A Weasley Tradition
Chapter 4: Early Mornings
Disclaimer: I don't own it.
A/n: Well, whoops. I forgot I was going to be at my dad's for a week, and he has no computer. I finished chapter four almost six days ago, and started working on chapter five, and somehow managed to lose the notebook that I write my stories in. Whoops again. Sorry for the late update, chapter five should be up in the next few days, seeing as it is already halfway done. This is all from memory, so sorry if it turns out crappy
Ron awoke once again to the early morning light slanting in through his window. This time the feeling wasn't pleasant. He groaned and rolled over. Why he had even woken up at such a God forsaken hour in the first place he didn't know. He had spent all night tossing and turning, his conscience lecturing him the entire time.
You didn't tell them?
No, it just slipped my mind, I was going to tell them, I swear!
It just slipped your mind huh?
Yeah
Well, isn't that convenient for you!
And so on and so forth until he finally fell into a fitful sleep full of dreams that made no sense and that he did not remember. So by all rights he should be sound asleep, and shouldn't even consider getting up until the sun was high in the sky. But here he was, wide awake, barely an hour after dawn. He was a disgrace. He didn't even deserve to be called a teenager. Oh well, as long as he was up he may as well be doing something productive.
He gasped. Either he had signed a binding contract that he knew nothing about that was making him act responsibly, or he had switched brains with Hermione sometime in the middle of the night. He laughed aloud at his own foolishness, and then turned to see if the noise had woken up Harry.
Harry's only response to the sudden noise was a contented murmur. Ron smiled at him, almost tenderly. Harry really was beautiful when he was asleep. But a manly beauty. There was nothing feminine about him, nothing except for his eyes. Every girl in Hogwarts envied his eyes. But he was really sensitive regarding that subject, so no one ever gave him trouble about it. No one save for Malfoy. Ron smirked in a rather un-Weasleyish way at the memory.
They had been locked in a verbal battle, when Harry responded to a particularly nasty comment by calling Malfoy a pansy. A silence fell over those who had come to observe. There was a rumor going around that Draco Malfoy preferred men to women, and his reaction to this insult would separate truth from gossip.
He only flashed his trademark smirk, and said that he wasn't the one who wore makeup.
Poor Harry, that one caught him by surprise. He dropped his defensive stance and the angry glare disappeared from his face. He looked genuinely confused. Malfoy only laughed and said that he wasn't the one who wore more mascara than the Patil twins combined or something like that.
He may not havehad girly eyes, but he had a black eye for the next two days that his wounded ego refused to let him heal, to show that he was tough, or something stupid like that.
Ron was tempted once again to laugh aloud. He dressed quickly and made his way downstairs, only to find Fred and George making breakfast. He didn't know what they were doing up at this hour, and he didn't particularly want to know, because he was sure it wasn't as innocent as cooking the family breakfast.
"Care for some eggs little brother?" Knowing better than to accept anything Fred or George offered him he declined. He reached into his robe pocket, and felt the wizard identification card still there. Oh, that reminded him.
"Hey guys, Harry and Hermione don't have a clue about our tradition, so not a word until I get back and can explain it to them, ok?" It went without saying that they were expected to relay the information to the rest of the family.
"Will do." George replied.
"Tradition, Ron?" Fred asked. "Is that exactly the right word for it?"
"Well, what else would you call it? Every Weasley has done it once they came of age. Well, not you guys, but everyone else in this house has, right on down to Percy."
Fred's face darkened at the mention of his older brother, but George reacted in a way that would have seemed peculiar to someone who didn't know him.
"Who?" he asked. Ron, familiar with the ritual, merely sighed and replied,
"Sorry. I don't know who Percy is. I meant to say Charlie, but you knew what I meant."
After almost a year of being gone, George refused to accept Percy's existence. He had completely convinced himself that he had never had an older brother named Percy. At first the family had found it disturbing, but they eventually realized that this was just George's way of handling things. Ron sometimes envied his brother's ability to secure himself in a false reality, something he had never been able to do.
"Well, I'm off!" Ron stated merrily, and with a smug grin and a soft pop he apparated to the Leaky Cauldron, his identification card doubling as an apparition license.
He looked around the smoke filled pub, his eyes immediately landing on the bar. Legally, he could drink now, and he had always wondered what firewhiskey tasted like. It might even help him explain things to Hermione and Harry. But he didn't think Hermione would appreciate him being tipsy on top of everything else she had to take in. Alright, so, no alcohol today.
He walked over the special wall inside the pub and tapped the appropriate bricks. The wall opened and he stood facing Diagon Alley.
There was hardly anyone out today. Ron couldn't blame them; it was way to early to be shopping. He shouldn't even be up yet, but for some reason his internal clock didn't agree with him today.
He continued to walk around and look in shop windows, pretending that he was actually going to buy something, until he came to where he wanted to be. He took a deep breath, and with a casual glance over his shoulder, he slipped into Knockturn Alley.