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jedibuttercupSo. It's been a very long time-- looks like about a year-- since I treated any of you to a response from the Five Things meme; hope you don't mind. Rebooting the muse is a tricky process!
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anabels:
HP/CSI; 962 words; set roughly Book 7/Season 7. As Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "A woman is like a tea bag. You never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water."
Five Things Hermione Granger and Sara Sidle Agree On
A Book in the Hand is Worth Two on the Shelf
Hermione has never met a book she didn't like. Well, that's not quite true; there've been a few that she knows are filled from cover to cover with lies. But she's never met a book that she didn't want to read at least once; books have been her friends since the days she was a small, unpretty little girl with big front teeth and bigger hair. Human friends have come with time; but books have stayed with her, for the more she learns, the more things connect together in her mind, and the more she wants to know. Acquiring knowledge, especially useful knowledge, is one of her life's great pleasures.
For Sara, the passion for knowledge doesn't burn as brightly, but it endures; it gets her through the sleepless nights, it keeps her company when her apartment is otherwise echoingly empty, and best of all-- allows her to surprise her coworkers and friends from time to time with bits of knowledge no one expected her to have. There's a certain degree of pleasure in knowing something other people don't; though of course with Grissom around she's on the other end of the stick far more often.
Though While Acquiring Knowledge is Fun, Applying it is Much Better
Fortunately-- or, perhaps, unfortunately-- for Hermione, she's rarely had the experience of playing second fiddle in the font of all knowledge department among her peers, and it's brought her trouble almost as often as it's brought her pleasure. But for all that she's dismissed her talents as books and cleverness to her friends, she also knows that without that talent-- without her there to research and assist Ron and Harry in the various heroics and idiocy that have fallen their way over the years-- her boys might never have survived their first year, never mind the war. She's fairly certain that that willingness to act-- and the satisfaction she gets from doing so-- is why the Hat put her in Gryffindor over Ravenclaw.
Sara's exercise of her knowledge may be a little less flashy than Hermione's-- she's never created a beaded bag with bottomless capacity, for example, nor braved basilisk-haunted corridors to discover the secret of a monster's movements-- but it's just as useful, and necessary, and on good days gives her a warm feeling of fulfillment. She may not be able to protect anyone with what she can do and discover, not even other cops, but she can help find out exactly what happened to them, and how the criminal that harmed them can be prevented from repeating his or her evil in the future.
Unfortunately, All the Knowledge in the World Can't Help With Him
The only major area that Hermione's knowledge and passion have been entirely useless to her in-- well, aside from Divination, and what a load of nonsense that is-- is romance. She discovered hormones at about the same time as all her peers, and was extremely flattered by the attention of Viktor Krum in her fourth year, but his was never the attention she truly wanted, and the same has proven true of every other boy she's so much as flirted with over the years. It may have taken her some time to come to grips with that fact-- and him even longer; Hermione spent altogether too much time seeing green over his attentions to Lavender Brown-- but Ron has always sparked a more emotional response from her than any other boy, even Harry.
Sara knows that feeling intimately; she has had many more boyfriends over the years than Hermione, some of whom she even developed serious intentions for, but none of them ever affected her anywhere near as deeply as Gilbert Grissom does, just by being there and breathing. Logic is no help in her dealings with him; he distracts her focus, throws all her intentions into disarray, and prompts her to do rash things she would never otherwise contemplate.
But He's Worth Loving Anyway, Damn Him
Despite all the troubles their love for their respective men has brought them, however-- despite all the moments of extreme embarrassment and misunderstanding, of partnerships almost broken, laws skirted, and lives endangered because of that perhaps-unwise emotional connection-- neither woman would ever, or could ever, contemplate giving him up.
They each have their particular reasons to love their respective partners; favorite quirks, annoying behaviors rendered amusing by affection, habits of thought, speech, and action that reduce each of them to goo. Long acquaintance and prolonged proximity have brought a depth of understanding and respect that neither would ever expect to find with another partner, should they be separated from their current one for any reason. They could survive alone if necessary-- both are strong, pragmatic women-- but his presence makes everything that much brighter, that much better.
Never would either of them contemplate entering the institution of marriage for any lesser reason.
(And No, That Doesn't Make Me Any Less My Own Person!)
Because marriage is an institution with negative connotations, as far as they're concerned. Sara and Hermione have had very different upbringings, and thus very different examples of marriage to imprint on, but both are strong, determined, well-educated women; they recognize legitimized, habitual discrimination and othering where it exists, and have resolved never, never, to perpetuate or be party to such inequities themselves.
