shocfix (![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} shocfix) wrote,@ 2005-02-01 15:00:00 |
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Godric's Hollow - Chapter Fifteen : Choices - H/R - PG-13
Title: Godric’s Hollow
Author:shocfix
Pairing: Harry/Ron
Rating: NC-17
This is my Big Damn Table, turned into a multi-chaptered novella.
One hundred stories inspired by Broke Back Mountain.
Ron looks back on his life with and without Harry.
Chapter Fifteen : Choices
Choices
Just before Teddy took his NEWTs, we got a very strange owl from Professor McGonagall.
He had been in all the classes necessary for being accepted in Auror training; he was passionate about DADA; it was all he’d asked about during his careers advice sessions.
And he had changed his mind.
He had applied for desk jobs in several departments at the Ministry.
Hermione packed me off to Hogsmeade to see him and he ambled down from the castle to meet me at the Three Broomsticks, looking happy as a lark.
We sat and nursed a butterbeer, making small talk about the family, about the Cannons.
Eventually he smiled lopsidedly at me and said, “Well, aren’t you going to lecture me about my career choices?”
I smirked back. “Well, we can tell your mother that I did. Really I’d just like to know your reasoning.”
He nodded. “Fair enough. Auror training pays almost nothing. Three more years of study, with no money, living at home. Not for me.”
“We’re not kicking you out, Ted,” I complained.
“I know that, Dad,” he laughed. “In fact, I’m counting on it.”
“Well?”
“The departments I applied to have the best paid entry programmes,” he explained. “I’m gonna work hard and save every penny – so I’ll have to live at home!”
“This is just about money?” I asked, fully aware how money, or the lack of it, had dominated my childhood, and that Teddy had never had this problem.
“No, not just about money, Dad. About what money can buy.”
But he wouldn’t explain further, and I had to floo home and tell Hermione that he’d given it a lot of thought, and chosen the departments that interested him most.
Life
So Teddy left school and started working all hours god sends at the Ministry.
His bosses loved him, and not in a Percy way.
He was keen and enthusiastic and he really did save every penny, and this wasn’t normal eighteen-year-old boy behaviour.
A summer job at the pub to save some money for frittering away on booze and girls, fine.
But not a career.
Well, it was his life.
My grown-up son.
Who made his own decisions and got cheerfully on with it, dependant on nobody.
While his pitiful father actually managed to get away with his secret lover for a few days that summer, without discussing anything of any significance whatsoever.
We sat in the same comfortable silence that I had with Hermione.
We’d known each other too long to need to fill the silence with small talk.
We made love.
Less often and less gymnastically than before, but I lay in bed, with a sleeping Harry in my arms, and my heart physically ached to be able to be as close as we once were.
School
Alex went back off to school that autumn and I was intensely aware that this was her last year.
That she would leave school, and go off into the world, and Harry would be free.
Untethered to the Wizarding World by anything other than the occasional call from an adult child.
And me.
I didn’t know what to do.
I felt like time was finally running out.
That it was my last chance to be with him.
I thought that Teddy would as miserable as me, with Alex at school, but, without her around in the evenings, he just did overtime at work and I never saw him.
What was he saving up for, anyway?
Work
So.
We all worked really hard that year.
Teddy had his mysterious project.
Hermione was elected to the Wizengamot and bounced around the house like she hadn’t done in years, full of plans for new legislation, new rights, prison reform.
The Quidditch World Cup was taking place that summer, and my department was swamped. I spent months smoothing feathers between various Quidditch Associations.
Harry had been promoted at the hospice and was enjoying the authority, too.
He and Hermione talked long into the night about their projects.
Teddy never mentioned his.
No one but me seemed to care about Quidditch.
Home
Something truly dreadful happened that spring, of course.
I turned fifty.
Fifty!
Shit.
We had a big family thing, with all the brothers and all the cousins and I was left with the feeling that I really should decide what to do with my life any year now.
Summer arrived and I was up to my ears in Quidditch, and Hermione was up to her ears in goblins, and Teddy was up to his ears in overtime and Galleons, and Harry was, well, god knows where.
Until the day he brought Alex home from King’s Cross.
And she dragged him through the hedge to our house, where the three of us were having supper in the garden.
I got up to kiss her on the cheek and she hugged Hermione.
“Glad to be home, princess?” I asked, pouring a cold drink for her.
“You have no idea, Uncle Ron,” she groaned, sinking into the chair next to Teddy.
“So, what plans for the summer?” Hermione asked, handing Harry a plate of chicken and the salad bowl. “Take it easy? Backpacking round Europe?”
