Daddy's Girl
17th August 2036 (Ron is 26, Hermione is 56, Aimez is 17)
RON: I have appeared at the Ministry of Magic Apparition testing centre in the buff. This is a new one, I've never come back here before, and I shoulder the nearest door open to find something to wear.
Because of all the splinching and concentrated disapparating and apparating going on there are strict wards to stop anybody disapparating out of the building and this room doesn't seem to have a fireplace so I can't go home or the Burrow. I find a cloak and drape it around my shoulders while I search for a wand or any kind of footwear around but this seems to be an abandoned office and I realise that I'll have to go somewhere else to find clothing.
I open the door and peer out, a couple of apparition testers are walking down the corridor and I duck back inside and hold my breath. Their footsteps fade away into nothing and I look out at the corridor again and creep out to try some of the other doors nearby. Every one of them seems to be locked.
Once again I try to shoulder my way through one of them but it's too noisy and I can't be sure how many other ministry officials are around. I curse under my breath and my bare feet slap along the smooth cool floor as I reach the end of the corridor and peer around the corner to see if anybody's around.
"Gotcha!"
I jump and spin around to see a highly amused young woman laughing at me and leaning against the wall outside one of the testing rooms.
"Oh Godric you almost gave me a heart attack," I said as I clutched my chest and tip toed back across the hall to kiss my daughter on the cheek, "What are you doing here?"
"I'm taking my test," she nodded over her shoulder with a smile.
"You're never seventeen!" I exclaim.
She nodded and pulled me into her testing room, which is thankfully empty.
"I just passed," she grinned at me.
"Was this your first time?" I asked her and she nodded again, I felt myself swelling with pride, "That's my girl."
I gave her a hug and she giggled before beginning to go into one of her Hermione-like rambles.
"I was so nervous that I was going to mess it up or that I would wind myself up so much that I travelled but I ran three miles today just to be on the safe side and I think it did the trick because I was so calm and cool about it and when I came into the room and the examiner told me where he wanted me to be I just did it without thinking and it was perfect and then I came back again in exactly the same spot and I had both eyebrows and everything!"
I rubbed my head and laughed.
"I never thought that sentence was going to end!"
She laughed again and bounced up and down on the balls of her feet excitedly.
"Oh I'm so glad your here!" she threw her arms around me and hugged me again, "You always seem to know when I want you around and you're just the best dad ever!"
I laughed and twirled her around like I used to when she was a little girl, well like I had done last Tuesday actually, and she squealed with delight before jumping out of my arms and clapping her hands together enthusiastically.
"Oh we've got to owl mum and get her to meet us for a celebration dinner!"
"Yeah sounds cool," I nodded, "I may need more clothes than just this though. Unless times change in the future and it's no longer frowned upon to wear nothing but a cloak in public."
She laughed at me and gave me a playful shove.
"Dad you're such a prat! Wait here and I'll see what I can nick you okay?"
As she opened the door and checked to see if the coast was clear I whispered after her.
"Don't get caught!"
"I never do, I'm a master criminal me, Uncle Fred taught me how to pick locks."
Just as I was about to warn my little girl never to listen to her Uncle Fred she rushed out and closed the door behind her.
HERMIONE: I have been sculpting a sundial in the garden with a yin and yang theme. I can't do anything without some kind of time theme or karma theme, I suppose Ron's never out of my thoughts even when he is out of my time. I take a break to rub some lotion into my hands so they don't dry out and crack when an owl swoops down and lands on top of the stone plinth I have been shaping for most of the year.
"Shoo, don't you poop on my sundial before it's even finished!" I say as I wave my hands but the owl insists I take it's message before changing positions to hop up onto the bird feeder where it helps itself to something to eat.
I open the note and smile as I read Aimez's handwriting. She has passed her test first time around, I knew she would, and she's very pleased with herself for not panicking or going travelling. I wander into the kitchen to pick up my glass of water and take a sip before reading on. Going out to celebrate, can I come and meet them...them?
The glass smashes as it slips from my hand when I read the last scrawl, the over excited addition to her original note.
