Chapter 5
It was the day before Christmas and Ron right now he was eating breakfast. Today was a bacon and egg dish, not the best, not the worst, at least the bacon was pretty crispy. He quietly ate while Samuel was listening to Lucas ramble on about how annoying Duncan is. Ron would’ve joined in but he was too busy getting lost in his thoughts.
When he transmigrated, he found himself zoning out a lot more than usual. It’s to be expected, just then, the owls started flying in for daily mail. A random owl dropped the daily prophet on him.
“What’s interesting?” Samuel asked, peering over his shoulder. “It’s just a party happening with all the pureblood families hosted by the Riddle family. It's supposed to start sometime after school ends, why are they giving invitations out so early, 2 months before the party? oh and hey, Molly Weasley’s getting bashed again.” Ron responded. Lucas shrugged and then said. “Hey, you're a pureblood, are you going to be going?”
Ron shook his head and said. “Likely not, I’m not part of a pureblood family anymore, Molly Weasley seems to have disowned me. Believe me, I checked. I’m not on the family tree. Honestly unsure how Arthur agreed to this.” He said casually, he was half lying when he said that, Molly probably slipped a potion into his food or whatever. “Oh wait a second, what’s this?” Ron said, looking a little closer at the paper.
“What?” Samuel asked, looking at where Ron was looking. “It says here that an anonymous tip to the ministry has told them Albus Dumbledore has kept the Philosopher's Stone in the school. There will be a team to check it out.” Ron said, tracing over the words.
“What?!” Lucas said, astonished. He wasn’t the only one, other people who looked at the daily prophet said the exact same thing.
“It’s one thing to reveal the whereabouts of the Philosopher's stone, but another thing to actually put it somewhere where students learn.” Ron said, snickering at the irony.
Hadrian was looking extremely proud, he must’ve been the anonymous person. Neville and Hermione were both shocked and extremely unbelieving Percy and the twins were shaking when they heard that. Ron honestly couldn’t care less. “Hey, what gift do you think you’ll get?” Ron nodded and then ate the last of his bacon. “Not sure, Hermione might get me sewing supplies because she seems to know a lot about that, I don’t know what you two are getting me, but I already have gifts for you two” He said, shrugging.
He took his last bite of egg and then stretched his arms. “Alright, well I’m going to go. Last classes of the day tend to be the worst.” He said, getting out of his seat. “Hey wait! You can’t just tell us you're getting us gifts, and walk away!” Samuel called out, running after him. Lucas came with them shortly after.
They were having Transfiguration and then Potions with the Slytherins. The classes that followed were uneventful. Unless you count Professor Snape telling Hadrian and him that they should be permanent partners because of the exemplary work. Much to the annoyance of Ron.
Duncan was still lowkey horrible. It was worse when the school year started too. Actually, when school ended, he was alone in the library that day because Samuel and Lucas were in detention for reasons they wouldn't tell Ron. He was just Looking over History books because he never listens to Binn’s.
Duncan and his group of Gryffindors walked up to him, slammed his hands onto Ron's favourite table and tried to interrogate him.
—--------------
“Hey! Tell us what you know.” Duncan said snarkily. Other people might’ve thought of Duncan as Intimidating because he was actually kind of big, but Ron wasn’t other people, he was a 19 year old sleep deprived college student that had no care at all for children whose parents never said no too
“I really don’t know what you're talking about.” Ron said, not giving them the time of day. Duncan was red in the face when he said that. “Jeez, entitled people have such a low temper. He actually does resemble my sister.” Ron said, now writing notes on the goblin wars.
“You think you're so cool because you're the 2nd in the year? You’re outnumbered, so if you don’t tell us everything you know about Hadrian, we aren’ afraid of getting things bloody.” Duncan said menacingly.
Ron looked him up and down and thought, “I don’t think these people know I barely know anything about Hadrian. I can’t even read him.”
He just smiled and looked up at them before saying. “You know, I don’t really understand your logic, threatening me? In the school Library? Where an adult is present at all times?” He said, going back into his book.
Duncan was so red now. It was hilarious, when Duncan was going to punch him. Ron was going to let him, because then he could press charges! Assault is quite the crime in the wizarding world.
But before Duncan managed to reach his fists into his head. Something stopped him. A radiating force coming from behind him. Duncan could not do anything as his fist helplessly flopped on the table. Ron looked up from the book and saw Hadrian Riddle glaring at Duncan before innocently smiling at him.
“Creepy,” Ron thought as Hadrian told Duncan and his little minions to run along.
