when the stars seem to shine like you've had too much wine, that's amore...
so, ommfg, i was just in italy, and it was AWESOME. here are some awesome highlights...
ITEM NUMERO EINS: vocabulary! va bene=okay, ecco(sp?)=listen, arrivaderci=goodbye(formal), ciao=hello/goodbye(informal), quanto costa=how much does this cost?, uffizi=offices, parla inglese?=do you speak english?, gelato=DELICIOUS
ITEM NO. DEUX: i am a cripple! i got a really terrible case of runner's knee (or whatever you call it when it's excruciating to walk downstairs and your knee hates you when you bend it) in siena, of all places, which was unfortunate because siena is basically made out of hills and stairs. but being back in america seems to have magically cured me. it's still sore, but just sore. however, while i was in italy, i got a cane at a pharmacy to help me get around, and i ended up looking like kind of an old lady. (i wanted one with a silver snake head on top so that i could then grow my long blond hair out and father an obnoxious child and get a house-elf, but they just had a plain wooden one at the farmacia.) my right palm is still bruised from leaning on the cane so much.
ITEM NOMBRE 3: I ACTUALLY SAW ALL THOSE THINGS THEY PUT ON MAGNETS AND POSTCARDS! JFDISOFWFFXCMVOHBUFGJFBSDHFDKSFJHDJFI... i saw the David, and some Botticelli, and the Duomos of both Florence and Siena, and my mind is still sort of going WAHT? also, i think i now have kind of a thing for caravaggio and that artist who studied under him, whose first name was artemisia i think... artemisia's paintings are really gory. and she was kind of a relief from all the paintings of women who, though beautiful, were all incapable of expressing any emotions besides demureness and terror. she's got a great one of a woman cutting off some guy's head (judith slaying holofernes?). his blood is spraying everywhere, it's very tarantino. i'm a fan. also, if i ever see another madonna and child, i think i'm going to have an aneurysm. in fact, if i even see a woman with a baby in real life, i might stab them or run away. oh god.
ITEM THE FOURTH: torture museum! extremely appalling. two words: 'breast ripper.' that is all you need to know. the same day that we went to siena, we went to san gimignano (sp?) where there were towers. with my gimpy knee, there was no fucking way i was climbing those towers, so i hung around the town with a friend, and we happened to spot the torture museum. so we went in. i kept hearing faint music in the background, like wooden flutes. i figured it was playing to keep people from freaking out, because the torture equipment really was quite terrifying. when i got closer to the source, i realized it was music from The Mission! i laughed and told jake (the guy accompanying me) that if they were going to use any music to calm people down while they were looking at instruments of torture, The Mission soundtrack was probably a good choice. ennio morricone is a god. please, people, if you haven't seen The Mission yet, see it immediately. it's beautiful. one more comment on the museum: the word 'goatlicking' now has a terrible significance for me.
CINQUIEME ITEM: souvenirs! for me: an awesome ring, a scarf, comic books (fumetti) in italian of course, book books (in french) from a 'librairie francaise' near our hotel, 54 photographs plus the ones my friends took which WILL BE GOING UP ON FACEBOOK OR ELSE. and some other stuff that i got for other people, including some renaissance art nail decals for my stepmother, and a michelangelo coloring book.
ITEM ROKU: zombies.
7 OF AN INFINITE # OF ITEMS: i really liked the people i met on the trip. they were awesome. we had some interesting drunken conversations about Sorting in harry potter. for instance, if harry, ron, hermione, and neville represent each of the four houses even though they're all in gryffindor, which houses do the marauders represent? (reasoning behind the first part: harry nearly gets sorted into slytherin, hermione's smart enough to be in ravenclaw, neville is loyal and fits the hufflepuff stereotype although now that i think about it, ron could be a hufflepuff because he's intensely loyal and neville is actually a lot braver than ron...) remus always had that studious thing going for him, so he's probably the ravenclaw avatar, but the rest? james is my bet for gryffindor, and peter is the intuitive choice for slytherin, but that leaves sirius as...hufflepuff? that sounds weird, but he is pretty loyal. shrug. oh, did i mention? like everyone else who's as obsessed with harry potter as i am, i've got my theories about how i would be sorted. (when i was eleven i'd probably have been a gryffindor, but i might be a ravenclaw now.) but i've CHANGED MY MIND. all because of wizard rock. i, good sirs and madams, am in the HOUSE OF AWESOME. being a muggle, i don't really have much choice anyway. but i don't care, because whompy accepts me for who i am! regardless of race gender creed or sexual preference! he accepts whites, he accepts blacks, he accepts rebel freedom fighters on horseback! he accepts asians, he accepts jews, he accepts everyone, and that includes YOU! i love matt maggiacomo.
i kind of got off track from what i was originally talking about in this item, but again, the people were really cool. i made friends. and drank golden fire. if you ever have a chance to try that, DO. it's good, and it's called GOLDEN FIRE, for chrissakes. you will be DRINKING FIRE. lol.
