InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "It's a hootananny"

Ron Weasley (lastronstanding) wrote in flippedrpg,
@ 2012-11-03 21:05:00

Entry tags:

ch: mercy: ron weasley, ch: regen: hermione granger, p: giles, p: kit

Who: Ron Weasley ^Mercy, Hermione Granger ^Regen
What: A chance run-in?
Where: The Beach
When: Saturday, around sunset
Warnings: likely mild profanity
Status: Incomplete

The water was so impossibly blue, if "blue" was even the right word for the color of the tropical seas around them. Azure? Turquoise? Cerulean? Everything here was just bright in a way Ron had only ever imagined before, more so even than he could have guessed at based on faded pictures in old books and magazines he’d collected sometimes. It seemed an especially cruel contrast with the general feeling around the Compound. The Scientists had sent so many people home this time, and so many from his own extended family, Ron couldn’t help but be reminded of the Plague year or the starving times right after, when it was something of a miracle to wake up each morning and find that everyone else you knew had done the same.

After the shock of the Flip, he’d spent some time gathering supplies (well, supplies of a more practical bent than the ones Om had provided, though he’d hung onto those too) and securing them in a safe place on the island, just in case the Scientists decided to strand them here like Robinson Crusoe or the Swiss Family Robinson. Now he was just appreciating the view, appreciating the warmth (even if sun wasn’t doing his Weasley complexion any favors), and keeping tabs on things in his journal. At this particular moment he was just sitting on the edge of a spot of beach, in his swim trunks, watching the sun set and wondering if he should give the water a try before it got too dark. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually taken a swim for fun . . . to bathe out in the wilds, sometimes, yeah. Maybe not since the Burrow, when Charlie had first insisted on teaching him how . . .

“Water, water everywhere . . .”

It seemed an apt metaphor for life in the Compound.

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innumerably
2012-11-04 05:49 am UTC (link)

Hermione was still adjusting to this place. It wasn't hard for her to have only two of her friends here as she only actually had three and she was used to being only one of a few of her kind, anyway. It was hard, though, to see her children in the compound even though she'd not once spoken to them and they weren't technically hers. It was hard to see herself, too, and to see what she might have looked like had she never had to regenerate. Seeing Harry and speaking to him was utterly heart-breaking but, even worse than that, so was seeing Ron.

That being the case, she hadn't intended to stumble upon the red-head who looked and sounded just like the man she'd had such a tumultuous marriage and friendship with so long ago. Apparently letting her feet lead her was a bad idea around these people. But even though he looked and sounded like her late husband, he said things so different to what her Ron might have said. Her Ron would never have cared to read Shakespeare or quote Coleridge, but this one seemed to do both.

Bare feet sinking into the cool sand as she slowed to a stop a few steps behind him, Hermione ignored her quickly beating heart and her nerves (the very thought of seeing a version of her Ron so close reduced her to unbecoming nervousness) and finished, "Nor any drop to drink." She'd considered starting with and all the boards did shrink but just in case he proved to be more like her Ron in only knowing the often quoted line from the poem, she'd gone with it, instead.

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lastronstanding
2012-11-04 06:03 am UTC (link)

Ron started a bit at the (unexpected) sound of another person's voice, then turned to regard the woman standing behind to him. He didn't recognize her (of course not), but he also had strong a notion of who she might be. Not that he would say so just yet. It wasn't as though he had any real basis for that sort of assumed familiarity, and it bothered him more than a little that there wasn't a doubt in his mind that this woman was another Hermione Granger.

"Day after day, day after day, we struck nor breath nor motion; as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean. Painted ocean, that's what this looks like. Except there's a breeze." He'd skipped backwards rather than forwards in the poem, but mostly because he couldn't remember the exact verses that followed. "Least I think that's how it went. Been awhile since I read any Coleridge. A bit rusty."

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innumerably
2012-11-05 03:06 am UTC (link)

It was so strange to see Ron again, even though he wasn't 'her' Ron. It made her heart ache in an all too familiar way that it did each time she passed a redhead on the street (too often she was sure they must be a Weasley, maybe a great-great-great grandchild of hers). She pushed it away, though, because it was silly to miss the man who'd pushed her away and it was even sillier to miss him now when this wasn't even the person she'd known in her world.

