Proud of Your Boy

Proud of Your Boy

Ron watches as his mum bustles around the kitchen, bowls float around her mixing various batters that make his stomach growl with impatient anticipation. She is mumbling under her breath, as she has been prone to do in recent weeks. Something about cakes and teenage boys and grades and something else he can't quite make out.

He knows he shouldn't just be standing there, staring, but he simply doesn't want to be anywhere else. Harry is upstairs pretending he isn't turning sixteen today and Hermione is in the parlor with Ginny studying. Only Hermione would be studying in July. The twins aren't due back for a few more hours and his dad is off at a meeting. Lupin is about somewhere. His old professor has been as stroppy as Harry these past weeks. So, his mum is looking like much better company, even if she hasn't looked at him once since he came in.

Ron tries to help, but his mum shoos him away, muttering how he was never any good at cooking. She gestures to the sink and he resigns himself to washing dishes. He doesn't bother with magic. The Muggle way is slower and allows him to scrub at the pots and pans. He needs some way to relieve his boredom.

He knows he shouldn't feel this way, lost, alone, and unloved. Unloved? Is that the right word? He isn't sure. All he knows is that ever since Harry arrived at Number Twelve he's been fawned and worried over by Ron's mum. His mum barely looks at him anymore. And here she is sweating over a cake whose recipient will probably never see it, let alone eat it, since Harry's become a hermit in Sirius's old room.

'Mum,' Ron thinks looking over his shoulder at his mum's back. 'I know your worried about Harry. But I'm here too. Look at me!'

As if she can hear his thoughts, she turns and looks up at him, her brown eyes meeting his. "Did you say something, Ron?"

He grins slightly. "No. But... er, do you need help decorating?"

She frowns a bit and looks down at the chocolate covered three-layered cake in front of her. "Sure, come on. Dry your hands first! Not on your trousers! Honestly."

Ron smiles gingerly and grabs a dishtowel, wiping his hands before joining his mum at frowning at the cake.

"Here," she says.

Ron puts both hands up in front of him to ward off the frilly pink apron his mother is holding out to him. "No way."

"Those are new trousers! Why are you wearing them anyway, they're for school," she scolds.

Ron straightens to his full height, towering over his mum and points towards his ankles. "That's why," he says. "My old ones are practically shorts!"

His mum smiles. "Another four inches!"

"Your fault. Bloody tall Prewetts, 'cept for you," he teases.

"Language, Ronald." But she smiles as she thrusts the apron into his hands. "Put it on."

Ron puts the apron on simply because he is happy his mum is finally acknowledging him and it feels like old times at the Burrow. They laugh as they charm letters and Quidditch players onto the cake. His mum only tutting when he makes the miniature, candied players fight in the middle of the icinged pitch.

"Go get Harry, eh?" his mum nudges him towards the door.

"Mum, I don't think he'll come down."

"He will when you tell him we've got a cake for him!"

Ron shrugs as he leaves the kitchen.

He climbs the stairs and knocks on Sirius's bedroom door. "Harry? Mate, come on down. We made a cake!" he tries to make his voice cheerful and animated, but it falls flat against the door. "Harry?"

There is no answer.

Ron tries the door. Locked. "Harry! Come on it's your birthday! Sirius wouldn't have wanted you to be sulking in there by yourself."

At that, a loud bang comes from the other side of the door. Ron jumps back. "Least we know you're still alive," he mumbles as he retreats back down to the kitchen.

"Sorry, mum." He sits at the table and drums his fingers on the wood.

His mum sighs and puts the cake away in the cupboard. "He might be better later."

"Mum, I dunno what to do to get him... better."

His mum strokes his hair. "It's not up to you. He'll come around." She gives his hair a small tug. "You need a haircut."

"I like it like this."

"You look like a dirty delinquent."

"That's exactly the look I was going for," he jokes.

She shakes her head and walks out of the kitchen.

He watches the swinging door, watches her get farther and farther away with each swing until she disappears into one of the other rooms.

He shakes his head and looks down and watches as his finger traces the grain of the wood of the table.

xxx

A Year Later...

"Ron?" Harry asks, leaning into him. "Ron?" His voice is thick and scratchy.

