shocfix (![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} shocfix) wrote,@ 2005-02-01 09:00:00 |
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Godric's Hollow - Chapter Nine : Food - H/R - R
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 Nine : Food
Breakfast
Neither of us coped very well with turning forty.
Hermione mocked us mercilessly - she hadn’t minded it at all the year before and she was thriving. She was head of a department at work and I almost never saw her at home.
We had two girls who had already left school, two at school, and Teddy practically living next door.
Kate worked at the ministry with her mother and Lizzie had just left school that summer and worked for Fred and George.
We almost never saw them, either. The cousins didn’t get together like they had before Mum died. I visited Dad most weekends, but it was never a big family get-together.
He didn’t ask me about Harry very often, and there wasn’t much to tell. I had felt guilty after fucking him upstairs at my mother’s funeral, and we hadn’t been away together since.
I worked hard, even though I was anything but a head of department – I enjoyed working with the Quidditch clubs, I enjoyed my job.
And I tried to avoid being alone with Harry. I only went round to his place when the kids were still up; I took Teddy home to put him to bed and sometimes I waited up late to eat with Hermione.
I left him alone next door.
And he never questioned it.
He never asked for more.
I had a family thing for my fortieth. My brothers took the piss out of me. Harry watched me from the corner. I hated it.
Harry didn’t want any fuss for his fortieth and Hermione gave me a very funny look when I said that that was up to him and I wasn’t going to organise anything.
When we were getting the kids ready for school at the end of the summer, Hermione suddenly said, “You and Harry haven’t been away since Molly died.”
I shrugged.
“I think you should take some time off, Ron,” she said calmly, folding and packing. “You and Harry can go fishing or whatever it is you do.”
“Harry’s got the kids,” I said, stalling for time.
“Oh, there’s only the two of them – and they entertain each other, anyway. They’ll be fine at the Burrow for a week. What does Charlie do to her clothes? She takes after you.”
“I don’t think Dad can manage alone with two small children,” I said.
“They’re eight and nine – they’re not that small. And Arthur thinks it’s a good idea.”
“You asked him?” I shouted.
“What’s wrong with you?” she frowned.
“You asked Dad if he’ll take them before you asked me if I even wanted to go?”
“Are you listening to yourself, Ron?” she demanded. “I was being polite. If he couldn’t manage them, then it’d be harder for you to get away. What is your problem with this?”
That my dad was meddling again; that he was taking the kids so Harry and I could be together. That it was wrong to take advantage of the fact; of the fact that Hermione was happily arranging this for me.
“I suppose you’ve already asked Harry if he wants to go?” I sulked.
“No,” she said, in an infuriatingly calm voice. “I pretty much assumed you’d both want to go. You used to do it all the time, and you haven’t been away in a couple of years, and Harry has had them full-time without Molly’s help and he is packing two off to school this year and I thought you could both do with a break. I’m sorry I am such a terrible wife.”
A break.
I hadn’t been with Harry for eighteen months.
I knew it was because I had been starving myself of his touch.
And I ached to break my fast.
Lunch
She kept nagging and I kept saying I hadn’t asked Harry yet.
On the first we took the six kids to King’s Cross and the four bigger ones ran off without looking back and Teddy and Alex didn’t even wave goodbye and Hermione took Teddy’s hand and said “Why don’t you two go and have lunch at the Leaky Cauldron and make plans for your trip?”
“Trip?” said Harry as she kissed me on the cheek and dragged the kids out of the station.
“C’mon,” I said, awkwardly, leading the way to a quiet corner and Apparating to the pub.
“Trip?” said Harry as he trailed in behind me and watched as I ordered some lunch and a private room.
We followed Tom down the corridor and watched him tidy up the room and deposit our drinks on the low table by the fireplace.
“Trip?” said Harry as the door closed behind him.
I groaned and ran my hands roughly through my hair.
Luckily, Emily came in with our lunch and bustled about straightening the things that Tom had already straightened once.
We sat at the table and Harry took a bite out of a large wedge of Wensleydale.
“Hermione has arranged with Dad to take the kids so we can go away together,” I said cruelly.
Harry choked on his cheese.
“She thinks it’s a shame that we haven’t done it since Mum died, and Dad was very keen to help out,” I said, watching him choke.
Wensleydale is not an easy thing to swallow in a hurry.
Dinner
That evening I toyed listlessly with my food, sighing loudly and getting on Hermione’s nerves.
“Well?” she asked finally.
“Well, what?” I sulked.
“Well, did you and Harry sort out your trip?”
“Um, no,” I admitted.
