Work Text:
“All right, mate,” said Ron, closing the ledger and standing up from his desk. “You ready to go?”
Across the cluttered office, Hugo looked up from the copy of Quidditch Quarterly that lay open on his lap. His small shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Er, I guess so.”
“Your mum wants to meet up with us at Ollivander’s, to see you get your wand,” Ron added, “but we can still get all your books, and your robes too - and you’ve still got to pick out your birthday pet.”
Hugo nodded, but made no attempt to move. “Yeah.”
“All right, c’mon.” Ron jerked his head towards the door, and finally Hugo got to his feet, letting his magazine fall from his lap to the floor. “Diagon Alley awaits.”
They headed down the winding staircase into the joke shop, which, as was typical for mid-August, was doing quite a lively business. One of the nicest things about being a co-owner, Ron had always felt, was the freedom to make his own hours, and it was this that allowed him to take his son out on his very first pre-Hogwarts shop. The day they'd taken Rose, during the summer after she turned eleven, she had practically dragged them from shop to shop, pleading for books that weren't on her list and marveling in awe at the endless shelves of wands in Ollivander's - not to mention that she had shone with glee when she accidentally set fire to the till while testing one of them out.
"So where to first?" asked Ron as he and Hugo set out down the crowded cobblestone street. "We can get your books first, if you want, and get that out of the way."
"That’s fine."
"Or we could do a fun thing first," Ron offered, watching as his son watched his trainers move across the ground. "The Magical Menagerie's right there, we can have a look at owls, or a cat if you want - they've got toads, too-"
"No," Hugo interrupted, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "I - I guess books, if we have to."
"All right," said Ron, still studying his downcast face. "Books it is, then."
After a short walk, they stepped into Flourish and Blotts, which was just as jam-packed as the rest of Diagon Alley. Hugo finally lifted his gaze upward to stare around at the tall shelves of brightly-colored books. At the till, a harried clerk was securing thick leather straps around a copy of The Monster Book of Monsters for a wary-looking teenage girl.
"Go on," said Ron, gesturing to the books angrily chomping away at each other behind the in a cage behind the counter. "I reckon you might need one of them."
Hugo's face paled in horror. "What?!"
"I'm only joking," Ron hurried to reassure him, though Hugo was still watching the books with wide, panicked eyes. "You won't until you're in third year, and that's only if you want to take Care of Magical Creatures."
"Oh."
He did not look quite as relieved as Ron had expected, though that was, perhaps, because he had realized that his own sister would soon be bringing home a book that might draw blood.
"So, your book list," Ron continued, pulling the parchment out of his back pocket and unfolding it. "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, naturally... Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1... Magical Theory-"
"We don't need to get them," Hugo said quickly. "Couldn't I just use Rose's ones if I need to?"
"You could do, but you don't have to. We‘ll get you your own copies."
"But that's a waste."
Ron recalled, very distinctly, being acutely concerned about his parents' finances when he was Hugo's age. It had been difficult not to be when he saw the bleak state of their Gringotts vault and his mum putting stretching spells on Bill's old robes so that they would fit him (and even then, they'd still only grazed his ankles). But Ron had worked hard to ensure that his own children never felt like they were putting a burden on their parents, and as such, they'd never exactly been shy about asking for what they wanted.
"You don't want to use Rose's old ones," Ron said finally as Hugo picked up a Wimbourne Wasps wall calendar and started flipping absently through it. "We can get you your own, it's all right."
"Okay, but-"
"But what?" When Hugo just gave another shrug, Ron gestured across the shop to a large banner on the wall reading Hogwarts Required Reading. "They've got it all ready for everyone, see? It'll only take a minute."
"Fine."
Indeed, the staff at Flourish and Blotts had organized all of the requisite books by Hogwarts year, and, under Ron's watchful eye, Hugo dutifully selected each one on his list until he could hardly see over the stack in his arms. Tottering up to the till, he slammed the books onto the counter and promptly resumed staring at his shoes.
“Starting at Hogwarts this year, dear?” asked the clerk, who looked thrilled not to be fetching another biting book. “I bet you’re excited, aren’t you?”
She peered kindly over her glasses at Hugo, whose eyes darted furtively around the shop.
