It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood
Jan. 14th, 2004 08:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thrihyrneThe Muse seems to be back. Yesterday I worked all day without a lunch break, so I left the office a little after 4. I’m trying to get in a bit more exercise, so I went for about a two mile walk. I feel better doing that when it’s light outside, of course, so that was all enjoyable as I mulled through the (now) 3 stories I’m working on before taking a break. After a dinner of leftovers and yummy salad (I highly recommend adding craisins to salads!) with K., who surprised and delighted me by deciding to go see a movie and let me have some time alone in the house to write, I found that the only story I worked on is this Ron/Hermione one. As I took my walk, I tried to run through possible scenarios for what would happen next. Here’s what had happened before: Ron/Hermione story
And here’s the rest, such as it is, first draft.
Once outside, after a hasty glance to right and left, he murmured (?), and the end of his cigarette burned cheerfully. Ron put it to his lips and deeply inhaled, then let out a satisfying stream of smoke. The moon seemed almost full, or just past, as it glowed rosily in the night sky. Might explain Lupin’s horrid handwriting, he contemplated as he put his wand in his coat pocket and tossed one end of the scarf over his right shoulder. Absentmindedly, his freckle-covered fingers raked through his long hair as he stood leaning against one of the skewed banister railings. After another drag, still staring at the heavy moon, Ron decided that he had time to take a short walk down the road.
The last time that Fred had made such a visit in the fireplace, his fiancée had spent at least thirty minutes talking to Hermione about their upcoming wedding, and bridesmaid’s dresses, and the like. Once Ron had been able to get a word in edgewise, he stared at his older brother. “Fred,” he had said, quite sincerely, “what are you thinking? Elope, like we did! Mum’s already broken in. She won’t cry as much when you tell her.”
Fred had gazed back sympathetically, but shook his head. “Jane won’t hear of it.” His eyes regained their more usual mischevious quality. “Besides, without her nieces and nephews, where else would George be able to try out a few of our newest products?”
Ron had been mid-swig on a butterbeer as that sentence was spoken. He had immediately choked, but his noises were luckily unheard in his home due to the fact that Hermione had decided to take a shower. That had led to far more lucky circumstances for him.
The lanky redhead briefly shuddered as he apprised the stars overhead. Their light was so distant as to seem brittle; the wind which had assaulted him earlier in the day during his team’s training drills was now completely absent. As Ron rummaged through his right coat pocket for the pack of cigarettes, his mind wandered through the exercises the Green Knights had performed, mulling through the strengths and weaknesses of his Beaters and Keepers as he lit a second cigarette from the one he had just finished. He continued walking after tossing the still-glowing papers to the ground, lost in thought about his rather youthful team.
But by damn, they have talent, even if they don’t have much experience.
He was rather startled as he realized that he had already returned to his house on Gaffer’s Row. Must walk faster when I’m thinking about Quidditch, he decided as he took one last drag, then dropped the cigarette and ground it out with the heel of a rather shoddy shoe. Out of habit, Ron unbuttoned his overcoat and flapped it in a birdlike motion in an effort to rid it of some of the smell, then went in through the front door. He took the narrow stairs two at a time, then after entering the kitchen, gave his coat to the first hand which protruded from a rack of five near the door, a wedding gift from Ginny.
Hermione was, he noted sadly, fully dressed again, her hair mostly tidy, and she was using their martini shaker to make a drink. “Bright eyes,” he began, “why don’t we just have some wine? Isn’t it a bit late for - ”
His voice trailed off as she turned to look at him and he heard their toilet flush in the loo. There was someone else in the house.
Ron was so stunned that he simply stood there for a moment, his fingers hanging loosely from his beltloops. A man only slightly shorter than himself emerged into the kitchen, hair impeccably groomed, but his clothes appearing to be rather travel-worn.
“Weasly,” the man said benignly.
Instinctively Ron reached for his wand, but it was in his coat pocket on the wall.
“Ron!” Hermione gasped, her hand clutching at his elbow to restrain him as he leaned toward the coatrack. “Draco is visiting.”
His green eyes stared incomprehensively.
“We are just having a couple of gimlets. He’s on his way to the States, via Iceland.”
She silently pleaded with him, as Draco’s visage took on its more usual haughty look.
“I hope I’m not intruding, Weasley.” The voice, while silky smooth, grated on Ron as though he were being flayed.
“It’s our anniversary, Malfoy. Shit!” Ron exploded, his voice tremulous. “What the bloody hell are you doing here?” He took a brief moment to breathe. “And who let you in?”
Draco smiled, gazing calmly at Hermione.
