Ron Weasley

Dear Arista,

I wanted you to know that Satsuma came along with me on the train today when I came back to school. He sat on the table and looked out the window for most of the trip, but I offered him some milk in a saucer when it was time for lunch. I think he wished I'd had some fish to share, but all I had were some bacon sarnies they made us at the hotel before we left for the station today, and he didn't seem to like the smell of that! Heh. I'll see if Ken Towler will share some of the food he feeds Malaprop--that's Ken's cat.

Do you think Satsuma likes to spend time with other cats? I was thinking I'd wait until tomorrow to introduce him to Mal because Mal always goes off mousing as soon as we all come back to school. Sometimes we don't see him again for a day or so. Towler thinks he might have a girlfriend, but I think it's just that when we're all gone home for hols, the mice forget to worry about looking out for cats, so they're easier to catch when we first come back.

I expect you must be going back to school tomorrow, too. Are you happy that school's starting again? What's your favourite thing to learn about?

Anywiz, I wanted you to know that Satsuma and I are getting to be great friends. It was really very nice of you to let him come live with me since I don't have a familiar of my own. Thank you.

Your friend,
Ron Weasley

Towler.

When she got back last night, the Headmistress sent Hooch to bring Kenneth and Nick up to her office.

He was one of them

that died
 
 
Mark, he was one of the first people that played chess with me here. He was older than Percy, but he never minded. Didn't seem to.

So, okay.

I asked Brocklehurst and she said yes. And Gin gave me a parcel last night and it's robes, so I don't have to just wear my school robes. I pulled them out to look, cause, y'know, I didn't want them to be some daft 'fashion design' thingers. And they're decent.

So now what?

I still don't know Brocklehurst at all. Towler said she seemed okay with going with me, though. So I guess that's that.

Nev,

Where are you, mate? They sent Towler off to look for you, but I think he was off to the Greenhouses, and maybe you aren't there?

Are you all right?

Okay, that's dumb. You're not all right. But come back, yeah? We're waiting here in the common room, and we won't make you talk or anything, but

we'd just feel better about it if you were here.

So, er. Towler's quit playing chess with me until I write this letter thing to Director Selwyn 'cause he says I really pretty much have to do whatever it takes to stay in YPL. Says he'd totally be doing it if they'd started with his year, and says it's going to be really, really a bad thing for people who drop out, y'know. Basically all the stuff we've talked about, but I mean, he's older and he thinks the same thing. That it'll help us get jobs or hurt us a lot--one way or the other.

So, yeah.

And anyway, I was only sort of kidding when I asked if you'd write it for me, but, uh, they sort of sat there and watched me while I wrote a draft of it, so I've got this bit written, and it's probably completely naff. So could you take a look and tell me what to say instead?


Uh, so

Dear Director Selwyn.

My name is Ronald Weasley, and you might not remember, but we've talked before. Here in the journals. One time. And I was Mad Eye's Mad Cat in the play this spring, and maybe you remember that since you said Ar your daughter liked the way I played it. Anywiz, I'm writing because I'm in the YPL. You know, the Young Protectors' League. And we're supposed to write a letter to someone who works in a field we're interested in. So I've been thinking a lot about what I might want to do, and I decided probably not working with dragons like my older brother Charlie does because they don't take very many people into that programme and it'd be sort of awful to have to train under my own brother. If you know what I mean. I've met some of the dragon handlers, and they're a pretty rough lot and I think they'd pretty much spend all they'retheir time taking the mickey if I got into training. So not that. And so then I've been thinking about jobs at the Ministry, which you probably know is where my dad and my other brother work. My dad's in the Department of Purity Control and works with the Muggle Domestication department, too, and my brother Bill's in Communications. And I guess those are both good jobs that, you know, make a contribution to the Protectorate and stuff. And Bill got a promotion last year, so I guess he's really good at what he's doing. But I'm not sure I want to always be working in an office indoors, so I've been talking to people about what I like to do and what sort of jobs that might mean I'd be good at, and one of the people in my House said I ought to think about surveying because I like exploring and flying and finding places out in the country that've been left empty and all. And she'd heard that there's a Department of Regional Restoration and Rural Reclamation that's surveying all the places around where Muggles used to live that could be good places for wizards to start new towns of our own since there are getting to be more of us. And I think that'd be a completely wizard job to have! Especially the part where she said she'd heard they're planning to blow up some of the rotten old Muggle places to allow nature to take them back faster so they'll be beautiful again. That'd be amazing to get to blow stuff up. Um, and also to help plan where to build new things or fix and improve places that are okay but just need the Muggle stuff taken away. And, anywiz, I'm writing to you because that's part of your big department, right? And you were nice when we talked before, so I thought you'd probably not be annoyed if I wrote you about this. And I was hoping maybe you'd even write me back to tell me if this'd be a good sort of job for me to try to have someday.

So, yeah. Thank you, sir. I really appreciate your time and everything.

Sincerely,
Ronald Weasley
Gryffindor House
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

So. What'd you think?

Mostly.

I think I've only got a few bruises from the birthday hexing, but I'm still pretty colourful in different places so it's hard to tell for sure. Doesn't hurt much, anyway.

Perks, I can't believe you made that bookmark. With the cannonball charm on the end. Did the yarn come that colour or did you have to charm it?

Parks, the song is snitch. Thanks!

And the food's great--all the orange stuff Fred and George charmed up, plus whoever sent the sweets this morning. Those were really wiznift.

Ha, Nev. I'm totally calling it Chudley. The pompom thingers are hilarious. I think it's laughing at me now. Or maybe it likes that awful thing Towler's singing. What's that meant to be, anywiz? Somebody hex him, yeah?

So this morning everyone was talking at breakfast about the Headmistress's announcement and Towler said it was in the Prophet, too, in the section where they report what happened here at Hogwarts during the week. And later we thought that we should probably check to see if they said any more about Dean, so at lunch we asked around and found someone who still had a copy--you know, I never really noticed, but I don't think a lot of people take the Prophet, I mean Towler and Wood just get it for the Quidditch results, I think--anyway, it didn't say anything new about Dean, so that was okay, but then I closed it up and saw what was on the front page.

I mean, it took me a few minutes to realise what it was. There's a picture of a dead bloke on the front page!! Really! A corpse, just sitting there on a bench, and he's dead dead!!! It's, um, the article says he's a 'Mudblood labourer found murdered at his New London worksite Monday morning'. And he's just sat there, with his lunch beside him on that bench, and one arm draped over the back of the seat like he's just waiting there, and then if you watch the picture just a minute, you realise that it looks like he's sweating: there're beads of it on his forehead and dark patches of it, y'know, on his clothes, and then I saw it looks like he's been crying cause there are kind of streaks running down his cheeks only it's not clear like tears, it's darker like maybe there's blood mixed in? But it's hard to tell because it's a picture, and THEN! Something blurps out of the side of his mouth and sort of blurbles down his shirt front!!!

And, and, the article says when they found him all his fluids (ew, I know!) had been turned to mud. So that's muddy tears on his face and that sweat is mud, and when they moved him, it says that loads of mud just sort of sloshed out of him!!!

I can't believe they put this in the paper. Except Seamus says it's because of what it says on the bench beside him in the picture. Somebody's written 'this is the grim truth' on the bench like that's the point of it. But it just doesn't seem right, them putting a picture of a dead body like that where everybody can see it. Just, y'know, ughk!