“Why not?”
Why not? What could I say? That I was incapable of making the first move? That I missed him so much it hurt, but that it had never been me who made demands.
Except twice.
Twice in my old bedroom at the Burrow.
When he first came back, I’d dragged him to the Burrow and fucked him and it had been two years before he cracked and needed me again.
And this time, well, it had been nearly two years again since I begged him to make love to me at my mother's funeral.
And, while I wanted him, I just couldn't be the one to say it.
And, while I knew he wanted me, I had freaked him out so much by telling him it had always been about what he wanted, that now he didn't dare make a move, either.
Which was probably for the best, wasn't it?
Lunch had been awkward, once he stopped choking.
Neither of us had dared admit that we actually wanted to go away together.
Neither of us had dared admit that we were about to explode from the sexual tension.
It had been pathetic.
So I shrugged at Hermione and said, "Well, I can't really get away. I told Harry, he understood."
Yes, he understood how much of a coward I was being.
He understood that the hair on the back of my neck stood up when he entered a room.
He understood that I could feel his eyes on me across a crowded room.
He understood that I couldn't make the first move again.
So why didn't he make it?
Food
Hermione had taken the day off work to take the kids to King's Cross, so she worked the next weekend.
Teddy and I breakfasted late, in our pyjamas, and made plans for our day.
Or I suggested things and he shot them down.
"Quidditch?"
"Nope."
"Swimming?"
"Nope."
"Wanna visit Lizzie at the shop?"
"Nope."
"We could have lunch at the Leaky Cauldron," I pointed out.
"In a private room?" he asked.
I blinked. "Well, no, not really. Why…"
"Mum says you always have a private room," he said through a mouthful of cereal.
"That's… that's because Uncle Harry doesn't like people staring at him while he eats," I said, trying to get the inappropriate images of Harry in a private room out of my head.
"Uncle Harry should get out more," he said, conversationally. “Then people would get used to seeing him.”
“Well, yes,” I said. “He used to get out more, didn’t he? He used to play professionally.”
“I don’t know anyone else whose dad stays at home,” he said dismissively. “He never sees anyone except you and Mum.”
“Well, he’s busy…”
“I think he needs a girlfriend,” Teddy interrupted and I choked on my toast.
“You do?” I asked weakly.
“Alex used to worry that he’d get married again, but it’s been years and years now, he really needs a girlfriend.”
I had absolutely no answer to that.
He really needed someone.
He was still young, wasn’t he? He was gorgeous, he was rich and famous and Harry Potter and, god knows, still highly sexed, and he had been celibate for practically two years, because I found it hard to justify what we’d done at Mum’s funeral.
It wasn’t as if it was at the actual graveside, was it?
I snorted with laughter and Teddy put his head on the side and frowned at me.
“What’s so funny?” he demanded. “I know Uncle Harry is nearly as old as you, but I bet he could still find someone.”
He could, couldn’t he?
He could find someone.
Someone else.
“Finish your breakfast and get dressed,” I said. “I’m taking you and Alex to the Burrow for the day so I can see Uncle Harry.”
Drink
We grabbed a quick shower and a picnic lunch so poor Dad wouldn’t be imposed upon too much, and climbed through the gap in the hedge into Harry’s garden.
Harry and Alex were still having breakfast, two messy black heads bent together over a jam speckled Daily Prophet as her little finger pointed to each word as she read the sports pages to him.
How had he been such a spectacular father, with the childhood he’d had?
The sheer patience and focus and time he had for his loved ones was amazing.
I know I carelessly fobbed off the care of my littler ones on a big sister if they were home, but that was the same way I’d grown up, I guess. Mum and Dad were always there, but always busy, and sometimes it was easier to go to Bill or Charlie.
And now, with my attention split between Harry and Hermione – was that why I couldn’t commit to one or the other? Why I couldn’t focus my emotions?
Because I know that Harry had the same focus and time for me, if I’d accept it.
I cleared my throat and they both turned round.
“Ron?” he asked, tentatively, obviously not knowing what I wanted from him, having brushed him aside at the Leaky Cauldron the other day.
I put the picnic lunch on the table and pulled Alex’s hair. “Go and get dressed, princess,” I said. “I’m taking you to Granddad’s for the day.”
She bounced out of the room and Harry sat blinking up at me. I hated making him look so unsure. Hadn’t we sworn that this was it? That we were together?
He opened his mouth to speak just as Alex appeared in the doorway, arms full of soft toys.
“You’ve got everything you need?” I asked. “You’re not flooing back and forth all day, your dad and I are going out.”
