Alas, I am returned, to be granted audience once more.
Semi-regular streams will be returning, IRL commitments like work allowing.
Also there will be background noise sometimes because I'm sharing my apartment with someone. You have been warned.
LNX below
@shadmbrooks Straight. Like Azula from ATLA, her hair is representative of the flawless image she's been taught to cultivate her entire life.
Also like Azula, its visibly disheveled at her lowest point in HBP, when she's in the Death Eaters with no visible escape
@jtimsuggs Being ABSOLUTELY pedantic here but there is ONE useful bit of information here:
Jabba, the highly mobile, hands-on mob boss, is at his home.
He's not attending podraces like in Phantom Menace.
He's not on the Khettana like in Return of the Jedi.
Jabba's home.
I heard we're making #Malfoid versions of existing memes so here's my humble submission.
There is a non zero chance this will blow up relative to anything else I do. I can be quite boring.
Bioware employees losing their jobs is a good thing and I'm tired of pretending it isn't. The AAAA industry is shrinking but deserves to disappear.
The Adventures of Dwarfchad and Soy Elf #47: "Bye, bye, bi!"
A single night was longer than years of her life. Parting with Ron that evening was so painful to her because there was no guarantee he would be there the next morning. If he was, it means he was actually months older, having been fighting… something… deep beneath the school. Their last embrace on the first day of school should have lasted forever, but instead it ended too soon, and watching him turn and walk into the boys dormitory scraped at her heart, causing tears to well in her eyes.
She had sworn an oath to him, she wasn’t about to back out now. She had promised Ron she would wait for however long it took for him to come home, and a mere nine hours felt like eternity. She couldn’t sleep if she wanted to, so she walked the halls of the school before curfew, trying to keep the misery from making her cry openly in the halls. She knew the evening corridors were usually empty but tonight they felt vacant of all life aside from hers. As she turned a corner to walk down a moonlit hallway she saw something originally she thought was a ghost.
Long silvery hair and near-unnatural beauty, it could only be Malfoy. She still held deep resentment in her heart for the girl for all of the past transgressions, but they had softened when she saw how much Harry really cared for her. Streams of glittering silver down her cheeks exposed the blond girl’s suffering as she stared at the moon. Against her better judgement, Hermione stepped closer.
Malfoy noticed her presence and seemed to hesitate, almost to move into a defensive position and go for her wand, but her sorrow stopped her motions, returning to the gaze of the brilliant moon in the sky.
“Come to mock me, Granger? I won’t stop you.” She said weakly.
She wanted to, in fact, she had a long list of creative insults ready and waiting that she had made in extreme detail over summer break, but none could be summoned for the occasion. Instead, a weak and misery impaired “No,” was all she could muster.
Malfoys face twitched in something resembling disappointment… Did she WANT to be ridiculed? What for? Would it make her pain somehow more tolerable? A distraction perhaps from the horror of reality? Hermione wouldn’t give her that escape route, not today.
“It’s because he is far away, even if he is just on the other side of the castle. He might as well be on the other side of the planet right now. That’s what it is, isn’t it?” Hermione said as she walked next to Malfoy.
The blonde’s demeanor crumbled as her sobs began to overwhelm her, “Stop… please stop, Hermione.” she said through the overflow of emotions
“No, because you aren’t the only one who has someone so far away, so likely to die, so likely to never come back,” she said as her own misery began to boil over, “You don’t get to be miserable alone tonight, Malfoy. For once in your life, don’t be selfish.”
Malfoy turned and looked at Hermione with a confused look in her tear streaked face, only to see a reflection of her own sorrow etched in a brunette mirror.
The girls hugged one another and finally let the tears out, sinking to the floor and sobbing their grief alone in the corridor under the moonlight. Mutual terror at what the future may hold echoed in the corridor for several minutes before they started to regain composure. Malfoy managed to speak first.
“I don’t understand, who are you so afraid of losing? What’s going on?” She squeaked through residual sobs,
“It’s Ron… and I wish I knew enough to give you an answer. He is in terrible danger and I can do nothing to help him… I can only hope I see him tomorrow morning in one piece. If he doesn’t show up, it means he is dead and no one would know it but me.” Hermione responded in a miserable tone.
Malfoy stared, then looked up in thought then said, “This wouldn’t have something to do with how he went from being a ginger stick to actually developing some muscle, would it? It seemed to happen almost overnight. The other Slytherine girls were talking about it a year ago.”
A pang of jealousy and maybe a hair of smugness hit Hermione. As it turns out, others noticed and of course it was the Slytherine girls.
“Greengrass mentioned he had the body of a fighter or boxer, though Pansy insisted he had the look of a soldier of some kind, something about his eyes tipped her off,” continued Malfoy, almost academically
“Harry is just over in the Gryffindor dorms, Malfoy… You should talk to him.” Said Hermione, desperate to change the subject.
Malfoys face shifted to something more approximating fear and misery, her mouth opening and shutting as she tried to grasp the words her heart was trying to convey.
“I… I can’t–”
Hermione interrupted her, “You can, and you should. You don’t need to tell me that things are only going to get worse. I know they are. It doesn’t take a master of divination to see that the situation in the world is rapidly deteriorating. You just cried on my shoulder for five minutes, that's enough of a reason to do what you know is right.”
Malfoy gave a miserable smile, “So you ARE going to bully me then,” she said with a little dark amusement in her voice, “you aren’t giving me anywhere to run.”
“No. Now lets get to bed, curfew is soon and the last thing either of us need is a teacher docking points on the first day back.” She said, rising to her feet and helping Malfoy to hers
“I don’t want any of this,” said Malfoy weakly
“None of us do,” responded Hermione.
There was a long pause between the two girls, broken by Malfoy as she looked up at Hermione with a weak smile
“I have never known a Weasley to fail at anything. They may bumble, stumble and act like idiots, but they never ever quit. I think Ron will be back tomorrow, no… I am sure of it.” came her voice with reassurance trickling in the cracks.
Hermione couldn’t help but smirk, “I do think you just complimented the Weasleys, Malfoy,” she tittered, “Harry has a heart that can fit the entire world, and has seen so many nightmares that I don’t think he is capable of being afraid of anything anymore. Whatever is happening, he won’t show fear, and he will always forgive the ones he loves.”
The two girls stood there, opposite sides of the same coin and said nothing more, turning and walking back to their dorms. Hermione felt a little better, but mostly she felt tired. Maybe bed wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
#malfoid