This one-shot was written for Round 12 (Character Study: Ron Weasley) of the 2018 Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition, Season 6. I'm writing as a Chaser (3rd Position) for the Wimbourne Wasps.
Position Prompt: Write about Ron's relationship with one of his parents.
Optional Prompt #1: (object) Book
Optional Prompt #2: (song) Pure Imagination - Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Optional Prompt #3: (word) Potential
I'm also a Slytherin at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry (Challenges & Assignments). Applicable prompts can be found in the end notes.
to hunt a treasure
Summer had given way to autumn's subtle chill, which meant the world outside was spread with red and gold and orange and brown. Ron was smashed up against a window, staring at his mum and his little sister Ginny moving around the garden. His mum was killing weeds with her wand in a series of swishes while Ginny was playing with a doll and a stuffed dragon under the apple tree. Ginny had asked him to play, but he'd fallen against the window and pretended to be sick. Her response had been to grab a pillow from the sofa to throw at him, but with pillows being so soft, Ron still felt like he had made the right choice.
Playing with Ginny really wasn't all that bad at all, especially when she brought in the dragon, but it was all they had done for a week, it felt like. Now that all of their brothers had gone off to Hogwarts, the Burrow felt strangely quiet, looping the same day over and over again. Fred and George picked on him sometimes, but Ron could admit that the two of them stirring everything up hadn't been boring. Ron was only nine, still two years shy of his own Hogwarts career, and the day he would step onto that train couldn't come soon enough.
It was Saturday, so his dad was home, holed away in his shed and probably tinkering with something he didn't want Mum to see. Ron had watched him check towards the garden three times before going inside, which usually meant he had a new project. Mum didn't usually like the new projects because they were Muggle, more often than not. Although Ron knew she didn't have a problem with Muggles themselves, his mum really didn't like it when his dad played around with their stuff. Probably because everyone made fun of him for it.
Ron thought Muggle things were a little bit strange when compared with the magical options, but he was a little bit curious and definitely still bored, so he gave up his window watch and wandered out to the shed, knocking on the door a few times before his dad opened up.
"Ron—I thought you were going to play with Ginny?" his dad said, giving another one of his suspicious glances towards the garden.
"She wants to play dolls again, and I'm bored of dolls," Ron said honestly and tried to look past his dad. "Are you working on something Muggle?"
"What? Er—what makes you think that?"
His dad's voice was doing that higher-pitched thing that he did when Mum asked things like that, so Ron guess that he was probably right. "Can I see it?"
The hesitation in his dad's face was shorter-lived this time before he shuffled Ron into the shed and shut the door.
"Actually," his dad began in a much more excited tone, "I did acquire these fascinating—er—I don't actually know what they're called, but I've been trying to figure out how they work." As Ron's dad pulled out two hand-sized black boxes, the level of enthusiasm only increased. Ron didn't think they looked very interesting; both had a matching black rods sticking out the top corner and had lots of little holes in the upper half. Without missing a beat, his dad continued, "I opened up the back, and they have these little things called 'batteries' inside of them. I've seen them before—they make a lot of different Muggle things operational. The batteries stop working after a while, and I don't know how they go about getting more, but thank Merlin, these ones still work! The imagination of these Muggles… There is so much potential…"
"What do they do?" Ron asked, hoping to get his dad back on track to the interesting part.
"Oh, yes! The best way to explain it is to show you. Here, you take this one." He shoved one of the black boxes into Ron's hand. "Go into that corner over there—under the table, yes—and listen."
Ron wasn't sure that sounded like the set up for anything particularly exciting, but he did it, crouching under one of the work desks and holding the box to his ear, listening for several quiet seconds. He was about to ask what he was listening for when he heard it:
"Ron, can you hear me?"
It was his dad's voice, spoken quietly; the words were coming out of the box but not through the air. Immediately, Ron's eyebrows shot up. "How is it doing that?" Ron asked, looking across the room to where his dad was crouched in the opposite corner. Magic could do something like that easily, but he wasn't sure how a simple-looking Muggle box could carry someone's voice...
"Brilliant, aren't they? They are like a firecall without a fire!" his dad said delightedly.
When Ron stood up again, he noticed a book open on the workspace where the weird talking Muggle things had been when he'd come into the shed. Walking over, he saw a hand-drawn picture with a written a little description. His dad wasn't much of an artist—or at least he didn't seem to do much of it—but Ron thought it looked pretty close. Peeking through a few of the pages, he saw that there were other pictures and descriptions, some with names scrawled at the top and others that didn't have a name, like the black boxes.
"Best not show your mum." His dad held up a finger to his mouth in a shushing gesture, a bit like some grand secret. Mum always seemed to figure everything out in the end, but Ron wasn't going to be a snitch, so he nodded with gusto. His dad held up the black box and continued, "Do you want to play a game with them?"
That sounded like the best idea Ron had heard all day, maybe even all week. "What kind of game?"
"Treasure-hunting."
It was definitely the best idea Ron had heard all week. "Who's going to hide the treasure?"
"Your choice! Do you want to, or should I?"
Ron slanted his mouth in thought for only a brief moment before coming to his answer. "I want to be the pirate captain," Ron decided. "I'll hide the treasure, and you can be my crew, going to get it."
