After a few awkward minutes, the two boys finally let loose and dumped all of their grievances onto Julian, and then it was his turn to feel uncomfortable as they talked about how he had never even tried to involve them or ask for their help, along with how he had become practically a different person from the boy they had first met after his heritage came to light. A full year's worth of frustrations got thrown out into the open in a short span of time, and even Neville, who had nothing to do with any of it, found himself reflecting inwardly, let alone Julian, who had been at the center of the problem.
"There was a lot going on with me last year, political nonsense, puberty in a sense, and bloody hell, did you know I've had no fewer than twenty marriage proposals? Add all of that on top of realizing no one had noticed Pettigrew right under their noses for an entire decade, and yes, I was rather stressed, to put it mildly," Julian said, frustrated at being called out so thoroughly. Most of what they had said had been little things, like how he was always busy or distracted even when he spent time with them, but that did not make it any easier to hear.
"And what about us, then? What are we supposed to do when it feels like you're so far ahead of us that we may as well not even bother trying to catch up!?" Ron asked angrily. Julian froze at that, because he had honestly never considered what it must feel like to watch someone who was supposed to be your friend race so far ahead of you that all you could do was stand there and watch. "You don't have to keep up with me. You never did. Just like I told Hermione last year, you aren't me, and you can't do what I can, so stop trying."
"Instead, do what you're good at. That's all you need to do," Julian said with a sigh. "And it's not just you, either. This applies to everyone, Harry, Daphne, Fred and George, all of them. You are not those people. You are Ronald Weasley, so do what you can do, and let that be enough. Learn at your own pace, grow the way you want, and live life how you choose. Normally you only get one chance at that, so don't waste it chasing after a shadow that belongs to someone else," Julian added sincerely.
Things turned awkward and overly sentimental after that, but in short, the damage in their relationship had been mended fairly well by the time the conversation ended. The next morning was a weekend day, so Julian did not have many plans beyond setting up his workshop using the things he had brought back over the summer, such as his furnace, which now had a new flame type available for use. Conjunction fire was quite unusual in the way it behaved during forging. Unlike most flames, which granted properties one would naturally expect based on their nature, it did nothing of the sort.
Instead, conjunction flame made whatever metal was forged within it more attuned to spatial energies and enchantments. Naturally, Julian fully intended to abuse that trait as much as possible. At the moment, however, he was rearranging his workshop using his new understanding of traditional enchanting so he could set up a sort of metal framework around the room, one he had quickly forged using conjunction fire, in order to greatly expand the interior space of the workshop. That framework was necessary because Hogwarts itself was highly resistant to foreign enchantments and had a tendency to shake them off quickly even when they should have lasted for years.
So Julian was cheating, in a sense, by expanding only the space inside the metal frame rather than trying to expand the actual room itself. Professor Flitwick had offered to help with the setup, since he found the approach rather clever. Julian was not familiar enough with spatial expansion charms to handle that part on his own, so the good professor stepped in and enlarged the space until it was nearly four times its original size. That gave Julian enough room to add a woodworking station and a stockpile for materials without it interfering with the metalworking side of the workshop.
Julian was also willing to admit that he had grown a bit too accustomed to the quality of the woodworking tools at Ollivander's and had no intention of going back to crudely whittling wooden rings by hand. He still needed to buy the equipment and wait for it to be prepared before having Dotty bring it to Hogwarts, but at least the room itself was ready for it now. Unlike usual, though, Julian was not alone in the workshop. Most of his friends, along with Luna, were there too, being an absolute pain by messing with all of his things.
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T/N:
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