Sometimes, the world can be so tiny, it boggles me. I'm sure you've all had that experience -- like, what, these two are friends??? how on earth??? or what, I have so-and-so as a common friend with so-and-so on fb??? The internet only shrinks the world to a tiny screen.
I'm recalling the time when we were on the plane home from holiday and we were flying over Singapore, and I was looking out the window -- and kinda just marveled -- because I realised that from where I was sitting, the Singapore flyer was less than a hand span from Changi. At that point, it felt like I'd been hit on the head with a big slab of metal. Singapore is just so unbelievably tiny. And I remember thinking, my gosh, there's no way to get far away enough from anything. Not unless I were to jump into a space shuttle or stg.
And I really don't know why I'm talking about this.
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And because I am still rereading the Draco Trilogy (and ignoring the voices in my head: Eunice, going, "Why aren't you reading The Game of Thrones instead???" or my dad, "It is Ramadhan, have you touched the Qura'an yet???" -- oh, woe to my horrible impulses), here's something from Draco Sinister, which reminded me how much I love Ginny in DT. Without her, I think my affection for DT would be significantly different. Ginny is that necessary female character in a story; the one who I want to root for because she is real and flawed but she has her heart in the right place and tries hard and feels deeply and makes mistakes. Love her.
Ginny shook her head. "It's not what you are that matters. It's what you do, what you've done. Haven't you done enough - haven't you proved you aren't like your father? Didn't you stand up to him, didn't you save Hermione's life, just like Harry would have--"
"Oh bloody Harry!" he yelled suddenly. He was paper-white with rage, his eyes blazing with a gray and stellar fire that was frightening to see. He so rarely yelled that this was in fact, alarming as well. "I'm not Harry! I will never be Harry! If I ever acted like him, it was only because of a spell. Can't you get that through your head?"
"Listen to me. Every bit of goodness in you does not come from Harry. If you don't believe yourself, believe me. I can feel evil in people. I felt it in Slytherin when he came into our house. I never felt it from you. You've often been a hateful, miserable git, but you were never evil. So you can just... stop. Stop with this whole "I'm the Dark Prince of Evil" business. Because you aren't. You're just a person, Draco Malfoy, just a person like anyone else. And your problem isn't that you're evil. It's that you're scared. You're always running away. You ran away from the Manor when you thought Harry and the rest of them didn't trust you anymore, and then you ran away from me when I told you to go home. You even ran away from Snape. You kept the sword because it gave you a reason to run away from Harry and Hermione and all the things in your life you can't face, and then you tried to run away from the darkness it conjured up but you can't, and all you're doing is running away from yourself and falling farther and farther away from anyone who could help you. You had what you wanted, you know? A family, people who cared about you, And you ran away from it! 'Oh, I've got to go. I'm a danger to everyone else, I'm so evil, somebody smash me in the head already, blah blah blah.' What a bunch of self-indulgent crap!" She poked him hard in the chest with her finger, and he actually goggled at her in astonishment. "Who says you have to sit here while these huge events you're so excited about blow up all around you? Why don't you fight? Because I don't know about you, but I'd rather make a mistake and do something than be frightened into doing nothing!"
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