Ron Weasley

Got all my notes done tonight cause Percy so Percy could take them up to the owlry along with his when he went out to do his rounds.

But, hey, Harry--I guess I should say thanks to you here since it seemed kinda naff to send you an owl when you're right here in the castle, too. But, anywiz, thanks for the wand holster: it'll be really handy to have it right there in my sleeve. And the chocs are really wicked, though the ones with the really green syrup in made me feel a bit queer. Was that some kind of liqueur or something? I've never had anything like that before. So, I'm going to bring the Quidditch Spectaculars Pansy gave me to breakfast tomorrow--they're like omniocculars only they show highlights of really great plays the Cannons have made against all the other teams. It's totally nift--even if you don't really care about the Cannons. It's just really great Quidditch. (Thanks, Pansy!!) And I can't wait to see the stuff you were telling me about. I'll bring the comics Seamus sent me, too, so we can trade if you're done reading yours. Mine's Fearless Flyers. (That was a dead nift present, Seamus.)

Oh and Fred, George: thanks! I know exactly what I'm going to save it for. And, um, would you tell Mum the jumper fits and the mince pie was really nice?

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.