Thanks, Ron

[alt_neville]

And thanks to all the Weasleys. I flooed over in the morning and spent the whole day there. The weather was perfect for a lazy day of fishing. Mr Weasley showed us some bait charms. Ron's better at sort of thing than me, so I wasn't surprised that he caught lots more fish. The River Otter is a quiet, sleepy sort of waterway, and we spent all afternoon wading through the pools and casting lines. Eventually we stuck our poles in the ground and talked and ate from the picnic basket Mrs Weasley sent along with us. I got a little sunburned, but I didn't mind. My nose will be peeling next week, though.

Ron tried a charm that the twins told him causes a sort of concussion under water. It's supposed to stun the fish and make them float up to the surface and then you can just scoop them up in a net. Maybe he did it wrong (or, more likely, the twins told him the wrong spell, just for fun) because it didn't make the fish float up. Instead, it just made about every frog that must have lived in the river jump out at him, aiming right for his face.

That was exciting for a few minutes there.

I think we talked about everything under the sun. About comics and Quidditch, of course. But also about school, and what it'll be like next year, now that we'll be taking electives. And about the YPL stuff we'll be doing in London this summer. Even a bit about what we might want to do when we get out of school.

Even if my bait charm didn't impress the fish much, we still caught enough for Mrs Weasley to fry them up for supper. Fish sure tastes amazing when it's been swimming around only a couple of hours before.

Mrs Weasley, I told my Gran all about how you fixed the fish. She's always trying to get Evelyn to eat fish because she says it's healthy, but Evelyn doesn't like it. That cornmeal breading made it taste awfully good, though, and so maybe Evelyn will go for that, if Gran tries fixing it that way.

Comments

I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up To No Good

[alt_terry]

Did Mrs Weasley make you clean the fish?

Re: I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up To No Good

[alt_neville]

Yeah. Ron says that that's a rule with Mrs Weasley: you catch it, you clean it. But of course we could use a charm for that.

Re: I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up To No Good

[alt_terry]

Well, after last summer, when I spent weeks working down at the fish docks, spending all day sorting and gutting and cleaning fish the muggle way, it was three months before I could bear to even look at fish again, much less eat it.

Guess I'm on Evelyn's side.

Re: I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up To No Good

[alt_ron]

Yeah. It's fun to go fishing sometimes, but I sure wouldn't want to make my living at it. Especially not if it was just cleaning fish and not fishing them, y'know? How do Muggles clean fish anywiz?

Re: I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up To No Good

[alt_terry]

You use a knife, slitting them along the belly and then pull the guts out and throw them to the seagulls to eat.

Those knives are real sharp. There was a kid who cut his hand real badly, down to the bone, at the table next to mine.

Re: I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up To No Good

[alt_ron]

That's cleaning them? It sounds like making a nasty mess.

And dangerous, too, I guess. You pull out the guts with your hands? Really?

Re: I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up To No Good

[alt_terry]

Also, if they're being sold to someone locally, we had to scale them, too. That means scraping the scales off. We used a metal tool for that, and the scales would fly all over. They'd get in your clothes, in your hair, and even fly in your mouth and nose and eyes. Ugh.

Yeah, we pulled the guts out with our hands. It was really gross.

Re: I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up To No Good

[alt_sally_anne]

My mum skins animals with a knife.

She never let me do it. She said she was afraid I'd cut myself.

I can't imagine the smell with fish. Ugh.