Haunting Landscape Photography Inspired by the Brothers Grimm Fairytales by Kilian Schönberger
German photographer Kilian Schönberger is deeply inspired by the exquisite and gruesome Brothers Grimm’s fairytales. Stunning and haunting, the images are brooding, atmospheric, which instantly transport you to a fantasy world, where the woods seem spookier, darker and far more enchanting than on Earth. Although Schönberger is colorblind, he understands that the composition and geometry of an image convey its mood and beauty.
yarrayora-deactivated20230104 asked: request: ron weasley finding himself waking up in his younger self's body + "Harry might have forgiven you, named his sons after you two, but I'm not Harry and I'll make sure he will have a life beyond your plans"
Ron Weasley is thirty years old. He
has fought a war and survived it, too; he’s loved and lost and loved again,
he’s buried one brother and sired two children and he’s—lived. The evidence of
this is all around him, in the ache of his bones and the premature gray streaking
his hair. It’s in the tired smiles he and Hermione will share on the days that
still—still, even now, even years
later—rest heavy on their souls with loss.
When he slips underneath the covers it’s
with the warm weight of his wife by his side and the knowledge his children are
just a room over. He shuts off the lights with a weary wave of his wand and
closes his eyes with a soft sigh. Hermione grabs his hand beneath the sheets and
her fingers are warm. She squeezes his hand. He smiles, soft, and squeezes
back. He falls asleep with her hand in his.
Ron awakens from his sleep a child
of eleven years, with gangly limbs and unscarred skin and no body lying beside
him. He wakes up alone, young, and scared—falls straight out of bed into a heap
on the floor, threadbare blankets twisted around him, his brothers snoring
across the room. His hands are smooth and soft, free of calluses. The hair on
his head is thick and a brilliant red, no gray in sight. His bones do not ache.
His eyesight is as strong as it ever was.
Ron awakens into a world he outgrew
years and years ago—and screams.
-
At first he is inconsolable, and no whispered
words of comfort from his mother can calm him. She is too young and he is too
small, and the sight of her starts the angry helpless tears anew, grief
clogging his throat.
At first Ron mourns, mourns the loss
of the future they all bled to create. He mourns his wife, his children. His
friends. He doesn’t know what’s going on, but Ron has lived too long not to
listen to instinct, and he knows—he won’t be going home. He won’t be going
back. He’s lost them all.
That’s when the sorrow turns to
rage.
Ron is old. Old at thirty, true, but
hasn’t he earned the right? Haven’t they all? He’s betrayed and been betrayed,
he’s bled a thousand times and lost so much—friends, family, innocence. His
childhood was a warzone and he’s spent the last twenty years making sure his
children never grew up the same way. His life wasn’t always happy but it is
better, it’s bright. It’s his.
So how dare they, whoever they are,
whoever is responsible—how dare they take that from him. He fought for that
happy ending, his brother died for it, and the rest of them nearly followed.
How dare they dishonor that sacrifice. How dare they take Ron from a time of
peace and place him right back into the bloodbath.
How dare they.
-
He spends nearly a week in this
state, caught between rage and sorrow, tottering back and forth between the
two. His family has noticed, and he can tell by their worried glances that he’s
starting to freak them out. Even the twins are acting…. Far nicer than Ron
remembers them to be, but that certainly doesn’t help—Ron can’t look Fred or
George in the eye, and every time Percy places a hand on his shoulder he
flinches.
He’s a mess. He knows it, they know
it. One week back in the past and he’s already screwed up.
In the end, it is his mother’s
desperate tactic of using his upcoming year at Hogwarts to try and cheer him up
that snaps him out of his stupor. Hogwarts. Harry, Hermione, Luna, Neville. War
and blood and friendship and –
Ron has three weeks until he boards
the train, three weeks until the year that changes everything is kick-started
into motion.
Ron thinks of war and blood and
brothers who died too early. He thinks of Harry, tired and old even at seventeen,
blood crusted on his cheek. Hermione, eyes flinty, shoulders set back as she
prepares to fight for her life. He thinks of Luna caged in the Malfoy cellar
and Neville as he slayed the snake, and he thinks—
No. He knows.
They earned their happy ending, once
upon a time. But that future is gone, now, so maybe—maybe this time—
Maybe Ron can find it for them.
Maybe this time, no one has to die.
Ron has three weeks before Hogwarts.
Three weeks before the train. Three weeks to save the world.
And Ron may not be the hero, or the
chosen one—but he has always, always, been good at strategy.
-
When he steps on the train it’s with
fear in his heart and excitement lodged in his throat. The bag looped around
his shoulders is filled with roast-beef sandwiches Ron has never liked (but
Harry will eat them and so he doesn’t mind), used books, and a hand-me-down wand.
