Sometimes You Can't Make it on Your Own

Tough, you think you've got the stuff
You're telling me and anyone
You're hard enough

My eleven year old son has just come and asked me about his father. Our eleven year old son. He got his Hogwarts letter today, and wanted to know what you were like when I met you at the age of eleven. And do you know what? I don't know what to tell him. Help me out here a bit here, huh Ron? I mean, I have plenty of memories of you, good and bad, but I can't really choose which. That's a first, me lost for words isn't it? I'm just sat here, staring at the engagement ring you brought me, twirling it around my finger. It really is beautiful, in an understated way. A beautiful ruby, surrounded by the finest quality cubic zirconias. We always used to laugh when you said that, and then I'd say that it didn't matter what it looked like but who gave to me. And you'd get all serious and say that was why you loved me. And I'd laugh at you for being serious, because it didn't suit you; it just wasn't in any Weasleys nature to be serious, especially one Ronald Bilius Weasley. Well, except maybe Percy.

Anyway where was I? I'm rambling, and if you were here you'd tell me off for it, no doubt. Ah yes, I'm telling you about telling our son about you.

Should I tell him how stubborn you were? How you always explained that you were going with Harry, always said you'd be there until then end? When really, you used to come and visit me in the common room and tell me that you were scared senseless of the final battle. And you'd tell me you said it because you didn't want to show Harry up, make him seem weaker. That was when I'd hold you and tell you it was all going to be all right. You always called me the tough one at these times, tough for being myself. Tough for allowing myself to be myself. Tough for being scared. Tough for always being there, time and time again.

You don't have to put up a fight
You don't have to always be right
Let me take some of the punches
For you tonight

Should I tell him how you wouldn't let me go? How you told me I was staying put because you weren't letting me or the baby get hurt. Our baby. I wanted to go, dear god I wanted to go. I wanted to be there and fight with you, you and Harry. I begged you to let me go. I said that you didn't have to go, didn't always have to be fighting.

I didn't cry when you went that night. I prayed. I've never been a deeply religious person; I rely on the facts mostly. But I prayed then, I needed all the help I could get. And then I waited. Waiting wasn't the hardest thing, not by far. The hardest thing was replying to the questions asked about the baby. And telling them that its daddy was brave and glad about fighting next to Harry Potter. And telling them that everything would be alright. Because how can you tell someone something when you don't believe it yourself?

But we curled up there in that little underground room anyway, until the shaking and rumbling had stopped. And then the real fighting began. The fight for a new life.

Listen to me now
I need to let you know
You don't have to go it alone

Should I tell him that you said I'd never be alone? That was the last thing you ever said to me. You stood there and said to me, "Hermione Jane Granger, I promise you, you will never be alone. I can make sure of that."

Could you really? Well no, you couldn't. The last promise you ever made to me and you couldn't keep it! I thought Gryffindors were supposed to be trustworthy! I'm more alone now than I ever was! Why did you leave me alone Ron, why? Yes, you heard that I'm sure, I must have yelled it loud enough in my head for the entire ghostly population to hear.

YOU, RONALD WEASLEY, LEFT ME ALONE! COMPLETELY ALONE!

So I know I have our son. And he is beautiful, and all I'd have ever wished for in a child and more. But it's not the same, and you know it's not. He doesn't understand. He doesn't understand what it's like to live every day in constant fear of losing loved ones. At least I don't have that fear anymore. Is that what you were trying to protect me from?

He doesn't understand. No one understands me like you do Ron.

And it's you when I look in the mirror
And it's you when I don't pick up the phone
Sometimes you can't make it on your own

Should I tell him that I still have that fear? There, that shut you up didn't it? I see him growing more like you every day, down to the very last freckle. And every day I become more terrified of losing him, losing you, all over again. He is a Weasley to the last, and I am just a Granger, what should I know about him? That is what I'm terrified of, losing him, but in a way unlike you. In such a way that he becomes superior to me in every way, and leaves me here on my own. For he is such a fine specimen of a young boy Ron, and I'm sure he will grow into a fine young man, but hopefully he won't leave me behind. I think I'm beginning to understand what your mother felt. It's not a fear of losing them, but of losing yourself, and it's a very scary fear to have. For if you lose yourself, what have you got left to lose?

I'm not kidding when I say he is a Weasley to the last. Lanky, loose-limbed, freckled, red-haired, blue-eyed boy he is. Stubborn, childish, loyal, caring and intelligent in an understated way, his personality is even like yours. And of course he kicks arse at chess and Qudditch, which are talents he never got off me. Sometimes, when he has that certain _expression on, the one I liked to call your 'huh?' expression and you rather rudely called your 'what the fuck is going on?' expression, it's like talking to an eleven year old version of you again. Like being back on the train with you that very first year, where you talked with your mouthful and spouted some rubbish spell, and I thought you were extremely rude and uncouth, and you thought I was a know-it-all. Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow... I can still repeat that spell to this day. I thought you might like to know, I looked it up and it is actually a real spell, you were just rubbish at magic. But then that's nothing we didn't know already.

But when he has that look on his face, oh I want to tell him about you. Spout out all this old rubbish I'm spouting out to you now, but he's heard the story a thousand times before, embroidered over so many times it complete rubbish. In these stories you were a martyr, a sacrifice, but that's not what you were. You were the other half of the savoir of the wizarding world, the invisible half, the half without the recognition. For anyone can cast a killing spell, but not just anyone can be loyal enough to throw himself at the mercy of Lord Voldemort, just to protect three people. That takes courage, and no matter how many times you told me you didn't have it, that more than makes up for it. You, Ron, had more courage than the whole world and Harry bloody Potter put together.