“Yeah,” he muttered finally. “Really excited.”
“I still remember my Sorting,” the clerk continued on as she tallied up the prices. “I was dreadfully nervous, you see, thought they’d tell me they’d made a mistake and I’d be sent home - oh, this’ll be ten Galleons, fifteen Sickles, by the way, sir - but wouldn’t you know, I was put into Ravenclaw-“
“Here you go,” Ron interrupted her, holding out a stack of Galleons. “Thanks so much.”
“I’m sure you’ll just love Hogwarts,” the witch continued as she packed the books into a paper bag and cast a weight-reducing charm on it. “Everyone always says it, but it’s true, you’ll spend the best years of your life there...”
But Hugo did not appear to be listening. Instead, he was staring intently at a distant bookshelf, the nail of his pointer finger between his teeth.
“Thanks again,” said Ron pointedly, teaching for the bag. “Have a nice day.”
He took the bag and his two Sickles’ worth of change in one hand and used the other to guide Hugo to the door.
“Dad,” said Hugo as they stepped out into the late-morning sunshine, “was she right?”
“What do you mean?” Ron tucked the Sickles into his pocket and steered Hugo around a mum with a pram.
“That Hogwarts is the best years of your life?”
Ron puzzled down at him. “Hugo,” he said, “you’ve just turned eleven, you’ve got your whole entire life ahead of you.”
“I know, but-“ He shook his head. “Never mind.” He pointed down the street to the Magical Menagerie, where a family was walking out with a tawny owl in a cage. “Can we go in there?”
“Yeah,” said Ron, as a subtle disquiet stirred in the pit of his stomach. “Of course.”
He let Hugo lead the way to the pet shop, eyes fixed on his small head of dark curls as it bobbed down the street. When they entered, though, he didn’t head straight to the back room of owls the way Ron expected him to do. Rather, he made a beeline to a wall of cages containing various small animals: guinea pigs, rabbits, chinchillas.
“Am I allowed to get one of these?” he asked, pointing to a guinea pig with tan fur that stuck up at all angles.
“Er - well, you can’t bring it to Hogwarts,” replied Ron, watching the guinea pig gnaw on a piece of hay. “They’ve gotten a lot stricter about it, Professor McGonagall checks and everything.”
“That’s okay.”
“I thought you wanted an owl, anyway,” added Ron, though Hugo was still fixated on the guinea pig. “You know, your mum and I expect lots of letters - Rose writes to us three times a week-“
“I know, but I don’t need one,” said Hugo with a little shake of his head. “And I don’t want a cat and toads are gross.”
Privately, Ron agreed - he hadn’t necessarily wanted a toad in his house, though he’d have gone along with it, and he knew if they brought home a cat that Hermione would bond with it immediately and then mourn when it left for Hogwarts - but that did nothing to ease the nagging worry in the back of his mind.
“Why don’t we have a look at the owls, then, just in case?” suggested Ron. “You might change your mind once you see them.”
“I just don’t want one anymore.”
Resting a forearm atop the cage, Ron peered in. He could sort of see the appeal in the guinea pig - it was almost ridiculously cute - but all he could think of was the way his son had spent the summer counting down the days until his eleventh birthday, which had passed just last week. How he’d opened up Rose’s copy of Which Owl? and spent hours comparing the different types, trying to decide which was most capable of flying parcels across the length of Britain.
Ron glanced at his watch. “Your mum’s going to be meeting us at Ollivander’s in a half hour.”
Hugo’s face fell. “So we have to go get robes?”
“No,” Ron decided. “We’re going to get ice cream.”
“We haven’t even had lunch-“
“Then we’re having ice cream for lunch.”
“Really?”
“Let’s go before I change my mind.”
Florean Fortescue’s ice cream parlor had been reopened after the war by his daughter Felicity, who had fled to the continent to avoid the same fate as his father. The quality of the ice cream hadn’t suffered for this change in management, and even years later, visiting the place still felt like quite the special treat. He let Hugo order an extra scoop of chocolate to go with his peanut-butter-and-strawberry on a waffle cone, then cover it all with hundreds-and-thousands.
