(no subject)
magicofisis I know you don't know me, like AT ALL, but any friend of Harry/Ron is a friend of mine! I signed up way in advance, hoping that I could take the time to get to know you, your interests, what you wanted, needed...What I've really learned is how much you are loved and how much friendship matters to you and those who are lucky enough to call you one. I hope this gives you even a moment of joy.
I didn't mean for it to be quite so sad, and I did plan for it to be much longer. Maybe I could sign up for another turn and continue the retelling of a classic love!
Title: Holes Filling
Pairing: Harry/Ron
Rating: PG at best
A/N: A series of drabbles about our boys and what they are to each other, from the beginning...
Hopefully it will not become painfully obviously that this is completely un-beta'd!
A baby, all dark hair and large green eyes, clings to his mother’s breast. Joyously, she gives the nourishment her body has created as she gazes upon her wonder, her miracle. Somewhere across the room, the rustle of newspaper and harrumphs from time to time, as this is what he supposes husbands are to do; especially ones that are suddenly fathers.
They talk of their day, of their future, and of the future of all their kind. Mostly they speak of the future for their only child. It’s for him that they continue the fight, continue to believe in victory.
***
A baby, pale and ginger, feeds from his mother’s sagging, abused breast. He’s another mouth to feed, another burden to carry. Yet she loves him just the same. She knows she has only these precious moments, this little window of time where he is completely, truly hers. She shuts the world out, caressing the one tiny freckle on the bridge of his nose.
In the distance the sounds of others’ wants and needs creep, but she watches the hand of the clock labeled “Dad” move slowly from “Work” to “Home” and clings to the peaceful moment a bit longer.
***
With parents smiling and looking on, a small boy, zooms by on a broom that barely leaves the ground. A cat screeches and dives for cover. The boy and his father laugh with glee. The mother tries to scold, but it is a birthday celebration. They are alone, hidden from the world. Their only guests a batty neighbor who coos at the boy and tells tales, and a man who delivers news with shifty eyes and a smile that scares the child.
Their world seems to be hovering like the child on his broom, waiting for something to propel them.
***
Slow they thought, stunted perhaps. They watch their youngest son with growing concern. He is quiet and observant and yet, he hasn’t spoken, hasn’t taken his first step.
What they didn’t know, and wouldn’t learn, is that while he watches his brothers run around, shout and laugh, prance and primp, he quietly, in a corner alone, practices; perfecting his technique.
He learns at an early age that to see the particular shine of his mother’s eye, the prideful beam in his father’s smile, he must be extraordinary in a house full of wonders and voices trying to be heard.
***
A toddler plays quietly with his broken, hand-me-down toys. He has learned to prolong the times that the woman with bony arms, who picks him up with resigned sighs, calls naptime by remaining quiet and solitary.
He’s never had playmates, or kind words spoken to him. He shouldn’t miss anyone or wish for anything, and yet. In his quiet alone time, he sees in the back of his mind’s eye, laughing and he hears joyful voices that don’t belong to him or any others in his life. It’s those voices he plays with in the cupboard under the stairs.
***
He is a ginger haired boy lost in a sea of ginger haired kin. Family gatherings and he forgets who he is as aunties pinch his cheeks and call him pet names he detests. His solace is that he is not the only victim, as he watches his twin brothers swipe the mark of orange, waxy lipstick off their cheeks with scowls.
The only highlight of these frequent events is when large hands, swooping him up and placing him securely on their broom, zooms him around the field in search for the elusive Snitch they are in charge of capturing.
***
The boy with freshly shorn hair sits on his tiny bed fuming. The woman in the kitchen preparing tea complains loudly about the cost of barbers and why “that” boy’s hair won’t ever stop growing. Her own son has the perfect head of hair, one that only requires normal trips to the shop.
He tries not to think about his crummy haircut and how much he wishes it were longer. Bad things happen when he has those thoughts. Things that make his aunt wail, his uncle rave and his cousin laugh uncontrollably. He can almost feel the hair growing rapidly in messy tufts.
***
There are times when the noise gets too much, when the others find their enjoyment by picking on their baby brother-even though he’s not a baby anymore and he wishes they’d stop calling him that-becomes more then tiresome. What he wants is a quiet place only he knows about.
When he found the cupboard under the third floor stairs, it becomes his safe haven, playground and hiding space. The nooks perfect for forts and the crannies perfect for holding childhood treasures and secrets. In there he’s the master of all and the king reigning supreme over bugs and vermin.
***
He imagines there are other children like him. Other mistreated children that know in their heart somewhere out there are people who belong to them. People that are thinking of him and wishing he were with them. He knows it and has to keep telling himself as everyday he’s reminded that he is alone.
Strangers on the street waving and shaking his hand intensify these beliefs. He finds himself following the departing backs as they walk away, sometimes they disappear into the crowd, sometimes their disappearing is accompanied by a pop that sounds familiar from a long ago pleasing dream.
***
Walking the crowded streets of Diagon Alley, his twin brothers clutch tightly their first Hogwarts letters and its list of necessities. He looks at the displays in the window with awed wonder. The frown and worried wrinkle of the brow on his mother; it dawns on him.
He is poor.
It never mattered before. But, he sees the other kids with bags in their hands, treats in their sticky fingers; he sees their eyes studying his clothes worn by every other member of his family first.
When his mother hands him the sugar-quill he’d tried not to look at too longingly, he hides the single tear.
***
He doesn’t know how it happens.
When he’s scared while he’s being punished for small infractions by a uncle who loathes him; when he’s lonely after stupidly believing when his cousin invites him to play with his friends, only to pick, taunt and terrorize him for sport; when he’s sad listening to the coos and loving murmurs from the mother upstairs tucking her beloved child to sleep.
Especially, when he’s angry for the unfairness of it all; he closes his eyes, wishes with all his heart for something, anything to happen, and then he blinks and marvels at his unknown power.
***
Two boys get on a train. They are nervous, scared and alone. All around them, the bustle of adventure breathes in their nostrils; fills their eyes with wonders. Neither imagined anything like this.
They feel the magic all around them; know that their lives are just about to begin.
The ginger-haired boy feels himself being led by what he will later call destiny. The dark-haired boy sees the door slide open, sees the freckled boy smile shyly and feels answers being solved for questions he’d never had the strength to ask. As if the half that had been missing was found.