We fight all the time
You and I...that's alright
We're the same soul
I don't need...I don't need to hear you say
That if we weren't so alike
You'd like me a whole lot more

Should I tell him that if it weren't for you, the last time I would have seen you, we would have been fighting? That if you hadn't swallowed your pride and said sorry, and I hadn't backed down, we may not still be together. Our souls, you silly thing, not our bodies. Come on, you didn't think I'd be sat here having a conversation with myself if I didn't think there was a half a chance you wouldn't reply did you? Give me some credit here. You wouldn't do it if you were here, and neither am I. We were so alike in some ways. So stubborn, so proud, so Gryffindor, both of us. So brave, so kind, so... just so together. Harry always used to joke that we spent more time together than the twins. Say hello to them for me. Harry, the twins, everyone. There's one thing, at least I know you're not alone up there. You're with everyone that counts. Everyone you ever loved. Except me.

Listen to me now
I need to let you know
You don't have to go it alone

And it's you when I look in the mirror
And it's you when I don't pick up the phone
Sometimes you can't make it on your own

Should I tell him that you're the reason I don't go out anymore? You'd never believe it eh? Hermione Granger, recluse. Gone is the vibrant, sparkling seventeen year old you used to know, she's been replaced by the bitter, twisted twenty-nine year old the rest of the world sees. You think I don't know what the few people that see me say about me? They stand there with pity etched onto their faces and they mutter to their children, "There, you see that is what pain can do to a person. That is what love can turn you into." Oh but Ron, the rest of the world doesn't know me. You can still see the sparks behind my eyes, the hint of aliveness in my rare smiles. You are the only person I allow to see that. To everyone else I'm a bitter old woman, still immersed in grieving. And to some extent I am.

I take our son to school and back every day, the two trips I allow myself to make every day. I suppose I won't have to do it anymore. I go and visit your Mum every Friday, just like she used to go and visit your Gramma. She has brief periods of sanity, stuck there in St Mungos, and these are the moments I crave, long for from one week till the next. For it is in these periods when she is the only other person in the world who knows what it is like. To know the fear. The last living person who understands me. Seamus, I'm sure, is too busy getting drunk and, to be quite blunt about it, shagging random girls. And blokes. If there's one good lesson you've taught me Ron, it's to be blunt. Life is too short for softening the blow. Far too short.

I know that we don't talk
I'm sick of it all
Can - you - hear - me - when - I -
Sing, you're the reason I sing
You're the reason why the opera is in me...

Or should I tell him about his birth? How while I was in labour, I was so tired, so sick of you not being there, not being there to coax me through it that I began to cry. If it wasn't painful enough, I had the emotional pain as well. Good god, how I hated you in those few hours. Hated you with such a passion for leaving me that I scared myself. And then when the nurse (for it was a muggle hospital, Frimley Park, if I remember right. I wasn't near enough to St Mungos for that, and god be blessed if I was apparating in that condition.) said "Ok, Miss Granger, you're fully dilated, you can push now." I laughed. I laughed fit to bust because it sounded so much like one of those muggle medical programmes you were fascinated in, it sounded so fake, so surreal. And then I realised what was wrong. "It's Mrs Weasley," I told the nurse firmly and she smiled and said "Of course Mrs Weasley," and everything was right again. Do you know how I got through that ordeal? I sang. Instead of screaming I bellowed through a full rendition of "Weasley is My King." Three times. The nurse looked at me like I was mad, but it helped. It made sure that you were still there, in one way or another. When I looked down, finally, at that little thing in my arms, and the nurse asked for a name, I knew instantly. "Ron Arthur Weasley." The little thing in my arms had a shock of red hair already, and teamed with those big, round, blue eyes, he was the most precious thing in my whole life. I finally knew I still had a little bit of you with me, always. But a little bit just wasn't enough.

Where are we now?
I've still got to let you know
A house doesn't make a home
don't leave me here alone...

Should I tell him about the day after the Final Battle? When I came to the Burrow, to set up camp, and didn't even make it inside? I collapsed on the doorstep, dropping the bags, just sobbing. It was too quiet. The Weasleys home was never meant to be quiet. It was supposed to be full of loud voices, stomping footsteps, arguments. The noises of the twins explosions, Ginny yelling at you for something small, Percy telling you off for interrupting him. Your mum humming as she cooked, Bill and Charlie laughing at your dad for taking something muggle so far to bits it could never be made again, us three laughing at some ridiculous joke you had made, or some innuendo about you going to polish your broomstick. Laughter, singing, the noises of life. The noises of living. The quietness was out of character, it reminded me... it reminded me. But still I picked myself up, dusted myself off, and marched into there like your mother used to, just like the old Hermione would. I rushed up to your bedroom and jumped onto your bed, inhaling the scent. Your scent. I slept there... oh, I don't know how long.

I slept in your room, surrounded by your things and your scent.

But it still didn't feel like home.

I still wasn't home.

And it's you when I look in the mirror
And it's you that makes it hard to let go
Sometimes you can't make it on your own
Sometimes you can't make it
The best you can do is to fake it
Sometimes you can't make it on your own

Back to the present day and he's still sat there, patiently waiting, head cocked to one side just like you used to. I still don't know what to say, how to say it.

It comes to something when you have to explain to your son why his father's life was wasted.

So I say the only thing I can say;

"Sometimes you can't make it on your own."

And he nods and hugs me, holding me tight.

It comes to something when an eleven year old boy understands instantly something which has taken me twelve years to realise.

"Sometimes you can't make it on your own."

The End