion_screen, started sketching it beside that bold portrait painting I pasted in a while back (wish I knew who the artist was), then creating my own fantasy version of it. Add the little Degas--black massing vs. detail of face and hands, costume in art--then added a few notes from the book I'm reading. Voilà la page!
This morning I was reading Sorcerer's Stone and found this line of Ron's:
"Now, don't offended or anything, but neither of you are that good at chess--"
So soon? We know in later books we meet Cringing Hermione and Dumb Ron, but it was startling to see Ron acknowledge it here like a conscious choice. Sort of "Hey guys, we're in a bit of jam, so is it OK if I use my brain for a while? Won't happen again--promise!" Harry tells him to go ahead, and without any internal snarky put-downs!
It got me thinking about what Ron and Hermione are like when Harry isn't around. If these disguises are meant to accommodate Harry, who are they without them? We do see glimpses now and then, which I always really enjoy. I wrote a bit of dialogue for them set in Sixth Year, perhaps to become another little story along the lines of "Second Choice." (Here)
But my day's reading was capped by Harry, of course, in a line of bravado, foolhardiness and innocence. Telling Hermione to hurry to Dumbledore, Harry says:
"I might be able to hold Snape off for awhile, but I'm no match for him really."
Sweetheart, you're not a match for him at the end of Sixth Year either! Silly boy...