PARCHMENT (PG) BY IAMSHADOW

[shadowfiction]

Title: Parchment
Rating: PG
Summary: When Harry disappears, Ron does the only think he can think of.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Content: Angst. Barely counts as slash - preslash? Best mates? You decide.
Original Author's Note: Well, it's not UST, but I hope you like it anyway. Merry Christmas. :)
Author's Note 28/05/12: Well, this is a blast from the

Comments

[shadowfiction]

Thank you!

I've been thinking I might start posting some of these old stories over on AO3, but I'd have to be a lot more organised. I think the Teapot 'verse fics in particular would work really well over there, because I could easily arrange them in the order they're meant to be in, and they'd be all interconnected in the right way automatically without it being a hassle.

Right, well, Harry's side of things is pretty basic - he's at Godric's Hollow. He smells of woodsmoke because he's cooking by fire and also heating the house by it (and sleeping next to it). He smells of Muggle shampoo because he's living in a fairly Muggle way, shopping, for example, at Muggle shops, to avoid magical people who might recognise him. He smells like beeswax because what he's been doing for the last six months is fixing the cottage - by hand. (This is not as impossible as it sounds, because, unlike the film, which showed only a few walls standing, the cottage is mostly intact in the book:
"Most of the cottage was still standing, though entirely covered by dark ivy and snow, but the right side of the top floor had been blown apart; that, Harry was sure, was where the curse had backfired."
)
First he did the roof, before the cold weather came in. He's been doing the floors and staircase since then, because almost two decades of being open to the air has led to rot and decay. He's bought wood and nails and everything he needs from a local (Muggle) hardware store, along with manuals. (He's also garnered a few tips from shop assistants who know carpentry, I'd wager.) The beeswax polish is going on over the raw wood to protect it. He's been living downstairs in a couple of the reasonably undamaged rooms. He got used to sleeping rough while on the run, and he's pretty nonchalant about sleeping on the hearth. (It's better than a tent.) He's revived a vegetable patch in one corner of the garden, and the herb and potions garden, with sage and rosemary and lavender and such is wild and untamed but still very much alive. (Lily would have had one.) Though Harry doesn't have the Prince's book any more he did find his mother's personal potions workbook on a shelf in the kitchen, and he's been able to make his own Bruise Balm and such, again avoiding the need for magical contact and Muggle hospitals. (Though he did need to get his glasses replaced at one point.) The frosts are hard by the time Ron writes about winter coming because Godric's Hollow is further north, and at a higher altitude. His handwriting was shaky because he hadn't written to anyone in a long time, and he was nervous about breaking the solitude he'd protected himself with. By the time he wrote to Ron about Christmastime, he'd got up the courage to buy an owl from a local magical petshop, though he probably did so in disguise and he deliberately went for a barn owl rather than buying a conspicuous, non-native owl like Hedwig. That's about it, I think. If I thought of more, I've forgotten it.