All men are equal.
Equal?
Before f i s h.

For one lingering moment, silence reigned. Huddled in her corner, Ariel's long eyelashes fell over her half-closed eyelids, a frown settled on her face, until Philippine shook herself out of the unexpected blue-ness of the moment and said, "Right. Moving on."

Moving on? Ariel did not quite want to move on. Not yet. She felt strange, like in a dream, hazy and suddenly intangible, as if she had grabbed a thread that led her somewhere. But this was Ruby's clue to glare and, in the ensuing semi-chaos, she'd forget the feeling she had had before, forget the feeling she had had before and forgotten each time.

"Moving on?" Ruby asked incredulously, hands on hips. If Philippine [or Ariel] expected her to throw a tantrum about the man's misbehaviour, or comfort the latter, they could not have been more mistaken. "How is that even possible? SHEE, Philippine, has just ruined my chances to get the hottest, new boyfriend in town. I could have flaunted him. You hear? Flaunted him!"

She stuck her head out of the compartment door as she spoke, fully expecting to see Mr. Hot standing there, leaning against a door, a bouquet of red roses in his arms, a lazy grin on his face as he said, "I've been looking for you all my life, Ruby! We'll have the most beautiful babies ever! Marry me!" but, since nothing of that sort happened, shed turned around to face her friends again.

"Do you realize how awful this is for me?" She demanded. "Do you?"

"How do you even know he was hot?" Philippine asked, before Ariel could stop being a small huddled heap in the corner, and respond, sounding exasperated. "Being tall doesn't make anyone hot. Or," she added, thoughtfully. "Professor Grunghead would be the hottest guy in the castle."

[Professor Grunghead, almost seven feet tall, had never been able to woo a female in his entire lifetime. Legend had it that he had once tried to get a half-giantess to marry him, but she had declared him too small and too ugly for her, and said she'd rather marry an apple.]

"I have experience," Ruby said, nose in air. "Six feet of sheer, unadulterated muscles and hotness." Then, realizing that neither of her friends looked interested, she turned to Ariel and asked "Better?" in a voice that suggested she expected yes, of course as a response. She could, too, having known Ariel long enough to be aware that the redhead rarely ever remained upset for more than five minutes, give or take a few seconds.

"The big, blue man got offended," came the response, as Ariel hugged herself, a frown crossing her face. "He broke Mr. Banana Split, and then he got offended. I ask you, Grunghead-lookalike or not, what kind of man does that? Does he even realize that if he keeps this up, he might be attacked by faeries?" Crossing her arms, she stared at Ruby. "They don't like big blue men that break other people's toys and then take offence at being told they're big and blue and mean."

"He is not a Grunghead lookalike," Ruby said, that comment being the only one that she seemed to have registered. "He's hot, and you've ruined my chances -" She paused. "Have any of you noticed, the train's been moving for a while now?" Then her eyes widened. "Goodness, that means he must have gotten off. I can't even ask him out, now! This is ter -"

"Oh, shut up. He was looking at you like one might at an egg that suddenly starts speaking," Philippine said oh-so-pleasantly, as she slipped arm around Ariel. This comment might have caused a giant argument, if the train had not chosen that moment to halt. It did, though, and Ruby became instantly concerned about her hair, and Philippine had to peek out of the window to catch a glimpse of Rylon, and as for Ariel, she tiptoed out of the Express, making faces at everyone [not rude faces, really. Just random ones.] and running right into John River,

Who, it might be mentioned, had been looking for her.

"Hi there, French boy." Something had been tugging at her mind, something that she could not quite put her finger on, something like a dark, dreary dream, but seeing another rather familiar face made it disappear almost at once. "Come to carry my luggage?" She looked at him, eyes big and bright and sparkling, and John, still recovering from her having run into him, could not quite say no. "This mean blue man took it, so I'm sorry you can't carry it."

John, inwardly thankful to the mean blue man, decided this was going to get nowhere if he did not act fast.

"Black robes suit you," he said, voice low.

For a moment, Ariel looked surprised. Then she grinned.

"That's the kind of thing guys tell Ruby all the time. You mistaking me for her, French boy?" She tiptoed around him, her tones all bright and conspirational. "She has red hair too, but hers is a rather copperish shade, you know? So much more glamooorous. Glamooorous. I like that word. It sounds funny. Like your name. Like a fish." She giggled, and then she tiptoed off.

