Winter 1991
Ronald Weasley
Snow fell throughout the day and night coating the countryside in thin sheets of a fluffy white coat. The light gentle breeze sent lazy flakes against the stonework that made up the outside of the manor highlighting the edges and crevices in a fairytale kind of way that caught Ron's eyes and held them as he took in the morning air.
Ron couldn't help but wonder if his parents and Ginny were having a good time. He had sent a letter, of course, but even the Greengrass' owls weren't fast enough to have made it to Romania and back. He wondered if Romania snowed in the same way that it did in England. He hoped so, he couldn't imagine a Christmas without the damp cold of Great Britain. The way everything was silenced and muffled was calming like the world would move a little slower. Ron liked that, he could almost imagine having a broom to play a game of Quidditch in the garden. The last time he had played was too long ago.
A year swallowed.I decided to save Charlie a year ago after the shivered a little even though he wasn't too cold.
"Ready?" Daphne said as she, Tracey, and Astoria stepped out onto the patio.
Daphne, despite her usual care for how she looked, wore a rather sensible coat for the weather that Ron might have imagined Ginny wearing. He could almost imagine the blonde hair replaced with his sister's red. Tracey on the other hand wore some sort of muggle thing that was thick and fluffy, and honestly, in Ron's opinion, seemed warmer than anything else he'd ever seen. He imagined he would sweat quite a lot wearing something as thick, he imagined it was the kind of the thing a wizard might wear in the arctic. Astoria wore a pair of white earmuffs that shimmered with a golden band and a coat that seemed a little too long in her arms. It was more the kind that Ron expected Daphne to wear, the kind he imagined was from one of those shops at the top of Diagon Alley. It was exactly the place his family would never shop.
Ron just nodded and dragged his eyes away from the manor. He could still hardly believe that his life had changed so much and that he was actually at such a huge house. He would never have guessed that.
"Do we have to?" Astoria whined. "It's just so… cold."
Tracey snorted. "That's kind of the point. It's not like you'd make a snow wizard out of warm mud."
"Mud?" Astoria frowned. "I guess that would be worse."
Ron smiled. He also couldn't help but notice how different Astoria and Ginny were. They were like night and day, and yet he couldn't wait to introduce them.
"I think it's the perfect temperature," Ron said. "I mean, it's probably colder at Hogwarts."
Astoria frowned even harder. "Oh gosh, don't say that! You're supposed to be heroic, remember? Heroes don't tell princesses about how cold it is at school."
Daphne rolled her eyes. "Stop that! Seriously, Tori, if you don't want to hang out with us then you don't have to!"
"I do want to! I just want it to be summer! Christmas is over, I'm ready!"
"I like the snow," Ron countered, "it's muffly, nice and quiet. It helps me think."
"Oh… I suppose… but, what if I get snow down my back?"
"Then you'll freeze to death!" Tracey laughed. "Don't worry, Astoria, you can just stand around if you want. We can do the hard parts."
"We?" Daphne raised an eyebrow.
"Well, I really meant me and Ron. Right?"
"Right," Ron shook his head and stepped off the patio into the snow. His boots sunk down a few inches.
Despite her hesitations, as soon as Ron had taken a few steps, Astoria had fallen in behind him.
"So, Hogwarts," she said a little breathlessly, "Is it really great? Do ghosts haunt the halls?"
And a weird book version of Salazar Slytherin.
"Some of them do," Ron said. "But yeah, it's pretty bloody mental. You should see the great hall, it's almost as good as your manor. But like, in a different way. All Scottish and stuff."
Ron gestured towards the edge of the hedge maze. "Should we make two? A witch and a wizard?"
"Oh, yes," Tracey agreed quickly. "And the girl should have a wicked long nose. Do you know a spell for that?"
Ron and Daphne shook their heads. Ron hadn't ever thought to learn any spells about making snow wizards, and honestly, he doubted he ever would. After all, what was the good of snow wizards besides making them?