“Ron!” Hermione purred, menacingly. “He is our guest. Draco has helped out the Order in ways that no one else could. Here.” She opened up a cabinet, took out a wine glass, and handed him an open bottle of shiraz. “Have a drink. We all should.”
Ron’s vision was temporarily clouded with rage, but he took out the cork and poured himself a full glass as Hermione poured the gimlets for Draco and herself. As they all went into the den and Hermione waved her wand at the fireplace, the room was filled with cheery light, and Ron found that he wasn’t quite as on edge. He has turned his back on his family, he thought quickly. But I still don’t like him in my house. Our house.
The three settled into chairs. Ron placed himself right next to his wife, placing a long arm strategically around Hermione’s narrow shoulder, letting his fingers play with the ties on her shirt sleeve above her elbow. Despite himself, he began to relax as they spoke of the past few years, even when Draco told them some of what the Death Eaters had been doing in the war on Voldemort.
“And you, Weasley. What are you doing?”
The question was an honest one.
“Well,” Ron replied, putting his wine glass down and feeling for his shirt logo only to realize that he was still in his ragged tracksuit top, and his Oxford was probably lying crumpled on the bed, “I’m the assistant coach for a new Quidditch team.”
Draco’s bright blue eyes lit up. “New Quidditch team? Really?”
Despite himself, Ron leaned in. “Yes. The Green Knights of Glasgow.” He shook his head, but then continued on. “The team’s a bit green,” he said. At this, Hermione groaned and took a large swig of her gimlet. “But lots of innate skill.” Ron toyed with the glass in his hand. “I didn’t think you were much into Quidditch, beyond the Slytherin team.”
A wry smile flit across Draco’s face. “There’s not a lot you would ever have thought of me, Weasley. As a Seeker I did what I could to beat Harry, but it never worked.”
At Harry’s name, Hermione stiffened.
Ron turned his head to look at her, then whipped back around to Draco. “Do you know where he is?”
As Draco shook his head, a rather unrecognizable sound of solid wood crashing to the ground filled the room. Ron leapt to his feet, hearing glass shatter as Draco, with catlike grace, snatched into his robe pocket for his wand, his martini glass thrown against the wall in the process.
Three Death Eaters entered the room.
“Stupify!” Draco snarled, the spell hitting one on the right in the middle of the chest.
Hermione screamed, then slid from the futon to the floor, crawling toward their bedroom where her wand was. Green light from hastily uttered spells glanced past Ron’s head as he desperately took in the situation.
He brought them here! his mind raged, until seconds later he realized that Malfoy was fighting against the Death Eaters.
“Weasley!” Draco yelled, running at the black-cloaked figures. “Get Grainger! It’s her they want!”
For a split second, Ron took in the chartreuse color of Hermione’s gimlet dripping from the table to the floor, tossed aside as she made her mad dash from the room. Then he rushed forward past the first figure in black, seeing that Draco had aimed a particularly nasty spell at its face, launching himself at his coat and his wand.
“Duck, Weasley!”
Even as he heard the message of the hoarse cry, Ron had dropped to the floor. Whizzing red light shot right above his head, burning a large hole into the wall. His coat fell on his head, and for a confused few seconds Ron couldn’t see, but then he threw it off, wand in hand and aimed for the third Death Eater.
Hermione had emerged from their room, shouting spells as fast as her mouth could form the words. Many of them found their mark, and two of the figures collapsed to the ground. The third, however, seemed to be of a different caliber than the others. In a surprise wandflick and a bitterly uttered “Crucio!”, Hermione was thrown onto the hardwood, blood trickling from her nose.
“HERMIONE!” Ron yelled, taking precious seconds to look at his wife, then with a howl of rage, ran straight at the black-hooded figure, wand aimed at its heart.
As he did, the tall man ripped off his mask. Ron’s jaw opened as he saw who it was: Lucius Malfoy, escaped from Azkaban. Wands levelled, not quite in tandem, the two golden-haired figures raged the same curse, venom in both voices. “AVADA KEDAVRA!”
Green light hit both of them in the chest, and they reeled, Lucius falling first. Draco crashed into the coffee table, heavy shards of glass unwittingly forming a deadly pillow under his head. Ron ran to him, falling in on himself as he sank to the floor, trying frantically to move the glass, to ask the questions which burned his lips.
“Why?” Ron wailed. “Why Hermione? Why now?”