Dad's here and we'll be at Eastbrook waiting for you, come quick!
I disapparated right then and there into the ladies toilets at the Eastbrook public house and ran out of the cubicle and into the bar to scan the place for the two familiar heads of red hair but I couldn't make them out anywhere. I ran out to see if they were sitting outside, Aimez was still a year too young to be in the place after all, but I still couldn't see them and I hoped they hadn't gone off to another time together. I hoped Ron had waited for me.
"Mum!" I heard Aimez calling out from the end of the street.
I spun around and saw the two of them running along towards the pub to greet me. My heart stuck in my throat and I began to run to them.
"You got here faster then we did," Aimez was saying with amazement but she stopped when she saw the look on my face as I saw Ron melt out of his clothes and into nothing.
"No not again!" I whimpered as I stamped my foot.
Aimez turned around to see that her father had gone and let out a sigh of disappointment before looking back at me and giving me a hug.
"He'll come to you again mum I promise. He'll stay longer next time I'm sure."
I started to cry on her shoulder. She was always so strong for me at times like this. I knew I was being selfish and that if I had the choice I would always choose for Ron to be there throughout Aimez's life rather than my own but it just hurt so much when we had near misses like that. I could see him this time. I could see him for only a second or two but at least he was there and I got the chance to see those eyes and that smile again after all this time.
"It's okay Aimez, he'll come again and I'll catch up with him then."
I kissed her on the cheek and saw her face alight with happiness and couldn't help but smile.
"So tell me all about it then."
"Well I did it perfectly first time and the examiner said I was flawless. Dad was so chuffed for me and then he got all grumpy because you'd told me all about the eyebrow thing and he started swearing about the examiner he had," she was running off at the mouth in that way her father would at times, "then he got all 'dad' on me and told himself off for swearing in front of me and then..."
I smiled and linked my arm with hers as we walked. I could listen to her all day. I probably would.
3rd September 2030 (Ron is 41, Aimez is 11)
RON: I had just had to resort to the thing I hate to have to do the most. I had just mugged somebody for their shoes. Ordinarily I'd nick a pair, well borrow I like to think of it really, but there are no shoes for feet as big as mine around here anywhere so what was I supposed to do?
I walked along the roadside and hoped I would come across a road sign sometime soon to tell me where I was when I heard a rustling in the bushes and flinched.
"Hello?" I called out with suspicion.
"Daddy!" Aimez yelled as she jumped to her feet and ran at me without a stitch on her.
I held up my hands in front of my face and hoped that there was nobody else around to see this middle aged man with a naked child hugging him at the roadside.
"Aim please you'll get me arrested!"
She was laughing at me as she pulled me back into the bushes with her, my hand still covering my eyes causing me to stumble over the uneven ground as I went.
"Dad you used to give me baths and change my nappies and stuff, you've seen me naked before..."
"Yeah...well...it's appropriate when you're a baby," I stammered as I shuffled my jacket off and held it out to her with my eyes still securely covered, "you're old enough to know better now."
She huffed and I took a chance and peered through my fingers to see that she was halfway decent now. It was a good job that jacket was quite long on her.
"I've seen you naked plenty of times dad," she said with an arched eyebrow.
"Yeah well who hasn't seen me naked," I snorted and finally let myself relax in her company, "So we both travelled here did we, or are you coming back from somewhere?"
"No this is my trip too," she said breezily, "any idea when we are?"
I shook my head and looked around the countryside.
"No clue where either, this look familiar to you Aim?"
She shook her head and we both rolled our eyes at out strange little lives.
"How old are you then?" I asked her.
"Eleven," she said.
"Oh cool, you going to Hogwarts yet?" I said with interest at what house she had been sorted into.
Her face turned suddenly sullen and she made a growling noise that I couldn't quite translate into the English language.
"Sorry Aim, I didn't quite catch that," I said in my best 'dad' tone.
"I was just going," she mumbled, "I travelled from the Hogwarts Express and that's fine with me because I don't want to go to bloody school."
"Language!" I snapped at her before suddenly realising what she'd just said, "Hold on I told your bloody mother you weren't to take the train to Hogwarts."
