Ron wondered what was going on.
He'd just had the strangest dream that even now was fading away. Something uneasy and a bit scary, about battle and the sound of spells crashing against walls and bodies. There was the sound of other bodies falling to the floor somewhere dark and mysterious. The tinkle of shattering glass and screams of rage following it. Ron wasn't even sure if he could call this a nightmare.
He sat up in bed. The drapes were closed but he could still hear a few snores and a couple of sleep-laden grumbles. It had been expected from all the stories that his brothers had told him. Well, some of the stories. Fred and George had been known to exaggerate, and Charlie too. Bill was too serious since he was the first-born after all, and Percy... well, Percy was Percy.
He sat still and listened some more as his body shook off the uneasiness of the dream. To his left in another bed lay the fabled Boy-Who-Lived. But somehow, the title that he'd grown up hearing about just didn't seem to fit. Ron had met the boy earlier that day and some things didn't add up. Instead of someone like Bill or Charlie, who had jobs with no small bit of danger, the kid he'd met seemed... well, small. Scrawny. Under-fed. Wearing worse clothes than he was, even handed-down and lovingly patched by his mother.
That was something else, he realized with a sinking heart. The Boy-Who-Lived was only that because he had no mother. He didn't have a father either, that had a shed full of odd things and did things that frankly made no sense to him.
How would he have handled something like that? Sure, Bill and Charlie and all the rest would have done their very best, but they were not his parents. He knew that he would have been loved in their own rough brotherly way, but it wasn't the same as his mother and father. The Boy-Who-Lived didn't even have any brothers or an irritating sister. Apparently, he didn't have anyone to make sure he had enough to eat or good clothes to wear.
Ron knew that he went overboard sometimes, but he couldn't help it. His appetite was big and his mouth was bigger. It took times like these – quiet, calm, still nights full of the self-reflection that he normally didn't allow himself – to see those things that he really should have seen before.
Somewhere in the distance, he heard a clock toll out the hour. It was a muted sound, in deference to the sleepers within the castle. He heard it and wondered how long it would take to get used to that sound. It told him that there was still plenty of night to go. Ron knew that if he got out of bed to look out the window, he wouldn't see any lighting of the sky that announced the start of a new day. It would still be the total darkness of night, except for the moon and stars.
He was aware that Ginny, that irritating sister, had the whole collection of Boy-Who-Lived books. Ron didn't tell her that he stole every one, one at a time, to read them when she wasn't looking. She would have beat him up one side and down the other. Even for her smaller size, she was vicious. With six older brothers and being the baby of the family, she had to be. Ron could concede that, but not where she would hear. In the still of that Hogwarts night, Ron thought about those books. He thought about the main character and the adventures that he went on and the things he had that Ron wished he had. The money, the palace, the friends, the fine clothes and plenty of food.
Looking at the earlier memory of the boy who'd taken the bed next to him, Ron couldn't see how someone who looked as weak and small as that could possibly have all those things. It didn't make sense, just as that dream didn't. Earlier in the Great Hall, he looked like any Muggleborn that had never seen the magic that he grew up with and took for granted. The surprised face that he had kept all day just didn't jibe with those books. It made no sense. If he was this great boy wizard that did all these feats of magic, then shouldn't he be as comfortable as Ron was with magic, if not more? Why did he look so lost and pitiful?
He pulled the covers closer to his chin in the chill and returned to an earlier thought. If the Boy-Who-Lived didn't have family, then he knew one that had room for one more.
Another thought wormed its way into his head. The Boy-Who-Lived was called that only because he was the only one that did. It was an echo of the earlier thought. Ron gasped as the thought ran its course. That title would be a constant reminder of the parents he lost. The things that he obviously didn't have that everyone in the Wizarding World knew he had.
Ron's face hardened. From now on, he'd be the brother Harry didn't have. There would be no more of this Boy-Who-Lived nonsense. No more of the seed of jealousy that he knew that had planted when he read those stupid books. No more of the wr0ng thoughts of what Harry was and wasn't. Maybe he'd made the wrong impression on the train. In the morning, he'd collect his brothers and tell them all what he'd thought of tonight. With luck, maybe by the end of breakfast, he would have a new brother. Brothers looked out for each other, no matter what.
With that resolution, Ron felt the tendrils of that strange dream fade away and he settled back down into the warmth of his bed. As he drifted back off into the sleep that had been interrupted, somewhere the Castle that had welcomed her lost child with the lightning bolt scar smiled as another child grew up just a bit.