But there are also journals, made invisible with illegal spells Hermione slaved
over years ago, journals filled with diagrams and plots and important things
Ron cannot afford to forget.
(He hopes, just a little bit, to
perhaps buy a pensive. One day. It’s a stupid
idea, but—is it so wrong for Ron to want to see his children again, even if
only in his memories?)
Ron steps onto the platform and it’s
like stepping into Hogwarts the first time—it’s bustling and loud and alien,
almost menacing in its confusion. He sees faces of future enemies and future
friends alike—Draco Malfoy, sharp features soft with baby fat, sneer
ill-fitting on his sallow face; Neville Longbottom, shoulders hunched near his
ears and toad clenched in shaking hands, no confidence to be found; Lavender
Brown, her pretty face glowing, small hoops dangling in her ears, no blood
beneath her perfectly manicured nails.
It shakes him to the core, and
though Ron is young, now, young and small and as gangly as the rest of them, he
fancies himself a stranger. They are so young, all of them, young in body and eyes
and soul. It hits Ron right then and there that though he may try, he’ll never
see those brothers- and sisters-in-blood in these children. They’re here before
him but they’ll never be as he remembers them to be, once upon a future.
He nearly flees onto the train, but the
twins are close behind, their eyes watchful and worried. Still, he cannot meet
their eyes.
“Gotta go,” Ron tells them, before
they can comment, and then he dashes up the steps and into the corridor. He
waves out the open door with half-hearted enthusiasm when his family looks
back, uncertain. He smiles to put them at ease, and maybe he even means it. It
makes him feel better, being on the train: the only way to go now is forward.
His mother beams at him, waving
wildly, Ginny bouncing on her heels beside her. For the first time their young
faces do not fill Ron with grief. Instead, as he waves wildly back, something
warmer rises in his chest. Something like hope.
There’s a whole future before him, and
Ron is ready. All the pieces in place. Voldemort best be ready, because Ron has
been playing this game his whole life. He’s not planning on losing now.
Ron wanders the train, careful not
to sit down. He’ll have to wait until the train is about to leave to find Harry,
and as he glides past the youthful faces of his year-mates he finds himself
settling. He sees Hermione and smiles at her as bright as he can—it hurts to
see her, but the small smile she gives back leaves him giddy for the rest of
the trip.
A whistle blows. Ron wanders forward,
already knowing where to go.
Harry is at the back, as he always
is, leaning against the widow with his eyes half-lidded as he watches. Ron
watches him, too. Sees the shadows under his eyes and the quiet slump of his bony
shoulders and marvels, again, at how young they all are.
He thinks too of Dumbledore, and
Snape, and children named after heroes and villains alike. Harry had forgiven
them, but that was years ago, and Ron has never been the hero. Never been all
that good at forgiving.
They’re young, all of them. Just
children, and that fact is clearer to him now. They are all just children.
He’ll have a life beyond your game of chess, Ron thinks—promises. This time, he’ll be better. He won’t
let himself be blinded by jealousy or necklaces that whisper in the night.
He’ll save them all, be the friend he tried to be and this time succeed at it—and
this time when Harry looks back at these years, he’ll have more happy memories
than bad ones.
For the future Ron lost, for the
future he could yet have again—Ron will make sure of it.
He slides back the door and smiles
when bottle-green eyes glance back. A whistle blows loud and piercing. Beneath
his feet, the train begins to move.
“Hi,” Ron says. “Can I sit here?
Everywhere else is full.”
Harry nods, slow and careful. Ron
smiles his brightest smile, and for the first time, feels no grief, no fear, no
worry.
It’s a new day, a new game, and Ron
is ready to play.
I would sell my soul, my mother, and my dog’s heart for 100,000 more words of this
The thing about Harry Potter as a character is that he is insanely observant when he actually cares enough to pay attention. Meaning 90% of the stuff he deems unimportant flies over his head, but he makes these huge leaps of logic and intuition when he bothers to focus. Like in the books when it comes to anything relating to Voldemort or Death Eaters or People Not To Be Trusted (Draco, Umbridge). Growing up, he had to be able to see when a situation was going south long before the frying pan or Dudley’s fists came his way. But he also had to be able to ignore and tune out the constant flow of shit and neglect he was treated to.
