Chapter 3
“Touch your heart and shut your eyes. Dream sweet dreams and sleep tight.”
August 1987.
"Ronnie."
Bill called out cautiously. The room was dark, save for the afternoon sun casting red light through the window. He couldn’t see Ron. The bed was empty, unmade and his playing corner was messy. The toys were scattered around the corner with books on the floor. Bill would have thought the room vacant if he hadn’t heard the soft cries and sniffles of his youngest brother from under Chaarlie's old study desk.
He suppressed a grimace and sat on the dusty floor right in front of it. The room really needed cleaning. The smell was stale and the air was heavy with dust. Ron's little feet were peaking out of the dest.
"Ronnie," Bill called out again. Ron just shuffled further back almost completely hidden from the view. Bill sighed. He honestly had no idea where to start. For once nothing came to mind on how to go about consoling his baby brother. He was a big brother for Merlin's sake. He had never had any difficulty cheering his siblings up. Whether it be Charlie or Percy or even the twins, Bill had always known what to do and what to say. Charlie just needed something to do to channel his anger. Because Charlie didn’t get sad, he got angry. For Percy, he didn’t really have to say anything. Just a few moments of silence and Percy would tell you what was bothering him. The twins would console each other and Bill sometimes had to play the mediator between them and mum. A prank on an unsuspecting sibling and the twins were set. Ginny always wanted Mum when she was upset.
But when it came to Ron though, Bill could never really think of anything to make him feel better. If you were lucky. He would spill all about it before Bill even entered the room. If you weren’t like right now he would shut himself up for hours and sometimes even days, before coming out and pretending that nothing had happened. His parents worried as they were when he shut everyone out, would heave a sigh of relief when he came to breakfast the next morning and that was that. Confronting Ron was a messy business and Bill could understand that Mum and Dad had neither the time nor the right tools to handle someone as emotionally delicate as Ron.
Understandable as it was, it was wrong nonetheless. Letting him fester in his own thoughts will just build up on the negative emotions he was feeling. Bill would know, as he'd often reacted the same way when he was upset. He had to try something.
"I know you are hurting Ronnie. And I am really sorry about what happened". As someone wise once said, When you don’t know where to start, start by being honest.
"Go away!" Apparently, Ron wasn’t really appreciating his honesty.
"But I want to talk to you." Bill tried again gently.
"Well, I do not!" Well, nobody ever accused emotionally accused six-year-olds to be reasonable. To be fair, nobody accused Bill of being useless but here they were. It was times like this that Bill wished that Dad could spend some more time with the family. Dad would know how to handle Ron.
"Then I won't talk Ronnie, just come out from there, yeah? Please?" Well, if honesty wasn’t working he could always beg. There was a small bang which meant Ron had hit his head on the desktop. He heard a small whimper, a sniffle and Ron shuffled back a bit more. Bill took that as a no.
"At least tell me why you don’t wanna come out, buddy?" That got a reply.
"Everyone hates me!" Ron practically wailed and Bill's heart almost broke at the sound.
"No, no no. No one hates you, Ronnie. Everyone is worried about you. Mum is worried about you! Come on buddy, You know we love you." Bill was quick to reassure him. No one should have to feel that way, especially not a child.
"You are lying! You're always lying! If Mum was worried she’d already be here instead of you!" ouch Bill had to get the kid out from under that desk before he worked himself up anymore. They've already had one magical explosion. Bill didn’t think Mum would appreciate another.
"I am not lying. I promise, Ron. How about you come out from under there yeah? There might be a spider lurking around. I think I just saw a web." He hoped it wasn’t the wrong thing to say, fingers crossed, Bill hoped The younger redhead would cooperate a little.
"There's no spider!" Ron was definitely a little scared. In hindsight, playing on your younger brother's fear to get him to obey you was a recipe for an A Grade asshole in the making but you got to do what you got to do to get your dramatic sibling from under the old study desk.
"You never know, it too dark down there to see anything now innit?" Finally, after what felt like hours, the redhead peeked out from underneath the desk. Ron's blue eyes were red from crying. Tear streaks marked the sides of his face. The dust had settled into the creases of his fingers and neck. And there was definitely a stray spider stuck in his hair. It would do no good to point that out to the kid anyway.
"Can I hug you?" he asked instead. Ron surpirisingly or perhaps unsurprisingly nodded, not meeting his eyes he flung himself into Bill's arms. The older redhead picked him up and discreetly plucked the spider out of his hair before taking him to the unmade bed.
Ron was still hiccuping and clinging to his neck like a baby koala. Bill had no choice but to sit down on the small bed with his brother in his lap. Now, to get to the crux of the matter. The inevitable focal point of the purpose of Bill's visit of his younger brother at the hour.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
Ron just let out a rather pitiful and quiet snotty "No." it would seem that the focal point was not quite as inevitable as Bill thought. If Ron wasn’t ready to talk things out there was nothing that Bill could do really. Forcing a conversation would likely do more harm than good. Distraction it is.
