AN: This is another little story that has been popping in and out of my head for a while. I was slightly disappointed with the path that JK has put Ron on in the epilogue. I can see him not wanting to stay as an Auror, and also him helping out George with the shop, but it always seemed liked Ron never got the chance to shine like he had wanted to.
Inventions
The cobbled streets were slick with rain as he walked down the now familiar path back to his flat. It was getting late, the street lamps reflecting of the rainsoaked streets with an orange glow. As he approached the door, he noticed, not for the first time, the peeling paint, noting it down in his head to bring up with the landlord later. The key, due to years of ill attention, was stiff in the lock, and so, forcing hit open, he headed inside. The building he lived in was old, magically expanded to accommodate four flats, where from the outside it would be assumed that there would be barely room for one. His was a fairly small flat, with a bedroom, a study, a bathroom, and a kitchenette/living room. He was happy here, the landlords where an incredibly nice couple, who occupied the top flat in the building. They also owned the small second hand bookshop beneath. The rent was certainly not cheap, but the award from the ministry, for services to wizarding Britain, had certainly helped. He couldn't live of that for the rest of his life, but, coming as he did from a rather poor background, he was determined not to scrimp and deny himself the pleasure of a little luxury. He stuffed the shopping bags onto one of the tables, and sat down heavily, ready to test out his, hopefully, greatest invention.
He'd started renting the flat a few years ago, after he'd split up with Hermione. The break up, they knew, had been coming for a while, it just needed a catalyst to set them off. At school, they had had constant arguments, and outside of school, it was business as usual. During the year that Hermione had been completing her NEWTS, Ron and Harry, his other best mate, had been attending the Auror program. They found it rather difficult not seeing each other for such a long period of time, surviving on owled letters and the occasional holiday meetup. Even those though, were marred by the fights that they would get into, often not speaking to each other for days at a time. When they'd both finished their respective programs, they had started living together, but the fighting continued. It was almost a relief when it finally came to an end. Hermione had gotten a promotion at the ministry, something to do with international liaisons, and they had, by mutual agreement, decided that it just wasn't working, and that they definitely wouldn't be able to make it work long distance, not again. The breakup was very cordial, and they had remained very good friends, still writing to each other about the goings on in their lives, the arguments taking on less of a 'I hate you' tone, and more of the friendly joshing that had been the order of the day before their ill fated relationship.
Ron had been bitten by the invention bug, while helping George in the shop. Without Fred, George had found it difficult to keep up the day to day running of the place, and creating new inventions was, for the twins, a process of bouncing ideas of one another, and seeing which ones where the most interesting, feasible, or just plain cool. Without Fred, George was lost. When George had finally gotten together with Angelina, things had started to pick up, each of them helping each other to come to terms with there loss, and while not forgetting, never forgetting, move on. Ron had graciously taken a step back, as they got the shop up and running again, deciding to forge out on his own.
He'd left the Aurors a couple of years after he had qualified. He'd really only applied, because his best friend was applying, and, having been stuck together for so long, he wasn't sure how to separate his own goals, from those of his best mates. The Auror program had been intense, with many sleepless nights, flashbacks of the war caused by training. He'd decided to specialise in healing, becoming a combat medic. He'd often been paired up with Harry, and he wondered if it was because they made a good team, or because it made good publicity for the ministry. Ron was sick of people assuming that he had gotten were he had, riding on the coat tails of others. He couldn't stand the looks that some gave him, like he was there because the boy-who-lived had insisted they were a package deal, or some other rubbish like that. Looking back on his decision now, he knew it was the right one. He'd seen enough of war, the death and destruction, had it hit close to home, knew the pain of loss, felt the silent ever present sense of danger. He'd fought his war, he could let others do the fighting now.
He dearly wished he'd taken different electives back in Hogwarts, but all he'd really been interested in then was quidditch, chess, and taking the easy way through. Sheer laziness, he shuddered, glad that he'd decided, or rather been forced to, finally, start working hard. Flats in London, even in the magical world, where things like property price inflation seemed much less of an issue, were still rather expensive, so living near his brother had meant finding a job which paid well. He decided to take some night classes at the nearby wizarding college. The college was there for anyone who was over Hogwarts schooling age, but still wanted to get some extra qualifications, in both practical and more theoretical subjects. Ron often saw Hagrid, when he wasn't tending the grounds at Hogwarts, making up for the 50 years lost at the hands of the monster who had taken so much from them, Lord Voldemort. He knew Hagrid was top of the class in many of the classes on magical creatures, gaining several licences for creature breeding. Ron, however, was more interested in Ancient Runes, he could certainly see what Hermione had meant when she said it was a fascinating subject. Oh, the things you could accomplish with the proper tools and time. After a year, working hard, and studying harder, he had achieved NEWTS in Charms, Transfiguration and Defence against the Darks, as well as OWLS in Ancient Runes and Magical theory.
The opportunity to learn on his own time, outside of the rigorous constraints of the classroom was definitely a bonus for Ron. Books were a passion he had absorbed from Hermione. Muggle London was vast, so whenever he had the chance, he would go out and explore, taking the London Underground far and wide. He could apperate, but he found the tube a very enjoyable way to travel, much more so than the feeling of nausea he got from jumping halfway across London in an instant. Being so close to Charring cross, he could easily browse through hundreds of book shops only a short walk from where he lived. He'd picked up a lot of interesting information, about all sorts of muggle ideas, from the surrounding area. He loved going around the back streets looking for small shops tucked away, selling muggle items he'd never seen before. One shop in particular, had caught his eye, a repair shop, specialising in mending watches, and other clockwork oddities. He'd been so intrigued by the idea of clockwork in general, that he'd rushed back, apperating to a secluded spot near one of the largest bookshops he knew of, to find a book on clockwork, and clockwork mechanisms, so he could get started the same day.