“We’ll get you back for this.” Duncan snarled but he ended up running away cowardly. Ron looked at the boys retreating and didn’t notice Hadrian taking the seat beside him. “So Ron, they were bothering you?” Hadrian asked, lookin at the book Ron was reading.
“Yep,” Ron replied simply, flipping through the pages. Hoping that Hadrian would get bored and walk away, but then again. This was Hadrian Riddle, that remark only made Hadrian more interested.
So that’s how they spent Christmas Eve, Ron and Hadrian passing simple comments and somehow ended up chatting about their personal interests. He didn’t even manage to spot a beetle on the other table.
—------------
Now it was Christmas, Ron woke up later than usual, and spotted something strange. A small pile of gifts, when he looked at them he yawned and rubbed his eyes. When Professor McGonagall brought up the list on who would be staying, he was the first one to sign up, so no classes for today. Samuel and Lucas had gone home and he was the only one to stay in school between his dorm mates.
He washed his face and brushed his teeth and walked out, finally processing the amount of gifts in front of them. Giving them a quick count, he had found out something overly disturbing. 1 of those gifts were not from his friends.
Most of them were quite large as well. He got into some more appropriate clothing for the weather and then checked out the presents.
The first gift seemed to be from Hermione. He opened the present and found a nice muggle sewing kit. “That’s sweet of her, hey now I can finally start sewing.” He thought. He put Hermione’s gift to the side and opened up Lucas’s gift. Inside was a box of candy and chocolate.
Ron laughed and then closed the lid, he loved sweets, and in the box was a bunch, he was sure going to enjoy those later. Samuel got him a new set of Wizards chess. Ron was thankful. He had only talked about chess as a passing remark, weirdly enough, the only thing he remembered is how to play chess. Which is great because he was trash at chess in his past life.
Neville had gotten him some silks and fabrics. That was nice of him. Hermione must’ve told him he liked Sewing. They were pretty good quality as well.
As he put over his friends' gifts to the side. He had grabbed the biggest box to start. It was wrapped with a dark green wrap with the Slytherin seal. “Must be from Hadrian, nice that he got me a gift… Does that mean we’re friends?” He asked himself as he took off the lid.
What he found inside was astonishing. Hadrian had gotten him the state of the art wizards Sewing machine. It’s fast and can shrink on command, light and comfortable to hold. Ron nearly jumped back. He then looked at the letter assigned to it.
Dear Ronald
I will not be at the castle for the holidays but I hope that you will like the gift I sent you. It's something small, but it’s a thoughtful gift. My only wish is that you make me something using the sewing machine.
Yours sincerely
Hadrian Riddle
Ps: I also bought you some fabrics and patterns, look under the box
Ron finished the letter and then looked at the gift. “Little? Does he really think this is little?” Ron asked himself, he grabbed the sewing machine from out of the box and then looked at it a little closer. “This must’ve cost like a hundred galleons.” Ron muttered under his breath as he felt the machine in his hands. He placed it down on the table and then grabbed the fabrics from underneath.
The fabrics were smooth and felt amazing. It was mainly, black, green and dark colours. “Does he want me to make him clothes with these fabrics?” Ron asked himself, as he put the fabrics on the table.
“I can probably design a suit, or dress robes, people probably wear dress robes here. He grabbed out his personal notebook that has remained empty except for the first page. He left the notebook, sewing machine and sewing kit on the table and walked outside for breakfast.
The day was fun, he relaxed in the library, and was free from Duncan for the whole day. The food was good, and everything fell into place as he made snowmen from scratch, he even laughed as Fred and George pelted snowballs on the back of Quirell’s turban. Percy helped him with his Christmas homework and he also spent some time in Potions.
At the end of the day, he went back into his room and stared at his notebook. “Let's begin.” He told himself.
He then proceeded to spend 3 hours just trying to sketch up new ideas of suits and dress robes. Even when his hand hurt, he hadn’t stopped, it was refreshing. Because he had a choice, he had a choice on the outfit. He wasn’t just handed a sketch and forced to make it, he was actually making it from scratch.
It was tiring, but fun and soon enough. He had found a sketch of dress robes and a suit he liked. Then he drew it again, but with color and actually liked it even more. The patterns would match the suit and he was going to hand stitch some parts of the dress robes no matter how long it took.
But first, he needed to rest. It was going to be a long day tomorrow and he wasn’t sure if doing everything at night was going to help his mental health. He already has trauma from an unbalanced sleep schedule.
Hadrian was going to love his work whether he liked it or not, and Ron was going to make sure of that.