For despite every house-elf freed from cruel masters, and every murder victim successfully spoken for, there is always the unrepentant Death Eater or hardened criminal who gets away; in the end, the only thing a woman can really control is herself; the only thing she can do is try.
Anyone who expects anything less from either of them is in for a serious disappointment.
~
For
anabels: HP/CSI; 962 words; set roughly Book 7/Season 7. As Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "A woman is like a tea bag. You never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water."
Hermione has never met a book she didn't like. Well, that's not quite true; there've been a few that she knows are filled from cover to cover with lies. But she's never met a book that she didn't want to read at least once; books have been her friends since the days she was a small, unpretty little girl with big front teeth and bigger hair. Human friends have come with time; but books have stayed with her, for the more she learns, the more things connect together in her mind, and the more she wants to know. Acquiring knowledge, especially useful knowledge, is one of her life's great pleasures.
For Sara, the passion for knowledge doesn't burn as brightly, but it endures; it gets her through the sleepless nights, it keeps her company when her apartment is otherwise echoingly empty, and best of all-- allows her to surprise her coworkers and friends from time to time with bits of knowledge no one expected her to have. There's a certain degree of pleasure in knowing something other people don't; though of course with Grissom around she's on the other end of the stick far more often.
Fortunately-- or, perhaps, unfortunately-- for Hermione, she's rarely had the experience of playing second fiddle in the font of all knowledge department among her peers, and it's brought her trouble almost as often as it's brought her pleasure. But for all that she's dismissed her talents as books and cleverness to her friends, she also knows that without that talent-- without her there to research and assist Ron and Harry in the various heroics and idiocy that have fallen their way over the years-- her boys might never have survived their first year, never mind the war. She's fairly certain that that willingness to act-- and the satisfaction she gets from doing so-- is why the Hat put her in Gryffindor over Ravenclaw.
Sara's exercise of her knowledge may be a little less flashy than Hermione's-- she's never created a beaded bag with bottomless capacity, for example, nor braved basilisk-haunted corridors to discover the secret of a monster's movements-- but it's just as useful, and necessary, and on good days gives her a warm feeling of fulfillment. She may not be able to protect anyone with what she can do and discover, not even other cops, but she can help find out exactly what happened to them, and how the criminal that harmed them can be prevented from repeating his or her evil in the future.
The only major area that Hermione's knowledge and passion have been entirely useless to her in-- well, aside from Divination, and what a load of nonsense that is-- is romance. She discovered hormones at about the same time as all her peers, and was extremely flattered by the attention of Viktor Krum in her fourth year, but his was never the attention she truly wanted, and the same has proven true of every other boy she's so much as flirted with over the years. It may have taken her some time to come to grips with that fact-- and him even longer; Hermione spent altogether too much time seeing green over his attentions to Lavender Brown-- but Ron has always sparked a more emotional response from her than any other boy, even Harry.
Sara knows that feeling intimately; she has had many more boyfriends over the years than Hermione, some of whom she even developed serious intentions for, but none of them ever affected her anywhere near as deeply as Gilbert Grissom does, just by being there and breathing. Logic is no help in her dealings with him; he distracts her focus, throws all her intentions into disarray, and prompts her to do rash things she would never otherwise contemplate.
Despite all the troubles their love for their respective men has brought them, however-- despite all the moments of extreme embarrassment and misunderstanding, of partnerships almost broken, laws skirted, and lives endangered because of that perhaps-unwise emotional connection-- neither woman would ever, or could ever, contemplate giving him up.
They each have their particular reasons to love their respective partners; favorite quirks, annoying behaviors rendered amusing by affection, habits of thought, speech, and action that reduce each of them to goo. Long acquaintance and prolonged proximity have brought a depth of understanding and respect that neither would ever expect to find with another partner, should they be separated from their current one for any reason. They could survive alone if necessary-- both are strong, pragmatic women-- but his presence makes everything that much brighter, that much better.
Never would either of them contemplate entering the institution of marriage for any lesser reason.
Because marriage is an institution with negative connotations, as far as they're concerned. Sara and Hermione have had very different upbringings, and thus very different examples of marriage to imprint on, but both are strong, determined, well-educated women; they recognize legitimized, habitual discrimination and othering where it exists, and have resolved never, never, to perpetuate or be party to such inequities themselves.
For despite every house-elf freed from cruel masters, and every murder victim successfully spoken for, there is always the unrepentant Death Eater or hardened criminal who gets away; in the end, the only thing a woman can really control is herself; the only thing she can do is try.
Anyone who expects anything less from either of them is in for a serious disappointment.
~