Teddy took half of the toys from her and they rushed for the fireplace, calling their goodbyes for Harry over a shoulder.
I threw floo powder in the fireplace for them, and they spun away.
I heard Harry get to his feet behind me, but stepped into the flames myself, needing to settle the children before I faced Harry.
Dad was happy to take them, of course, even if I felt my ears flush at the way he smiled at me when I said I needed to spend the day with Harry.
“Don’t hurry back,” he said. “They can spend the night here; I’ll floo Hermione later and tell her you’re going out with Harry for a few drinks.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I said.
“It’s probably best if you spend the night at the pub,” he suggested. “No point splinching yourselves Apparating back to an empty house, what with Hermione working all hours, is there?”
I restrained myself from rolling my eyes with great difficulty and flooed back to Harry’s, my face flushed by more than the flames.
Harry had got dressed in my absence, and he stood nervously in the kitchen, pulling a loose thread out of the cuff of my favourite soft, green cotton shirt.
“Where are we going?” he asked plaintively.
“The pub,” I said and his eyebrows flew up under his fringe.
He nodded and I turned back to the fireplace, saying “Diagon Alley,” as I stepped into the flames.
Harry appeared in the Leaky Cauldron shortly after me and I caught him as he tripped out of the fireplace. You could always tell someone who hadn’t grown up flooing; Harry still stepped out a second too early.
The pub was almost deserted, but I still asked for our drinks to be taken to a private room and Harry trailed after me down the familiar corridor.
When the door closed behind Emily, I turned to face him.
He was frowning slightly and I bit my lip, wishing I’d planned what I was going to say.
“I’m sorry,” I said simply.
“For what?” he asked.
“For being a prat the other day; for being a prat for the last two years; for saying that it’s always about what you want; for making you think you couldn’t come to me when you do want it,” I floundered.
He nodded slowly.
“And for feeling guilty about the whole thing and not being able to come to you.”
“D’you really feel guilty?” he asked. “After all this time.”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “Yeah, I do. Every time I’m with Hermione…”
He snorted.
“What?” I asked.
“At least you have someone to be with, Ron,” he said, simply. “When we’re apart, I have no one. Do you ever think of that?”
“Yeah, I do. I’m sorry, Harry.”
“So,” he sighed. “Have you brought me here to apologise or to hold me?”
I opened my arms and he melted into them. “Both,” I whispered into his hair.
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 Nine : Food
Breakfast
Neither of us coped very well with turning forty.
Hermione mocked us mercilessly - she hadn’t minded it at all the year before and she was thriving. She was head of a department at work and I almost never saw her at home.
We had two girls who had already left school, two at school, and Teddy practically living next door.
Kate worked at the ministry with her mother and Lizzie had just left school that summer and worked for Fred and George.
We almost never saw them, either. The cousins didn’t get together like they had before Mum died. I visited Dad most weekends, but it was never a big family get-together.
He didn’t ask me about Harry very often, and there wasn’t much to tell. I had felt guilty after fucking him upstairs at my mother’s funeral, and we hadn’t been away together since.
I worked hard, even though I was anything but a head of department – I enjoyed working with the Quidditch clubs, I enjoyed my job.
And I tried to avoid being alone with Harry. I only went round to his place when the kids were still up; I took Teddy home to put him to bed and sometimes I waited up late to eat with Hermione.
I left him alone next door.
And he never questioned it.
He never asked for more.
I had a family thing for my fortieth. My brothers took the piss out of me. Harry watched me from the corner. I hated it.
Harry didn’t want any fuss for his fortieth and Hermione gave me a very funny look when I said that that was up to him and I wasn’t going to organise anything.
When we were getting the kids ready for school at the end of the summer, Hermione suddenly said, “You and Harry haven’t been away since Molly died.”
I shrugged.
“I think you should take some time off, Ron,” she said calmly, folding and packing. “You and Harry can go fishing or whatever it is you do.”
“Harry’s got the kids,” I said, stalling for time.
“Oh, there’s only the two of them – and they entertain each other, anyway. They’ll be fine at the Burrow for a week. What does Charlie do to her clothes? She takes after you.”
“I don’t think Dad can manage alone with two small children,” I said.
“They’re eight and nine – they’re not that small. And Arthur thinks it’s a good idea.”
“You asked him?” I shouted.
“What’s wrong with you?” she frowned.
“You asked Dad if he’ll take them before you asked me if I even wanted to go?”
“Are you listening to yourself, Ron?” she demanded. “I was being polite. If he couldn’t manage them, then it’d be harder for you to get away. What is your problem with this?”
