Ron Weasley

So I had to read my thank you letter to Arista out to everyone in Umbridge's office. I tried to make it an entertaining performance. Hope they all enjoyed it. (Bloody Umbridge, though. Made Starling read a letter to her Mum about not having any decent socks in her trunk. The rest of them were fairly funny, though, I thought. Especially Scroops and Frobisher getting caught out planning a stupid prank.)

I'm starving, though. I totally missed out eating because Umbridge went on and on about our better selves blah blah, and I've had lessons all day since. And Quidditch club and then Revue practice, so I've got to find something to eat now, or I'll fall off my broom or swoon on Greengrass or something later.

So I guess I should say thanks to everyone for, well. Everything.

Evyls gave me Seeker Queens and Keeper Kings. It's totally wizard. Have any of you lot read it? Awesome quidditch strategies, but worked out from chess gambits and sequences. I've been sitting here reading it.

Where are the rest of you lot who aren't sitting in with us?

Hey, Perks. I thought you were going to find us. Third or fourth car from the front. Come look us out.

Anywiz.

I really am glad we're going to be back at school.

Whoa! Howlers!!!

I mean to say, Milland and Miss Professor Carrow? Don't even want to think about that, really.

Er.

They're out of the yellow fairy cakes. I'm bringing purple ones, but we can check later and see if they've brought out more of the yellow kind.

Only, I can't remember which punch you wanted. Um. And ask Bones and Nev if they want some. If they've come back from dancing, I mean.

So that was good fun, yeah?

There were two groups that were really quick to sort the chess. Cheers, Paskle. Nice to meet you, mate. (Bundy says that's not how you spell your name. Sorry if it's not.) Would like to play you for reals sometime. Your approach was different from anyone else's, but definitely sound.

No surprise, really, but Towler's was the other top team. Did you hear what the Queen said about you, mate? Made me blush!

How'd it go at the other spots? I heard about one close call with the Whomping Willow. Hope no one got thrashed!
 
 
And tea was great. Glad I didn't miss the cinnamon biscuits.

Is it time for supper yet?

Sometimes there are things magic just won't do that you wish it could.

Like make days go faster.

Or let you go back and change things that've happened.

Feels like this term will never end. I'm really ready to go home now, yeah?

It's good the train home was on Friday, because otherwise nobody could have gone. You know how it was a blizzard beginning of last week? Well it started again Saturday morning, and it's still coming down! You can't really see anything out the windows between the frost and the clouds and the snow chucking down.

I mean to say, there's SO MUCH SNOW here! Mr Dawlish said yesterday it took him five hours to shift enough of it that he could get out the entrance doors. It's right up to the top of them on both sides. I bet today he'll have to build a tunnel to get out there.

Anywiz, I've been sat in front of the fire in the common room since breakfast, so I thought I'd look at that article again 'cause I didn't really read all of it before. And it's interesting about this Mr Black and his brother. I mean, he's really close to the Lord Protector, and obviously his brother's a traitor, and he talks about how they were always really, really different and how he always tried to do what his parents wanted, but his brother was always doing things he knew his parents wouldn't approve of, like wear muggle clothes and bring muggle things home and leave them where their parents would find them, just to upset them. (Like he says one time his brother, Sirius, left a muggle shaving machine on his father's chair in the dining room, so his father accidentally sat on it--and then he made Sirius show him how it worked by shaving off all his hair and wouldn't let him regrow it for the whole vacation!)

But, anyway, Mr Black--Regulus, the one the story's about--says his brother was always this big disappointment to their parents, and he says he always knew he'd never be anything like his brother because they disagreed on everything, but

But, y'know what? The way he talks about his brother when he tells stories about them, it's like

Well, it's two things. You can tell he really, really loved his brother. And he still does, just the way he talks about him, it's really sad. And then, the other thing is, I think he always just wanted his brother to-

it's like his brother never wanted him around and never acted like anything he did was right, and it could have maybe been different if he'd cared or said he did, because I think maybe he did care but just never said. Or maybe their parents just made them, I don't know, jealous of each other, like they'd only love one of them and not the other one. They didn't treat them the same, and that turned out really awful.

