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#24 - good night
White Night
- a midsummer night's dream -
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They walk along the Neva one night.
St Petersburg is completely different by night, all the noises have died down and it's quiet. They meet other people sometimes; lovers walking slowly along the river hand in hand, groups of young people talking quietly and laughing among themselves. Ron and Pansy only speak in hushed voices tonight as well - neither one of them are very eloquent, and they realise that the loud, silly conversations they usually have would not fit into this night.
They walk slowly, stopping sometimes to let Pansy spell out a word somewhere - she doesn't quite understand the words, but she's getting better at understanding Cyrillic's.
The light never leaves completely, but lingers, making the midsummer night so dreamlike that they wonder whether they're really awake or not. The bridges over the river are raised, and they think this might just be the most magical thing they have ever seen. Perhaps this is why so many wizards are pulled to this city, why it has one of the largest concentrations of a wizarding population in the world.
They pause to sit down by the river and watch the boats silently pass by.
"We should come here in winter sometime. Then we could walk on the river."
When the half-light of the night gives way to morning, they return to their temporary home with Pansy's aunt. "Good morning," Ron says, kissing Pansy on the forehead.
"Dobroe utro," she answers in what is probably a bad accent.
The sunlight creeps in through the window soon after they go to sleep.