Aimez looked up at me defiantly.
"I know you did."
"So why did she put you on it? Does she not recall how many times I ended up on those sodding train tracks? I was hit by the bloody train once!" I exclaimed as I tried to fathom what could have possessed Hermione to be so careless with our daughter.
"I know that too," Aimez said with a very Percy-like snootiness and she brushed some lint off the sleeve of her oversized jacket, "we had quite an argument about it as a matter of fact."
I stared at her and blinked before folding my arms and raising my eyebrows for her to explain herself to me.
"I will not restrict the way I live my life because of my condition," she said matter-of-factly.
"Who have you been talking to?" I asked her with an annoyed frown.
"I have not been influenced by anybody father," she said nonchalantly.
"Oh you're calling me father now? It's Percy isn't it? I'm going to kill him!" I growled as I hit out at an invisible version of my brother in my mind's eye.
"Uncle Percy did not tell me what to think but he did suggest something that I think mum should have listened to rather than shipping me off to Hogwarts with all my cousins."
When did she start talking like this I asked myself? When I meet her as a teenager she's just like the twins and when she's a little girl she's like me and Ginny used to be. Does she become every member of the family over time? I hoped that she didn't go through a dragon-loving phase during her 'Charlie' period.
"I'm not following any of this Aimez."
"Uncle Percy knew I didn't want to go to Hogwarts so he suggested home schooling me and I said I wanted to do that and mum said I couldn't because I wouldn't get a full education."
I sat down on the grass with Aimez and examined her face for a minute before asking her the big question.
"Why don't you want to go to Hogwarts Aim?"
She looked down at her bare feet and pouted before answering me.
"Because every time you go to Hogwarts you fall out of the sky on the Quiddich pitch or drown in the lake and I don't want you to get hurt coming to see me."
I shuffled over to her and put my arm around her, her arms curled around me and hugged me tightly in return.
"I don't get hurt every time I go Hogwarts," I tried to explain, "sometimes I play chess with McGonagall or have tea with Hagrid. Most times I show up in the common room or the dormitory and scare the hell out of a load of first years."
She laughed at this before burrowing her face into the side of my chest.
"But you come to me all the time and always on my birthday and special times when I need you and I don't want you to get hurt because you come to me at Hogwarts. What if that Willow tree beats you up again?"
"Aimez," I began as I pulled her up onto my lap and she looked me in the eye, "if I'm going to get hurt then I'm going to get hurt. It'll never be your fault for drawing me into a dangerous place. I've been stabbed with an umbrella in Uncle Bill's living room remember?"
She chuckled; it was one of her favourite stories.
"Does that mean you never want to go to Uncle Bill's house in case I get hurt again?"
She shook her head.
"I fell down the stairs at Fred and George's place too. That means you can't ever go to the joke shop I'm afraid," I said as I shook my head and sucked air in through my teeth.
"Okay dad you've made your point."
"No I don't think I have," I said, on something of a parenting roll, "because you forget that I can go back to the Burrow on any number of 'Weasley curry' nights and the smell of those farts are toxic I'm telling you girl. So there will be no more visits to Grandma and Granddad for you I'm afraid because I won't have you drawing me into that cloud of poison just to say Merry Christmas to you."
She was laughing hard now and hit me on the arm.
"Okay I said!"
"So you're going to Hogwarts then?" I asked her with a smug smile.
"Well not as soon as I get back because, well y'know?" she shrugged guiltily.
"Yes I do know, I know exactly what you mean Aimez, you mean that when you go back the train would be miles away and you will be starkers on the bloody train tracks!"
She grinned at me mischievously.
"Maybe I'll bump into ya dad!"
14th October 1999 (Ron is 19, Aimez is 23)
RON: I was sitting in the Marigold tearooms reading the Prophet and waiting for Harry when a very pretty young woman with long wavy red hair pulled out the chair across from me and sat down.
"Um hello," I said nervously on seeing her knowing smile, "I'm actually waiting for somebody so..."
"Oh I know I won't stay long," she said as she waved for the waitress to come to our table, "I just thought I'd have tea with you until your friend arrives."