Outside, the shop had set up little tables and chairs. Ron thought it best that they eat there, rather than inside where their words could bounce off the walls and be overheard. Something told him that Hugo’s self-esteem wasn’t exactly at its highest.
Ever since Hugo had learned to speak - since he waved a chubby hand at Ron’s face and babbled ‘Dada’ and subsequently reduced him to tears - the boy had been a chatterbox. His family always said that despite how much he looked like Hermione, Hugo was Ron in miniature, from his boisterous personality to his enormous heart. So it wasn’t difficult, really, for Ron to put himself into his shoes.
“So how come you don’t want an owl anymore?” asked Ron casually around a spoonful of his own chocolate sundae.
Hugo shrugged. “I just don’t.”
“‘Cause I don’t think Rose is going to let you share hers.”
“That’s fine.” He licked a glob of ice cream and crunched down on the hundreds-and-thousands. “I don’t really think I’ll need it.”
“All right,” said Ron slowly. “Well, just think about it, because we can always come back if you change your mind.”
Hugo fixed his face into a rather Hermione-like expression of stubbornness. “I won’t change my mind.”
That was the thing about having kids, Ron had come to realize as his children had grown from babies to toddlers to kids and now to preteens. They were like little reflections of himself and his wife, but he didn’t have the privilege of sparing them the less appealing bits of their personalities. Rose was whip-smart, just like her mum, but also possessed her occasional haughtiness and lack of tact. And Ron saw so much of himself in his son: his sense of humor, his sunny, easygoing nature... and his insecurity.
“Could I get a new broom for my birthday instead?” piped up Hugo after a few minutes of silence. “‘Cause my old one is getting kind of slow, and sometimes if you fly it too high it starts vibrating, and what if it just gives up and crashes-“
“Your old broom’s fine, it’s not going to crash,” Ron assured him. “But first-years aren’t allowed a broom, you know that.” When Hugo just shrugged, his brown eyes fixed on his rapidly-melting ice cream, Ron decided that the time had come. “You know your first break from Hogwarts isn’t until Christmas, right? So why do you want presents that are going to stay at home while you’re gone?”
Hugo didn’t answer, eyes still downcast.
“Mate,” said Ron gently, “what’s really going on? You’ve been so excited all summer about starting at Hogwarts.”
A drop of chocolate ice cream slid onto Hugo’s thumb, and he licked it away. “I don’t know.”
“It’s all right if you’re nervous,” Ron added, “that’s completely normal.”
“I’m not nervous.” With the tip of his pointer finger, he smashed a single hundred-and-thousand piece into the wooden tabletop. The tips of his ears burned bright red. “I just don’t think I’ll be there that long so I don’t need any of this stuff.”
Ron’s stomach plummeted. “What? Why on earth would you think that?”
Hugo concentrated hard on making a yellow streak of sugar across the table. “Just ‘cause.”
“‘Cause of what?”
“What if I’m not any good at magic?” Hugo blurted out, looking up at Ron with frantic, anxious eyes. “What if I’m so bad at it that they kick me out and make me go home?”
It was incredible, really, how often Ron’s children - just by being their wonderful, genuine, incredible selves - managed to break his heart. The older they grew, the more it seemed to happen.
“That’s not going to happen,” said Ron bracingly. “I promise you, they don’t kick people out for that - or anything, really - but you don’t have to worry.”
“But I don’t know anything,” Hugo went on, face scrunching up in distress, “there’s all these classes and all these books and I‘ve got to learn everything in them-“
“No, you haven’t, you’ll have professors for all of that.” The image of Hermione, standing in the doorway of his and Harry’s compartment on their very first trip on the Hogwarts Express, floated through Ron’s mind. “They don’t expect you to know it all off by heart, otherwise what would be the point of having classes at all?”
This point of logic did nothing to assuage Hugo’s worry. “But Rose was top of her class when she was in first-year, and last year, and so was Mum, and James is Quidditch captain now and I just don’t think I can do any of that, I’m probably not even going to be in Gryffindor.”
He broke off to catch his breath, looking down unhappily at his dribbling ice cream cone. Hastily, Ron drew out his wand and conjured a small glass bowl, then gently directed Hugo to drop the cone into it so the whole thing wouldn’t melt down his arm.