That my dad was meddling again; that he was taking the kids so Harry and I could be together. That it was wrong to take advantage of the fact; of the fact that Hermione was happily arranging this for me.
“I suppose you’ve already asked Harry if he wants to go?” I sulked.
“No,” she said, in an infuriatingly calm voice. “I pretty much assumed you’d both want to go. You used to do it all the time, and you haven’t been away in a couple of years, and Harry has had them full-time without Molly’s help and he is packing two off to school this year and I thought you could both do with a break. I’m sorry I am such a terrible wife.”
A break.
I hadn’t been with Harry for eighteen months.
I knew it was because I had been starving myself of his touch.
And I ached to break my fast.
Lunch
She kept nagging and I kept saying I hadn’t asked Harry yet.
On the first we took the six kids to King’s Cross and the four bigger ones ran off without looking back and Teddy and Alex didn’t even wave goodbye and Hermione took Teddy’s hand and said “Why don’t you two go and have lunch at the Leaky Cauldron and make plans for your trip?”
“Trip?” said Harry as she kissed me on the cheek and dragged the kids out of the station.
“C’mon,” I said, awkwardly, leading the way to a quiet corner and Apparating to the pub.
“Trip?” said Harry as he trailed in behind me and watched as I ordered some lunch and a private room.
We followed Tom down the corridor and watched him tidy up the room and deposit our drinks on the low table by the fireplace.
“Trip?” said Harry as the door closed behind him.
I groaned and ran my hands roughly through my hair.
Luckily, Emily came in with our lunch and bustled about straightening the things that Tom had already straightened once.
We sat at the table and Harry took a bite out of a large wedge of Wensleydale.
“Hermione has arranged with Dad to take the kids so we can go away together,” I said cruelly.
Harry choked on his cheese.
“She thinks it’s a shame that we haven’t done it since Mum died, and Dad was very keen to help out,” I said, watching him choke.
Wensleydale is not an easy thing to swallow in a hurry.
Dinner
That evening I toyed listlessly with my food, sighing loudly and getting on Hermione’s nerves.
“Well?” she asked finally.
“Well, what?” I sulked.
“Well, did you and Harry sort out your trip?”
“Um, no,” I admitted.
“Why not?”
Why not? What could I say? That I was incapable of making the first move? That I missed him so much it hurt, but that it had never been me who made demands.
Except twice.
Twice in my old bedroom at the Burrow.
When he first came back, I’d dragged him to the Burrow and fucked him and it had been two years before he cracked and needed me again.
And this time, well, it had been nearly two years again since I begged him to make love to me at my mother's funeral.
And, while I wanted him, I just couldn't be the one to say it.
And, while I knew he wanted me, I had freaked him out so much by telling him it had always been about what he wanted, that now he didn't dare make a move, either.
Which was probably for the best, wasn't it?
Lunch had been awkward, once he stopped choking.
Neither of us had dared admit that we actually wanted to go away together.
Neither of us had dared admit that we were about to explode from the sexual tension.
It had been pathetic.
So I shrugged at Hermione and said, "Well, I can't really get away. I told Harry, he understood."
Yes, he understood how much of a coward I was being.
He understood that the hair on the back of my neck stood up when he entered a room.
He understood that I could feel his eyes on me across a crowded room.
He understood that I couldn't make the first move again.
So why didn't he make it?
Food
Hermione had taken the day off work to take the kids to King's Cross, so she worked the next weekend.
Teddy and I breakfasted late, in our pyjamas, and made plans for our day.
Or I suggested things and he shot them down.
"Quidditch?"
"Nope."
"Swimming?"
"Nope."
"Wanna visit Lizzie at the shop?"
"Nope."
"We could have lunch at the Leaky Cauldron," I pointed out.
"In a private room?" he asked.
I blinked. "Well, no, not really. Why…"
"Mum says you always have a private room," he said through a mouthful of cereal.
"That's… that's because Uncle Harry doesn't like people staring at him while he eats," I said, trying to get the inappropriate images of Harry in a private room out of my head.
"Uncle Harry should get out more," he said, conversationally. “Then people would get used to seeing him.”
“Well, yes,” I said. “He used to get out more, didn’t he? He used to play professionally.”
“I don’t know anyone else whose dad stays at home,” he said dismissively. “He never sees anyone except you and Mum.”
“Well, he’s busy…”
“I think he needs a girlfriend,” Teddy interrupted and I choked on my toast.
“You do?” I asked weakly.
“Alex used to worry that he’d get married again, but it’s been years and years now, he really needs a girlfriend.”