As they gathered together a few snowballs and started rolling them into larger boulders, Astoria continued asking questions about Hogwarts. Focusing mostly on what the school itself was like and how Daphne and Tracey liked living in Slytherin.
"You know, Astoria," Tracey said, "I think you'd look lovely in yellow. Maybe you'll be a Hufflepuff?"
"A Hufflepuff!" Astoria squealed. "That wouldn't do, I'd have Daddy transfer me to Livermony! I'd rather be a Gryffindor than a Hufflepuff!"
What's wrong with Hufflepuff?
Tracey snorted. "I don't know, you should think about how good the yellow would look with your hair."
"If I am a Hufflepuff, I'll be sure to spit in your breakfast before leaving for France."
"Tori!" Daphne scolded.
"What? She was teasing me first."
Ron hoisted the large boulders of packed snow on top of one another until they formed two perfect three-tall piles. The first a little shorter than the second, and the second reached just over Astoria's head. Tracy reached into her fluffy coat pockets and displayed a handful of buttons which were big and black and Ron imagined they belonged to some sort of coat. Picking the roundest and largest of the bunch, Astoria stuck the eyes on the snow wizard while Tracy did the snow witch with two of the smaller buttons. Tracy bent down and scooped up a large amount of snow, forming it into a cylinder and squishing it into place to represent the witch's nose.
"You know, muggles use carrots for their noses," Tracey mused.
"Carrots?" Ron said, finding it hard to believe that muggles would waste vegetables building snow wizards. It seemed preposterous to him that muggles would even build snow wizards in the first place, after all, Ron was almost sure most muggles had no idea what a wizard even was.
"Uh-huh. There's even a famous one, they have movies about him and he has a really long carrot nose. But," Tracey shrugged, "I guess it's not the same. I mean, snowmen and snow wizards aren't the same like muggles and wizards aren't the same."
"Yeah," Astoria agreed, "we don't use icky vegetables as toys."
"Icky?" Ron scrunched his nose. "What's wrong with carrots?"
Astoria sighed. "You need to work on being heroic."
"Princesses should eat carrots," Daphne added, earning an exaggerated roll of Astoria's eyes.
With the faces of both the snow wizard and snow witch set in place, Daphne reached her hand into the hedge and plucked free a long branch.
Daphne's eyes widened as she looked at her palms. The pair of white leather gloves that she had worn on her fingers, sported a long tear across the palm where a large thorn had punctured through.
"Perfect…"
Ron frowned at her and the gash in her gloves. He took the branch lightly from her hands and broke it into fourths, giving each of the two waiting snow monsters long wooden arms. Daphne fidgeted with the gash and let out a deep breath.
"I can't believe I've broken them," she said hotly. "I just got them last year."
"Last year!?" Astoria's eyes opened wide. "You're wearing gloves from last year? No wonder they broke."
"Most people," Daphne glared at her, "try to keep their things in good condition. There's no reason you should have a new pair of gloves every single year."
"Well, the reason is that I really wanted a new pair…every single year." Astoria huffed. "And, well since I was right, wasn't I? Don't you think Ronald? I mean, if she had new gloves they wouldn't have ripped right?"
Ron looked to Astoria, then to Daphne, and finally to Tracy.I really don't get girls.
Tracy grinned at him and let out a small laugh. "Yeah,Ronald,is Astoria right?"
"Well, um, I usually keep my gloves for a couple of years. And then I usually get the ones that my brothers hand down."
Astoria frowned. "Not fair, he doesn't count."
"He counts perfectly well," Daphne countered. "And, he's right. Gloves should last a few years. But… these ones certainly didn't. I'll have to go tell Mum, maybe she'll take me to Diagon Alley before dinner."
Diagon Alley…
"Erm, can I come?" Ron asked. He had been meaning to donate some of the Galleons he got from Sal to St. Mungo's and still hadn't gotten the chance.
Daphne nodded and gave him a look that he thought meant something along the lines of'Of course, you took my side against my sister.'
