She has already gone through all the lovely details of the anniversary party they had yesterday, at least three times, the dinner, the wine, the whiskey, the music, the fireplace, the sex. They agreed on the day that lies exactly between their birthdays in January and October and the number of years they should celebrate as being together a while ago because they cannot really agree exactly from what moment on they should count their being together, that moment in the shop and then the question is what to subtract for the time they weren't together, or that moment in front of the hotel, or some time in between. Anyway it has been a long time, and they are both much older and much wiser than they ever thought they would be. She thinks of her Granny McGonagall and how very young compared to herself she was when she died although not young for a Muggle and wonders how her younger self would have regarded her present self. Despite the fact that she has found true love not very highly, she fears, since they never felt the need to get married.
3. Ribbons
Before her brothers were born, that cold Highland parish house, her parents' icy silences and – somehow even worse – the sound of their very audible if infrequent nightly reconciliations were made bearable by three factors: the joy of magic, which permeated her life from very early on, her cat, and books, which she very soon learned to read herself. Favourite authors were Rabie Burns and Walter Scott, and her favourite work of literature well into her late teens was the latter's Lady of the Lake. The reason for this preference was not only the Scottish theme or the poetic power of the bard but also that she identified strongly with the heroine of the poem, not least for her looks, ever since she had read this description of her physical appearance:
A chieftain's daughter seemed the maid; Her satin snood, her silken plaid, Her golden brooch, such birth betrayed. And seldom was a snood amid Such wild luxuriant ringlets hid, Whose glossy black to shame might bring The plumage of the raven's wing (Cantos I, XIX)
Wasn't it obvious that Minerva's own hair could be described in that manner?
Minerva begged a red satin ribbon off her Granny McGonagall and began wearing her hair tied together with it according to the fashion of the snood of the Highland lasses of yore, and she continued to do so when home from Hogwarts, where the fashion of the day and the necessities of Quidditch made plaits the preferable hairstyle. At home, however, Highland Romance beat school fashion and sport: Each and every school holiday, from ages 11 to 18, Minerva unbraided her plaits and tied her hair together with the old satin ribbon (or a newer acquisition) immediately after she had exchanged her school uniform with a tartan pinafore dress or skirt and blouse ensemble and a plaid scarf. Thus attired she and the gang of local lads her grandmother used to indiscriminately refer to as her “beaux” roamed the mountains, lochs and glens of the neighbourhood whenever she could tear herself away from her reading.
3. Ribbons
Before her brothers were born, that cold Highland parish house, her parents' icy silences and – somehow even worse – the sound of their very audible if infrequent nightly reconciliations were made bearable by three factors: the joy of magic, which permeated her life from very early on, her cat, and books, which she very soon learned to read herself. Favourite authors were Rabie Burns and Walter Scott, and her favourite work of literature well into her late teens was the latter's Lady of the Lake. The reason for this preference was not only the Scottish theme or the poetic power of the bard but also that she identified strongly with the heroine of the poem, not least for her looks, ever since she had read this description of her physical appearance:
A chieftain's daughter seemed the maid;
Her satin snood, her silken plaid,
Her golden brooch, such birth betrayed.
And seldom was a snood amid
Such wild luxuriant ringlets hid,
Whose glossy black to shame might bring
The plumage of the raven's wing
(Cantos I, XIX)
Wasn't it obvious that Minerva's own hair could be described in that manner?
Minerva begged a red satin ribbon off her Granny McGonagall and began wearing her hair tied together with it according to the fashion of the snood of the Highland lasses of yore, and she continued to do so when home from Hogwarts, where the fashion of the day and the necessities of Quidditch made plaits the preferable hairstyle. At home, however, Highland Romance beat school fashion and sport: Each and every school holiday, from ages 11 to 18, Minerva unbraided her plaits and tied her hair together with the old satin ribbon (or a newer acquisition) immediately after she had exchanged her school uniform with a tartan pinafore dress or skirt and blouse ensemble and a plaid scarf. Thus attired she and the gang of local lads her grandmother used to indiscriminately refer to as her “beaux” roamed the mountains, lochs and glens of the neighbourhood whenever she could tear herself away from her reading.