The study, he used as a make shift workshop, spending countless nights working hard on new and interesting inventions. Pride of place on the shelf above his very untidy desk, was the Deluminator he'd been gifted by Professor Dumbledore. At first, he'd made things that were weren't incredibly useful, such as a device which spun if it was raining outside, when all you'd need to do was open the curtains, still, he was proud of it. Others, where much more practical, such as the glasses that he'd tailor made for Harry. These where a special project, wanting to give something truly great to his friend. They were unsummonable (except for the owner), unbreakable, and had a permanent repulsion charm to prevent him from losing his ability to see in the field. Ron had even managed to spell them to see in other spectrum of light, a concept he'd heard about from Hermione, thermal cameras. They had taken months to perfect, and had been finished just before Harry's 24th birthday. He'd also designed a refillable pen, so as to stop having to buy so many quills, which were a nuisance to write with, as they made it difficult to avoid making smudges or otherwise messing up a perfectly good piece of work with an unfortunate blot of ink.
His proudest achievement, however, had been a small clockwork owl. His own owl, Pigwidgeon, had been getting worse, ill through old age, and Ron was heartbroken when he died. Doing the only thing he knew to take his mind of it, he had started constructing a mechanical bird, which could hop, and spread its wings, just through the mechanisms installed. For weeks, Ron had worked to make it more complex, and more life like, adding spells that he had looked up in obscure text books, and runes, for more potent effects, until finally, after months and months of toil, he had a mechanical owl chirp up at him from the desk. Bleary eyed, as the sunlight drifted lazily through his cluttered room, he beheld his newest creation. He decided to name the small machine Scops, in honour of his departed friend.
It was rather cold, as he stepped into his flat, removing his dripping coat, and sodden shoes, casting a drying charm at them, and walking into the kitchen, lighting candles as he did so. This was one of the problems he'd been having since moving to a more magical area. While he was living with Hermione, he'd been learning more about muggle technology. Simple things, like how electric lights work. He'd seen his first movie with Hermione, and was amazed at the ingenuity of muggles. He had decided to start working on a way to nullify the effects that magic had on electrical objects. It seemed that, in areas where there was a high magical population, and where there were many spells being used, magic interfered with the way that the electric components worked.
The process of converting an electrical item to run on magic, was incredibly complex. For instance, a motor, being relatively small, and not particularly difficult to visualise, normally converts electrical energy to more useful mechanical motion, was not difficult to change. Something like a laptop, on the other hand, with numerous circuitry and other things way outside Ron's frame of reference, would be much more difficult to convert, if it was even possible, given how many of the important parts relied on electricity to function. Ron though it would make much more sense, instead, to use the ambient magic in the area, and convert that to electricity to power the machines, while also blocking out the interference magic caused the muggle technology.
The prototype that he had designed, was admittedly rather clunky. It was a large box, with a host of different components inside. Rune tablets, with numerous different combinations, where there to stabilize the more volatile components, and in case of an accident, shield the box from damage caused. A large battery, also covered in runes, would act as a reservoir for the magical energy which was around the object. The battery was then used to power a motor, adapted to work with magic instead of electricity. This created the mechanical energy which would be sent to the lower level of the box, where it would be again converted, this time from mechanical to electrical. A small bank of rechargeable batteries, stored the electrical energy produced. An adapter, housed outside of the box, made it possible to use this electrical energy to power a number of different components. There was also a plug socket, in case the component being charged required such a thing. An antennae, of his own invention, drew magical energy toward the box, and away from the object you wanted powered. In case of an excess amount of energy, there was a circuit breaker to prevent damage cause by an overload. He had devised a system whereby, if you knew the required voltage of the object you where powering, you could set the machine to deliver said voltage. Ron had sourced the parts from a number of different places, using workarounds to get his prototype to do what he wanted. In the end, it had taken him the best part of a year to get the machine working.
Ron got up from his seat, and opened the bag, pulling out a number of different light bulbs, to see whether he could make any of them light up at all. Plugging the first one in, and seeing the light shining through, was silent, brilliant vindication for all the hard work he had put into the machine.
He knew it would be a long process from here, patents took a long time to process, and unless he could get the ministry to agree that such a device was needed, he might have to wait 4 to 5 years to see a commercial use. Still, it gave him plenty of time to perfect the design.
He was happy. It had taken him 14 years, from that shy eleven year old boy, worried that he'd never live up to the achievements of his brothers, that he'd never to do anything special, or brilliant. He had done it, finally, done something that none of his siblings had ever done before. He was happy. At that moment, he heard an owl tapping on the window, letting it in, he took the letter, and got the owl some water from the kitchen. He recognised the writing, familiar for so many years. Reading the letter, he was pleasantly surprised to see that Hermione would be back in London, having switched departments at the ministry, to work in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. She wanted to know if he wanted to grab a coffee. Yes, he was certainly happy.
PCAN: Any and all criticism welcome, even really harsh stuff.
Update (21/02/2016): Updated, to hopefully remove some of the clunky puntuation, among other things.