I had absolutely no answer to that.
He really needed someone.
He was still young, wasn’t he? He was gorgeous, he was rich and famous and Harry Potter and, god knows, still highly sexed, and he had been celibate for practically two years, because I found it hard to justify what we’d done at Mum’s funeral.
It wasn’t as if it was at the actual graveside, was it?
I snorted with laughter and Teddy put his head on the side and frowned at me.
“What’s so funny?” he demanded. “I know Uncle Harry is nearly as old as you, but I bet he could still find someone.”
He could, couldn’t he?
He could find someone.
Someone else.
“Finish your breakfast and get dressed,” I said. “I’m taking you and Alex to the Burrow for the day so I can see Uncle Harry.”
Drink
We grabbed a quick shower and a picnic lunch so poor Dad wouldn’t be imposed upon too much, and climbed through the gap in the hedge into Harry’s garden.
Harry and Alex were still having breakfast, two messy black heads bent together over a jam speckled Daily Prophet as her little finger pointed to each word as she read the sports pages to him.
How had he been such a spectacular father, with the childhood he’d had?
The sheer patience and focus and time he had for his loved ones was amazing.
I know I carelessly fobbed off the care of my littler ones on a big sister if they were home, but that was the same way I’d grown up, I guess. Mum and Dad were always there, but always busy, and sometimes it was easier to go to Bill or Charlie.
And now, with my attention split between Harry and Hermione – was that why I couldn’t commit to one or the other? Why I couldn’t focus my emotions?
Because I know that Harry had the same focus and time for me, if I’d accept it.
I cleared my throat and they both turned round.
“Ron?” he asked, tentatively, obviously not knowing what I wanted from him, having brushed him aside at the Leaky Cauldron the other day.
I put the picnic lunch on the table and pulled Alex’s hair. “Go and get dressed, princess,” I said. “I’m taking you to Granddad’s for the day.”
She bounced out of the room and Harry sat blinking up at me. I hated making him look so unsure. Hadn’t we sworn that this was it? That we were together?
He opened his mouth to speak just as Alex appeared in the doorway, arms full of soft toys.
“You’ve got everything you need?” I asked. “You’re not flooing back and forth all day, your dad and I are going out.”
Teddy took half of the toys from her and they rushed for the fireplace, calling their goodbyes for Harry over a shoulder.
I threw floo powder in the fireplace for them, and they spun away.
I heard Harry get to his feet behind me, but stepped into the flames myself, needing to settle the children before I faced Harry.
Dad was happy to take them, of course, even if I felt my ears flush at the way he smiled at me when I said I needed to spend the day with Harry.
“Don’t hurry back,” he said. “They can spend the night here; I’ll floo Hermione later and tell her you’re going out with Harry for a few drinks.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I said.
“It’s probably best if you spend the night at the pub,” he suggested. “No point splinching yourselves Apparating back to an empty house, what with Hermione working all hours, is there?”
I restrained myself from rolling my eyes with great difficulty and flooed back to Harry’s, my face flushed by more than the flames.
Harry had got dressed in my absence, and he stood nervously in the kitchen, pulling a loose thread out of the cuff of my favourite soft, green cotton shirt.
“Where are we going?” he asked plaintively.
“The pub,” I said and his eyebrows flew up under his fringe.
He nodded and I turned back to the fireplace, saying “Diagon Alley,” as I stepped into the flames.
Harry appeared in the Leaky Cauldron shortly after me and I caught him as he tripped out of the fireplace. You could always tell someone who hadn’t grown up flooing; Harry still stepped out a second too early.
The pub was almost deserted, but I still asked for our drinks to be taken to a private room and Harry trailed after me down the familiar corridor.
When the door closed behind Emily, I turned to face him.
He was frowning slightly and I bit my lip, wishing I’d planned what I was going to say.
“I’m sorry,” I said simply.
“For what?” he asked.
“For being a prat the other day; for being a prat for the last two years; for saying that it’s always about what you want; for making you think you couldn’t come to me when you do want it,” I floundered.
He nodded slowly.
“And for feeling guilty about the whole thing and not being able to come to you.”
“D’you really feel guilty?” he asked. “After all this time.”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “Yeah, I do. Every time I’m with Hermione…”
He snorted.
“What?” I asked.
“At least you have someone to be with, Ron,” he said, simply. “When we’re apart, I have no one. Do you ever think of that?”
“Yeah, I do. I’m sorry, Harry.”
“So,” he sighed. “Have you brought me here to apologise or to hold me?”
I opened my arms and he melted into them. “Both,” I whispered into his hair.