It's like this one story. Regulus Black says when he was small, like 5 maybe, and his brother was 6 or maybe 7, their mother took them shopping with her in Diagon Alley, and while she was being fitted for dress robes, the boys slipped off together. So Regulus says his brother would never shirk a dare, so he dared him to show him Knockturn Alley, because the older one, Sirius, had been saying he knew all about it. So they went. And the younger brother, Regulus, kept daring things. Some of them were really little things, but maybe not too good an idea in Knockturn Alley (like 'Tell that witch her nose looks like a rutabaga.' or 'Ask if that warlock has any Goblin fingers on his cart,' when the bloke they were asking looked like his mother probably WAS a goblin.) But some of the things were bigger, and the worst was when he dared his brother to take something off the counter of one of the shops, and they got caught by this really scary man who owned the shop and he took them into the back part of the shop and told them he was going to sell the little one to a man who wanted a pureblood boy for a slave. And he was going to chop the other one up and sell his parts to apothecaries and potions dealers. But while he was busy looking the little one over to see if he was healthy, the older brother stole the man's wand and stunned him.

And, see, the thing is, the way he tells about it, you just know that Mr Black really knows his brother saved his life then and he knows his brother is a really strong wizard--that even when he was just 7 and had to use some other bloke's wand, he could cast a stunning spell that totally stupefied that man--you just know they really did care about each other. But they didn't know it then, and, actually, I don't know if he knows it now. It's like he says one thing, but it's really something else he doesn't maybe see.

It's like, the writer says he asked Black what he'd say if he could talk to his brother now, and he says he'd say, 'You can never go home again.' But then the writer says he said the same about himself now he's come back from wherever he went for a long time. He says he came back, but it can never be the same again--it's not really home ever again, even though his mother wanted him home, it's just all different than it was or was supposed to be.

Yeah, I don't know. It just seems dead sad.

I might be the only person in history to get detention before the term even properly starts. (Not that I'm proud of that or anything, Mum.)

But there's all this mad stuff going round about what we did and why we did it, so I just wanted to set things straight. Harry Marvolo couldn't come to school on the train because someone hexed the barrier to the platform. Which is pretty ironic since they only put it back up last year when Harry started Hogwarts. I guess it was part of the old secrecy thing back, well, before, y'know. And then they took it down once wizards started to use the whole station and everything, but they put it back up--the barrier--last year to help keep Harry Marvolo safe from all the mad nutters who are always trying to touch him and give him stuff and, of course, from the ones who keep trying to attack him.

So, anywiz. We couldn't get through the barrier 'cause someone must have hexed it. And everyone else had already gone through ahead of us while we were there talking, so when we couldn't get through--and I mean we couldn't get through!!--we thought probably nobody could get back to help us, either. And the spell was a really rough one, too, so we thought that someone was trying to kidnap Harry or kill him or something, and anyway, it was time that the train should already have gone, so we did the only thing we could think of. We'd just been talking about how my dad charmed his car to fly and how wizard it was, and we'd just driven to the station in that car (on the roads, actually, because Mum didn't trust the spells, and anyway she said we absolutely couldn't fly to the station no matter how late we were running). It was just dead obvious: we needed to get out of there fast so nobody could kill Harry ... and there was the car!

So, yeah. We flew to school. We could see the train down there below us. That's how we knew which way to go, but I guess none of you looked out the window and saw us. (Funnily enough, I guess we made the paper because some people in London and other places did look up and see us flying along!)

And, yeah, we did crash the car into the Whomping Willow, and that's why I've got to do detention... to help Professor Sprout set the broken limbs on the tree. So if I don't live until tomorrow, it was nice knowing you all. And if I do live: Seamus or Nev, would you bring me back an extra helping of whatever they're serving for pudding tonight? I bet I'll be starving by the time we're finished!

Gotta run so I'm not late for afternoon lessons...

Did you see what happened to Althea Deverill? I thought she was going to flip her nut when she found out why everyone was staring at her at lunch. She nearly took off Towler's head when he told her what was on her face!!

I wouldn't have thought anybody'd hex her. And anyway, I heard it happened to her boyfriend, too, that Frobisher bloke from Ravenclaw.

What's with the Head Girl? She threatened to Crucio me if I didn't get out of her way!! I was just walking down the corridor is all!

I can't believe we've all got to scrub up and comb our hair for dinner. Dyou know the elves cleaned my robes and polished my shoes while I was in the showers just now! I guess that'll be good for the rest of the term, at least.

I wonder what's for pudding tonight. Maybe it'll be something fantastic like when we had the feast after the Hunt.

This has been one of the strangest weeks I've ever had.

I'd like it if we had a nice, normal one next, all right?

A hat?

Honestly? That's it?