A/N: Don't own them, yada yada yada, part 3 in the Seven Words series...yeah, enjoy!
He said to his mother, "Woman, here is your son". Then he said to the disciple, "Here is your mother". And from that hour, he took his mother into his family. -John 19:26
She stood on the battlefield, more out of obligation than out of any want of being there. She didn't care about this war. She didn't care about the so-called morals behind it, the need to rid the world of mudbloods. She didn't care about it, nor did she think she ever would. But she had to be here, to represent her family. She had no choice. She hated this war, and everything it had brought to her family. It had taken from her a husband and a son, leaving her alone.
No, it didn't take her son, he was standing there, in the middle of the field, flinging curses at both sides with the same amount of vigour. She nearly collapsed when she saw him. He was far too pale,far too skinny, he looked like a man on the run, and that was what he was. She wanted to tell him to brush his hair, to cut his hair, and to eat something,, to go outside and play to get some colour. But that was the mother in her. She wanted to protect her little boy.
But as she watched him fight, she realized that he wasn't her little boy any more. He had grown up. He wasn't the chubby-cheeked cherubim he had been, once. He had grown, he was as tall as his father now, and could cut just as imposing of a figure. He was thin, lean, although now he was leaning towards scrawny, but a few weeks of good home cooked meals would fix that right up. They'd leave here, she'd pull him away, and sit him down to dinner, getting him to wash behind his ears first.
He always did as he was told, even if he didn't want to. He'd even stop playing quidditch because she'd made dinner. That was his fault. His only fault. She'd raised him to be too good of a boy. Too good, too nice. He couldn't kill, he couldn't just rob someone of their life because he was told to. And it was because of that that he became a traitor to both sides.
He caught sight of her, and came to her, embracing her. He was still her little boy, even if he had grown up to be tall and thin and handsome. That gash across his cheek would turn into a rugged scar, and it would only help him to attract some pretty witch. She tried to tell him to run, to leave, but he wouldn't. He refused to. He was here, he was determined to prove that he wasn't a coward, despite what he had done up in the astronomy tower.
He was here, he was going to stand and fight for what he believed in. His proclamation moved her to tears. He wasn't her little boy any more, coming in dirty and grubby from playing outside, tugging on her sleeve and begging her for sweets. Gone was the boy who cared only about sport, and fun. In his place was a man, determined to fight for what he believed, determined to prove his maturity.
It was when he took a deep breath and turned to face those that he once called friends that she broke down. Not because he was fighting for the other side, but because he had the courage to do so. Not because he was going against everything that had been instilled in him, and fighting on the same side as the boy he hated, Harry Potter, but because he chose to be there, and he wasn't afraid to fight for what he chose. That he was strong enough to shrug off his father's influence and become a man.
That he was strong enough to pick a side, and not just parrot back the rhetoric that he had spent his whole life listening to, that was what caused her to break down. His father would be proud of him, even if he was fighting for the other side. Proud that they had not raised a cowardly sheep, following what he was told. Proud that their little boy, her little boy, had grown up and become a man.