alt_terry | Entries tagged with small things

everyone knows about the first day of seasons. boot especially pays attention to the beginning of winter, for example, because he has to look for rags for his feet. (although no rags this year since he has shoes. not as nice as the shoes the students have, or the boots he had for awhile. still, boot is glad to have them.)

anyway, this day is the one which is exactly halfway between the beginning of winter and the beginning of spring. some call it 'Candlemas.' there was a woman in the camps who told boot that some called it 'brigit's day,' but boot doesnt know who 'brigit' is.

but she also told boot that there is another, older name for this day. boot thinks it is 'Imbolk,' except he isnt sure that is spelled right. boot should ask hermione. anyway, that name means, 'in the belly,' meaning like the place inside a ewe when she is carrying a lamb. so the word means new beginnings.

boot likes that idea. winter was always hard in the camps. lots of people died. in february the only potatoes left were rotten and the food was running out. it helped boot to remember Candlemas, when the cold seemed like it has sunk into his bones for good. it meant that winter couldnt last forever. the sky gets light earlier in the morning, and later in the afternoon.

winter is so much easier for boot now that he is at hogwarts. he knows he is a lucky mudblood.

boot has been trying to think of more small things to write about

it is hard. sometimes have written about things, thinking that they are so small, they wont get boot into trouble. but somehow he still gets into trouble anyway. like when he talked about getting rags for his feet, ~~and that led to master giving boot~~ so he tries to think of things even smaller

eggs should be safe to talk about. madam pomfrey says boot must eat more eggs, because of the anaemia. and green salads, for something called folate, which boot needs to make good blood. boot doesnt want to be ungrateful, but boot hates eggs. and boot is not a rabbit. well, he was a dog once. but never a rabbit. boot ate mostly just porridge for years, before coming to Hogwarts. so why does he need eggs and salads now?

boots mouth is sore and his lips often crack and bleed. boot thinks its the cold, but madam pomfrey says its the anaemia, too. dont understand how green salads and eggs can make a difference.

Current Mood: tired

boot has been thinking about something one student said to another, the week he was a dog in the Gryffindor common room. she said, 'whatever do muggles do without cheering charms?'

good question

sometimes people get sad or scared, but they dont want to be. magic folk can use charms of course. muggles or mudbloods like boot have to do other things that arent magic. but those things can still work if you make up your mind not to let ~~them~~ yourself give in to bad feelings. You have to practise, though. And when you do them, you really have to want them to work.

people at the camps sometimes sang. boot can't do that much. never wants to bother people around hogwarts. they might be revising, or anyway dont want to notice boot. boots voice isnt much good anyway. but when boot is alone, he sometimes hums, or plays a whistle he made for himself.

being warm. new warm clothes with no holes. boots! a fire, if boot can think of a reason to stay. something warm to eat. bread, just out of the oven. A kitchen house elf sometimes gives boot a mug of hot chocolate. that always cheers boot up for a whole day.

sometimes just the stars. boot goes out and watches them while students are at dinner, or late at night. boot likes them, cause they are clear and shining and quiet. (hermione showed boot a book all about ~~consell~~ constellations, the stories told about the shapes they make in the sky.) saw the northern lights once, too, dancing in the sky. 'aurora borealis,' that book called them.

all the stars and planets dont even care if you are muggle or mudblood or magic folk but just shine down on everyone. can't be touched by sadness or anger or fear. so boot looks at them to forget everything around himself.

boot watches for falling stars, too. has seen a few. never got a wish granted from one, but boot doesnt mind pretending.

Current Mood: trying to be cheerful

a bit of snow on the ground this morning. boot must start looking for rags for his feet.

was lucky last year. found some wool scraps. wool is better then cotton or linen, because it can keep feet warmer even if it gets wet. and boots feet get wet a lot. when boot took them off in the spring and left them in a corner of his cupboard, they disappeared a few weeks later. maybe master threw them out, dunno. (don't think house elves would ever bother with a mudbloods cupboard). master doesn't like boot to keep anything of his own. mudbloods shouldn't have things to keep. even rags.

rags are hard to find, though. house elves don't often keep ragged stuff around. boot often has to look sharp for several days before he can find anything to use.

boot doesnt have a place to eat. usually the kitchens, but sometimes will take food somewhere else. not the cupboard (dont want ants or mice there). but sometimes by the lake if its nice. when its cold, inside one of the greenhouses is good, too. professor sprout doesnt mind.

lately boot has been eating on the steps outside the kitchen door, the one to the south kitchen garden. the sparrows under the ~~eves~~ eaves watch for boot now. they fly down when he comes to eat on the steps, waiting for bread crumbs.