Draco’s vision began to fade. “Vengance. He hated mudbloods.” He coughed a few times, then whispered, “He hated me more. I was disloyal.” Blood burbled up into the corner of his mouth. “I came here tonight because I wanted to protect her.” Veiled blue eyes looked up at Ron, who sat, stunned. “Not all Slytherins are heartless, Weasley.”
Ron tried to force his lungs to work, tried to absorb the Death Eaters in the kitchen, Draco dying in the den, Hermione in the corridor. “I’ll be right back,” he promised, lowering Draco’s head reverently to the floor. He crawled on hands and knees to Hermione, still leaning askance, doll-like, against the wall of their hallway, her wand lying useless on the dusty wood.
She wasn’t breathing. Ron took her precious face in his hands, ran his thumbs over her recently-waxed eyebrows, then kissed her eyelids. Silently he held her in his arms as he lowered her to the floor, murmuring apologies for his uncouth behavior. As he continued to hold on to her, he tried to tell her how much he loved her, how she could burn those candles anytime she wanted, he would never complain, he would never smoke again…
Over time, he surrendered, and sobbed unconsolably into her neck.
***
which needs some obvious work. I asked K. to read it when he got home, thinking that since it’s shorter than some of my stuff and not Tolkien, he might actually enjoy reading it. He said it was okay. He hasn’t read past PoA, so he was confused anyway. He came back to the bedroom and said, “You killed Hermione!” I nodded, and for once, actually launched into an explanation of my thought processes: I had thought Harry would show up, but I didn’t want him to suddenly appear and save the day like he always does; Neville could show up, but that was just as predictable; in truth, I wanted to redeem Draco. But the fight scene is terribly confusing and I have to look at the HP lexicon to find the spell for Ron to light his cigarette.
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febobe, so you don’t think that I’ve gone completely HP, just yesterday clever stupid me accepted a challenge at Henneth-Annun about authors in Middle-Earth. But you know me; mine won’t be about Bilbo or Merry (though it *could* be about Merry, I quite enjoy writing about him)- it’ll be a story told in flashbacks, with parallel imagery, about a Dwarf author writing during the heydey of Khazad-dûm. Opening scene: Legolas, feet propped up, fingers twirling a wine glass, trying to read some book of Gimli’s while they are stopped at his house sometime after the WR. Gimli will, of course, happen to find him and make noises of righteous indignation about people’s privacy. Flashback to a Dwarf, feet propped up, fingers twirling a small gold cup with the Dwarvish liqueur I made up for “Of Pipes and Poetry,” working on said book when one of the Noldorian Elves will show up. This Dwarf will make noises of righteous indignation about people’s privacy. Anyway, should be heaps of fun.
And now, off to work where the internet connection is fast and I can review a 34,000 word story. *shakes head* I am such a glutton for punishment.
And here’s the rest, such as it is, first draft.
Once outside, after a hasty glance to right and left, he murmured (?), and the end of his cigarette burned cheerfully. Ron put it to his lips and deeply inhaled, then let out a satisfying stream of smoke. The moon seemed almost full, or just past, as it glowed rosily in the night sky. Might explain Lupin’s horrid handwriting, he contemplated as he put his wand in his coat pocket and tossed one end of the scarf over his right shoulder. Absentmindedly, his freckle-covered fingers raked through his long hair as he stood leaning against one of the skewed banister railings. After another drag, still staring at the heavy moon, Ron decided that he had time to take a short walk down the road.
The last time that Fred had made such a visit in the fireplace, his fiancée had spent at least thirty minutes talking to Hermione about their upcoming wedding, and bridesmaid’s dresses, and the like. Once Ron had been able to get a word in edgewise, he stared at his older brother. “Fred,” he had said, quite sincerely, “what are you thinking? Elope, like we did! Mum’s already broken in. She won’t cry as much when you tell her.”
Fred had gazed back sympathetically, but shook his head. “Jane won’t hear of it.” His eyes regained their more usual mischevious quality. “Besides, without her nieces and nephews, where else would George be able to try out a few of our newest products?”
Ron had been mid-swig on a butterbeer as that sentence was spoken. He had immediately choked, but his noises were luckily unheard in his home due to the fact that Hermione had decided to take a shower. That had led to far more lucky circumstances for him.
The lanky redhead briefly shuddered as he apprised the stars overhead. Their light was so distant as to seem brittle; the wind which had assaulted him earlier in the day during his team’s training drills was now completely absent. As Ron rummaged through his right coat pocket for the pack of cigarettes, his mind wandered through the exercises the Green Knights had performed, mulling through the strengths and weaknesses of his Beaters and Keepers as he lit a second cigarette from the one he had just finished. He continued walking after tossing the still-glowing papers to the ground, lost in thought about his rather youthful team.
