potter; EVAN (potterlings) wrote in reduxpitch, @ 2016-10-23 13:39:00 |
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Entry tags: | !thread, character: jim the cat, character: ron weasley |
Who: Ron Weasley and Jim (Potter?).
What: A conversation between boy and cat.
Where: Potter-Weasley Flat.
When: sunday
Content Warning: Accidental drug-taking! Specifically Magic Mushrooms.
Status: Complete.
It wasn’t unusual for Ron to come home and find baked goods. Between Daisy, Molly, Ginny and (for all Ron knew) Parvati and Lily, the house was usually pretty well-supplied with snacks. Anything that was left in the kitchen was fair game, unless it was still untouched, so Ron hadn’t hesitated to help himself to the cake he discovered next to one of Evan’s books on city-planning. It definitely wasn’t the best cake Ron had ever had, but he was hungry and it was better than trying to cook for himself.
The flat seemed to be empty, so Ron brought his current woodworking project out into the living room where he could listen to the wireless. He was only sanding the planks that would eventually become a wall planter, so it was easy work and he didn’t have to concentrate too hard. He hadn’t decided who he was going to give the planter to and was mentally running through a list of people he knew to see if anyone actually liked gardening when he noticed something weird.
The rough plank in his was birch, and it had been a pale beigey-brown colour. It should still have been a pale beigey-brown colour. Instead, as Ron watched, it seemed to switch between blue-grey and purple-red. Turning his head to look at the other planks awaiting his attention, Ron found they were similarly affected. When he stood, to take the wood closer to the light, he stumbled and almost fell against the couch. His feet felt heavy, as if he were wearing lead shoes.
“This is not normal,” he announced, addressing the queen of his chess set. She made no answer, but Ron did hear a quiet mewl from behind the sofa. Bracing his arm against the back of it, he leaned over to find Jim looking up at him. “You!” he accused, practically shouting at the animal. “You turned my wood funny colours.”
The cat, having watched Ron for a while, gave a brief glow with its eyes when addressed directly, before jumping up on the sofa, walking on the backrest carefully as it watched Ron. Then, after a moment, Jim jumped over to the coffee table and sniffed the wood he’d been accused of tampering with carefully. Finally, the cat settled, looking up at Ron almost suspiciously. “Quite sure you turned your wood funny colours,” the cat informed him, words clear as he spoke them.
“No,” Ron insisted, turning as he spoke and carefully picking his feet up to resettle himself in his new position. “I can’t turn the wood funny colours.” He paused, looking up at the ceiling, which was glowing hypnotically. It took several minutes to remember he was trying to have a conversation, and finish a project, and probably do a lot of other things. “Well,” he amended, picking up where he’d left off, “I can.” Magic could, after all, do almost anything, and Ron was suddenly quite sure he was very good at magic. “Magic,” he told Jim. “I am a great magician. You - “ He pointed at the cat “- can only do cat magic. With fish and things. But not making fish because that’s against one of Hermione’s laws.” The ceiling glowed brighter, and Ron squinted up at it before nodding in acknowledgement.
“Where was I?” he asked Jim. He really couldn’t remember, which didn’t seem strange since the conversation already seemed to have been over several hours ago. Carefully, he sat down and reached to pull the wood away from Jim. “Pretty.” He picked up his sandpaper again and started trying to round out the corner of one of the planks. “Where’s Evan?” Ron asked, glancing up to see if Jim was still there. “He hardly ate any of his cake.”
The cat looked at Ron rather disbelievingly when informed he could only do cat-magic. As to illustrate how untrue this was, Jim’s eyes glowed red, darker than they had done before. “You were telling me what a great magician you are,” the cat responded, licking its paw.
“Evan’s out,” Jim informed Ron in a fashion that was unlikely to be helpful, or even anything but stating the fact.
Ron grinned. “I am,” he agreed, “a great magician. I can fly on dragons and defeat trolls and survive for hours underwater and -” Ron paused, momentarily at a loss for any further Great Magical Accomplishments. “And speak Parsletongue!” he finished proudly, with a flourish of his arms that nearly sent him tumbling back into the couch. “What a good idea,” he murmured to himself, sitting down and patting a friendly cushion. “I’m also great with trees,” he informed Jim. “Really fantastic. Doxies run away screaming and I can make things out of twigs that Lav likes and -” He trailed off, smiling.
“Lav’s perfect, and she loves me, and we’re going to get married and have babies.” His smile broadened. “And I’ll be a great dad. Don’t you think I’ll be a great dad?” Ron didn’t need Jim’s opinion, he was quite certain. He’d had his own dad to learn from, after all, and Ron thought he could certainly be like Arthur. Maybe less obsessed with muggles. He could be obsessed with trees instead. “I can make a tree house!”
“I don’t think you can do that,” Jim commented but there was no specification of which bit exactly the cat was referring to. “You’re alright with trees, I will give you that,” the cat added turning its head to look at the planks Ron had moved further away from it.