"Do you want to talk about something else then?" Bill couldn’t quite understand what Ron said. Voice muffled into his shoulder. "What?"
"I said can we talk about Hogwarts?"
"Sure, Yeah, definitely, Hogwarts, er we can talk about it. Do you know I once found a secret Room in Hogwarts no one knew about?"
Ron peaked out at him from under his bangs, interested and Bill applauded himself for successfully distracting Ron. He mentally patted himself for good measures and continued on with his exaggerated tale. Hopefully, Mum will get him sorted at night and they'll get to make things right. Tomorrow, he would get both him and Ginny to apologize to each other and they'll live happily ever after. Fingers crossed.
"I Hate You!"
Molly was certainly not a stranger to these words. Bill was the first one of her children to yell that at her. At twenty-four and pregnant with Percy, she'd felt like her world had shattered. "You don't mean that you love mummy". She'd replied softly. Because surely her oldest didn’t hate her. Who even taught him these words? "I want to leave this family!!" He yelled after and Molly for the first was at a loss on how to handle her kids. She'd never yelled at Bill or Charlie and had vowed to never yell at any of her children. She'd felt like yelling then.
Charlie, not long after Bill, is the second one to say he hates her. Molly only let out a breath as Percy kicked her in the stomach. They were just kids. They didn’t mean to hurt her. She held back her tears then. Percy never said those words. He was always the quiet one. The mature one, that after Bill and Charlie, Percy felt like a breath of fresh air. More often than not, it was hard not to feel like she was out of her depth when she chose to have a big family. Her confidence in raising her kids had been tried and tested and it didn’t feel like she'd come out on top. She'd wanted to stop at Percy once. But Percy, bless him was an angel to raise. And she wouldn’t change a thing in the world for what she had.
Fred and George were the first ones to ever get yelled at. With five sons and a sixth on the way, a husband who is never home, and relatives who think they know better; she was outnumbered, overwhelmed, and suffocating and she couldn’t help it-.
"I don’t care! You will sit in your room," She'd yelled. “And you will stay there until the morning!" Molly watched as the mischievous smiles fell off of the twins' faces. They looked at each other before she closed the door to their room.
"Mummy is being mean," she'd heard. "I hate her." as quiet sobbing fills the air. The matriarch descended the stairs and stifled a sob. She wished Arthur would come home soon. She was too vulnerable to compose herself let alone comfort the kids.
By the time Ron was born, she'd broken her vow to never yell at her kids so many times that she didn’t even bother to renew it at night. Her confidence in her parenting was back and stronger. Molly, at thirty with a ten-year experience of raising five rowdy boys, had learned not to respond to unnecessary drama. She'd learned not to waste her already dwindling time dwelling on every little angsty dialogue from her kids.
"You are so Unfair!" When Ron first said those words, Molly wasn’t even fazed.
"Life is unfair." She drones and points to the half-eaten porridge. "Finish it"
"But I hate porridge." Molly barely stopped herself from yelling. Ron had been especially stubborn lately and Molly was at the end of her wits.
"Then don’t eat. Know that you won't have anything to eat until lunch and by then you'll be starving."
"I hate you." Ron didn’t yell. Molly didn’t flinch.
"Yes, You're not the first one to say it."
When her only daughter Ginny, said it, Molly felt like breaking all over again. "I hate you." She said when Molly wouldn’t let her fly on Charlie's broom. Molly felt like breaking but she didn’t budge from her decision. Out of all her Kids Ginny had the proclivity for these words the most. And Molly tried to remember that her only daughter didn’t mean it.
Out of all her kids, Ron was the first one to reassure her that he didn’t mean it. And the second one to say sorry of his own accord. Bill was the first. So when her youngest son had exploded quite literally in the living room, Molly, for the first time in years had second thoughts about her skill in her communication with her kids. Had she missed something? Did she go wrong somewhere? Had her confidence made her blind to her flaws? Was she being too hard on her kids?
By the time the dinner rolled around, everything was back in order. The living room never looked better. The only things not in order were her wayward thoughts. Glancing at the clock she knew that she could not delay the inevitable any longer.
She entered Ron’s room with the dinner tray. The room was dark, dusty, and smelled stale. A pang of guilt stabbed her chest at the neglect. She should clean out his room more often. Ron himself was lying on his bed, facing the wall, shoulders tense.
Molly sat on the edge of Ron’s bed, balancing a tray of his favorite foods. The smell of roast chicken and mashed potatoes filled the small room, but Ron lay curled under his blanket, unmoving. She set the tray on the bedside table, her eyes lingering on his small form.
“I know you’re awake, Ronnie,” she said softly. “I brought you some dinner. Roast chicken, just how you like it. Want to sit up and have a bite?”
No response. Molly sighed, her fingers brushing gently over his blanket-covered shoulder. “You can’t fool your mother, you know. Come on, sweetheart. You haven’t eaten all day.”