“Whatever house you’re in, that’s quite all right,” Ron told him, passing his son a napkin. “There’s a reason there’s four houses, y’know, ‘cause everyone’s different.”
“Yeah, but...” Hugo wiped futilely at his sticky hands. “But when Rose started, you told her if she wasn’t in Gryffindor that you’d disown her.”
There went Ron’s heart, breaking again, and so viscerally this time that he felt a twinge in his chest. He remembered making that joke, too, and the intense regret he had felt on the drive home, thinking that his daughter could well end up in Ravenclaw and devastated that she might believe him disappointed in her, simply because of which dormitory she slept in at night.
“I didn’t mean that,” Ron told him quietly, leaning his forearms on the table. “I wasn’t being serious but I still shouldn’t have said it. It doesn’t matter to us one bit what house you’re in.” At Hugo’s shaky nod, he continued, “I don’t reckon there’s anything you could do that would make us disown you, either.”
Hugo’s lips twitched. “Not even if I was a Tutshill supporter?”
“Not even then,” Ron smiled back. “Here-“ He conjured up a spoon and poked it into Hugo’s ice cream. “Eat this before it melts and you’ve got to drink it.”
As Hugo picked up the spoon and shoveled up a gooey, melty mouthful, the tightness in Ron’s chest began to ease. He still felt like he was winging this, all the time, though he had been a parent for over thirteen years. It was impossible to know if he and Hermione were doing the thing properly at all, and they wouldn’t be able to tell until their kids were all grown up and out in the world, and by that point, it would be too late. But he saw so much of himself in his son, and while he could not stop the things that plagued him, he could do his best to help him.
“I‘m the little brother too, y’know,” Ron began quietly, watching Hugo lick ice cream off the back of his spoon. “I know how it feels when you look at everyone around you, and it seems like you could never live up to them. I used to think I could never measure up to all the things my brothers had done.”
“Really?”
Ron nodded. “I know it’s hard. It feels impossible sometimes not to compare yourself to other people, but I want you to try your best not to, because it doesn’t help anything, you’ll just make yourself miserable. All right? Promise?”
Hugo’s eyes met his. “Promise.”
“Your mum and I are very proud of you,” Ron added. “No matter what, we’re so proud of you.”
The tips of Hugo’s ears went crimson again. “Okay.”
He took another bite of ice cream, and it was then that Ron remembered his own abandoned sundae - and the purpose for the whole trip to begin with.
“Listen,” said Ron, glancing at his watch, “we’ve got about ten minutes before we’re meant to meet your mum at Ollivander’s, so we better finish up.”
Hugo’s eyes went wide, and he shoved another heaping spoonful of ice cream into his mouth.
“And if she asks,” Ron said, pointing at Hugo with his spoon, “we did not have ice cream for lunch.”
“Got it.”
Ollivander’s was only a few minutes’ walk away, but by the time Hugo had crunched on the last of his waffle cone and washed the lingering stickiness from his hands, they were a bit behind schedule meeting Hermione outside of the storefront. She was, however, unperturbed by this, beaming brightly at her son.
“You’ve got your books already!” she cried, prising the bag from Ron’s grasp and peering inside. “Oh, I’m so sorry I missed it, don’t you just love that new book smell?”
“Definitely,” said Ron, tossing a wink to Hugo and reaching for the door handle. “But this’ll be more fun, I think.”
He pulled open the door, setting off a tinkling of bells, and let Hugo and Hermione step inside before he did so himself. Ollivander’s was the sort of place that was nearly impervious to the passing of time; it still looked the same, even smelt the same as it had when Ron was thirteen and finally picking out a brand new wand for himself.
But Hugo, who had not set foot inside the shop before, gazed up at the unfathomably high shelves with unrestrained wonder painted on his face.
“Hello,” came a reedy voice from behind the counter. “Starting at Hogwarts, I expect?”
Gladwyn Ollivander had taken over the daily operations of the shop for his great-uncle, who was living out his twilight years at St Oswald’s. Like his predecessor, Gladwyn had scraggly hair and wide, vacant eyes.
Hugo, in a return to form, was off-put by none of this. “Yes,” he declared, marching up to the counter. “I need to pick my wand.”
