Postumus Filius
The Last Son
by: Faithful Wheezy
Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling created them, I messed with them.
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Molly Weasley was pleasantly surprised when she found she was pregnant (yet again) with a sixth child. Sure, it was another boy, but she had a feeling this one would be different.
Every night, Arthur Weasley, her husband, would press his ear to her stomach and listen to the growing child. "He's going to have our hair and my ears, Mollywobbles," he would joke.
After Arthur, Bill, Charlie, and Percy would run comically into the bedroom. Percy would always be a little reluctant to follow, however, insisting that the garden still had gnomes that were too stubborn to leave of their own accord. Bill and Charlie, then young, would jump up and down asking whether the baby would like Quidditch, since Percy was such a horrible Keeper. Here, Percy would sniff and stalk downstairs, muttering loudly about gnomes and 'mean older brothers'. Molly's latest twins were still quite small, and would always be asleep by this time of the day.
It happened every day, like this, for nine months.
On the day of the baby's birth, Molly lay on the bed, looking rather scared and nervous, but happy at the same time. "Why are you so scared?" Arthur would ask, "You've done this five times before." He would say this before every birth.
Of course, Molly would shrug, saying she wasn't scared. She was. But she wouldn't let her husband know that.
Then, mere minutes later, with a Healer's help, the baby boy was born.
Arthur Weasley would gasp happily, tears seeping its way out of his happy eyes. As ever, Molly would blink and blink, but tears managed to leak out as well.
"What's his name?" asked her husband eagerly.
Molly looked at the young baby, who wailed and bawled in the crook of the Healer's elbow.
"Ronald," she said, quietly. "Ronald Bilius Weasley."
"That's a beautiful name," Arthur would say, as always after every birthday.
There was nothing different.
No less than a year later, Molly found herself pregnant with another child. A girl, she was told. She was ecstatic. During her pregnancy and her daughter's birth, she noticed that Ron, though extremely young, had already learned how to live 'independently', as Arthur was always at work, and she was busy coping up with the new, demanding daughter.
Molly watched as the young boy grew up and learned to blend with his other brothers and younger sister.
Sadly, she knew that all of his siblings, except for Ginny, would just be one step ahead of him. No more, no less. But nevertheless, ahead.
She watched her young toddler grow into a tall and gangly eleven year old, eagerly awaiting his turn for attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, which his brothers had described to him in amazing detail.
Molly saw her son pack his things haphazardly into his suitcase, him not allowing her to help him, thinking he was "old enough to do these sorts of things."
It made her feel proud to know she had reared this child.
She knew he would be different, yet it wasn't quite showing up in him yet.
Arthur had needed to go to the Ministry the day Percy's, Fred's, George's, and Ron's term started. She had to bring her sons to King's Cross, along with Ginny, who was then ten, and therefore too young to be left home alone at the Burrow.
Every year it would be like this. When Ginny was old enough to go to Hogwarts, Molly would always be alone, year after year, for ten months, while the children were off at Hogwarts. Even when Bill and Charlie and Percy graduated, they immediately found work, and didn't spend much time with her. Arthur would be working himself raw everyday in the Ministry, insisting they needed more money, with all the mouths to feed.
The only one who would be concerned about this matter was Ron.
None of his brothers or sister was as pennywise as he was, always concerned with what was in the bank vault, and sensitive to any jokes pertaining to their lack of money.
She could sense it. A slight difference that set him apart from the rest.
Throughout the years, Ron seemed to grow more pensieve and thoughtful, although he always tried to be lighthearted as possible around the family. He became more distant with the family; he was not quite the same person he was when he was young and—not quite carefree, but at least, happy.
Her son, Ron, was not quite... happy.
She could see it in him.
Was this the difference she had been both fearing and longing for?
Molly couldn't ignore the fact that she knew this would happen sooner or later. His best friends included the famous Harry Potter, who had defeated Lord—well, You-Know-Who nth times, and the smart, talented, best-in-the-class Hermione Granger, whom he always seemed to talk about over the summer.
Next to all of his brothers and sister, he had a lot to live up to, not being able to stand out.
She watched him grow to be a young man.
He always kept a twinkle in his eye around the family, his hair cut short—but not too short, yet when he was at home and in his room, she would listen outside the doorway.
He would cry.
She listened to Ron as he poured out his heart and soul and tears to no one in particular, and one day, Molly couldn't help it. She went inside.
She went inside his room and hugged him. Ron didn't put up a fight, or look embarrassed, as Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred, George, or Ginny might do. He sometimes looked as though he expected it, and he hugged her back.
This boy was different, all right.
Not quite in the way she wanted him different.
However, as Molly hugged her sixth child, her last son... she realized that she would have it no other way.
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