His dad laughed, ruffling his hair. "I hope you treat your crew well! Go on and hide it, then."
Without further delay, Ron scooped up the book from the table and went to the door. He looked back at his dad first, to make sure it was still okay, but his dad's face pulled into a smile, so he must not have minded Ron using the book. Ron checked outside before scampering out, but the coast was clear on all sides that he could see. For several minutes, he wandered around the area, trying to find a good spot—one that would hide the treasure well without getting the cover dirty, for his dad's sake. He settled on sticking it in a wooden box of tools, flush against the house.
When Ron came back into the shed, his dad had made him a pirate hat out of paper and fitted it on his head. "Alright, then, Captain. Your old crew member is blind, so you're going to have to describe where it is." Ron watched his dad first tie a piece of cloth over his eyes like a blindfold, then feel around on the table to grasp the black Muggle talky box again. "You press the big button in the middle and hold it down while you talk."
Ron did just that. "Aye!" he said into the little holes and heard his voice come out of the box in his dad's hand. "My treasure is out there, hidden on this strange island! Take… four steps forward! And then open the door."
On the other side of the door, Ron could see the wooden box with the book, but going straight to it was boring. Pressing down the button again, he stayed by the door as he gave his next instruction. "You have to… circle around the shed! You have to circle two times, or it won't show up." His dad started to wander in a circle, so Ron pressed the button again. "Around the shed, crew, around the shed! Touch it with your hand!" His dad stumbled back towards the shed, reached out his hand to touch the metal surface, then started circling around it.
"Okay," Ron continued into the talking box. He couldn't see his dad on the other side of the shed, but he kept talking. "Now you have to walk with big erumpent steps to shake the treasure loose, where it is."
His dad stuck the box in his pocket, got on all fours, and made a clumsy play at charging. Ron grinned, waiting until his dad had stood back up and pulled out his box again. He was out of easy earshot now, which made the talking boxes more fun.
"You've wandered off, crew." Ron straightened his hat, then. "You need to—"
The gate creaked open, and Ron saw his mum stepping out from the garden, face flashing with surprise when she saw her husband wandering a little aimlessly with his blindfold on. A few seconds later, she seemed to notice what he was carrying, and Ron could see her roll her eyes in visible annoyance and take in a breath, as if to prepare some remark about it.
"Captain, I'm quite lost!"
Ron saw his mum's attention shift over to the shed where Ron was still frozen in place, and she didn't have to say anything for it to be obvious that she saw he had a black talky box too. The potential for a lecture was high—Ron could feel it in his bones—and as his mum propped her hands on her hips, he flashed a sheepish smile that flickered into a lip bite.
Looking between his parents, he waited for the explosion, but his mum just eyed his dad, then Ron himself, then his dad again. The look on her face was a bit exasperated, but most of the annoyance was gone now, and she shook her head and went over to the wooden box where Ron had left the book. Fervently, Ron shook his head, but she swept her wand at it wordlessly, lifting out a small spade from the pile. Immediately, she spotted the book too. When she glanced over at Ron again, he shrugged, then said into the talky box, "To your left, matey, to your left!"
Again his mum shook her head with a look that made Ron think that she was probably going to be cross with his dad about it later, but when the gate clicked closed again, the game was miraculously intact. It took only one more stumbling minute to direct his dad to the correct spot, where he rescued his book of Muggle this-and-thats. As weird as some of the things in the book had looked, Ron had to admit he really liked the talky boxes.
Their treasure had almost been scooped out from under them, but the pirates had come out on top, this time.
Additional Author's Notes
Applicable Hogwarts Prompts:
Insane House Challenge - 59. (pairing) Molly/Arthur
365 Day Challenge - 192. (location) The Burrow
Gris-Gris Bags - (character) Ron Weasley
Fortnightly Challenges, Halloween at Hogwarts, You'll be next Mudbloods - 4. Write about someone being frozen, be it literally or figuratively
Autumn Funfair, Apple Bobbing - (setting) The Burrow
Writing Club, Character Appreciation, Lucius Malfoy - 16. (restriction) Main character must be pureblood
Writing Club, Cookie's Crafty Corner, Costumes, Disney Princess/Prince - 4. Write a kid!fic
Writing Club, Showtime, Devil's Carnival 1&2, Heaven's All Around - 1. (object) Doll
Writing Club, Amber's Attic, Dead Silence - 12. (object) Doll
Writing Club, Lyric Alley, "Creep" - 20. Whatever makes you happy
Writing Club, Em's Emporium, Linked - 3. (situation) Doing something you shouldn't be doing
Writing Club, Lo's Lowdown, Overarching Prompts - 1. (theme) Family
Seasonal Autumn Challenges, Days of the Year, National Hunting and Fishing Day - Write about a father and son bonding
Seasonal Autumn Challenges, Autumn Prompts - (word) Chill
Seasonal Autumn Challenges, Air Element, Air Prompts - (quote) "I love being outside, and I love the fresh air." - Brian Stokes Mitchell
Seasonal Autumn Challenges, Audrey's Dessert Challenge, Premade Cakes, Cake 1 - Write about enjoying something with a loved one
Seasonal Autumn Challenges, Ravenclaw Prompts, Traits - (trait) Curious
Word Count - 1,873