(no subject)
Who: Ron Weasley
Where: A youth hostel in Llangollen, Wales
When: 31 December 2001, precisely 10 minutes before the new year
Status: Complete
The slender package Ron turned end over end in his hands glistened and caught the light despite its ragged corners and less than perfect bow. He was tempted, and not for the first time, to chuck it into the nearest bin and simply forget about it. Forget about the Order and Voldemort and his dysfunctional family and everything else associated with wizarding Britain.
Forget about the bossy girl with the higgledy-piggledy brown curls who'd been a part of his life for so long that he couldn't really remember a time when she wasn't in it.
The bustle of last-minute holiday activity barely fazed him, so intent he was on his current thoughts. The very same thoughts that haunted his dreams and miserably itched in a spot he couldn't quite reach during his waking hours. Again and again Ron replayed the scene: finding the diary, confronting Hermione, screeching at each other like angry fishwives and finally storming out of the house in a display worthy of a true Weasley son.
"You've really done it this time, haven't you?" he murmured, still disgusted with Hermione and wondering why, in spite of it all, his heart felt like so much lead at what he'd done.
He could go back... maybe. A part of him desperately wanted to do so. To throw himself at her feet and beg for forgiveness, while the other part - a larger, more vocal part inside his head - told him that under no circumstances was he allowed to do such a bloody stupid stunt upon pain of a nasty, prolonged death.
Steady on, man, it repeated. You're not the one at fault here, it reminded. It's the principal of the matter, goddammit all! it howled with wild abandon.
He really shouldn't have snooped around Hermione's things like that, and yes, (now that he'd had time to mull it over) he should have been a little more willing to listen instead of shooting off at the mouth like he always had in the past, but that didn't make what she'd done any less hurtful. Or wrong.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
Where: A youth hostel in Llangollen, Wales
When: 31 December 2001, precisely 10 minutes before the new year
Status: Complete
The slender package Ron turned end over end in his hands glistened and caught the light despite its ragged corners and less than perfect bow. He was tempted, and not for the first time, to chuck it into the nearest bin and simply forget about it. Forget about the Order and Voldemort and his dysfunctional family and everything else associated with wizarding Britain.
Forget about the bossy girl with the higgledy-piggledy brown curls who'd been a part of his life for so long that he couldn't really remember a time when she wasn't in it.
The bustle of last-minute holiday activity barely fazed him, so intent he was on his current thoughts. The very same thoughts that haunted his dreams and miserably itched in a spot he couldn't quite reach during his waking hours. Again and again Ron replayed the scene: finding the diary, confronting Hermione, screeching at each other like angry fishwives and finally storming out of the house in a display worthy of a true Weasley son.
"You've really done it this time, haven't you?" he murmured, still disgusted with Hermione and wondering why, in spite of it all, his heart felt like so much lead at what he'd done.
He could go back... maybe. A part of him desperately wanted to do so. To throw himself at her feet and beg for forgiveness, while the other part - a larger, more vocal part inside his head - told him that under no circumstances was he allowed to do such a bloody stupid stunt upon pain of a nasty, prolonged death.
Steady on, man, it repeated. You're not the one at fault here, it reminded. It's the principal of the matter, goddammit all! it howled with wild abandon.
He really shouldn't have snooped around Hermione's things like that, and yes, (now that he'd had time to mull it over) he should have been a little more willing to listen instead of shooting off at the mouth like he always had in the past, but that didn't make what she'd done any less hurtful. Or wrong.
Two wrongs don't make a right.