Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
A/N: The chapters are going to get longer from now on. This chapter is a bit altered to fit with the plot, but no really big changes. I want to thank my betas Minerva Solo and Lisa, any remaining mistakes are my own.
Ron stared at the newly slammed door. The bell above it still swung violently back and forth. He rubbed his abused leg absently. Ouch. There was no chance that the other man had stepped on him by accident, but why anyone would stomp someone on purpose was beyond him.
"Evil git." he murmured as he retreated to the stool behind his counter. He tucked some stray hair-strands behind his ear and turned back to The Daily Prophet. The characters in the comic-pages seemed to have found something funnier to do than to entertain him. The page was empty except for a girl in his least favourite comic who was very busy eating a lollipop. She removed the lollipop from her mouth only to stick her tongue out at him. He chuckled as she managed to get the sticky sweet stuck in her hair in the process, but after that she ignored him completely. He sighed and put the paper down again, not feeling like reading anything more advanced than the comics.
A couple entering the shop offered him some welcome distraction. Unfortunately for them he couldn't really concentrate, and drifted off in his own thoughts every now and then, not quite listening and therefore asking them the same questions repeatedly. Not surprisingly they where irritated by his forgetfulness and distracted manners. He somehow managed to help the annoyed pair before giving up and closing the shop. Mrs. Murphy probably wouldn't mind, she was more concerned about him being there on time in the mornings anyway, and she usually told him if he was to expect really important customers. After managing to lock every lock and activate the advanced alarm system in record time (4.5 minutes) he hurried home. He willed himself not to look for the homeless man on the way.
Ron arrived to his flat earlier than he used to. It was too early for dinner and too late for tea. He decided that some work could probably take his mind of things. There had been some activity last week and he had a few ideas he thought might be useful. He shifted through the pile of less important observations but decided he would run through those too, not because he had too but because he wanted to, he arranged the colour coded observations in chronological order before pulling out parchment and quill and start writing.
He wrote with a speed and energy that would have made Hermione proud, and cause everyone else who thought they knew him to question his sanity. It was a matter of interests really. In school they usually got boring assignments, and Ron simply wasn't interested in putting his soul in that. This was another matter entirely. This felt meaningful and this was fun! While some things he had to write were pure routine and quite boring, most of the assignments where both fun and challenging and made him want to do his best.
Last spring when he got the news that he was getting to work in the Muggle-world he had been almost ecstatic with joy. He had been a pain in the neck for the rest of the family the last month before he moved from the Burrow, talking non-stop about his new job and his every progress in the Muggle-studies course he took in the evenings to prepare for the jump from the wizarding-world. He didn't realise it was annoying until Ginny finally snapped and told him how much he suddenly resembled Percy when he was in his most annoying mood, only worse. She didn't phrase it exactly like that, her version involved a lot more swearing and yelling, but the message got through. Ron tried to shut up after that. There was nothing he disliked more than being compared to his brothers, and he knew how much Percy had annoyed him when he went on and on about his job, and Mr Crouch, and cauldrons, and illegal flying carpets, and whatnot.
It was ironic really that he would end up much like his brother, writing endless lengths of parchment in the evenings. Much like his brother but not exactly like him. The exception was that the things he did were much more important than his brother's rants about cauldron-thickness, in his not-so-humble opinion anyway. And he would never, never do what his brother had done.
While he was pondering the importance of his own work a spectacular ink-stain slowly blossomed over the parchment. He cursed loudly and started rewriting the report. His quill had a spell-check-spell on it, but it couldn't keep him from soiling the parchment if he wasn't careful. It wasn't that fun to rewrite things so he usually tried to write neatly the first time around. He needed to concentrate now. Work and musings about his family apparently didn't mix very well.
Ron reached for the Muggle-wand that controlled the stereo and managed to knock down the stone he used as a paperweight; he cursed and put it back where it belonged before pressing the play-button. Music suddenly filled the room. He adjusted the volume to an enjoyable level and continued writing. The music worked like a charm, and he managed to think only of work and music for a while.
After what felt like much shorter time than the actual hour it took, the floor was littered with ink-stained parchment, but on his desk lay several scrolls neatly bound together with strings in different colours. His stomach growled, but he ignored it and shoved his reports into a plastic-bag. He might as well deliver them before bothering about dinner.