The glow of Jim’s eyes dampened slightly when Ron spoke of his potential excellence at being a parent. “Maybe teach your kids not to eat food they find lying about,” Jim suggested rather monotone.
“What would you name your kids?” The cat asked but sounded bored as he did so. “Jim,” he added. “Is an excellent name.”
“Of course I can,” Ron insisted, doing his best to sketch a treehouse in the air with his hands. “Maybe I’ll make it blue, for a boy,” he added, turning his attention back to the weirdly multi-coloured planks of wood. “Or pink. Or Lavender!” Lav would like that, he was certain. “A little purple house in a tree.” It would be perfect. Ron just needed to find a place to build it. And learn to build a house. The biggest thing Ron had built so far had been the jewellery box, but that would come in time. As would a garden, attached to a house. Ron knew that these things would happen, that he didn’t need to worry about them.
Ron stood up again, feeling steadier on his feet, and started moving things about looking for some paper. He wanted to draw his house! “It’s for everyone,” Ron said, gesturing towards the kitchen. He didn’t feel bad about eating the cake, even if it wasn’t originally his.
Ron frowned as he peered under one of his pawns. “But you’re Jim,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t know. Whatever Lav wants, probably. Not Bilius.”
“I am Jim,” the cat agreed, lifting its paw. Jim watched Ron’s mad gesturing towards the kitchen and the attempts to move about very carefully, but didn’t actually move itself. “What if she wants to name the baby Iolanthe or Zipporah?” The cat enquired. “Zipporah,” it repeated almost as if tasting the name out.
Jumping across from the coffee table onto the sofa, Jim sniffed at Ron suspiciously. “Can you hear colours?” The cat asked carefully.
Ron had never heard Iolanthe or Zipporah before. “I don’t think those are names,” he said, frowning. He’d never talked to Lavender about what she might want to name children, so he supposed it was just possible (however unlikely) that she might want to use sounds like Zipporah. “Are they boys or girls?” Ron asked. It didn’t really matter, he’d probably let Lavender do anything she wanted.
Finally, Ron found his journal sitting, where it had always been, in plain sight. He gave a cry of triumph and immediately folded himself back up on the couch, pulling his crushed quill from between the pages. He held the battered feather pen out to the cat. “Make it purple?” At Jim’s question, Ron stilled and sat very quietly for a long moment, trying to tell if he could hear anything.”I hear cake,” he announced at length. “And tea.”
“Girls’,” Jim replied. “But I imagine Zipporah could be non-gender conformist,” the cat added with what would have been a shrug if a cat could really shrug. But they couldn’t talk either, so that was neither here nor there.
Giving a tiny lick to the tip of the feather, Jim then batted it away, looking quite displeased at its existence. “Cake and tea,” it repeated. “And cats,” Jim added appropriately. “What does tea and cake sound like? Do they speak, too?” Jim asked kneading the sofa beneath it.
“I wonder if they’d be girls like Ginny, or girls like Lav,” Ron said aloud, as if those were the only two options. Either way, everyone liked tree houses, so Ron opened his journal and started drawing a tree. “Maybe both. And a boy.” Three seemed like a good number. Better than seven. He wouldn’t say no to four, though. “And a dog. Or chickens. Mum had chickens.”
Ron stuck his tongue out between his lips as he tried to draw the leaves of the tree, which seemed to be changing colours - probably, Ron thought, because Jim had interfered with the quill. “Cake doesn’t speak,” Ron said, rolling his eyes. “It sort of - hums.” He closed his eyes, focusing on the sugary sort of hum, then tried to replicate it. “Like that.”
Jim hummed, too, when Ron did. Briefly. “If the cake hums,” the cat started slowly. “And you hum,” it added. “And I hum. Does that mean we’re all cake?” It asked Ron, a flash of red in its eyes.
Ron opened his eyes and looked at Jim, giving the question serious consideration. “Tea doesn’t hum,” he said, which wasn’t an answer to the question. “It whistles.” Which, to Ron, made perfect sense. “I don’t think you can be cake,” he decided at last. “You can talk, and you wouldn’t taste good.” He frowned. “That cake didn’t taste very good, but it’s still a cake.”
Shaking his head, Ron looked back at his half-drawn tree, and suddenly couldn’t remember what it was suppose to be. He tossed the journal aside and tried to squirm into the couch cushions. “I don’t know,” he told Jim. “The world’s confusing.” It was, but Ron had Lavender back now, and that helped a lot.
“I’d taste better than the cake,” Jim assured Ron, but did then also jump back on the coffee table as if fearful of the prospect that Ron might take him up on that assurance. “The world is very confusing,” the cat confirmed licking its paw. “This is why you should be careful about what you eat,” it advised seriously and then jumped off the table, walking off as if finally bored by the conversation.