"We can all go," Astoria said. "I can buy some new shoes."
"Do you need new shoes?" Daphne asked.
"Oh, what princess doesn't?"
- SS -
Ron was surprised that Daphne's parents didn't have a lot to say about her glove, each inspected the damage carefully but didn't ask about how it happened or if Daphne was to blame. Instead, Dianna had pulled the white leather from her daughter's fingers and promptly tossed the ripped accessory into the bin never to be seen again.
Ron couldn't help but make a comparison of Daphne's parents' reaction to that of his own parents. It was a nasty habit, that he was having trouble shaking. He couldn't help but compare every aspect of Daphne's life with his own, which even extended to her parents and to Astoria. He thought, maybe it made him a bad wizard to lust for wealth so badly. But, it was a vice he was willing to accept only because it didn't seem to hurt anyone and it only further fueled the small fire that his friends and Sal had lit inside his chest. A fire that represented a burning desire for power. The power to fix everything that was wrong with his life.
It was only a few minutes after they had finished speaking to Aloris and Dianna, that Dianna brought them to the Floo with careful instructions for travelling into a place Ron had never heard of before. He went second, just after Daphne, and before Astoria, taking a handful of the green powder and throwing it at his feet as he said the words like Dianna had instructed.
In a sudden rush of green flames, Ron tilted forward and stumbled out of a fireplace somewhere along Diagon Alley. He nearly crashed into Daphne as he collided with a small stone pillar.
"Graceful," she said dryly.
Ron gave her an embarrassed smile and scratched the back of his neck as he looked around the small store. They'd come out in a room that was almost as small as his bedroom at the Burrow. It smelt of old wood and contained nothing but a single fireplace, a stone pillar, and a simple wooden door.
"Where are we?" He asked Daphne.
"One of the buildings at the top of the street," she answered. "My father owns it. There's a few shops that pay him rent to do business and there's this small room, which he keeps to get into the top of the Alley instead of going through the Leaky Cauldron or paying for somewhere else."
"Blimey, you have your own bloody private entrance?"
"It's not like that. He just owns the building. It would be like flooing into your own home. Sort of."
"I think this is wicked. Even if it's a bit small."
"My father likes to be kind of practical. By keeping the floo room small, there's more room for the shops. There's a small botanist and a perfume store. I'm not really a fan of either, I don't like the American scents. I prefer French."
Different countries have different scents? What does that even mean? Ugh, I would even settle for Theo.
With another green flash, the fireplace lit up behind them as Astoria stepped through. She scoffed lightly as she looked around and squeezed her way between Ron and Daphne.
"Can't we decorate here a little bit?" She asked. "It's so dreadful with that…smell. And these walls, they're just such a boring shade of cream. Can we paint them something exciting? Like a nice orange?"
"Orange?" Ron asked her.
"Almost like your hair," Astoria nodded. "But, you know, orange instead of red."
The fireplace lit twice more, first Tracey stepping through and finally Dianna. From what Ron could gather, Tracy had been in the room before and she wasn't quite as impressed as he was. But she still took the time to throw in behind Astoria and double the effort to see the small room turned orange. Dianna smiled politely at her Daughter's idea but Ron was almost sure it wasn't going to happen. His mother gave him those looks sometimes, the kind that was more of an acknowledgement of what he wanted than a promise that anything could actually be done.
They progressed through the small room and out into the Alley itself. It was the kind of sight that made Ron smile. The clouds were thick above London and small gentle flakes of snow floated down through the bustling crowd of witches and wizards. The usual colours of robes were suspended in favour of mostly greens and reds that matched the Christmas season. Long lines of tinsel and holly draped between the shops and dropped so low that some taller wizards had to duck to pass by. Ron's stomach rumbled as the air filled sweetly with the scent of holiday sweets.
