“Luna had decorated her bedroom ceiling with five beautifully painted faces: Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and Neville. They were not moving as the portraits at Hogwarts moved, but there was a certain magic about them all the same; Harry thought they breathed. What appeared to be fine golden chains wove around the pictures, linking them together, but after examining them for a minute or so, Harry realized that the chains were actually one word, repeated a thousand times in golden ink: friends...friends…friends…friends…”
Educational options.
(special thanks to retrousse for bringing this awesome graphics set to my attention)
The first girl disliked the second because she was arrogant, presumptuous, extremely conceited regarding her origins, believed to be entirely too pretty, and possessed far too little common sense for someone with so much magical talent. And the second girl disliked the first because she thought so little for someone with so much power, and she was entirely too pretty for someone with so many freckles, and she was terribly closed-off and snobbish about her family (reverse-snobbish, perhaps, but that was still snobbish), and she was reckless, and —above all— she was arrogant.
And so it seemed they would never get along.
But it happened that once, long ago, the first girl had known what it was like to be victimized, and ashamed, and silent, and scared — and, in a particularly quiet moment, she’d fantasized about packing her bags and bidding goodbye to her brothers, because it seemed to her that every Dark thing which had transpired might be traced back to her, and to the fact that she was, in some way, inadequate.
While the second girl, even longer ago, had suddenly ceased to be a girl, had changed and grown lovely and become the focus of every eye. Become, in a sense, the kind of girl people said was probably vain, and was probably cruel, and was growing far too quickly, and who should probably be ashamed. Until she’d wanted to run away, but she felt their eyes on her always, like a tether. Reminding her that she could be as pretty as she liked, but she was still inadequate.
They would never share these stories between them. They were not close enough. But someday, somewhere down the line, someone would make a comment about the second girl’s pretty daughters. Someone would say that calamity was sure to befall them, or that cruel eyes were sure to fix on them, or that — whatever happened to them — it was probably because they were so presumptuous, pretty, powerful, and arrogant. Because when you were a girl like them (or Ginny, or Fleur), terrible things were bound to happen to you if you were any of those things, or in fact anything at all.
And in those moments it was Aunt Ginny who would come, snapping and furious, to the defense of Fleur’s daughters. At other times, Fleur would do the same for Ginny’s girl.
Although it made them seem arrogant, they had both, long ago, turned their backs on the idea that they were somehow inadequate.
Holy water cannot help you now
See I’ve come to burn your kingdom down
And no rivers and no lakes can put the fire out
I’m gonna raise the stakes, I’m gonna smoke you out
I would return the slap, if I took you for a man.
It means a pair of warriors who fight together
16 Favourite Books Read in 2012