If you think about it, for all the better aspects of Hogwarts, it still followed this same basic pattern. He had to pay close attention to the things trying to kill him (even classes took a back seat to this), but find a way to ignore and not acknowledge all the rumors and staring and people thinking he’s a prat or the heir of slytherin or a liar. I think this is why the arguments that Harry is a mushroom and notices nothing, and the arguments that he is deductively brilliant can exist side by side. He’s both. It’s also why, in my opinion, he tends to be ridiculously observant of Ginny once he starts to notice her as something important. She barely exists in the early narrative other than Someone to Be Saved. It’s also why Ginny can sometimes feel like she ‘comes from nowhere’ in the narrative. As far as Harry is concerned, she did come from nowhere. The switch in Harry’s brain went from Doesn’t Matter–Ignore to Very Important–Pay Close Attention, and BAM, there she was. Everywhere.
This is why I don’t get people who think Harry has no characterization. He’s very smart and is a product of neglect and abuse.
He has low self esteem in book one, cause the Dursleys treated him like nobody. He’s utterly devoted to his friends cause he’s never experienced love. How loving he is is actually super touching. Hogwarts seems amazing to him not so much because of the magic but because there’s so much food and love and friendly people and he’s assumed to belong there and to be worthy of inclusion!
He investigates things on his own or with the few friends he trusts, rather than going to teachers or asking for help, because no adults have helped him in life so far. He’s survived the Dursleys because he relied on himself. Authority figures are not to be trusted. Remember when Umbridge is torturing him with that quill? He just treats it as a private contest between himself and Umbridge. Ron and Hermione are appalled, and Hermione tells him to go to McGonnagal. But Harry has been set up to internalize abuse and assume no help will come. And because of his experiences with abuse he pays attention to where the real power lies. Cause that’s where the real threat is. He’s right that Umbridge has more power than McGonnagal, and more even than Dumbledore. When Dumbledore is called upon to protect Harry from Umbridge, Dumbledore does, but at the cost of his own job. And then he’s not there to protect anyone else after that.
Harry’s a very good example of someone whose ptsd is an asset in some ways, cause he often has the right insticts at dealing with actual danger. He’s very skilled.
For instance, he’s very tuned in to signs of danger and he always takes them seriously. This is partly why Hogwarts seems so dangerous to us (I mean, also cause it is, but this is partly why). The idea that Snape could be working for Voldemort? The worst is always possible! The idea that McGonnagal is gonna hit him with a wooden stick? The idea that he’s gonna be expelled any time in the first book? The idea that he’s gonna die on this detention in the forbidden forest? They all seem like real threats, but if Voldemort hadn’t been back, that detention would have been fine, and McGonnagal put him on the quidditch team instead of hitting him, and he was never gonna get expelled. Some of the sense of urgency and danger is just Harry being hypervigilent.
More examples:
The idea that the mermaids are gonna drown Hermione and Fleur if the time runs out in the second task?
The idea that he needs to go into the Chamber of Secrets instead of telling a teacher?
The idea that Voldemort had Sirius in the department of Mysteries?
Harry sometimes gets it wrong and sometimes gets it right, but he always assumes that any danger is real and reacts as though it’s the worst case scenario. And when it is the worst case scenario, that serves him well.
That’s a mentality that comes from growing up with the Dursleys, because the worst frequently did happen and Harry had to watch out for danger all the time. Which leads to hypervigilence.
People sometimes think he’s stupid for not realizing the second task wasn’t going to kill anyone, for instance. But it’s just his ptsd - he’s primed to go into fight or flight at any time.
It’s also why he has that “saving people thing.” He’s suffered, so he is empathic to suffering. He doesn’t want people to suffer.
And he’s had bad things happen around him, so he’s ready for the worst to happen to other people too. And he’s never had anyone save him, so he doesn’t think anyone else will jump in and save the day. And he’s had people be bystanders of abuse to him all his life, so he won’t be that.
So he’ll jump in and save people. It’s a strong urge.
He’s also used to suffering himself and thus will internalize a lot before going to anyone for help. Remember when he was fourteen and felt embarrassed that he wanted someone like a parent to write to about a murderer possibly being back (his scar hurting)? He wrote to Sirius.
He was embarrassed. In his own head. For wanting to have an adult he could confide in. At 13.
And when he was fifteen and had just seen someone murdered? He yelled at Ron and Hermione a lot. Lots of people have trouble with that too and find him over the top.
But they’re his family. He doesn’t have any adults to yell at. (He does eventually yell at Dumbledore). He only confides in Sirius that one time, and then realizes that could put Sirius in danger and stops.
Harry’s also very snarky and sarcastic and he loves his friends a lot and he’s very determined and stubborn. And he has a huge amount of love and appreciation for good things - time at the Weasleys, jokes, good food, love and friendship. He appreciates it so damn much. It breaks my heart and makes me love him.
So yeah. He’s damn good at resisting and fighting. Cause he’s been doing that all his life, and cause he’d do anything for the world that showed him love for the first time.
Having read the books multiple times and watched the movies too, i never felt a connection to harry. Because i never understood him