But by damn, they have talent, even if they don’t have much experience.
He was rather startled as he realized that he had already returned to his house on Gaffer’s Row. Must walk faster when I’m thinking about Quidditch, he decided as he took one last drag, then dropped the cigarette and ground it out with the heel of a rather shoddy shoe. Out of habit, Ron unbuttoned his overcoat and flapped it in a birdlike motion in an effort to rid it of some of the smell, then went in through the front door. He took the narrow stairs two at a time, then after entering the kitchen, gave his coat to the first hand which protruded from a rack of five near the door, a wedding gift from Ginny.
Hermione was, he noted sadly, fully dressed again, her hair mostly tidy, and she was using their martini shaker to make a drink. “Bright eyes,” he began, “why don’t we just have some wine? Isn’t it a bit late for - ”
His voice trailed off as she turned to look at him and he heard their toilet flush in the loo. There was someone else in the house.
Ron was so stunned that he simply stood there for a moment, his fingers hanging loosely from his beltloops. A man only slightly shorter than himself emerged into the kitchen, hair impeccably groomed, but his clothes appearing to be rather travel-worn.
“Weasly,” the man said benignly.
Instinctively Ron reached for his wand, but it was in his coat pocket on the wall.
“Ron!” Hermione gasped, her hand clutching at his elbow to restrain him as he leaned toward the coatrack. “Draco is visiting.”
His green eyes stared incomprehensively.
“We are just having a couple of gimlets. He’s on his way to the States, via Iceland.”
She silently pleaded with him, as Draco’s visage took on its more usual haughty look.
“I hope I’m not intruding, Weasley.” The voice, while silky smooth, grated on Ron as though he were being flayed.
“It’s our anniversary, Malfoy. Shit!” Ron exploded, his voice tremulous. “What the bloody hell are you doing here?” He took a brief moment to breathe. “And who let you in?”
Draco smiled, gazing calmly at Hermione.
“Ron!” Hermione purred, menacingly. “He is our guest. Draco has helped out the Order in ways that no one else could. Here.” She opened up a cabinet, took out a wine glass, and handed him an open bottle of shiraz. “Have a drink. We all should.”
Ron’s vision was temporarily clouded with rage, but he took out the cork and poured himself a full glass as Hermione poured the gimlets for Draco and herself. As they all went into the den and Hermione waved her wand at the fireplace, the room was filled with cheery light, and Ron found that he wasn’t quite as on edge. He has turned his back on his family, he thought quickly. But I still don’t like him in my house. Our house.
The three settled into chairs. Ron placed himself right next to his wife, placing a long arm strategically around Hermione’s narrow shoulder, letting his fingers play with the ties on her shirt sleeve above her elbow. Despite himself, he began to relax as they spoke of the past few years, even when Draco told them some of what the Death Eaters had been doing in the war on Voldemort.
“And you, Weasley. What are you doing?”
The question was an honest one.
“Well,” Ron replied, putting his wine glass down and feeling for his shirt logo only to realize that he was still in his ragged tracksuit top, and his Oxford was probably lying crumpled on the bed, “I’m the assistant coach for a new Quidditch team.”
Draco’s bright blue eyes lit up. “New Quidditch team? Really?”
Despite himself, Ron leaned in. “Yes. The Green Knights of Glasgow.” He shook his head, but then continued on. “The team’s a bit green,” he said. At this, Hermione groaned and took a large swig of her gimlet. “But lots of innate skill.” Ron toyed with the glass in his hand. “I didn’t think you were much into Quidditch, beyond the Slytherin team.”
A wry smile flit across Draco’s face. “There’s not a lot you would ever have thought of me, Weasley. As a Seeker I did what I could to beat Harry, but it never worked.”
At Harry’s name, Hermione stiffened.
Ron turned his head to look at her, then whipped back around to Draco. “Do you know where he is?”
As Draco shook his head, a rather unrecognizable sound of solid wood crashing to the ground filled the room. Ron leapt to his feet, hearing glass shatter as Draco, with catlike grace, snatched into his robe pocket for his wand, his martini glass thrown against the wall in the process.
Three Death Eaters entered the room.
“Stupify!” Draco snarled, the spell hitting one on the right in the middle of the chest.
Hermione screamed, then slid from the futon to the floor, crawling toward their bedroom where her wand was. Green light from hastily uttered spells glanced past Ron’s head as he desperately took in the situation.
He brought them here! his mind raged, until seconds later he realized that Malfoy was fighting against the Death Eaters.
