AN: So this is a time skip, going forward three years, as I wasn't really sure how to flesh out "Ron fixes clothes for the next three years, and gets quite good at it" Also, I've tried to add a bit more utility to Ron's character, nothing major, just things that would be found useful or interesting to my inner eleven year old with a meccano addiction.
Chapter 2. Tinker Tailor
Ron couldn't believe that, In just under a weeks time, he'd be heading away to Hogwarts. Of course, he was extremely excited about this, his brothers had been telling him stories about the majestic castle for years, and he was looking forward to seeing it himself. Still, he was nervous, nervous at the thought of leaving behind his friends at school, nervous about not seeing his parents for such a long time, nervous at not being able to just walk into town, and see his friends at work.
Over the last three years, he had grown close to several of the owners, who saw him regularly. Obviously, Tom was the one who had started it all, giving him the opportunity to expand his frame of reference. Ywonne, Tom's wife, was the owner of the small watch repair shop,and had helped him out when he'd broken one of the numerous clocks in his home, The Burrow. Not being able to bring in the clock, or show it to her, due to it being of the magical variety, she'd given him a book on clock repair, and, working all through the night, finally, with baggy eyes and numerous cuts to his hands, he'd manage to get it back on the mantle piece before anyone was any the wiser. The owners of the two book shops that dotted the square, were also incredibly friendly. He had never imagined anyone could get so passionate, about books in general. When talking to them, you hear the passion they had strong in there voices, about the wonders of escaping into another world, of fantasy or science fiction. Ron did have to laugh at the numerous mistakes the muggles had made when writing about magic, but he supposed that was the beauty of it, it didn't have to be accurate, or even real, as long as it was compelling. The cafe was the final shop that graced the square of five. A little coffee shop tucked away, the elderly owners always welcoming.
Ron was still in awe at all the muggles had achieved without magic. Televisions, Movie theatres, planes, skyscrapers and huge bridges, gigantic structure that towered into the sky. Barely twenty years ago, they had put men on the moon. Tom had shown him through a telescope what the little orb in the sky looked like, and he was astounded. From what Ron had learned in school, there where people, whom the muggles called scientists, making new discoveries every day,about how the human body worked, how plants lived, all sorts of weird and wondrous things. To Ron, from what he understood in history class, it seemed like wizards had stopped at the 19th century, and only ever seemed to take muggle inventions which where useful to them after that. Very little innovation seemed to have occurred in the past century.
Ron had been introduced to many wondrous things by tom. Movies where a definite favourite of his, you could watch moving pictures that talked! Tom had spent hours discussing movies with Ron, and Ron was incredibly impressed. There was simply nothing like it, as far as he knew, in the magical world. Nothing so breathtaking. They had radios of course, he and his dad had spent a long time making a clockwork radio, but nothing that could actually show moving pictures and sound at the same time. Another was meccano. There where so many different thinks you could build with it. When he'd brought a set home, his dad had been thrilled, and they had spent the rest of the weekend making all sorts of different things, form models, to cranes. Just that year, the company that produce it, had built a giant meccano Ferris wheel in France.
Ron's job, had brought about a number of changes. He had definitely smartened up his look, being able to tailor his clothes to fit, and repair some of the scurfier items he owned. He enjoyed that aspect of the job the most, repair worn out clothes, or changing them to better suit the fashion of the day.
Dealing with customers was certainly certainly always a challenge, being nice to them doubly so. Inane questions, and unreasonable demands run amok, with some asking for clothes to be made literally the day before they needed them. Ron had to admit he'd learned a little tact. Sending home several extremely hopeful customers crying will make anyone rethink the way they try to tell people bad news, for instance, that there was just no way it was possible to have what they wanted ready the very next day, when it was already 5pm.
Luckily his time at the shop hadn't been all bad news. Customers who where thankful, or even just polite, where a godsend. Learning about muggle culture, and being able to share this knowledge with his dad, was also fantastic. They'd grown closer over the years, finding much common ground with there admiration of all things muggle. Getting to know Tom and Ywonne, had been interesting, he knew Ywonne was from Finland, and that they had met at what muggles called university, and he'd heard stories of some of the things they'd been up-to on their "gap year" afterwards, but there was definitely a lot of details they were leaving out.
The trip to diagon alley, back in June when everyone else got their Hogwarts letters, had been great. His parents hadn't had enough money to get him his own wand, what with Percy becoming a prefect and getting a new owl. Ron was supposed to get Scabbers the rat, Percy's previous pet, but the idea of having a rat chewing through his sheets, or destroying his clothes absolutely put Ron of the idea, so the rat went to the twins, who declared they had finally found a safer way of testing their products. Ron almost thought he could see Scabbers shiver in fear, but he dismissed the idea. Luckily, Ron has saved up enough from his Saturday job, and, having gone to Gringotts, the wizarding bank, to get his muggle money exchanged. Walking into Ollivanders, he tried a number of wands, finally being chosen by one made of willow, unicorn hair, 14" long. Ron had briefly pooped in to Madam Malkins Robes for All Occasions, and was astonished not to find anything even resembling machinery. It must all be done with spells, he supposed, but he couldn't help thinking, that it'd be much easier to get a number of sewing machines and spell them to do the work,at least to increase productivity. Gazing longingly at Quality quidditch supplies, Ron headed into a second hand bookshop down one of the side streets. He was going to be using his brothers old course books so there was no reason to buy any of those, but he did find an interesting book on Elder futhark. Once everyone had completed their various shopping tasks for the day, the assorted family headed back to the leaky cauldron, using the floo system to return home.
