When September Comes Again
Jan. 27th, 2008 12:23 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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hp_misfitficsTitle: When September Comes Again
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
auntbijou
Rating: G
Pairing: none
Summary: Life comes full circle for everyone, even Muggles.
Warning: Spoiler for DH, hints of past danger
Words: 1, 222
Disclaimer: It all belongs to the lovely J.K. Rowling. I make no money from it, and play in her universe only for fun!
A/N: The third and last in what I will now call my “September” series! I felt like I needed to finish this, and give our intrepid Muggle some closure. Amazing how creative I get when my fever spikes! Enjoy!
I never thought this day would come. Never.
Not that I’m not looking forward to it, mind. I look down at my youngest grandson, who is clinging tight to my hand for the moment, where no one can see it. He would never do that with anyone else but his old grand-dad, and no one can see us now, anyway. We’re standing where we can see the brick wall between Platform Nine and Platform Ten at Kings Cross, and I say, “Look, Toby, here comes another group. You just watch them right close, you’ll see the way of it.”
“Right,” he says with determination, and he watches as the family walks up, then pats their son on his shoulders and gives him a little push. The boy nods, fixes his hands firmly on his luggage cart, then starts to run. A trunk, a cat carrier, and a carpet bag totter and bounce as the cart rattles, the boy’s feet moving faster, and then just when it looks like he’s going to crash… the wall swallows him.
My grandson gasps and his mouth falls open. I grin. “See?”
He’s too stunned to reply. I laugh softly and thrust the hand not holding his deep in my pocket as I stare around the station. It’s September 1st again, and I’m back. I haven’t been here in years, not since we fled back during the Wizard War. That’s what we’re all calling it. It even made the papers, probably because it spilled into our world. Got out just in time, we did, because it turned out, us what worked at the station wasn’t as invisible or unnoticed as we had thought we were. My missus and me, we got out, and we managed to get our daughter and her husband out, but we had nothing to come back to. Them Death Eaters came to our home, and when they didn’t find us there, they destroyed it. Burned it straight to the ground. Even burned my allotment, they did, and the compost I’d been working so hard on. Ah, well, what mattered most was me and mine were safe and well and alive, and beyond that, I really couldn’t care. Spent the entire war in Florence, we did. Spent all the money I’d squirreled away for retirement, but there it was, I didn’t care.
“Grand-dad, Grand-dad, here comes another!” My hand is tugged demandingly, and I smile as I emerge from my memories. This group looks familiar, all the red hair, and I’m startled when I realize that the tallest red-head isn’t the father I remember from my years of working here, but the youngest, lanky son of that father. The sense of time that had briefly escaped me suddenly rushes around me, making me all-too aware of its passage, and then when a shout reveals a familiar head of shaggy black hair on a much taller, broader frame than I remember running up behind, I feel tears sting my eyes. The face turns toward me, and I see that little boy again, the little dark-haired chappie in glasses, so thin, so ragged, and here he is, all grown up with sprogs of his own. And apparently, married to that red-headed girl made of pure stubborn, who is hurrying up behind him and fussing at the children.
I know who he is, of course. It was in all the papers, after it was all over. I haven’t paid much attention since, too busy trying to pick up the pieces of our lives here, finding a home, finding a job, because I just couldn’t return to King’s Cross after… not after I found out about Robert Entwhistle. Poor Robert Entwhistle, killed when he was trying to shield a group of students who’d picked a bad day to cut class. He’d gotten them to safety, blocking their escape with his thick body… but he’d paid the price. The wizards, though, after the war, they called him one of the war’s Muggle heroes, put his name on a memorial with a bunch of others just outside the station, and I appreciated that. But I couldn’t go back.
Still, it does my heart good to see Mr. Potter, grown up, happy, with a family of his own. It tells me all is right with the world, and it’s all as it should be.
“Grand-Dad! Grand-Dad! Can we go in now?”
I look down at Toby, smiling, my heart aching when I think that my daughter and son-in-law are missing this. Killed by a drunk driver three years ago, they was. Me and Meg, we’ve been raising their kids, and they’ve been a comfort, I don’t mind saying. The oldest is off on his own, settling into his own apprenticeship, though I argued against it. “But Grand-dad,” he’d said, “I’ll never be out of a job. I could get a college degree, yeah, but there’s no guarantee I’d get a job after. But, Grand-dad, there will always be a need for a plumber, and good plumbers are always in demand.”