Ron shrugs Harry away from him with his shoulder. He cannot look at Harry. He cannot listen to him or have him hovering over him. Not now. Not ever again. His fault. All his.

"Ron?" Hermione now. She takes his hands in hers and squeezes gently. "Ron?"

Why do people keep saying his name? Repeating it so many times until it no longer has any meaning, until it sounds odd to his ears? Why do they do that?

"Please."

He lifts his gaze to her face and sees the tears streaming down her cheeks. He refuses to look at Harry who is sitting beside him still. He reaches a hand out and wipes her cheek, touching the wetness, but not really registering it.

"Mate?" Harry. Bloody Harry Potter. Stupid, fucking Harry Potter.

He stands then, walking away from the two others. Hands buried in his pockets.

Lost. Gone. Dead.

He stands in front of the lopsided house that he has known his whole life but now looks foreign. Everything is the same, but feels wrong, incomplete and not at all right. It feels that way because it is that way. She isn't there. She never will be again.

All because of Harry.

He feels his blood boil and his fists close tightly as he turns to him.

"Ron," Harry says, sounding worried.

He should be.

Ron races for his 'friend' and pounds his face with his fist. Blood gushes from Harry's nose and Ron's knuckles scream in pain.

"RON!" Hermione jumps between the two and waves her hands in front of him. "Ron," she says softer, "it's not his fault. You know it's not."

"No, let him. It is. It is my fault." Harry lies on the grass holding his face. He starts to get up.

Ron shoves Hermione out of the way and kneels at Harry's side, grabbing his shirt collar and punching him again. "You killed her! You killed her!" he screams. He hasn't spoken in two days; his voice is like sandpaper against pipe. "You killed her!"

Harry allows the abuse, which makes Ron even angrier. Behind him Hermione screams and cries.

Harry's head falls to the right, bloody and swollen. "I'm sorry, mate."

Ron blinks, his fist loosens from the fabric and he drops Harry to the ground before running off.

xxx

Ron stands in front of the cold gray stone and wants desperately to break it. It isn't worthy of his Mum. She wasn't stone; she was anything but. She was... water, and air and warm, she was cinnamon and green and Christmas morning, springtime, and daisies, she was tight hugs, and itchy wool jumpers, she was a hero. She was his Mum.

And he was nothing. He was the last son, the forgotten one. He was the sidekick and the tantrum thrower. He was the stupid seventeen year old who was too busy being unconscious while his best mate was being tortured and his mum had to save him, losing her life in the process.

He doesn't blame Harry, not really. He blames himself. He is the reason his mum died at the hands of a lowly, common Death Eater.

He is the screw-up; it is common knowledge. This is proof of that. This is the biggest of all screw-ups. He wasted himself, and now he had lost the most important thing in his life. He didn't even know she was until she was gone. He wants to kick himself for not appreciating her more before.

When was the last time he told her he loved her? He is sure it wasn't since he was a little boy. Probably after she had rescued him from his teddy-turned-spider, courtesy of the twins. Though, maybe he had mentioned it when his dad had been attacked by Voldemort's snake while guarding the Prophesy, but he can't remember for sure.

He remembers how proud she had been when he had been made Prefect, a decision he still questions. But other than that brief day, there were no other proud cheers or parties in his honor. Had he made her proud? Not in school things but in life? He isn't sure. He is certain she'd most likely have murdered him if she knew he had just beat Harry into a bloody pulp.

He sighs and reaches out to touch the stone.

"I'm sorry, Mum. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you when I should have been. I'll make you proud of me. I will. I promise."

He kneels down on one knee, letting it sink into the soft ground. "All the screwing up, it ends now. This is where it all turns around. I should have done it sooner, but...well, I've always been a bit late, haven't I?" He grins awkwardly at his own small joke and clears his throat. "I'll do my best. I will. But I'll try to try really hard to do better. I'll make you proud of your boy before this war is over. I will."

He stands and turns away to head back home but stops and once more looks back to the stone. "And I'll start by apologizing to Harry. It wasn't his fault.... I love you, Mum."

xxx

"I am proud, Ronnie. I always have been. I wish you knew that," Molly whispers, but her son cannot hear her.

-the end-

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