I rewound what I had just said to her in my own head while the woman spoke politely to the waitress.
"I didn't tell you I was waiting for a friend."
"No you didn't," she said, not really seeming to care much about that, "So tell me all about your day."
I blinked.
"My...My what?"
"Your day," she smiled, "I want to hear all your news."
I frowned at her and looked at the smattering of freckles across the cheekbones, the wickedly curling corners of the lips and the vivid red hair, before smiling myself.
"Are you...?" I began to ask if she was a Weasley but she couldn't be, I knew all of my cousins on dad's side and none of them had big brown eyes like that. In fact they were more like Hermione's eyes than anybody in our family, "Are you a Prewit?"
She narrowed her eyes and bit her bottom lip thoughtfully.
"Distantly yes."
That explained it.
"Oh right," I said as I let myself relax and held out my hand to her, "I'm Ron, Molly's youngest boy."
She shook my hand and seemed to find something very funny.
"I know, I'm Aimez, I'm..." she hesitated, "My name's Aimez."
Why didn't she tell me whose daughter she was I wondered? Then I thought that maybe she was illegitimate. I had heard stories about Uncle Bilius that were probably the reason Percy's hair was curly. I decided not to push it.
"So are you visiting or do you live in London?" I asked as Aimez's tea arrived and I folded the newspaper and put it away.
"No I live at Walton-on-the-Naze, right by the pier."
"Seaside, nice," I nodded as I took a sip of my tea, "I grew up in the middle of Devon so it was a bit of a journey to get to the beach."
She seemed inexcusably happy again and I began to notice some familiar little quirks she had that made me slightly uncomfortable.
"Oh but the countryside is so lovely there. I'd live there myself but then I think my grandma would be round pestering me every three seconds or so, she likes to fuss."
"Sounds like my..." I suddenly got it and my face fell, "...no way!"
She grinned at me and nodded.
"But...but..." I said, not knowing if I wanted to ask her questions or run out of the tearoom screaming.
"Calm down dad you'll give yourself a seizure!" she giggled.
"Don't call me that!" I yelped far too loudly for everybody in the tearoom's liking, "How old are you anyway?"
"Twenty three."
It felt as if both my eyeballs were about to pop out of my skull and roll across the table like marbles.
"You can't be older than me!" I said, still rather too noisy in these surroundings and she shushed me while stifling a laugh.
"I'm a time epileptic just like you, I can be older than you pretty easily dad."
"No no no no no no no no...No!" I was waggling my finger and trying to stop myself from saying 'no' quite so often, "Don't...No I'm not dad...just no!"
"I can't call you Ron," she said a little uncomfortably, "it's not right."
"Well just," I was trying to keep myself as coherent as possible, "try not to call me anything then."
"I'll try," she shrugged and looked a little sad about this.
I leaned across the table and took her hand, which also felt incredibly wrong.
"Look I'm sorry it's just...this is new."
She smiled at me again.
"That's okay, there always had to be a first time didn't there. Although this isn't it."
I blinked before looking back up at her and smiling with the recognition of that dirty little face I had been trying to place for a whole year now.
"You're the little girl who found my wand in the street aren't you?"
She nodded.
"Wow!" I said as I remembered her then and looked at her now, "Good job you did of growing up there."
"Thanks."
We both sat across from each other and just stared and smiled for what must have been two minutes solid before she pulled her chair around the table to sit a little closer to me and rest her elbow on the table and her chin on her hand.
"So tell me what you want for the future then," she said with a dreamy smile.
"What?"
"Tell me what you want out of life, you've still got it all ahead of you and I want to know what you want to do and see and places you want to go and everything. What is it you wish for?"
I had never really thought about that. I didn't bother with plans or dreams, not since I started seeing way into my own future, it all seemed out of my control and mapped out for me before hand.
"Nobody's ever asked me that before," I said as I mirrored her posture and leaned against the table on my elbow.
"Well I'm asking you now. I really want to know da...Ron. I want to know what you want out of life."
