POWER TO THE KING

Chapter 1- Rise and shine

It was a beautiful, sunny day. An open window welcomed a warm breeze into the room and the sound of birds chirping happily was audible from the bed where there lay a peacefully sleeping Ronald Weasley… well, at least that was what Ron was hoping to wake up to. The loud boom of thunder and the constant patter of rain slapping onto his window indicated otherwise. He tried turning over to go back to sleep, but after ten minutes of pointless staring at a Victor Krum poster turned dart board, he decided he might as well get up. He groaned at nothing in particular as he lifted himself out of bed. He shot another disgusted look at the window of his bedroom before getting dressed, muttering to himself about the "Bloody weather".

He took a good long look at himself in the mirror. He didn't look that bad, considering he had only slept three hours last night. He kept getting dreams about Hermione, which was quite odd because they hadn't spoken since they broke up five years ago. He always got the same dream. She was at an altar and Ron was standing where the best man should be…. So she was getting married, and he was the best man. Who was the groom, then? He looked at her. She was beautiful. Her hair was down and full of silk, chocolate curls and just above her ear, there was an elegant white flower to match her wedding dress. He found himself secretly wishing he could be the one she would be reciting her vows to.

"You look radiant, my love." There was that cold voice again. He was sure he had heard it somewhere before…who was she going to marry? He would try turning around to see who it was behind him, but every time, he woke up before he had the chance to see his face. He would spend hours trying to get back to sleep. Why was he dreaming about Hermione so much? Did he still love her? He doubted it. It had been so long since they had talked that he felt like he barely even remembered her. And yet, whenever he closed his eyes, there she was, all dressed in white, just beaming at him, looking happier than she had ever been…

A knock on his door quickly pulled Ron back to reality. He looked over to the door, where his mother was cautiously turning the doorknob, thinking he was still asleep. She then snuck her head between the door and the wall to find her youngest son not only out of bed, but also dressed.

"Goodness, Ronald! Up already?" she asked pleasantly. "It's only just past nine, dear! It's a mighty good thing I made breakfast early this morning! It's downstairs, when you're ready, Love." She smiled at him and retreated into the hallway, gently closing the door behind her. Ron watched the door for a moment, half expecting his mother to come in again. He smiled to himself thinking about how much she had put up with when he was growing up. Now he was twenty-three and she still had to put up with him. He was the only Weasley left at the Burrow, other than his father, of course.

The last one to leave had been Ginny, when she went off to marry Harry. That was last September. Wow. It had already been a year and a half. Why had he stayed at his parents house so long? When he thought about it hard enough, he supposed it was because he just wasn't meant to have an exciting life. He was going to be one of those old men who had been part of many spectacular events, but had never done anything beneficial to the wizarding world. He merely attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the best school in the country; he was part of the Gryffindor quidditch team, without ever receiving any honourable mention; he helped Harry Potter defeat the Dark Lord. Was he doomed to being the wallflower of wizarding history? That's when it hit him. He was watching his life go by and if he didn't act soon, it would leave him behind to wonder where it all went. That was it. He was going to find himself a job.

Determined to turn his life (well, what had become his life) around, Ronald Weasley walked to the door and, with a certain air of importance, marched down the stairs and strode into the kitchen. He found his mother talking to his father, hiding behind today's Daily Prophet. He didn't pay much attention to the conversation, something about the weather, he figured. He took a seat in his usual spot and felt lost among the empty chairs. The breakfast table presented a variety of eggs, bacon, toast, beans, fruit; the usual.

Ron glanced up at his mother and watched her for a while. The years had been kind, but she looked tired and time seemed to be taking its toll on her. The woman had been through a lot: she raised a family of seven children, was the designated cook for the Order when they were getting ready to fight Voldemort, and then she participated in the war between good versus evil, she even rid the world of Bellatrix Lestrange, the Dark Lord's most faithful servant, by far. Now she had had a life! He looked at her hair, now mostly grey and up in the messy bun she had kept it in for as long as Ron could remember. Her face was the same, yet her skin looked slightly paler. She no longer had the rosy cheeks that once illuminated her smile. Now, it was a tired, almost weak, smile. Her eyes, narrowed and wrinkled, looked slightly duller, as if they had lost their colour over time. Yet, through all that, she kept that beauty about her. He loved the way her face was gently caressed by the few wiry hairs that always managed to escape from their restraint. He watched her look at his father in that special way that she always had and hoped that someday, he'd be able to sit at his own kitchen table in the morning, reading the paper as his own wife looked at him in the same way that his mother had been looking at her husband for almost half a decade. That's real magic, he thought. Oh, speaking of which, he needed to tell his parents about his morning epiphany. Well, that could wait, couldn't it?

"Ron! What are your plans for today, Son?"

Apparently not.

"Er, I was actually thinking of, er, going to Diagon Alley today to see if there might be a job I could find. I thought it was about time I got my own--" His sentence was cut short by the sound of Molly Weasley choking over her tea. Arthur immediately put down the Prophet to gently pat on his wife's back until the sputtering ceased.

"Ron, dear, you're not serious about leaving, are you?" asked a raspy-voiced Mrs. Weasley. Embarrassed, Ron felt his face turn scarlet as he tried to explain to his mother why he was leaving.

"I'm twenty three, Mum! Did you think I was going to stay with you forever? Don't you think it's about time I started my own life? I'm the last one left, and I'm not even the youngest of the family! My little sister has been married and has been living in her own house for nearly two years now." His mother stayed silent, but he could see her eyes fogging up. He knew this was going to be difficult… "I'll visit loads, I promise." He looked to his father for help. He got the hint.

"Molly, I think what our son is trying to tell us is that he--"

"Don't you patronize me, Arthur Weasley! I know full well that my son is trying to tell me that he wants to start a life of his own, that he's sick of living with his mother, even after everything I did for him…"

"Mum, that's not it! I just, I want to do something important with my life, preferably before I turn eighty-two."

"Well that leaves you almost fifty years, Darling, what's your rush?" She teased, hoping she could change the atmosphere, which was getting tenser and tenser by the minute. She knew full well what he meant by wanting to go off on his own. It was just that she had lost so many of her children, she didn't want to let go of her Ron. She couldn't! However, a sympathetic glace from her husband let her know that he, too, deserved a chance at a life of his own. She had known deep down, that this day would come. She had just been hoping that it would be postponed for another year or two. The house was already so empty.

"If you must… then, I suppose..." It was barely a whisper, but it was enough for Ron. He automatically jumped from his seat and reached over the table to kiss his mother on the cheek, knowing how hard it was for her to let him go, after having seen each of his six siblings leave the Burrow and having himself felt the pain of knowing that things would never again be the same.