Being the middle of summer, the light lasted very long, so there was time for a quick game of pick up quidditch in the back garden. Fred and George, Ron's twin older brothers, managed to rope Percy into playing, so, splitting Fred and George up, they had several two vs two games. Everyone was enjoying themselves too much to keep score, and eventually, as the light was fading, everyone headed inside, an evening very enjoyably wasted.
As he walked back to the square, Ron felt a small rush of sadness envelop him, he didn't want to leave behind all the wonderful people he'd met in the last few years. Walking into the now familiar tailors shop, Ron was surprised to see a small congregation waiting for him. It appeared that the numerous owners had decided to throw him a going away party. He saw a small pile of gifts on one of the tables, and they all wished him well. Books where the main order of the day, with a collection of fantasy books, a couple on subjects Ron had expressed an interest in, like engineering, and Finnish (He'd been learning from Ywonne, but he still couldn't get his head round the grammar). From Tom, he got a large number of clothes, as well as materials and tools for repairing his others. Ron was incredibly grateful for these, as upon inspecting the state of his school robes, he'd found them at least several inches too short. The most surprising gift he saw, was one of the smallest, tucked neatly away from the edge. A clockwork shrike, it was life sized, with incredibly fine detail on the wings and head. A small hatch at the back of the bird, concealed the mechanisms for winding, as well as the internal works of the marvellous object. On the front, Ywonne opened another hatch, showing a small clock which proclaimed the time.
"It spreads its wings every hour" Ywonne informed him " You can set an alarm, and it will chirp. Fitting that music box in was a very difficult thing, I must say."
Ron had seen other clockwork animals in Ywonne's shop before, but never looking this complex. It was small enough to be hooked onto a watch strap,
"Thank you, everyone. I don't know what to say, its been a brilliant getting to know you all" Ron said, a slight tremor in his voice.
"You'll still have a job here in the summer Ron, if you want one that is" Tom sheepishly supplied. For the rest of the day, everyone just relaxed, and by the end of the day, Ron wasn't feeling anywhere near as nervous as before. By the time he got home, it was rather dark, the shadows creeping up the path home. Ron quickly entered through the kitchen, giving his mum a quick hug, to tell her he back safe, then popped out to the shed, as he knew his dad would want to see the shrike too.
"Isn't it wonderful" Ron said, still buzzing from earlier.
"Its fantastic" His dad replied, looking thoughtful
"What's up?" Ron asked, confused at his dads now quizzical look
"Well, its just, I've been working on a small project" He pointed to a rather painfully blue Ford Anglia "How to make it fly, animate, that sort of thing, and I think I've got the charms worked out"
"And?"
"Well, would you allow me to charm the shrike?" Arthur asked
Ron was unsure, he didn't want the present broken the very day he'd been gifted it. Then again, he trusted his dad, you didn't become a department head if you where useless, right?
"Well... If you know what you're doing..." Ron fretted
"Fantastic!" Arthur beamed, and set to work clearing off his desk. Putting the small clockwork animal down on the side, he began to cast countless complex spells, a wonder to behold. Charms that caused its legs to move, which caused wicks to beat and flutter, other which caused it to look around and open its throat to sing. Engraving some runes onto the side, to make sure the bird always returned to its owner, Arthur sat down, panting from excitement and exhaustion. As he did so, the little clockwork bird, mechanisms still twirling away, hopped across the desk. Quickly, it leapt into the air, and burst through the door, dipping its wings in the currents of the night sky. Swooping back around, it came to rest on Ron's should, nipping him affectionately with its beak.
"That was... That was incredible Dad!" Ron breathed, "I've never seen anything like it!"
"Well, its been a project I've spent a long time on" Arthur chuckled, almost as surprised at quite how well the results had turned out "There is one problem I haven't quite managed to sort out for the car, and that's electricity" He continued, standing up, " Magic interferes with the way electricity works, I'm not even sure how, so I need to figure out a workaround, but I think I'm close"
"Well, if its even half as good as this was, I'll be impressed" Ron declared, as the little machine hopped around his shoulder, " I guess I'll have to think up a name"
"A wonderful idea, now, its almost 9:30, you had better go inside, I'll be through in a minute" Arthur said, slightly dazed from the whole experience.
Ron left the shed, and started thinking about a name. He had to come up with one before Ginny did, as she was, without a doubt, barmy when it came to it. They'd had a rabbit once, named, he supposed rather appropriately, Rabbit. No, he thought, it just wouldn't do, but he was stumped. What did you call a clockwork bird? He couldn't think of anything involving a pun, or relevant, or a name that didn't make him cringe. In a spark of brilliance, he thought of Tempus, as in the latin for, time flies. And with that settled, a wonderful feeling settling over him, heading upstairs, Tempus hopping onto his table to sleep, falling asleep thinking he couldn't wait to get to Hogwarts, if that was what a truly inventive wizard could do with magic.
PCAN: I may have also embellished Arthur a little bit, but anyone who can enchant cars that fly and can drive on their own, is certainly a clever and accomplished wizard in my book, so why not. I also know we haven't seen much of Ginny or Molly, but I thought I'd leave that till Ron's second year, when there's a ton of interesting narratives to write about.