“Nope,” said Teddy. “We’re getting married.”
Title: Godric’s Hollow
Author:
shocfixPairing: Harry/Ron
Rating: NC-17
This is my Big Damn Table, turned into a multi-chaptered novella.
One hundred stories inspired by Broke Back Mountain.
Ron looks back on his life with and without Harry.
Chapter Fifteen : Choices
Choices
Just before Teddy took his NEWTs, we got a very strange owl from Professor McGonagall.
He had been in all the classes necessary for being accepted in Auror training; he was passionate about DADA; it was all he’d asked about during his careers advice sessions.
And he had changed his mind.
He had applied for desk jobs in several departments at the Ministry.
Hermione packed me off to Hogsmeade to see him and he ambled down from the castle to meet me at the Three Broomsticks, looking happy as a lark.
We sat and nursed a butterbeer, making small talk about the family, about the Cannons.
Eventually he smiled lopsidedly at me and said, “Well, aren’t you going to lecture me about my career choices?”
I smirked back. “Well, we can tell your mother that I did. Really I’d just like to know your reasoning.”
He nodded. “Fair enough. Auror training pays almost nothing. Three more years of study, with no money, living at home. Not for me.”
“We’re not kicking you out, Ted,” I complained.
“I know that, Dad,” he laughed. “In fact, I’m counting on it.”
“Well?”
“The departments I applied to have the best paid entry programmes,” he explained. “I’m gonna work hard and save every penny – so I’ll have to live at home!”
“This is just about money?” I asked, fully aware how money, or the lack of it, had dominated my childhood, and that Teddy had never had this problem.
“No, not just about money, Dad. About what money can buy.”
But he wouldn’t explain further, and I had to floo home and tell Hermione that he’d given it a lot of thought, and chosen the departments that interested him most.
Life
So Teddy left school and started working all hours god sends at the Ministry.
His bosses loved him, and not in a Percy way.
He was keen and enthusiastic and he really did save every penny, and this wasn’t normal eighteen-year-old boy behaviour.
A summer job at the pub to save some money for frittering away on booze and girls, fine.
But not a career.
Well, it was his life.
My grown-up son.
Who made his own decisions and got cheerfully on with it, dependant on nobody.
While his pitiful father actually managed to get away with his secret lover for a few days that summer, without discussing anything of any significance whatsoever.
We sat in the same comfortable silence that I had with Hermione.
We’d known each other too long to need to fill the silence with small talk.
We made love.
Less often and less gymnastically than before, but I lay in bed, with a sleeping Harry in my arms, and my heart physically ached to be able to be as close as we once were.
School
Alex went back off to school that autumn and I was intensely aware that this was her last year.
That she would leave school, and go off into the world, and Harry would be free.
Untethered to the Wizarding World by anything other than the occasional call from an adult child.
And me.
I didn’t know what to do.
I felt like time was finally running out.
That it was my last chance to be with him.
I thought that Teddy would as miserable as me, with Alex at school, but, without her around in the evenings, he just did overtime at work and I never saw him.
What was he saving up for, anyway?
Work
So.
We all worked really hard that year.
Teddy had his mysterious project.
Hermione was elected to the Wizengamot and bounced around the house like she hadn’t done in years, full of plans for new legislation, new rights, prison reform.
The Quidditch World Cup was taking place that summer, and my department was swamped. I spent months smoothing feathers between various Quidditch Associations.
Harry had been promoted at the hospice and was enjoying the authority, too.
He and Hermione talked long into the night about their projects.
Teddy never mentioned his.
No one but me seemed to care about Quidditch.
Home
Something truly dreadful happened that spring, of course.
I turned fifty.
Fifty!
Shit.
We had a big family thing, with all the brothers and all the cousins and I was left with the feeling that I really should decide what to do with my life any year now.
Summer arrived and I was up to my ears in Quidditch, and Hermione was up to her ears in goblins, and Teddy was up to his ears in overtime and Galleons, and Harry was, well, god knows where.
Until the day he brought Alex home from King’s Cross.
And she dragged him through the hedge to our house, where the three of us were having supper in the garden.
I got up to kiss her on the cheek and she hugged Hermione.
“Glad to be home, princess?” I asked, pouring a cold drink for her.
“You have no idea, Uncle Ron,” she groaned, sinking into the chair next to Teddy.
“So, what plans for the summer?” Hermione asked, handing Harry a plate of chicken and the salad bowl. “Take it easy? Backpacking round Europe?”
“Nope,” said Teddy. “We’re getting married.”