Couldn’t argue with that. The second oldest, though, she’s set with a good scholarship to a good uni, and I’m right proud. But this one?
“Grand-Dad! Come on!” My hand is tugged again, and laughing, I follow him. A soft hoot comes from the covered cage on top of his trunk as we start wheeling the cart toward the brick wall. I grin as Toby pauses, trying not to burst into laughter yet again, because the memory of when that big, brown owl came swooping in through the open back door of our house, an envelope in its beak is still too new, too wonderful. An envelope that was addressed to Toby Cotton. And when I saw the Hogwarts seal on the back?
No, stunned does not even cover it. Flummoxed doesn’t come close. Gobsmacked, maybe, but not quite.
But I was happy. Because, to tell you the truth, I really wasn’t that surprised. Toby is special. And when the tall, curly-haired man with the earth-stained hands came to visit, telling us he was one of the teachers at Hogwarts, and had been sent to escort us to buy supplies for Toby, it just confirmed things.
“Grand-Dad,” says Toby breathlessly, staring at the blank wall. “Will it really work for us?”
“I’ve only seen it fail once, Toby,” I say quietly. “Besides, Professor Longbottom said it would be fine.”
“Yeah,” he says, swallowing hard. He’s not holding my hand any more, but he does reach forward to lift the cover on the cage and take a look at his owl, Zaphod, as if reassuring himself that it’s all real. “Yeah. Well… let’s do it, then.”
I lean down. “Shall we both run, then?”
“Yeah.”
Robert Entwhistle’s son, Douglas, comes walking by, looking sharp in his uniform, and he gives us a nod, then looks at Toby in surprise, a slow grin spreading across his face. Yes, one of our own is finally going through the mysterious gate, and I know by the time I get back, the word will have spread through the entire station. And I know what they’ll all say as I start running with Toby, my hand steadying the cart as my old heart starts racing with an excitement that is no less than my grandson’s.
About bloody time.
Author:
auntbijou Rating: G
Pairing: none
Summary: Life comes full circle for everyone, even Muggles.
Warning: Spoiler for DH, hints of past danger
Words: 1, 222
Disclaimer: It all belongs to the lovely J.K. Rowling. I make no money from it, and play in her universe only for fun!
A/N: The third and last in what I will now call my “September” series! I felt like I needed to finish this, and give our intrepid Muggle some closure. Amazing how creative I get when my fever spikes! Enjoy!
I never thought this day would come. Never.
Not that I’m not looking forward to it, mind. I look down at my youngest grandson, who is clinging tight to my hand for the moment, where no one can see it. He would never do that with anyone else but his old grand-dad, and no one can see us now, anyway. We’re standing where we can see the brick wall between Platform Nine and Platform Ten at Kings Cross, and I say, “Look, Toby, here comes another group. You just watch them right close, you’ll see the way of it.”
“Right,” he says with determination, and he watches as the family walks up, then pats their son on his shoulders and gives him a little push. The boy nods, fixes his hands firmly on his luggage cart, then starts to run. A trunk, a cat carrier, and a carpet bag totter and bounce as the cart rattles, the boy’s feet moving faster, and then just when it looks like he’s going to crash… the wall swallows him.
My grandson gasps and his mouth falls open. I grin. “See?”
He’s too stunned to reply. I laugh softly and thrust the hand not holding his deep in my pocket as I stare around the station. It’s September 1st again, and I’m back. I haven’t been here in years, not since we fled back during the Wizard War. That’s what we’re all calling it. It even made the papers, probably because it spilled into our world. Got out just in time, we did, because it turned out, us what worked at the station wasn’t as invisible or unnoticed as we had thought we were. My missus and me, we got out, and we managed to get our daughter and her husband out, but we had nothing to come back to. Them Death Eaters came to our home, and when they didn’t find us there, they destroyed it. Burned it straight to the ground. Even burned my allotment, they did, and the compost I’d been working so hard on. Ah, well, what mattered most was me and mine were safe and well and alive, and beyond that, I really couldn’t care. Spent the entire war in Florence, we did. Spent all the money I’d squirreled away for retirement, but there it was, I didn’t care.
