Till Forever Falls Apart

Precious Pennies

*That last chapter was emotional, to say the least. Here's a happy one I enjoyed writing:)

February 15, 1993

If it weren't for Harry, Ron and Val would not have considered the other to be their closest friend. Harry was their glue, and eventually, glue runs dry and the sealed pieces have to reform by another method. The method in question?

    Gold. And Homework. Lots of both.

     Before the beginning of March, Val had been looking at her calendar just prior to breakfast, ticking off the previous day with a checkmark. There had only been two weeks left in the month, and time was flying by in preparations for the quidditch finals and end-of-year exams which she tried to not remind herself of, for the familiar anxiety that filled her stomach.

    She flipped the page upward, scanning the dates of March to see what she had in store for the upcoming month, and saw a small circled date on the first.

    She had not yet thought about what to give to Ron on his thirteenth birthday. She knew he had a fascination for the Chudley Cannons, and perhaps she could get Marlene to obtain a signature from one of the players, but that didn't seem nearly good enough for the boy turning into a teenager. She had already done cake on Valentine's Day and wasn't one to repeat herself. So, she thought hard about the date, what could Ronald Weasley possibly want on that special day of the year?

    And like a bludger (similar to the one that knocked Harry off his broom) it hit her.

    She was going to get the Weasleys a new car.

    As a considerably new thirteen-year-old herself, she didn't have a stable job that she worked full-time. She could not dare to go into Gringotts and take the money from her own family's vault (she wasn't sure Sirius would mind, but that was beside the point). So, what was Val to do in a situation where she needed tons and tons of galleons?

    She was going to start her homework empire.

    Calculating the amount one very late night in her dorm room, she would price each homework assignment at five galleons, or, depending on the length, a few extra sickles and knuts here and there. She would work out the prices as she went. Essays would be eight galleons, and she would have to do at least seventy to one hundred and fifty pieces of homework to achieve her goal of several hundred galleons. This would be able to buy the Weasleys a somewhat decent, used car they could charm to fit them and fly. She would give Ron the money, and he would be able to gain back his mother's affection and make his father thrilled.

    All she had to do was write until she passed out.

    Luckily for the young girl, she had a way with words and persuasion. Once she had gotten the news to the right people (also known as the gossipers of the school), word spread quickly of her entrepreneurship, and students came flocking with their bags of coins, eager to pass their load of schoolwork to a willing body. She hardly had time to finish her own workload, but she didn't mind the long evening hours she spent between the library and her room, using the pen Mary had given her to get through her orders faster.

    The business was booming, and eventually, she had to up her prices from lack of sleep and time outside of books and monotonous papers. She would never admit to it, but if she knew the student in question was a pureblood (who had been a bully to those because of their blood status) she would charge a bit more, knowing they came from generations of old wealth and fifteen galleons seemed like nothing in the desperate time of a deadline. They could afford to compensate her for their rudeness. Val was surprised that many of the older students had put their faith in her to write essays on subjects she hardly knew about. Yet she read just the right amount of material in as little time as possible, awarding them with papers that never reached below an Acceptable or Exceeds Expectation once they were graded.