"Close, very close," she smiled, a faraway look on her face. "But, yes, that's exactly what this looks like and we are very much stuck here until such time someone sees fit to change our surroundings, breeze or not. That's how the flips work, right?" Crossing her arms over her chest, she stepped closer until she was beside him looking out at the ocean. "Hermione," she offered.

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lastronstanding
2012-11-05 03:32 am UTC (link)

"Yeah, more or less how it's worked so far, anyway. Although there's been at least one 'Flip' I know of where there wasn't even an outside to explore. This is an improvement, believe me." Ron was looking out at the ocean again as he talked, but he couldn't help casting a quick glance or two at this new Hermione. He still thought it was just strange, how she could look so different from either the Granger in his world or the one he'd slightly befriended here, and yet still be recognizably herself, and he could already tell it was going to bother him until he figured it out.

"Ron Weasley. Which I guess you know."

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innumerably
2012-11-05 03:48 am UTC (link)

Hermione was hyperaware of every look Ron cast her way but it was more of a habit that three centuries hadn't erased rather than this Ron's actual presence. She was used to it, though. Her Ron had tended toward checking her every few minutes when they were together to make sure she still looked the same. It had hurt, honestly, that he'd been seemingly preoccupied with how she'd looked rather than the fact that she'd always maintained her essence. "What sorts of other worlds have you experienced here?" she asked with genuine curiosity toward the nature of this compound.

"I did, yes. I didn't sneak up on you intentionally, though. Our paths just happened to cross," she replied, glancing back toward him and offering a small smile. "You look different, though, than from what I remember in my world. Different experiences, I'd suffice it to say."

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lastronstanding
2012-11-05 04:34 am UTC (link)

"When I first turned up it looked like Hogwarts. I mean, I've never seen the real thing, but everyone said it was a more or less exact replica. Probably in better condition than the one in my world, by now. Then we were . . . more or less locked our rooms with nothing but a Pensieve and a menu of rubbish memories from different worlds to experience. Then the there was this big desert, and then the Halloween thing we just did."

"Thought as much," Ron shrugged. He laughed a bit at the comment about looking different. "Well, I reckon I've spent more time out of doors. Staying here is as long as I've been with running water in, well, ever. You look . . . well, different. Still good, but different. I did recognize you right off. Not sure why, to be honest, I don't know you that well back home, and I only sort of know the Hermione from Colour World here." He frowned. "Something about how you carry yourself, I guess."

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innumerably
2012-11-05 04:45 am UTC (link)

"You never went to Hogwarts?" Hermione asked, a bit thrown off by that until she remembered. "Oh, right. The plague. I don't suppose there were any professors left to teach at the castle." It panged her to think of people like Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall (even those who'd survived the war she'd never gotten used to calling anything other than Professor) being simultaneously wiped out from sickness."Those sound entirely random like they don't actually have a plan for where we go. I'll have to think about that, though, and form a better opinion about patterns in the flips." She tapped her finger to her chin as she momentarily lost herself in thought but then pulled herself from her reverie as she remembered where she was.

Interested piqued, Hermione's brow arched. "I'm surprised, honestly, that you recognized me. Though I think mannerisms give us away even more than our physical looks do." She realized, then, that he did remind her of the Ron she'd known during the hunt for the horcruxes. Only this one was quite likely far more equipped to spend time in a tent rather than a bed that was made by his mother or house elves each day. "Mind if I sit?" she asked, surprising herself as she gestured at the sand.

"How old are you, Ron—," she asked, catching herself before she called him Ronald.

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lastronstanding
2012-11-05 04:58 am UTC (link)

"Yeah. Plus the Ministry put it into quarantine, one of the last things it did before falling apart. And whatever magic they used to close up the Floo network and stop people from Apparating is still in effect, so just getting to the castle . . . apparently there's people who live there, still, people who were students at the time. Thought it was just a rumor 'til I met someone here in the Compound who's actually been there."

Ron nodded. "It does seem mostly random. Closest I see to a pattern is that they like to throw in some Flips were they don't do as much directly. Hogwarts and the Pensieve and then Halloween all had a lot of . . . 'experiments,' I guess is what they'd call them. They left us alone more in the desert, so far they seem to be doing that here."

"Don't mind," Ron scooted over just slightly, not that there was any lack of room, more as a gesture. "Twenty-two. I think. Not actually sure what month it is, anymore. And time keeping's not exactly an exact science back home in the first place."

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