Leaving a sour-faced John behind.

Leaving a sour-faced John behind who, as he stuck his hands in his pockets - and asked himself why, why on earth, his great-great-great grandparents had at some point in ancient time, decided that River sounded like a good name for their son - found himself thinking rather gloomily,

Dear Diary, today the girl I intend to date told me my name sounds like a fish. It was the best day ever.



Reference:

[] "All men are equal before fish -" Herbert Hoover.

Old fate slowly builds
her mute countenance
What a bird shrieks here
springs there like a gasp of warning
from a soothsayer’s hard mouth.

Destiny casts
its nightly spell.
Still to come, it does not reach out,
it remains
a phantom
floating in its heavenly course.


Cunning, ambitious, powerful.

Evil?

Lord Voldemort had never thought of himself as evil, per se. He had thought of himself as cunning, as ambitious, as powerful, as a lot of other adjectives, but never as 'evil.'

Good and evil were not terms the Dark Lord could understand, or wished to understand. To him, neither mattered or could matter. It was ambition that drove him, not ambition to be known or feared or have, but ambition to known and feared and have. Have everything. The power and means to buy [whatever he wanted to, including people], the power and means to control [whatever he wanted to, including nature] and the power and means to sell [whatever he wanted to, including his soul].

And that, of course, made the prophecies all the more dangerous.

Nip the evil in the bud. He thought along the lines of nip the threat at stage one, but the thought process was the same: stamp out the flame, before it turned into a fire. He had thought, at one time, of that as an easy task. But time had proved things to be otherwise, even if he could never have admitted it in front of anyone.

It wasn't Severus's information that made him anxious. The Potters and their child, he could take care of in a matter of seconds. Of course, he had plans to make first. He had no thought of leaving anything, even the most minor detail, to chance. And there was Severus's wish for the boy's mother to be left alive and intact, if possible.

He had a mind to reward Severus, and he felt he could. Probably should. Leave the woman alive. Could he separate her from the kid, beforehand? He had seen more than one mother attempt to save her child or children.

But, of course, the more he thought of the Potters, the more he thought of that night years ago.

He had never mentioned that first prophecy to anyone, not even to the death-eaters he most trusted. It had stuck, in some depth of his heart, like an annoying needle, and there had been nothing he could do - at least nothing tangible he could do - about it. So he had looked for his leads, and remained quiet about it. Letting others know your weaknesses, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, could never be a good idea.

That night. It had been the first and last time he had seen the girl. She had been weak and near death, and her face had been gaunt, though still handsome. Large dark eyes, oriental, mysterious, stared out of it in a stubborn will to live, refusing to die; and in a tough sort of pride, refusing to shed tears. He hadn't liked the look of her, insolent, too-knowing, and staring at him as he killed the five men in the pub [he had still operated alone, at that time. In disguise, but alone] and, for good measure, the bartender.

She didn't have a wand and, not fearing retaliation from her, he had left her for the last. But he never got to kill her.

She had made the prophecy just as he raised his wand.

He could tell a real prophecy from a fake, by then. But, even if he hadn't been able to, he'd have doubted she had done it to stall for time, because the trance seemed to take something vital from her, and she had collapsed and closed her eyes the moment she had stopped speaking. He hadn't been shaken by the threat. More by the fact that he didn't know the source of this new threat. And might never.

In retrospect, he felt he ought to have at least checked if she had lived or died. But he hadn't. He had just drawn himself up to his full height and left in a swirl of black hood-and-cloak. And, in some small measure, he had almost come close to regretting that decision, once or twice. He had never been able to trace her, and he had a good idea she had died that night. Despite the stubborn look in her eyes, she hadn't had enough strength to live on for long, even before she had fallen to the floor in a motionless heap.

But he didn't regret his decision, any more.

"Yaxley, are you sure?" The red gaze, calm though he did not feel calm, fixed itself on the death-eater standing in the room. If this could be a true lead, if he could just know the source of his threat..

"You have my word, my lord."

The Dark Lord rose to his feet. "Very well, then," he said. "Let us pay this man a visit."



Reference:

[] "Old fate slowly builds -" From the poem Behind the Blameless Trees, by Rainer Maria Rilke.