There was a boy boot knew back in the camp. he wanted a pet bird so bad and kept trying to catch one. do you remember him hermione? he made a cage out of sticks. he would wait with a pot or a hat and would try to jump on the bird but birds always flew away too quick. then he would get angry and scream, throw things at the birds. birds are smart. they started flying away as soon as he came outside.

boot thought about that boy today when one sparrow came up close. it could have pecked boots toes.

that boy should have tried throwing crumbs instead. then maybe the bird would have come up to him. he wouldnt have to catch the bird and keep it in a cage at all, if the bird decided to be his friend.

being kind would have worked better.

Another small thing: boot's feet

boot has gone barefoot for years. boot always told shoes were waste for mudbloods (he said that), but hermione has shoes. don't want to ask, because don't want hermione's shoes taken away from her.

boot's feet not so dirty now since now boot knows where to go to get clean every day. but bottoms of boot's feet are tough. hard callouses.

but boot must still be careful. if feet get too dry, callouses will crack. cuts can get infected from dirt, and boot cannot stand a long time in snow, even if feet are tough. almost lost some toes from frostbite once. so sometimes boot wraps feet in rags in winter.

hermione told boot if he started wearing shoes callouses would go away. the word she used was 'eventually' (another word boot had to look up in dictionary). seems so strange.

boot goes without, gets tough. feet are strong, can climb, can bear things. like little stones, grit, gravel, that would make students stumble and wince if they were ever to walk barefoot in the courtyard.

if boot had shoes, feet would get soft.

boot needs to be tough.

is it really better to go without, so to stay strong?

Another small thing: a candle.

boot has seen light from the candles floating in the Great Hall during feasts. Candelabras and lanterns glow over books and desks in classrooms and the library. house elves keep those candles lit, boot guesses. students and professors usually use the lumos spell at their wand tips, when they move around the castle at night in places without torches. lumos light is different: silverish white, not warm like candlelight

boot has no wand, so he must go through darkness at night, except for where moonlight and starlight reaches through windows. candles for mudbloods are waste.

but sometimes, there might be a candle, for special. madame pomfrey gave one to boot when she sent him back to his cupboard. hermione walked with him as far as her pallet outside the Great Hall, by the statue of Loefrick the Loser. when boot left her there, he touched his wick to hers and lit it, and left some light behind there for her.

then boot went through the Great Hall on his way back to his cupboard. he stopped in the Hall's centre and held up the candle. boot had been there once before near midnight without a candle. that time the blackness made him feel like something terrible waited for him out there, crouching behind one of the suits of armour against the wall, watching him.

but this time, a circle, a globe of light was all around boot, on the flagstones at his feet and rising over his head, and the shadows beyond moved in time with his breath over the candle flame. a small candle, a tiny flame, but it lit up so much. the Great Hall felt friendly again.

a candle can be like hope. it makes boot stronger.

boot wishes he could have candles more often

boot wonders. why did Headmistress give him a journal?

boot liked it at first, wanted to write in it with his own enchanted quill. but the things boot thinks about and wants to write, some say are bad to read. they get boot in trouble. or hermione.

that leaves just small things to write about, that no one cares about. told that to hermione and she laughed. 'but the very smallest things can be very important' hermione says. 'like fleas. fleas are important, didn't you say?'

'but writing about fleas got boot into trouble'

'just write about other small things, then,' hermione said, 'you could do that because you already write like a poet.'

that really surprised boot and he asked why she thinks that.

she scrunchs up her nose 'because you notice things. like me. and because your words are so spare.' boot didn't know what she meants by spare, so she showed boot the word in a dictionary. 'spare' words are used with restraint. didn't know that word, so we looked up that one, too.

boot knows all about restraint.

have been thinking about what hermione said. she told boot there is a kind of poem called a hikoo. its three lines, the first line has five silabels, the second has seven silabels, and the third line has five silabels again. took a while to understand what 'silabels' are. hikoo are poems about small things. like blades of grass, or a single flower, or a pebble. so boot says he will try to notice small things and write about them, and hermione said she will find a book about hikoo to show to boot. she says they are easy to write. maybe he can try them himself.

here is a small thing: boot noticed the way the sun fell across the steps leading out of the kitchen. crookshanks found the place where the sun made a puddle and curled up and slept at boot's feet while boot and hermione ate their bread for dinner last night. fur was warm from the sun, even though shadows were cool. boot could feel the purring through his toes.

that is a small thing

wondering:

is boot an important thing, even if small, so that's why the Headmistress gave him a journal?

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Terry Boot Longbottom, once known as boot

somewhere safe

Candlemas

Eggs, ick. And salads

Cheering charms for mudbloods

Rags

Crumbs

Feet

Candle

journal

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September 2015

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