“Well, young man,” said Gladwyn, stepping out from behind the counter, “let’s see what we can do for you.”
As Hugo stood patiently while Gladwyn took his measurements - the length of his arms, the distance from his knee to his ankle, the little space between his eyebrows - Ron felt Hermione lean her weight lightly against him.
“Take the afternoon off,” Ron requested under his breath so Hugo wouldn’t overhear. “We’ve still got more things to get.”
“I was thinking I might,” she replied. “He hasn’t gotten his owl yet? I thought that would be the first thing he’d want to do.”
“Er, we had to take a little detour - I’ll tell you about it later,” explained Ron at Hermione’s puzzled expression. “It’s all good, though.”
“Hmm.” Her gaze settled on Hugo, who was having the distance between his thumb and elbow measured. “Yes, I think I’ll stay. Work will get on fine without me.”
Ron wrapped his arm around her shoulders, squeezing her in a one-armed hug. Across the musty shop, Gladwyn had rolled up his tape measure and was stepping onto a ladder to pull box after box from the shelves. Hugo bobbed eagerly on the balls of his feet as he waited.
“Now, here we’ve got spruce wood with a dragon heartstring core,” Gladwyn said as he held a wand out to Hugo. “Twelve inches, rather pliant.”
Hugo looked back at Ron and Hermione. “What do I do?”
“Just give it a wave,” said Hermione, smiling encouragingly at him. “See how it feels.”
With a total lack of finesse, Hugo swung the wand and promptly sent an entire shelf collapsing in on itself. His face went immediately ashen.
“Oh, no matter, no matter,” replied Gladwyn airily, ignoring the pile of boxes on the floor. “Let’s find you something different, then.”
Hugo was presented with a few more options - mahogany and kelpie hair, pine and phoenix feather - and with each one, a bit more damage was done to the shop as he tested them out. And yet Hugo was not discouraged by this the way Ron imagined he might have been, earlier in the day. Quite the opposite, actually: with each new attempt, his excitement seemed to grow.
“Let’s try something different,” Gladwyn said when he had finished putting out a small fire in the rubbish bin. “How about... hmm... yes, here we go, this may work.”
He placed yet another wand in Hugo’s hand, who immediately let out a faint gasp.
“It feels warm!” he exclaimed, spinning on his heels to face Ron and Hermione. “That’s weird.”
“Rowan wood with a unicorn tail hair core,“ Gladwyn went on, “eleven inches exactly. It’s rather difficult to find wand-quality rowan wood, so it’s rare these days to meet a witch or wizard with such a wand. But give it a go, you might well be one of the few.”
Hugo, wincing slightly, gave it a cautious wave - he was plainly expecting to send the ceiling crashing down or something of the like - and instead found a thick stream of shining blue bubbles pouring out the end.
“Oh, well done!” exclaimed Gladwyn, clasping his hands in delight. “I think we’ve found it, young man!”
As bubbles flooded the shop, Hugo looked back over his shoulder at Ron and Hermione, his face lit up in laughter.
The tension around Ron’s heart released completely then, replaced by a flood of affection so powerful that it threatened to knock him off his feet. Gone was the sullen anxiety of the morning: the bright, cheerful boy that Ron had always known was back.
“How about it, mate?” Ron called to him. “You want that one?”
“Yeah,” stated Hugo emphatically. “This one’s awesome, and look, I didn’t even break anything this time!”
“You did great,” said Ron as Hugo hurried over to them. “You’re going to be great.”
They paid and stepped out into Diagon Alley, where the sun shone brightly down upon them. Flanked by his parents, Hugo prattled happily away, words flying from his lips at a mile a minute.
“We went into the pet store before,” he was telling Hermione, “and they don’t just have cats and owls and toads, they’ve got loads of different pets, like bunnies and guinea pigs and stuff - but I didn’t see any dogs, do you know if they have dogs?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart,” she replied, “I expect they might-“
“But we’ve got to go back anyway,” said Hugo, “since I need to pick out my owl.”
Not bothering to suppress his own smile, Ron placed a hand on his son’s shoulder and steered him in the direction of the Magical Menagerie.