Written for the QLFC Season 2 - Round 9
The lights of the city flash mutely around him, glancing across his face, his dashboard, and the worn leather seats of his car. It's quiet and still at this time of night, just like every other night he's spent here in London as a taxi driver. It's in this isolated bubble that he feels all his worries and tension and stress just melt off of him. This time belongs to him and him alone, and, well, if he tended to drive along the less busy parts of the city in that time, there was no one to scold him. He takes a deep breath, holds it, and slowly breathes it out.
Then he glances down at the dashboard. The digital clock blinks red at him, and his gaze trails there for a brief moment.
11: 59 p.m.
About time to head back then. He observes the streets around him as he glides along the road, taking note of familiar routes and shortcuts. He makes a smooth turn at the intersection, heading back to the garage, where he'll stop for the night and head back.
Another day done. Another day wasted.
The garage is near silent when he parks inside. Only a couple people are awake and going about their shift as he ends his, and he hands them the keys and lets them check over the condition of the car before heading for his own.
The drive home is a short one.
Ron parks on the street in front of his rather rundown apartment, before heading to the second floor. He enters, makes a quick meal, and then collapses in bed.
He's exhausted, mentally and physically, as he has been for a while now.
Ron wonders whether that eleven year old him would be disappointed in him now. Although, really, he doesn't even need to ask the question. He already knows the answer. Of course he would be. Who wouldn't be? He's doing everything he didn't want to do, or be, when he was a child. He's a bitter, mundane man with nothing ahead of him in life.
His eleven year old self had imagined dragons and magic and fights to the death and all that exciting sort of stuff. But reality didn't quite work that way, and now he was stuck in this endless, boring cycle of eat, sleep, work, repeat.
'Something needs to change,' he remembers thinking, before slipping into darkness.
He wakes up the next morning and it's the same old same old. Get up, brush his teeth, gets dressed, heads to the garage, and commences work. It's so ... routine.
But, he thinks, staring at his pallid face in the mirror, this is where it'll stop. He's going to break out of the endless loop – starting today. Shouldering himself, he nods in determination and grabs his keys before heading out.
On his way to the garage, he stops at a coffee shop. It's a miniscule change in his life until now, but even that deviation feels like a small victory.
"Good morning!" the barista greets cheerfully, clearly a morning person.
"'Morning," he says. "French Vanilla, please."
"Coming right up!"
It doesn't take more than a couple minutes. The shop is nearly empty at the time of day, and he thanks her. Heading outside, he smiles lightly at the blue sky. It's almost like a testament to his new resolve.
"Alright then Ron Weasley," he says, taking a deep breath. "You can do this."
He holds his head up, and walks back to the car, spirits higher than he can remember it being for a long time.
He grabs his cab for the day, and starts cruising expertly through early London traffic. Ron rolls the windows down, absently switching on the radio and letting the wind ruffle his hair. Out of the corner of his eye he sees a hand waving, and he slows to a stop, moving beside the sidewalk. His first customer.
She climbs in, looking harried and ruffled and kind of on edge. In hindsight, that was probably a pretty good indication that she didn't want to be talked to more than absolutely necessary, but he never was good at reading those types of things.
So he said, "Morning! Where to?"
"The university. As fast as possible." Her answers were short and curt.
"Of course."
He reaches over to switch on the taximeter, and then pulls into the main road at the first break in traffic. The university, huh…
"You're a student then?" he asks, noticing the book bag sitting on her lap.
There's a short pause.
"Yes."
"What are you studying?"
This time there an irritated sigh from her; her attitude is slowly making his mood decrease. So much for making small talk. This wasn't working at all.
"I'm in Law."
"I've never been to university," he muses, almost absently. She turns to him at that, seemingly just as irritated.
"Yeah? Well maybe if you hadn't lazed around in high school you might've had a chance."
Ron grips the steering wheel hard, fury just barely kept under a thin veil of control. He's dealt with rude customers before, he reminds himself with gritted teeth. But there's something about her snooty tone that rubs him the wrong way, and that, that statement, was too much of a low blow for him.
"If you must know," he ground out, good mood completely gone, "I couldn't afford it. Not unless I wanted to bankrupt my family."
The girl seems taken aback, but doesn't apologize. Instead, the spent the forty minute ride to the university in stony silence. When they arrive, she hands him the money and leaves. He's never been gladder of that fact.
Ron tries to prep himself for the rest of the day, but the cold taste of the coffee in the cup holder just darkens his mood.
Well there goes that, he thinks, irritated. If I never see her again, it'll be too soon.
He drives off, back to the busy streets of London.
Ron thinks that maybe, maybe, fate, or karma, or the gods have something against him. Seriously. Because he, not thinking the next day, pulled up next to a customer only for it, lo and behold, to be her.
Again.
"Kill me now," he mutters under his breath.
She hears him, and gives him an affronted look.
"Excuse me?"
He ignores that.
She's there the next day as well. Ron idles by the sidewalk, wondering if he should just drive away and wait for another cab to come by. He can see her looking at him in trepidation as well, but she eventually makes her way into the front seat.
Ron eyes her warily.
"Are you stalking me or something?" he asks.
"I should be the one asking that!" she snarls. "Why is that your cab always appears at the same time? Is this on purpose?"
"I only met you yesterday! I have a route you know. As if I would willingly waste forty minutes of my time with someone like you."
She frowns, shooting him a deadly look.
"I have a name, you know."
"Well, aren't you special," he drawls.
"It's Hermione. Hermione Granger," she says, with a nod of her head.
After a moment's pause, he gives his own.
"Ron Weasley."
"Nice to meet you," she says automatically.
"I'd reciprocate, but…"
They nearly swerve when she hits him in the arm.
She doesn't like the crowded busses and the commute time, he eventually discovers.
And so she waits there at the exact same spot every morning, and he picks her up there every morning, and it becomes part of his routine like everything else.
It wasn't exactly what he pictured when he wanted a change in life, but it was good enough for now.