Half way down the stairs he realised that he had forgot to change from his slippers. He cursed but continued downstairs, hoping that he wouldn't meet anyone he knew. It wasn't that far to walk after all. It took him less than two minutes to reach his goal. A sign outside the small pet-shop announced that they where open so he hurried inside.
The girl behind the counter smiled. According to her bright green nametag her name was Vera.
"Back to look at the parrots again?"
"Yes." he said and shuffled his feet uncomfortably. He wished there where a better way to send urgent owl-post. He had preferred to keep an owl at home, but he couldn't open his windows wide enough to squeeze a bird through them, and he couldn't simply let the animal out through the front door. It would be cruel to keep an owl like that, without the ability to fly out and hunt as it pleased. To keep a bird of pray as a pet in a small flat in a Muggle-city was impossible.
Vera showed him into another room that held a variety of bird-cages with all kinds of colourful birds inside them.
"Can I look at that one?" he asked and pointed at a small yellow parrot. It hooted happily. Vera looked puzzled at the birds' sudden outburst.
"Isn't it strange how they learn to imitate different things." she reflected. "We used to have a Grey Jako that could imitate the phone ringing."
"Er... yes. That's odd." he agreed and glared at the yellow bird. Vera opened the cage and stroked the parrot affectionately with a strangely vacant expression on her face before handing it over to Ron. He took the bird from her and held it firmly in one hand as he pretended to scratch his own back with the other hand, reaching for his wand. The doorbell chimed.
"Excuse me a minute!" Vera said and hurried out. Ron quickly tied as many scrolls he could to the parrots' leg. It hooted and tried to wriggle out of his firm grip.
"Shut up Pig!" he hissed and finally let the disguised owl go, deciding two small scrolls was as much as the tiny bird could take. The rest of them where less urgent anyway and he could take them to a proper post office later this week.
"Strange," Vera said and smiled, not noticing the yellow owl that flew over her head as she entered the room again, "there were no customers in the shop."
"That's odd." Ron said, trying not to look too guilty.
"So..." she said and gave him another bright smile "Where were we?"
"You were about to show me that bird" he said, pointing at another yellow parrot.
"Yes, right... Just a moment." she started to open the cage, but suddenly stopped and frowned.
"Is... is there a problem?" he asked nervously. She usually failed to notice any missing birds after his little performance, mostly because there weren't really any missing birds. He hoped that she hadn't become more attentive all of a sudden. Pig was usually wearing an anti-Muggle charm as well as the parrot-glamour, but he had learned in the past that there wasn't such a thing as a foolproof charm. He had no need to worry however, the shop-girl where simply staring at his feet.
"Do you realise that you are wearing furry slippers?"
He had never before been so sorry that he wasn't authorised to use real memory charms in his work.
"Wingardium Leviosa"
He levitated the spaghetti from the saucepan and dumped the boiling water down the sink with the kind of ease that comes with practice. The first time he had attempted this little trick he had lost half of his dinner-to-be down the sink as well. It was a bit tricky to keep all the spaghetti-strands together while leaving the water behind and also keep a firm grip of the filled saucepan in his other hand. He had learned to do the levitation spell with his left hand since he needed the strength of his right hand to lift the water-filled saucepan. "Strange that water can be so heavy..." he mused while lowering the pasta in the now empty saucepan and pouring a generous amount of olive oil over it.
The sauce was already prepared and bubbled happily in another saucepan. He was still a bit suspicious about the concept of cooking without a proper fire. One of the things he didn't like about his home was the absence of an accurate fireplace. Every witch and wizard knew that the fireplace was indeed the hearth of the home. Much of the household-equipment in his flat worked with the Muggle magic he now knew was called electricity, but he disliked using it much. He had taken a liking to the stereo, but that was the only exception, and he was glad that the kitchen was equipped with a gas-stove and not one of those suspicious-looking electric things. At least something was burning when he was cooking, even if it wasn't the familiar flames of a magic fire.