I thought about this for so long that my tea went cold. She never once huffed or rolled her eyes; there were no comments for me to hurry up and no interruptions of my train of thought. She just let me think about it for as long as I needed to.
"I want to get it right," I said in the end.
I wondered if that was a stupid answer. It probably was. Here was my beautiful twenty three year old daughter tracking me down to get the meaning of life as a time traveller and that was all I could offer her. She probably wanted something all profound and deep. Well she should have gone to find Hermione for that. I sat back and threw her a look of apology for being so unimpressive.
"You do it exactly right," she nodded and her eyes filled up with tears before she blinked them away quickly and smiled at me as if she hadn't been overcome with emotion at all.
I pulled my chair in a little closer to her and asked her the same question in a low voice.
"I want to make you proud of me," was her answer.
I felt my own eyes burn at this and I couldn't believe that she actually looked up to me for approval.
"I can't imagine you ever being a disappointment," I said with a constricted throat.
She looked happy enough at that and I suddenly had a billion and a half questions that I wanted to ask her all at once. I wanted to know if she liked the summer or the winter, was she a morning person or a night owl, did she read books or play sports or both, what stupid embarrassing sound did she make when tickled, how did she eat a Jaffa Cake, did she hate travelling or love it, did she hate me for passing on that bloody epilepsy gene or did she forgive me? I wanted to know everything about her and she seemed to want to know everything about me.
"...so Hermione has got the most hideous dress on," I was saying while Aimez cried with laughter while I described Harry and Ginny's wedding day to her, "this thing could've taken over the world I'm telling ya!"
"I've seen the pictures," she said while wiping her eyes and shaking from the inside at the thought of her mother being devoured by an uncontrollable bridesmaid dress.
"The pictures do not do it justice!" I exclaim as we both crumple into a whole new type of hysteria.
"But that one picture of everybody together and the dress is blocking out most of Hagrid's body and you can barely see mum inside it at all..." Aimez was clutching her side and could hardly get the words out now, "...and the look on your face!"
Aimez lost herself totally now and I rocked back in my chair and laughed so hard that my head began to hurt.
"They could see her from space!" I just about managed to squeak out, causing Aimez to begin whimpering about the cramp she was developing in her sides.
We had almost managed to compose ourselves again when the bell above the door to the tea room tinkled and Harry arrived to see me and an older woman with bright red faces in fits of giggles with two ignored cups of cold tea beside us.
"What was Ginny thinking?" I was just cackling as I saw Harry staring at me with a sceptical look on his face, "Oh Harry!" I pointed over Aimez's shoulder, "It's Harry look."
"He doesn't know me," she said under her breath while struggling not to laugh.
"Oh right," I said before glancing back up at Harry who was handing his cloak to the waitress and wandering over to our table with great suspicion, "Harry this is..." I wondered if I should introduce her at all.
"I'm leaving actually," she said as she got to her feet and smiled as she extended her hand for me to shake it again.
I stood up and pulled her into a hug.
"It's been really nice seeing you," I said as we broke apart.
"You too, and I'll tell my mum I bumped into Molly's boy in Diagon Alley when I get home. She'll like that. I'll be seeing you again, now we know what each other looks like we can look out for one another."
"Definitely," I nodded.
Aimez was about to pay for her un drunk tea but I told her I'd get it and she waved and left the tea room with a tinkle of the little bell above the door. I let out a deep sigh and sat back down again. That was definitely one of the strangest experiences of my life, and for my life that's saying a lot.
"So who was the pretty lady you were chatting up Mr I'm-Engaged-Now?" Harry said with a smug look on his face.
I scowled at him and shook my head; he could be such a prat sometimes.
"Harry did you see her," I said, speaking to him as if he was a simpleton, "she's one of my cousins you sick pervert. Or should I call you Mr I'm-Married-Now?"
"Oh," Harry said blankly.
As we watched her passing the window with one final wave I couldn't resist winding Harry up for leering at my daughter.
"You know what is interesting though?" I said, "She looks just like me," I leaned forward in a conspiratorial manner and so did Harry, "and you found her attractive."
Harry's face fell and he went as white as a Hogwarts ghost.
"Oh Godric I did!"