DON'T TRY TO LIVE SO WISE!

The people who can carry a tune but don’t have a remarkable voice

The people who can draw more than stick figures but can’t develop their own style

The people who have a decent imagination but no idea how to write it all out (or vice versa)

The people who can play covers of songs but can’t write their own music

The people who can dance with choreography but not freely

The people who can do sports but never make the team

I repeated the experiment later, wearing the boots but otherwise my usual clothing and mimicking the expression I thought I’d had at that moment. People parted like I was Charlton Heston.

I now wear that style of boots whenever possible. I recently had a man do a double-take as I walked by and ask me, politely, where I had served because I “looked like a soldier.” I’m not current or former military. I was wearing a flowy purple peasant top and looked as un-soldierlike as possible.

when Harry looked in the mirror and saw his family it wasn’t instantly clear to him what exactly the mirror was doing. he didn’t look at his parents’ faces and think oh yes the one thing I desire more than any other in the whole of existence. certainly family was something he’d always wanted, but it was only a conscious desire in specific circumstances. when he looked in the mirror it wasn’t the realization of something he’d known all along. it was a feeling.

Ginny Weasley who went through her first year alone except for her diary, which was a comfort at first and a horrific terror next.

Ginny Weasley who went through horrible unspeakable things when she was eleven and nobody noticed.

Ginny Weasley who carried a Horcrux for almost a year and managed to keep her head above the water despite the odds being stacked against her.

Ginny Weasley who shouldered past this and was kind to people she thought deserved kindness and sharp tongued with a ready wand to people she thought didn’t. 

Ginny Weasley who had a chance to go to the Yule Ball with her hero and childhood crush, and went with Neville instead, because she saw the great in him before anybody else did, and wanted him to know he was worth it.

Ginny Weasley who defended Luna and liked her for the things that others didn’t.

Ginny Weasley who joined the D.A and fought even though she was a child, because it was the childrens war to fight.

Ginny Weasley who punched a fifth year Ravenclaw in the jaw when he started talking about Harry being a fraud, because she might be over him, but somebody needed to defend the boy who was trying to defend everybody else.

Ginny Weasley who loves all her brothers, but especially Fred and George, who make her laugh until she can’t breathe and take her seriously.

Ginny Weasley who loves having Hermione come and stay over the summer, because it’s like having a sister, and god, she wants a sister so bad.

Ginny Weasley who moved past her crush on Harry Potter and dated other boys while getting to know Harry and becoming his friend.

Ginny Weasley who was amazing at Quidditch and a total jock, and Harry might have been the captain, but she knew quite a bit more about strategy then he did.

Ginny Weasley who teaches him how to coach a team and get the players where they needed to be, and know where the other players  are during a game while staying aware of the snitch.

Ginny Weasley who led the D.A in Harry’s absence with Neville by her side, because they might not have been chosen ones but they could choose their own paths and they chose fighting in the resistance.

Ginny Weasley who took the lashings and the burnt hands and horrible, horrible pain over telling where her brother and her friends were.

Ginny Weasley who took care of the other kids, Slytherin or Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw, because suddenly houses didn’t matter anymore, when the Carrows were in charge.

Ginny Weasley who wasn’t about to let Harry Potter to fight his war alone.

Ginny Weasley who built him an army out of half starved, bruised students.

Ginny Weasley who built an army for her brothers, and for Sirius Black and for Tonks who deserved to have a baby in a world without Voldemort. For her mother who didn’t get that, and for the little girl who wrote on the walls in blood and doesn’t remember her first year of school.

Ginny Weasley who fights in the Final Battle and keeps fighting after Harry dies, because she knows him, and she sees something of him in everyone fighting and she is so furious, with these people who took her funny, lost, boy and snapped him in half, and she fights harder because he looks so fragile in Hagrids arms.

Ginny Weasley who felt the hollow aching loss of Fred in her chest for the rest of her life. 

Ginny Weasley who loves Quidditch and cries the happy-kind-of-tears for the first time after Fred dies when she finds out she made the Holy Head Harpies.

Ginny Weasley who falls back in love with Harry Potter. This time because he is broken and stitched back together in all the same ways she is, and they match in all the broken ways.