ITEM NUMBER EIGHT: fuck item number eight! (okay, fuck item number eight.)
ITEM NUMBER NINE: fuck item number nine! (okay, fuck item number nine too.)
ITEM X: have you ever had gelato? yes? well, have you ever been to italy and had gelato? no? WELL THEN YOU HAVEN'T FUCKING HAD GELATO. seriously, that stuff is freaking amazing. it's like eating sex. i mean, i had had "gelato" in new york before, but although it was good, it was basically just another variety of ice cream to me.
*
okay, bailey, here's some more harriet potter, since you asked... (disclaimer: i wrote most of this long ago. and it's rather unfinished.)
A roaring motorcycle flew through the air, a giant of a man astride it. His arms cradled a small bundle with infinite care. There was the decided sensation of being held tightly, and a swooping feeling, disorienting and wild. The giant’s hair was a mane of tangled black, and with his beard, it obscured most of his face-but his eyes, beetle-black and full of warmth, glittered brightly as he flew. The bike landed; the giant dismounted. He began speaking to a man with a long white beard, who seemed somehow familiar…The dream began to fade…Blackness…Then, Harry Potter awoke, her forehead burning.
She sat up in bed, pressing the heels of her palms to her eyelids, which glowed red closed. Her forehead was hot even to her fingertips. Odd, she thought, just as she began to notice an insistent tapping from the door.
“Harry,” came a singsong voice from the hall. “Harry…Harriet Potter…happy birthday…Harry…wake up, Harry…”
Harry shook her head gently to clear it. The pain had mostly subsided. She croaked, “I’m awake Mom,” and Lily came bursting in.
Harry’s mother flew to the bed and hugged her. “How does it feel to be eleven years old?” she asked happily.
Harry shrugged and opened her mouth, but her mother went on. “So, I thought that today we might visit the zoo with Violet and Olivia, or whoever else you’d like. And we can get ice cream there-I hear their knickerbocker glories are pretty tasty!-or we could just go out to eat at Crowley’s Pizzeria, or wherever you desire. We could even go to Diagon Alley for some of Fortescue’s finest, but then you know we can’t bring Olivia with us. Oh! But first, we should wait for the post-your letter should be coming today!”
Harry said nothing to this, just felt slightly oppressed by her mother’s enthusiasm. Shouldn’t she, Harry, be the one the most excited on her own birthday? Nevertheless, she was pleased. Lily was always like this, and although Harry didn’t often show it, she enjoyed being the object of such affection. In fact, she was terrified that someday it would all disappear. Harry often had disturbingly realistic dreams that her mother had been replaced by a cruel bony woman who yelled and snapped at her. Her father wasn’t around either. The dreams troubled Harry, so Lily’s effusive kindness, though a bit suffocating, was also reassuring.
*
Lily helped Harry hoist her luggage into the train, gave her a last parting hug, and said farewell. Lugging her suitcases through the train corridor was difficult; Harry thought they must have weighed near a ton. Miserable and apprehensive after the comfort of her mother’s last embrace, she dragged her things past compartment after compartment of laughing, excited people. They were all full, until she reached the very last one. Only one person sat in this compartment, a scrawny redheaded boy in robes as shabby as the ones in Harry’s suitcase, who looked as mournful as Harry felt. She paused at the doorway.
“Um, is it okay if I sit here? All the other compartments are full…”
The boy nodded quickly and looked nervously out the window. Harry tried to lift her luggage onto the racks overhead, dropped them on her foot, cursed, and was about to try again, hoisting them onto her shoulder first this time, when the redheaded boy wordlessly picked up the other end of the suitcase and helped her get it securely in place.
“Thanks,” said Harry awkwardly, brushing wild strands out of her eyes.
The other boy blushed red as his hair, and muttered something like “Don’t mention it” under his breath. He stood there fidgeting a moment and stared at his shoes. Apparently deciding that he had nothing more to do there, he went back to sitting and staring out the window.
