25 July 2004
Harry Potter
Ron & Draco
G

Not mine




When Ron was six, he went with his mum to visit her cousins.  She only took him, and not any of the others; he was proud of that.  Later, he figured out it was because he had new clothes, newer than any of the others', and that made him the most presentable.  The twins went through clothes too brutally to leave Ron hand-me-downs.

In Dorset, they stayed in his aunt-at-some-removal's big house, and Ron slept alone in a huge room, bigger than their kitchen and parlour together.  In the middle of the night, he got scared and went looking for his mum.  Found her and climbed into bed with her.  She made room for him and he snuggled against her nightgown.

Later, there was a garden party.  Lots of witches in tea-robes and carrying umbrellas with wand-wood handles.  The plates of little crustless sandwiches served themselves, and sometimes the flowers chimed.

His mum was tucked up in an arbour with her grandmother, and she looked happy, so Ron went exploring.  The fairies coaxed him away from the crowd, out through the hedges toward the cliffs and the sea.  He wasn't silly enough to jump over the cliff like they wanted him to, but he thought about it.

It was very high, and a little thrilling to be standing there.  Sometimes, looking down from high places, he could feel his body shimmer, whispering that he could fly if he tried.  He didn't listen, except the one time, and that was only a jump from the roof of the shed at home.  The twins were in terrible trouble after, but Ron hadn't broken his neck, and he thought it might be a sign of something.

Bill and Charlie threw him into the air sometimes, and that was wonderful.  Once or twice, they took him up on their broomsticks, and that was even better.

A blond boy in short trousers and a middy blouse stepped out of the hedge and looked over the edge, then stepped back.  Ron wasn't sure how someone could have crawled through the hedge and stayed so clean.

The boy said, "Were you thinking about jumping?"

"No."

"You were leaning out."

"I was only thinking about it a little."

"Can you fly?"

Ron thought about this.  "I don't think so."

"Have you tried?"

"A couple of times."

"Is that how you got so dirty?"

"Not today.  I think that if I jumped now I'd get wet.  Or maybe squished."

The boy looked over the edge and then back at Ron.  "Are you one of my cousins?"

"Probably," Ron shrugged.  "I think I'm cousins with everybody here."

"Hmm."

Ron studied the boy.  They didn't have the same hair, but they were both pale, and maybe that was something.  He didn't look much like his cousins, mostly.  Sometimes, especially that week they'd been visiting, people said he looked too common to be pureblood.

The boy said, "You should try it.  If you're really magic, you won't die.  And if we're cousins, you're probably magic enough."

The boy walked back through the hedge.  Ron pulled his own knee-socks back up.  He wondered whether, when he was older, he'd look more like the rest of his family.

Then he went back and looked over the cliff and thought some more about whether he might be able to fly.


jane
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