Standing just aside a store that sold only undergarments, was a collection wizard for St. Mungo's, a small hovering saucer doing small loops around him as he talked about the wizarding hospital. Ron reached into his pocket and took out the galleons that he had stashed aside for donating. A pleasant warm feeling spread through his chest as he dumped them over into the saucer. To Ron's surprise, Dianna followed his lead, matching his donation with Galleons of her own.
"We make a larger donation in July," she said simply, "But I see no reason why I can't donate today."
Ron smiled up at her awkwardly. Once again he found that he liked Daphne's mother but at the same time he felt a little out of place by the gesture. He hadn't meant to set the expectation that she should donate, although he was glad he did. He was sure the Galleons would be put to good use. Her eyes searched his for a moment before she glanced away and led them towards one of the nearby shops.
Ron had never heard of the shop, in fact, he hadn't really heard of many of the shops at the top of Diagon Alley. His family preferred to shop down lower closer to the leaky cauldron. There wasn't anything wrong with the shops closer to Leaky Cauldron, in fact, some of them were the best in the entire alley like Ollivander's, but the prices were certainly different.
The shop was covered in a thin layer of baby blue paint, with expensive-looking glass shelves and golden racks of clothing. Ron was almost afraid to touch anything, wondering if the things for sale would simply melt away from being too delicate. Everything had a marked price, nothing dipping below a galleon and a few items being as much as three hundred.
Even for how well-adjusted Tracey seemed to the Greengrassexperience, she too seemed a little apprehensive.
"Expensive, isn't it?" Ron asked.
Tracey nodded. "I wouldn't shop here normally."
"Oh! Look at this!" Astoria reached out and grabbed Ron's arm, yanking him away from the others and towards a display case filled with lion-pelted bags. "Aren't they nice? I might ask for one for my birthday."
Ron thought that the bags looked awfully horrendous. He couldn't really see a reason why anyone would want to own a bag that just had so much fur. Nonetheless, he nodded politely. His eyes shifted around the case inspecting the other items until finally landing on a brown leather wand holster.
It was too much for him to justify buying, but still he soaked in the fine stitching of the holster and the way the buckles almost seemed to shine in the shop light. He wondered if they were enchanted, and, given the price, he would almost bet they would be something…He could almost imagine himself standing at the encampment ready to save his brother with his wand tucked to his arm resting snugly in the holster. He smiled a little goofily at the thought and took a breath before turning around.
Daphne tried on what seemed like a hundred different variations of white gloves, most of which Ron struggled to tell the difference between, he continued to look around the shop. Occasionally either Tracey or Astoria would point something out. With Tracey they both gawked at and laughed at the price while Astoria remained steadfastly serious in her assessment of everything she was going to one day own. Ron thought it was good luck that Astoria had been born a Greengrass because he couldn't imagine how she would fare at a Weasley.
Tucked in the back corner of the store almost near the gloves was another display case, filled with smaller cases of pins. One seemed to be filled with different variations of rubies and another with opals, but one at the very back caught Ron's eye.
Set in a small case were a dozen or so small rattlesnake pins, each with two glistening emerald eyes. Or well, Ron thought they might be emeralds. In all honesty, he admitted, they were probably some other shiny substance, given the price tag that lingered nearby. Real emeralds, he thought, would be much more expensive. He had the strange desire to run his fingers along the pins and feel the surfaces of the stone. He swallowed.
Ron didn't imagine he would do something so corny, but less than a minute later he had reached carefully into the case and taken out the set of pins, content to distribute them among his friends. He paid for the pins at the front of the shop where a nice wizard wrapped the box in brown paper. Ron justified the cost to himself as not being an entirely selfish purchase.
He was about to rejoin Tracy and Astoria when something else caught his eye, just next to the counter was a small rack of scarves. The exact kind that Hogwarts students often wore with their uniforms during the colder months of the year. He couldn't help but stare at one in particular that reminded him deeply of Hermione's eyes. The scarf almost matched the colour perfectly, as if someone had enchanted it to be perfect. Ron bit the inside of his cheek and took the scarf off of the rack, adding it to the top of his brown-papered box.