“Weasley!” Draco yelled, running at the black-cloaked figures. “Get Grainger! It’s her they want!”
For a split second, Ron took in the chartreuse color of Hermione’s gimlet dripping from the table to the floor, tossed aside as she made her mad dash from the room. Then he rushed forward past the first figure in black, seeing that Draco had aimed a particularly nasty spell at its face, launching himself at his coat and his wand.
“Duck, Weasley!”
Even as he heard the message of the hoarse cry, Ron had dropped to the floor. Whizzing red light shot right above his head, burning a large hole into the wall. His coat fell on his head, and for a confused few seconds Ron couldn’t see, but then he threw it off, wand in hand and aimed for the third Death Eater.
Hermione had emerged from their room, shouting spells as fast as her mouth could form the words. Many of them found their mark, and two of the figures collapsed to the ground. The third, however, seemed to be of a different caliber than the others. In a surprise wandflick and a bitterly uttered “Crucio!”, Hermione was thrown onto the hardwood, blood trickling from her nose.
“HERMIONE!” Ron yelled, taking precious seconds to look at his wife, then with a howl of rage, ran straight at the black-hooded figure, wand aimed at its heart.
As he did, the tall man ripped off his mask. Ron’s jaw opened as he saw who it was: Lucius Malfoy, escaped from Azkaban. Wands levelled, not quite in tandem, the two golden-haired figures raged the same curse, venom in both voices. “AVADA KEDAVRA!”
Green light hit both of them in the chest, and they reeled, Lucius falling first. Draco crashed into the coffee table, heavy shards of glass unwittingly forming a deadly pillow under his head. Ron ran to him, falling in on himself as he sank to the floor, trying frantically to move the glass, to ask the questions which burned his lips.
“Why?” Ron wailed. “Why Hermione? Why now?”
Draco’s vision began to fade. “Vengance. He hated mudbloods.” He coughed a few times, then whispered, “He hated me more. I was disloyal.” Blood burbled up into the corner of his mouth. “I came here tonight because I wanted to protect her.” Veiled blue eyes looked up at Ron, who sat, stunned. “Not all Slytherins are heartless, Weasley.”
Ron tried to force his lungs to work, tried to absorb the Death Eaters in the kitchen, Draco dying in the den, Hermione in the corridor. “I’ll be right back,” he promised, lowering Draco’s head reverently to the floor. He crawled on hands and knees to Hermione, still leaning askance, doll-like, against the wall of their hallway, her wand lying useless on the dusty wood.
She wasn’t breathing. Ron took her precious face in his hands, ran his thumbs over her recently-waxed eyebrows, then kissed her eyelids. Silently he held her in his arms as he lowered her to the floor, murmuring apologies for his uncouth behavior. As he continued to hold on to her, he tried to tell her how much he loved her, how she could burn those candles anytime she wanted, he would never complain, he would never smoke again…
Over time, he surrendered, and sobbed unconsolably into her neck.
***
which needs some obvious work. I asked K. to read it when he got home, thinking that since it’s shorter than some of my stuff and not Tolkien, he might actually enjoy reading it. He said it was okay. He hasn’t read past PoA, so he was confused anyway. He came back to the bedroom and said, “You killed Hermione!” I nodded, and for once, actually launched into an explanation of my thought processes: I had thought Harry would show up, but I didn’t want him to suddenly appear and save the day like he always does; Neville could show up, but that was just as predictable; in truth, I wanted to redeem Draco. But the fight scene is terribly confusing and I have to look at the HP lexicon to find the spell for Ron to light his cigarette.
febobe, so you don’t think that I’ve gone completely HP, just yesterday And now, off to work where the internet connection is fast and I can review a 34,000 word story. *shakes head* I am such a glutton for punishment.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-14 02:35 pm (UTC)Oooh, I like it already!
Not that your story is necessarily Legolas/Gimli slash, but I'm starting to get into the idea of stories exploring their relationship after the Ring war.
Legolas and Gimli are not exactly the hottest couple in Middle-earth, but at least the pairing is somewhat plausible canon-wise. I mean, they go off and have, um, adventures together. :-D
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-14 02:56 pm (UTC)I've written two post-WR Legolas-and-Gimli-as-friends stories, should you want to read them (both archived at www.parma-eruseen.net): "Of Pipes and Poetry" and "Fathers and Sons." I have so much fun writing about Gimli! I'll keep you posted...
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-14 08:33 pm (UTC)No need to change the entry--I didn't think your story was slash. But it did get me thinking about the Legolas/Gimli relationship, in whatever forms it might take.
I'll have to hop on over there and read those stories. :-)