“Grand-dad, Grand-dad, here comes another!” My hand is tugged demandingly, and I smile as I emerge from my memories. This group looks familiar, all the red hair, and I’m startled when I realize that the tallest red-head isn’t the father I remember from my years of working here, but the youngest, lanky son of that father. The sense of time that had briefly escaped me suddenly rushes around me, making me all-too aware of its passage, and then when a shout reveals a familiar head of shaggy black hair on a much taller, broader frame than I remember running up behind, I feel tears sting my eyes. The face turns toward me, and I see that little boy again, the little dark-haired chappie in glasses, so thin, so ragged, and here he is, all grown up with sprogs of his own. And apparently, married to that red-headed girl made of pure stubborn, who is hurrying up behind him and fussing at the children.
I know who he is, of course. It was in all the papers, after it was all over. I haven’t paid much attention since, too busy trying to pick up the pieces of our lives here, finding a home, finding a job, because I just couldn’t return to King’s Cross after… not after I found out about Robert Entwhistle. Poor Robert Entwhistle, killed when he was trying to shield a group of students who’d picked a bad day to cut class. He’d gotten them to safety, blocking their escape with his thick body… but he’d paid the price. The wizards, though, after the war, they called him one of the war’s Muggle heroes, put his name on a memorial with a bunch of others just outside the station, and I appreciated that. But I couldn’t go back.
Still, it does my heart good to see Mr. Potter, grown up, happy, with a family of his own. It tells me all is right with the world, and it’s all as it should be.
“Grand-Dad! Grand-Dad! Can we go in now?”
I look down at Toby, smiling, my heart aching when I think that my daughter and son-in-law are missing this. Killed by a drunk driver three years ago, they was. Me and Meg, we’ve been raising their kids, and they’ve been a comfort, I don’t mind saying. The oldest is off on his own, settling into his own apprenticeship, though I argued against it. “But Grand-dad,” he’d said, “I’ll never be out of a job. I could get a college degree, yeah, but there’s no guarantee I’d get a job after. But, Grand-dad, there will always be a need for a plumber, and good plumbers are always in demand.”
Couldn’t argue with that. The second oldest, though, she’s set with a good scholarship to a good uni, and I’m right proud. But this one?
“Grand-Dad! Come on!” My hand is tugged again, and laughing, I follow him. A soft hoot comes from the covered cage on top of his trunk as we start wheeling the cart toward the brick wall. I grin as Toby pauses, trying not to burst into laughter yet again, because the memory of when that big, brown owl came swooping in through the open back door of our house, an envelope in its beak is still too new, too wonderful. An envelope that was addressed to Toby Cotton. And when I saw the Hogwarts seal on the back?
No, stunned does not even cover it. Flummoxed doesn’t come close. Gobsmacked, maybe, but not quite.
But I was happy. Because, to tell you the truth, I really wasn’t that surprised. Toby is special. And when the tall, curly-haired man with the earth-stained hands came to visit, telling us he was one of the teachers at Hogwarts, and had been sent to escort us to buy supplies for Toby, it just confirmed things.
“Grand-Dad,” says Toby breathlessly, staring at the blank wall. “Will it really work for us?”
“I’ve only seen it fail once, Toby,” I say quietly. “Besides, Professor Longbottom said it would be fine.”
“Yeah,” he says, swallowing hard. He’s not holding my hand any more, but he does reach forward to lift the cover on the cage and take a look at his owl, Zaphod, as if reassuring himself that it’s all real. “Yeah. Well… let’s do it, then.”
I lean down. “Shall we both run, then?”
“Yeah.”
Robert Entwhistle’s son, Douglas, comes walking by, looking sharp in his uniform, and he gives us a nod, then looks at Toby in surprise, a slow grin spreading across his face. Yes, one of our own is finally going through the mysterious gate, and I know by the time I get back, the word will have spread through the entire station. And I know what they’ll all say as I start running with Toby, my hand steadying the cart as my old heart starts racing with an excitement that is no less than my grandson’s.
About bloody time.
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Date: 2008-12-11 09:17 pm (UTC)