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Rose waited until her third year to try out for the Gryffindor Quidditch team.
For a while, Ron wondered whether she’d ever show any interest in doing so at all, having spent practically all of her first two years at school in the library or else hidden behind towers of books in the Gryffindor common room—determined, it seemed, to live up to every bit of her mother’s reputation as one of the brightest witches of her age. True to his promise to Hermione when the children were born, he’d managed to refrain from ever nagging their daughter about taking up the sport, never even giving her so much as a nudge in that direction (a forced restraint, thought Ron, that all too often felt like going against the laws of nature, if truth be told). His little girl may have loved Quidditch every bit as much as he did—and really, how could any child of his not—but it seemed it couldn’t quite compete with her resolve to make her own mark at Hogwarts.
After a while, though, even Hermione felt that such single-mindedness couldn’t possibly be healthy for their daughter. Citing numerous articles she’d read on building strong self-esteem and the benefits of a well-rounded extracurricular life, Hermione encouraged Rose to explore other interests outside of her studies, and after much deliberation, Rose determined that the only thing that interested her nearly as much as reading Hogwarts: A History was Quidditch.
Still, Ron didn’t think that anything was out of the ordinary when she came up to him in the kitchen while he was perusing the Sport section of that morning’s Prophet. She’d been so quiet that he hadn’t even realised that she was standing there; only when Crookshanks had leapt up to the table to swat his paw at the leftover bit of toast on Ron’s plate did he notice her out of the corner of his eye.
“Oh hey,” he said, setting the paper down. “You’ve had a bit of a lie-in. Mum made eggs.” He nodded towards the platter in the centre of the table, which Crookshanks was now eying greedily.
“Actually, I already ate,” she said. She was still standing there, hands clasped behind her back, but now she was also starting to rock forwards and backwards on the balls of her feet.
“Everything OK, Rosie?”
“Mmm hmm, oh yes.” She nodded just a little bit too vigorously. Ron’s still finely-tuned, Auror-trained antennae perked up immediately. “I was just wondering... you know, if you’re not busy...”
“What’s up?”
“Well, I was wondering if maybe we could go and... toss the Quaffle around for a bit?”
“Oh...”
“You’re busy-”
“No, I’m not-”
“You’re still reading the paper, I should let you get back to it-”
“Rose...”
“Yes?”
He smiled and motioned for her to come back; she’d already started to make her way out of the kitchen and was halfway across the threshold of the doorframe.
“I’d love to toss the Quaffle around with you.”
There was a pause, during which she seemed to be holding an internal debate over whether she’d heard him correctly, then she returned his smile, looking positively delighted and, if he didn’t know any better, also the tiniest bit relieved.
* * *
“Now don’t hold back, Rosie,” he said, adjusting his pads on his forearms. He took great pleasure in the fact that his old Keeper gear still fit him after all these years; he may not have gone pro as Ginny had done, but he prided himself on still keeping himself in decent shape all the same. “Don’t be afraid to give it all you’ve got. Your old man can take it, trust me.”
She was looking at him in the same way Hermione often did, with that tell-tale quiver of the mouth that hinted at a valiant attempt at holding in certain laughter. Ron chose to ignore this and signaled her to start throwing the ball.
“Come on now, don’t be shy...”
She eyed him tentatively, then drew her arm back and flung the Quaffle at him; it sped across with the force of a bullet and got him right in the stomach, taking the wind out of him and nearly knocking him off his broom.
“Dad!”
“That was good!” he squeaked, catching his breath and straightening up. “‘M all right. Right, let’s try another one.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure, I’m sure.”
“Because maybe we should...”
“Try that side angle trick that your Aunt Ginny did in a championship game once, remember that one?”
“Erm... OK.”
And with great speed, she traced a figure eight with her broom then zoomed in on his left, releasing a wicked throw that would have made even Oliver Wood see stars.
Over and over they went at it, Ron’s reflexes finally starting to wake fully after about an hour or so. After one particular save—easily one of his most spectacular, thought Ron—he tossed the Quaffle back at her and grinned.
“This is fun, isn’t it?” he said. “Just like when you were little and we’d get you and Hugo out here on your toy brooms and play until Mum made you come in for your baths.”
Ron smiled at the memory, not realising until that moment just how long it had been since he and Rose had spent a carefree morning like this, playing one-on-one, just the pair of them. Hugo was always up for an impromptu game, and Ron reckoned that with him about to go off to school that those, too, would soon become a rare treat.
When the children were little—Hugo only an infant, and Rose just entering her toddler years and developing a distinct personality—Ron often wondered whether he’d be able to relate to them once they got older. He’d hoped and prayed that each of them would take after Hermione in the academic department, and he found out soon enough that his wish had been granted: by the time Rose was just a few months shy of her fourth birthday, she could already sound out some of the words in Hermione’s tattered old copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, and by six, Hugo had demonstrated an almost scary proficiency for recognising ancient runes in Spellman’s Syllabary.
It was quite clear that they would follow in their mother’s footsteps and go on to post a number of impressive achievements—his heart nearly hurt with fatherly pride at the thought of it—but in those quiet thoughts he nursed, the ones he didn’t feel comfortable sharing with anyone but Hermione, he wondered. He wondered whether he’d be left behind. Whether one day, he’d be sitting at the dinner table trying his best to follow a lively conversation about goblin rebellions of the twelfth century, and Hermione, Rose, and Hugo would all be chatting away excitedly while his eyes glazed over.
He hadn’t thought it possible that two people who were so different from him in so many ways could also look so uncannily like him. Sometimes it still amazed him to look at them—Rose, especially, with her long nose and her spray of freckles and her bright, flaming red hair, and the long limbs that, on her, gave an air of elegance, but on him, had brought on a lanky awkwardness. It was strange to see so much of himself staring back at him, all the things he hated in himself, but had learnt to love in her. And in moments like these, he was actually happy that she’d taken after him in some ways after all. That he actually had something to do with this magnificent creature in front of him.
“Dad...”
“Hmm?”
“You think maybe I could take a break for a while from throwing the Quaffle at you?”
“Oh,” he said, coming back to the moment. “Oh, right, you’ve probably had your fill... D’you want to go back inside then?”
“No, it’s not that,” she said. “I... I was thinking that maybe we could bewitch it this time.” She pointed down at the open crate, where the spare Quaffles were. “And maybe those, too.”
“What would we want to do that for?”
“So I can practise blocking them. So... so you could teach me. You know, proper technique and all.”
Ron stared at her, feeling the warm trickle of pride begin to spread through him until it reached its face, which he was quite sure was a bright beet red now.
“Yeah?”
She smiled and nodded, then became preoccupied all of a sudden with a twig on her broom handle. “Tommy Morgan left Hogwarts last year, and...” Her eyes flitted upwards at Ron’s for the briefest of seconds, then returned to the twig once more. He couldn’t help but note that her face was transforming into its own brilliant shade of scarlet. “... well, there’s an opening for the Keeper position on the Gryffindor team.”
Ron blinked back, the words slowly registering in his brain, like treacle oozing into the cracks of a sticky toffee pudding.
“Keeper?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Do you... do you think maybe you could get me ready for the tryouts?”
He couldn’t help but think that if it weren’t for his ribcage, his heart might very well have flown out of his chest at that moment. Rose seemed to be holding her breath, watching him very carefully, as though trying to gauge his reaction. He saw her shoulders release at last when he smiled.
“I can’t think of a better way to spend a Saturday morning,” he said.
And he saw his own lopsided smile beaming back at him.