Harry shrugged and sat on the other end of the compartment seat. She snuck a few curious glances at the boy, but never got up the nerve to introduce herself, since he seemed so adamant about ignoring her. She had not had many friends at home. There was her neighbor, Olivia, a friendly Muggle girl with whom Harry always felt rather constrained because she couldn’t tell her anything about magic, and of whom Harry’s father disapproved, for being non-magical. And there was her “cousin” Violet Black, who she saw very rarely because of a rift between Harry’s father and Violet’s parents that Harry knew very little about (both Lily and he were tight-lipped on the subject), and who was anyhow a bit too vivacious and-precocious, perhaps-for Harry to be comfortable around. Violet was a year older than Harry, and already in her second year at Hogwarts.
At school (for Lily insisted that Harry go to a public primary school before attending Hogwarts “to get a solid base” she said), there was no one. Harry was awkward and boyish, and her father made sure that she didn’t form any lasting friendships with “that crowd.”
The train was out of the station now, and picking up speed. Harry and the redheaded boy remained silent. Fields flitted past, some green, some not, punctuated by small woods-all this after the half an hour it took to escape the last of the city sprawl. Harry looked out the window and watched, since there was nothing else to do, but she soon fell into a stupor from the repetition of hill and plain, forest and field, cloud and clear sky… Harry had rarely been out of her hometown except to visit Violet and her parents in London, so she had expected to be enthralled by the beauty of the countryside, but her city sensibilities and the passivity of her view out the rushing train window rather lulled than enticed her.
She was woken by a great clattering from the corridor; a smiling witch with a heart-shaped face slid open the door to the compartment and asked brightly if they wanted anything off the sweets trolley.
Harry merely shook her head; she hadn’t gotten any money for food from her parents, who were-not well-off; and she had a few sandwiches in her bag. The redheaded boy, shoving a packet hastily into his pocket, said, “No thanks.” His ears turned a bright crimson.
After the trolley witch left, Harry fished out her dry, bland sandwiches. She hesitated before eating them, but decided that since she had to eat them before she got to Hogwarts anyway, she might as well eat them in front of the redheaded stranger who shared her compartment. He let out a sigh when he glanced over at her eating. She supposed he must be hungry too, and spoke up.
“Want one?” she said.
He shook his head and grimaced, saying, “I hate corned beef.” His left hand fidgeted over his full pocket.
“Oh,” said Harry, and felt awkward. She wondered if he was putting her down.
A knock sounded on their compartment door and in stepped a round-faced boy who asked waveringly, “Sorry…but have you seen a toad at all?”
Harry started to ask, “A toad?” when the redheaded boy cut in eagerly, “Are you-are you---you know-him?”
The round-faced boy colored a little. “Who?” he said a little tiredly. “The Chosen One? I don’t know, why don’t you ask You-Know-Who? Have you seen Trevor?”
“Wait, you’re Neville Longbottom?” said Harry, who was not very clear on the whole ‘Chosen One’ story.
The redheaded boy stood up, hitting his head on the baggage rack, and stuck out his hand. “Ron Weasley,” he said, rubbing his head a bit ruefully with his left.
Neville took the offered hand halfheartedly, and asked again if they’d seen his toad, Trevor.
Ron Weasley sat back down, staring at his hand as though it had suddenly turned to gold, while Harry jumped up and began looking under the seats with Neville. Ron joined them; the compartment was toadless.
Neville sighed and turned to leave. Harry blurted out, “I’m Harriet Potter, by the way.” He smiled at her. As he was walking out, she called after him, “But call me Harry!” Over his shoulder, he said, “Nice to meet you,” or something like that; the words were kind of blurred.
Harry sat back down on the compartment seat. On the whole, she thought Neville had been rather less than she might have expected from the Chosen One: chubby, unmemorable, a little distant. But she supposed that not all heroes were tall and muscular, or charismatic orphans, or dark-haired and dashing; and what he was famous for had, after all, happened when he was a baby. He probably didn’t even remember it, and for that matter, he was probably sick of all the attention.
She mentioned a condensed version of these thoughts to Ron, the upshot of which was that she wondered why the Chosen One would have a toad for a pet (not a very cool pet for a young wizard), but he just sneered at her and said that Neville could have any kind of pet he liked, in his opinion, and wasn’t it awfully judgmental of her to criticize other people for their pets?
“I wasn’t saying it was a bad thing,” she began reasonably, “just not what I expected-“
The door burst open again.
*
so there. two more sections. if you say bad things about them i may cry because i know they're not the best but i plan to revise i swear! *crying tears of apprehension*
that's all for now. so long and thanks for all the fish.