The first weeks when he lived alone had been interesting. Lots of food turned to black and smelly lumps, but thankfully no bigger accidents occurred. He had only cooked occasionally at home and to feed himself proved to be a big challenge. In a family as big as his there was no need for any of the family-members to cook more than once or at most twice a week, and he usually managed to trade his food-days for two days of doing the dishes. With a mother like Molly he hadn't really been interested in cooking when she could do it for him. There had been no need to stand in the kitchen and wrestle with that kind of household-magic when she was around. And now... Now he couldn't really come crying to his mother when he was hungry anymore, could he?
The following Monday morning he opened the gate to the 3-story house and stepped out engulfed in thoughts. The homeless man had haunted his dreams. He didn't remember much, just that he had been in them. Something about that man intrigued him. He had more spikes out than a cactus, but still... The man had somehow caught Ron's attention and made him want to get closer despite his nasty attitude. His body language had virtually screamed: "DON'T TOUCH ME OR I'LL BLOODY KILL YOU!", but that wasn't the end of it. The man had somehow managed to both push him away and draw him closer.
Shaking his head, he tried to figure out what the other man had been thinking and why he had acted the way he did yesterday, but to no avail. He had enough problems with sorting out his own feelings sometimes, and he hated it when he had to guess what other people were thinking or feeling or why they acted as they did. For example: How on earth was he supposed to know what another person felt about him if they didn't tell him about it? Girls seemed to do stuff like that all the time, using some secret code to show their interest and then expecting him to act according to that secret code too.
If he had a sickle for every time he had found out a month or so later that a girl had been interested in him he would be a rich man now. Hermione had tactfully suggested him to take some lessons in body language. He had not so tactfully asked her to sod off, but he had actually read her stupid books. Maybe they had helped somewhat, he didn't really know. The subject was rather fascinating really, and he still had one of the books in his bookshelf. Not that he was going to admit that if someone asked...
Ron was a very tactile person; he had always lived close to people and was used to express his feelings by touching and hugging family and friends. He felt completely lost talking about feelings or coming up with things to say in awkward situations. Humour might be the key sometimes, but there where situations when he didn't want to crack a joke. It was so much easier to put a comforting hand on a shoulder, to bear-hug a sister after a bad break-up or to punch someone in the face instead of talking. He preferred to act, not talk, in difficult situations and that sometimes made things difficult.
When he put his hand on the other man's shoulder he had violated his personal space. In hindsight that might not have been the best thing to do… The other man had probably felt threatened by what was meant as a simple gesture of comfort. He had sat for a long time thinking this weekend, but he couldn't decide what he could have done instead. The last time he had tried speaking soothingly to someone he had messed up so badly he didn't want to go through that again anytime soon.
Ron rubbed his temples. He had to do something about this. For some reason or another he really wanted to get to know this ex-wizard, despite the gut feeling that he was going to get hurt. Badly.
A crunching sound startled him out of his thoughts. If he where to believe in Lavenders morbid predictions for today he had probably stepped on Pigwidgeon or on someone's favourite lap dog. He looked down and lifted his foot carefully. A paper coffee-cup lay crushed on the pavement. Now that was a sign if he ever had seen one.
Later that day he actually saw the ex-wizard sitting on the street near the cheap restaurant where he usually spent his lunch-breaks when he didn't bring his own lunch to work. His mind went blank, but he managed to snap out of it and greeted the man as he walked past. He wasn't sure the man had seen him, but when he turned around he saw him staring in disbelief. When Ron smiled and waved at him the man quickly turned around. He grinned evilly as he waited for the waitress to show up with his lunch. It was a start.
The homeless man seemed to be one of the regulars on a street Ron sometimes walked on his way home. He continued to smile and greet the man whenever he saw him. The first few times the homeless man ignored him, maybe because he thought that he was smiling to someone behind his back, Ron mused. About a week later the man seemed to have put two and two together, and he looked absolutely horrified at the fact that Ron was acknowledging his existence.
After a few of these casual run-ins he decided that he was ready to talk to the man some more, all he needed was an opportunity. He didn't have to wait very long. Ron spotted the ex-wizard again the following day. He was on his way to get some groceries when he noticed a shabby-looking figure on the sidewalk. After debating with himself for a few moments he walked up to the man.
"Hello again!" he cried cheerfully and crouched beside him. The look on his face made it totally worth it.
Next chapter: Draco is not happy about his brand new stalker...