He didn’t move at first, but then a small sniffle betrayed him. Slowly, he turned onto his side, his face streaked with dried tears.
“I’m not hungry,” he muttered, his voice thick with leftover tears.
“You say that now, but you’ll feel better with something warm in your belly,” Molly replied, picking up the fork and holding out a piece of chicken. “Just try a bite.”
Reluctantly, he sat up, his hair sticking up in tufts. He opened his mouth and let her feed him, chewing quietly. As he swallowed, Molly spoke again, her voice softer now.
“What happened today… it wasn’t right. I got too angry too quickly. I should have listened to you first.”
Ron didn’t look up, his hands clutching the edge of the blanket. “I didn’t mean to hurt her,” he whispered. “Or make you mad.”
“I know you didn’t,” Molly said gently. She offered him another forkful, which he took without protest. “Sometimes we all get carried away—me included. Ginny’s okay, Ron. And we’ll sort this out.”
He glanced at her hesitantly, swallowing. “She’s really okay?”
“She is,” Molly assured him, feeding him another mouthful. “She’ll come around too. You’re her big brother, after all.”
“She probably hates me now,” he mumbled with a full mouth, looking down at his lap. Molly didn’t call him out on it.
She sighed, setting the fork down for a moment. “No, she doesn’t. She’s upset, yes, but hate? That’s a strong word, Ronnie. Family doesn’t give up on each other so easily.”
Ron was quiet, his brow furrowed as he toyed with the corner of the blanket. Molly took the opportunity to offer him some mashed potatoes. He hesitated, then leaned forward to take the bite.
After a few moments of silence, he spoke again. “You were really mad at me,” he said quietly, voice quivering. A faint hitch in his breathing.
“I was,” Molly admitted, her voice equally shaky. “And I shouldn’t have been—not like that. It’s my job to listen to you, even when I’m upset. I didn’t do that, and I’m so sorry, Ronnie.”
“Mummy…” His voice was barely a whisper, and the pain in it broke her heart all over again. He hadn’t called her ‘Mummy’ for a while now and hearing it shattered what little composure she had left.
“Oh, my baby,” she whispered, setting the tray on the bedside table leaning down and wrapping him in her arms. He didn’t resist; in fact, he clung to her like he was afraid she might disappear. “My poor Ronnie,” she murmured, her voice cracking. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have shouted at you.”
A sob burst from him, his little body shaking against hers. “I’m sorry too!” he wailed, his words tumbling out in a rush. “I don’t hate you, Mummy! I don’t! I was just mad, and Ginny got hurt, and—and you were so angry—”
Shh, shh, darling,” Molly soothed, rocking him gently. Her heart ached with every tear he shed. “Of course, you don’t hate me. I know you didn’t mean it. You were upset and hurting—so was Ginny. And so was I. We were all just too upset to think clearly, weren’t we?”
Ron sniffled, burying his face in her shoulder. “Ginny hates me now,” he whimpered. “She does. She’s never going to forgive me.”
Molly pulled back just enough to cup his face in her hands, her thumbs brushing away his tears. “Ronald Bilius Weasley, don’t you dare say that,” she said firmly, though her voice was still warm. “Ginny doesn’t hate you. She was upset, yes, but she’s your sister. And family, my love, can never truly hate each other. You’ll see—everything will be right as rain before long.”
He nodded, but the doubt lingered in his eyes. “I didn’t mean to hurt her,” he mumbled. “Or make you mad.”
“I know you didn’t, sweetheart. And Ginny knows it too. She just needs a little time, that’s all. And I’ll make sure she understands, okay?”
Ron’s eyes darted to hers, searching for something. Whatever he saw seemed to reassure him because his shoulders relaxed just a bit. “Okay.”
Slowly he finished his food and started nodding off. He was still clutching at her sleeve.
“Will you stay with me? Until I fall asleep?”
“Of course I will,” Molly said, her heart swelling with tenderness. She tucked the blanket more snugly around him and lay beside him on the bed, her hand gently stroking his hair.
For a while, they sat in peaceful silence. Molly thought he’d fallen asleep until his small voice broke through again.
“Mummy?”
“Yes, love?”
“I really am sorry. I don’t know why I yelled at you.” Molly blinked, “Oh, Ronnie,” she said, shaking her head. “I know, my sweet boy. And I am sorry too. I Love you.”
He nodded faintly, his eyes fluttering shut. “I love you too, Mum,” he murmured, his voice slurring with sleep.
She ran her fingers through his soft hair until his breathing evened out. For a moment she thought he’d fallen asleep but he spoke up again.
“Are they all still eating downstairs?”
“They are,” she said, brushing his hair gently. “I thought you might like a bit of quiet for now.”
Ron nodded, yawning as he settled further into the blankets. “Thanks, Mum,” he mumbled, his voice trailing off as his eyes fluttered shut.
Molly sat with him for a while longer, listening to his breathing even out.