ITEM NUMERO EINS: vocabulary! va bene=okay, ecco(sp?)=listen, arrivaderci=goodbye(formal), ciao=hello/goodbye(informal), quanto costa=how much does this cost?, uffizi=offices, parla inglese?=do you speak english?, gelato=DELICIOUS
ITEM NO. DEUX: i am a cripple! i got a really terrible case of runner's knee (or whatever you call it when it's excruciating to walk downstairs and your knee hates you when you bend it) in siena, of all places, which was unfortunate because siena is basically made out of hills and stairs. but being back in america seems to have magically cured me. it's still sore, but just sore. however, while i was in italy, i got a cane at a pharmacy to help me get around, and i ended up looking like kind of an old lady. (i wanted one with a silver snake head on top so that i could then grow my long blond hair out and father an obnoxious child and get a house-elf, but they just had a plain wooden one at the farmacia.) my right palm is still bruised from leaning on the cane so much.
ITEM NOMBRE 3: I ACTUALLY SAW ALL THOSE THINGS THEY PUT ON MAGNETS AND POSTCARDS! JFDISOFWFFXCMVOHBUFGJFBSDHFDKSFJHDJFI... i saw the David, and some Botticelli, and the Duomos of both Florence and Siena, and my mind is still sort of going WAHT? also, i think i now have kind of a thing for caravaggio and that artist who studied under him, whose first name was artemisia i think... artemisia's paintings are really gory. and she was kind of a relief from all the paintings of women who, though beautiful, were all incapable of expressing any emotions besides demureness and terror. she's got a great one of a woman cutting off some guy's head (judith slaying holofernes?). his blood is spraying everywhere, it's very tarantino. i'm a fan. also, if i ever see another madonna and child, i think i'm going to have an aneurysm. in fact, if i even see a woman with a baby in real life, i might stab them or run away. oh god.
ITEM THE FOURTH: torture museum! extremely appalling. two words: 'breast ripper.' that is all you need to know. the same day that we went to siena, we went to san gimignano (sp?) where there were towers. with my gimpy knee, there was no fucking way i was climbing those towers, so i hung around the town with a friend, and we happened to spot the torture museum. so we went in. i kept hearing faint music in the background, like wooden flutes. i figured it was playing to keep people from freaking out, because the torture equipment really was quite terrifying. when i got closer to the source, i realized it was music from The Mission! i laughed and told jake (the guy accompanying me) that if they were going to use any music to calm people down while they were looking at instruments of torture, The Mission soundtrack was probably a good choice. ennio morricone is a god. please, people, if you haven't seen The Mission yet, see it immediately. it's beautiful. one more comment on the museum: the word 'goatlicking' now has a terrible significance for me.
CINQUIEME ITEM: souvenirs! for me: an awesome ring, a scarf, comic books (fumetti) in italian of course, book books (in french) from a 'librairie francaise' near our hotel, 54 photographs plus the ones my friends took which WILL BE GOING UP ON FACEBOOK OR ELSE. and some other stuff that i got for other people, including some renaissance art nail decals for my stepmother, and a michelangelo coloring book.
ITEM ROKU: zombies.
7 OF AN INFINITE # OF ITEMS: i really liked the people i met on the trip. they were awesome. we had some interesting drunken conversations about Sorting in harry potter. for instance, if harry, ron, hermione, and neville represent each of the four houses even though they're all in gryffindor, which houses do the marauders represent? (reasoning behind the first part: harry nearly gets sorted into slytherin, hermione's smart enough to be in ravenclaw, neville is loyal and fits the hufflepuff stereotype although now that i think about it, ron could be a hufflepuff because he's intensely loyal and neville is actually a lot braver than ron...) remus always had that studious thing going for him, so he's probably the ravenclaw avatar, but the rest? james is my bet for gryffindor, and peter is the intuitive choice for slytherin, but that leaves sirius as...hufflepuff? that sounds weird, but he is pretty loyal. shrug. oh, did i mention? like everyone else who's as obsessed with harry potter as i am, i've got my theories about how i would be sorted. (when i was eleven i'd probably have been a gryffindor, but i might be a ravenclaw now.) but i've CHANGED MY MIND. all because of wizard rock. i, good sirs and madams, am in the HOUSE OF AWESOME. being a muggle, i don't really have much choice anyway. but i don't care, because whompy accepts me for who i am! regardless of race gender creed or sexual preference! he accepts whites, he accepts blacks, he accepts rebel freedom fighters on horseback! he accepts asians, he accepts jews, he accepts everyone, and that includes YOU! i love matt maggiacomo.
i kind of got off track from what i was originally talking about in this item, but again, the people were really cool. i made friends. and drank golden fire. if you ever have a chance to try that, DO. it's good, and it's called GOLDEN FIRE, for chrissakes. you will be DRINKING FIRE. lol.
