Unpredicted Happenings by Ron x Hermione
Chapter Notes: Once again, Thanks so much to Melissa! Please enjoy!
NOTE: I don't own Ron... I own the cackling witch and Blen, though!
An hour later, Ron found himself walking along the same dirt road. Who knew how many miles that he had traveled since he had left the two lovers? But Ron found himself thinking about love in the world, and it just made him even angrier to think that his own wife and child had to be dead, when someone else could love a car more than their own girlfriend.
He stopped.
Ron took each breath rapidly, trying to figure out what he could do. No, he had already thought of his choices; he knew what they were already. He didn’t have a wand anymore, so it all had changed now. Keep walking, he told himself calmly, trying to choke back the tears.
He couldn’t take it anymore.
Ron fell to his knees, now completely weighted down with emotion from the losses he had experienced. How long he laid there, even he didn’t know; but soon he found himself choking on his own sobs.
Okay, get up, he told himself slowly, still gasping for air. With a grunt, he got to his feet and heard a sound like someone Apparating.
He wrenched his head around. There was a small…
Building? It hadn’t just been there had it? Surely it hadn’t; Ron would have seen it on his miserable way out here.
It was a rather old looking building, Ron concluded, when he jogged to it and saw it closer.
He immediately stopped.
What if this was some ploy by the Death Eaters and Voldemort to get him, Ron, as well? Ron couldn’t have that happen. He had already been through enough the past few days; he himself could not be another one of Voldemort’s victims. But then, a structure appearing into thin air was pretty apparent sign that something was going happen.
Ron knew as much to realize that it was a pub. It stood on stilts and looked to have been reduced to a dump. It looked like it hadn’t been tended to in a while; it needed a new coat of paint and lot of fixing up. Either the owner didn’t care about its appearance, or it was closed, and hadn’t been used in a while. The entire structure was made out of wood that looked to have been rotted and reduced to near brittle by termites. It had a green, vinyl roof that had many places where it had been patched with black roofing throughout. A rickety bridge attached to a small, stone walkway led to the front steps of the pub.
Ron collected that it was owned by the likes of Magical people by the sign that it had on the roof.
The sign said, “Waterbut’s Pub”. Every so often, the letters would rearrange, and then form back together after they had exploded. They colors changed as well; from purple, to blue, to orange, then green, then to exploding. It reminded Ron of one of Fred and George’s inventions.
Ron felt that what he needed was either a drink, or Hermione and Jenna back. Since he knew that he had willed the latter to happen so much he thought he would burst with no results, he figured that a drink would do him good.
Ron walked slowly up the bridge, pausing every now and then for signs of movement. All he could hear was the tinkling of glass and raspy music floating through the windows. He definitely saw lights on; he now knew that it was open.
Stepping quietly through the door, he saw a middle-aged man with once handsome features looking sadly at him. Ron flashed him a weak smile back.
The man, obviously the owner of the pub, looked to be around fifty or so years old. He had graying-white hair that was balding somewhat on top. His face displayed a soft expression, with pale-gray stubble for a beard as well.
Ron carefully went to sit down at the bar on a high, faded-orange barstool that looked to have been used many times. Ron squirmed around on the seat a bit before finding a comfortable position.
“What can I do you for?” asked the barman casually, coming to stand in front of Ron while he dried a mug with a brilliantly white dishrag.
Ron hesitated somewhat before speaking. He had never drunk before- he had never needed to; but he thought that now was a good a reason as anything else.
“Want to start with a butterbeer?” the man asked, raising his eyebrows. It was as if he had read his mind; he knew that Ron didn’t know even what kind of drink to order. He pulled out a wand and tapped it to the glass of the mug he had been drying, making it fill to the brim with a drink.
Ron looked into his eyes as if saying, “Thanks,” and took it off the counter to take a swig of it.
“Need to talk?” he asked bluntly.
“I don’t know what I need to do anymore,” Ron said sorrowfully, not even daring to look at him.
The man walked over to the other side of the pub and started wiping down a table with the same dishrag. He still looked over at Ron while he scrubbed a particularly nasty spot.
“You look like you need to talk,” he repeated again, giving him a sly look.
“You don’t want to hear about me,” Ron replied quickly.
The man shrugged. “Name’s Blenkinsop Waterbut. People usually just call me Blen. I’m right over here if you need to. I find that speaking about your problems always helps.” He gave him another devious gaze. “That’s how you got here.”
Ron looked up slowly. He knew this was a trick by Voldemort. He had known it from the start.
He slowly turned around and stood up to face the man. Blen was still cleaning the table, completely unaware that Ron had even gotten up.
“What-What do you mean? Have you been spying on me?” Ron asked peculiarly, putting his hand to his back pocket. He realized that his wand was gone and in the street. It had probably already had been run over again. He now had no weapon to use against him if he attacked.
“Goodness no,” he said laughingly. “People who are lost in their own selves or are in a certain state of mind when they feel they can’t go on any longer-” He motioned to the room around him. “They end up here,” he whispered. He paused for Ron to speak.
“And that’s why…”
“You’re here,” Blen finished for him.
The man gave a sly smile and continued to clean the pub.
Ron continued to stare at him for a couple more seconds, finally realizing that this man was possibly the farthest away from being a Death Eater, besides himself.
He turned around and raised his own mug of butterbeer to his lips, taking a long drink. He set it down softly.
He hadn’t realized it until now, but there was another woman in the room. She was just sitting there as well, possibly even wallowing in her own sorrows. Ron flashed a pathetic smile her way, yet she didn’t see him.
To put it lightly, she was quite scary-looking. Her nose was too big for her. She had moles that were the only thing that kept her face proportional to her body. The eyes that she had were way too close together, not to mention the slight hairs that she had growing out of a fuzzy mustache.
Her teeth were severely buck-toothed. It looked like she had had a mean spell cast on her as a child, or even just recently. And then…Hermione floated into Ron’s mind.
Hermione had had buckteeth in her first few years at Hogwarts. It was quite sad, even Ron had to admit, at how many things that he could just come across and he would think of Hermione. He sighed and put his head in his arms, shielding himself from the bright lights of the pub.
“Drain your drink…your sorrows will stay!” the witch cackled behind him.
Ron raised his head slightly from under his arms and saw the barman, once again in front of him.
“Oh, don’t pay any attention to her,” he told Ron lightly. “She doesn’t have that good of an outlook on life.”
“What’s wrong- I mean, what happened to her?” Ron asked.
“I don’t know, honestly,” Blen said. “She won’t tell me.”
Ron suddenly felt the urge to speak.
“It’s my wife and daughter,” he started out slowly.