ITEM NUMBER EIGHT: fuck item number eight! (okay, fuck item number eight.)
ITEM NUMBER NINE: fuck item number nine! (okay, fuck item number nine too.)
ITEM X: have you ever had gelato? yes? well, have you ever been to italy and had gelato? no? WELL THEN YOU HAVEN'T FUCKING HAD GELATO. seriously, that stuff is freaking amazing. it's like eating sex. i mean, i had had "gelato" in new york before, but although it was good, it was basically just another variety of ice cream to me.
*
okay, bailey, here's some more harriet potter, since you asked... (disclaimer: i wrote most of this long ago. and it's rather unfinished.)
A roaring motorcycle flew through the air, a giant of a man astride it. His arms cradled a small bundle with infinite care. There was the decided sensation of being held tightly, and a swooping feeling, disorienting and wild. The giant’s hair was a mane of tangled black, and with his beard, it obscured most of his face-but his eyes, beetle-black and full of warmth, glittered brightly as he flew. The bike landed; the giant dismounted. He began speaking to a man with a long white beard, who seemed somehow familiar…The dream began to fade…Blackness…Then, Harry Potter awoke, her forehead burning.
She sat up in bed, pressing the heels of her palms to her eyelids, which glowed red closed. Her forehead was hot even to her fingertips. Odd, she thought, just as she began to notice an insistent tapping from the door.
“Harry,” came a singsong voice from the hall. “Harry…Harriet Potter…happy birthday…Harry…wake up, Harry…”
Harry shook her head gently to clear it. The pain had mostly subsided. She croaked, “I’m awake Mom,” and Lily came bursting in.
Harry’s mother flew to the bed and hugged her. “How does it feel to be eleven years old?” she asked happily.
Harry shrugged and opened her mouth, but her mother went on. “So, I thought that today we might visit the zoo with Violet and Olivia, or whoever else you’d like. And we can get ice cream there-I hear their knickerbocker glories are pretty tasty!-or we could just go out to eat at Crowley’s Pizzeria, or wherever you desire. We could even go to Diagon Alley for some of Fortescue’s finest, but then you know we can’t bring Olivia with us. Oh! But first, we should wait for the post-your letter should be coming today!”
Harry said nothing to this, just felt slightly oppressed by her mother’s enthusiasm. Shouldn’t she, Harry, be the one the most excited on her own birthday? Nevertheless, she was pleased. Lily was always like this, and although Harry didn’t often show it, she enjoyed being the object of such affection. In fact, she was terrified that someday it would all disappear. Harry often had disturbingly realistic dreams that her mother had been replaced by a cruel bony woman who yelled and snapped at her. Her father wasn’t around either. The dreams troubled Harry, so Lily’s effusive kindness, though a bit suffocating, was also reassuring.
*
Lily helped Harry hoist her luggage into the train, gave her a last parting hug, and said farewell. Lugging her suitcases through the train corridor was difficult; Harry thought they must have weighed near a ton. Miserable and apprehensive after the comfort of her mother’s last embrace, she dragged her things past compartment after compartment of laughing, excited people. They were all full, until she reached the very last one. Only one person sat in this compartment, a scrawny redheaded boy in robes as shabby as the ones in Harry’s suitcase, who looked as mournful as Harry felt. She paused at the doorway.
“Um, is it okay if I sit here? All the other compartments are full…”
The boy nodded quickly and looked nervously out the window. Harry tried to lift her luggage onto the racks overhead, dropped them on her foot, cursed, and was about to try again, hoisting them onto her shoulder first this time, when the redheaded boy wordlessly picked up the other end of the suitcase and helped her get it securely in place.
“Thanks,” said Harry awkwardly, brushing wild strands out of her eyes.
The other boy blushed red as his hair, and muttered something like “Don’t mention it” under his breath. He stood there fidgeting a moment and stared at his shoes. Apparently deciding that he had nothing more to do there, he went back to sitting and staring out the window.
Harry shrugged and sat on the other end of the compartment seat. She snuck a few curious glances at the boy, but never got up the nerve to introduce herself, since he seemed so adamant about ignoring her. She had not had many friends at home. There was her neighbor, Olivia, a friendly Muggle girl with whom Harry always felt rather constrained because she couldn’t tell her anything about magic, and of whom Harry’s father disapproved, for being non-magical. And there was her “cousin” Violet Black, who she saw very rarely because of a rift between Harry’s father and Violet’s parents that Harry knew very little about (both Lily and he were tight-lipped on the subject), and who was anyhow a bit too vivacious and-precocious, perhaps-for Harry to be comfortable around. Violet was a year older than Harry, and already in her second year at Hogwarts.
At school (for Lily insisted that Harry go to a public primary school before attending Hogwarts “to get a solid base” she said), there was no one. Harry was awkward and boyish, and her father made sure that she didn’t form any lasting friendships with “that crowd.”
The train was out of the station now, and picking up speed. Harry and the redheaded boy remained silent. Fields flitted past, some green, some not, punctuated by small woods-all this after the half an hour it took to escape the last of the city sprawl. Harry looked out the window and watched, since there was nothing else to do, but she soon fell into a stupor from the repetition of hill and plain, forest and field, cloud and clear sky… Harry had rarely been out of her hometown except to visit Violet and her parents in London, so she had expected to be enthralled by the beauty of the countryside, but her city sensibilities and the passivity of her view out the rushing train window rather lulled than enticed her.
She was woken by a great clattering from the corridor; a smiling witch with a heart-shaped face slid open the door to the compartment and asked brightly if they wanted anything off the sweets trolley.
Harry merely shook her head; she hadn’t gotten any money for food from her parents, who were-not well-off; and she had a few sandwiches in her bag. The redheaded boy, shoving a packet hastily into his pocket, said, “No thanks.” His ears turned a bright crimson.
After the trolley witch left, Harry fished out her dry, bland sandwiches. She hesitated before eating them, but decided that since she had to eat them before she got to Hogwarts anyway, she might as well eat them in front of the redheaded stranger who shared her compartment. He let out a sigh when he glanced over at her eating. She supposed he must be hungry too, and spoke up.
“Want one?” she said.
He shook his head and grimaced, saying, “I hate corned beef.” His left hand fidgeted over his full pocket.
“Oh,” said Harry, and felt awkward. She wondered if he was putting her down.
A knock sounded on their compartment door and in stepped a round-faced boy who asked waveringly, “Sorry…but have you seen a toad at all?”
Harry started to ask, “A toad?” when the redheaded boy cut in eagerly, “Are you-are you---you know-him?”
The round-faced boy colored a little. “Who?” he said a little tiredly. “The Chosen One? I don’t know, why don’t you ask You-Know-Who? Have you seen Trevor?”
“Wait, you’re Neville Longbottom?” said Harry, who was not very clear on the whole ‘Chosen One’ story.
The redheaded boy stood up, hitting his head on the baggage rack, and stuck out his hand. “Ron Weasley,” he said, rubbing his head a bit ruefully with his left.
Neville took the offered hand halfheartedly, and asked again if they’d seen his toad, Trevor.
Ron Weasley sat back down, staring at his hand as though it had suddenly turned to gold, while Harry jumped up and began looking under the seats with Neville. Ron joined them; the compartment was toadless.
Neville sighed and turned to leave. Harry blurted out, “I’m Harriet Potter, by the way.” He smiled at her. As he was walking out, she called after him, “But call me Harry!” Over his shoulder, he said, “Nice to meet you,” or something like that; the words were kind of blurred.
Harry sat back down on the compartment seat. On the whole, she thought Neville had been rather less than she might have expected from the Chosen One: chubby, unmemorable, a little distant. But she supposed that not all heroes were tall and muscular, or charismatic orphans, or dark-haired and dashing; and what he was famous for had, after all, happened when he was a baby. He probably didn’t even remember it, and for that matter, he was probably sick of all the attention.
She mentioned a condensed version of these thoughts to Ron, the upshot of which was that she wondered why the Chosen One would have a toad for a pet (not a very cool pet for a young wizard), but he just sneered at her and said that Neville could have any kind of pet he liked, in his opinion, and wasn’t it awfully judgmental of her to criticize other people for their pets?
“I wasn’t saying it was a bad thing,” she began reasonably, “just not what I expected-“
The door burst open again.
*
so there. two more sections. if you say bad things about them i may cry because i know they're not the best but i plan to revise i swear! *crying tears of apprehension*
that's all for now. so long and thanks for all the fish.