Epistolary

Ron Weasley

Flat 21B Ripple Road

London Borough of Diagon

M491C

Hi Hermione,

So the pile of boxes are now only three high and two deep!

There you were thinking you would move in and it'd be as messy as you left it. Have faith in me, woman.

I know I said I'd write back more often but my letters are crap and Ginny tells you all the family news, Harry gives you the Harry news and the Harry news is pretty much the me news so I'd only be repeating myself really. How annoying would that be?

In fact I think you should be thanking me for not bothering you.

But I'm writing because your last letter sounded kind of like you do when you have a crinkly bit at the top of your nose and you look all clenched as if you've been jammed into too tight clothes (and while I know you like that look on me I also know how you like a nice baggy jumper for yourself).

I know you're worried that you have become the evil overlord of the house elves but you have to remember that the reason they are so empowered is because of you. One day they'll have to get along without you and they'll be ready for that day because of all your hard work. The thing is you'll have to get ready for them not needing you anymore and I know that'll be painful for you.

I dug out a dictionary for this (and a book called a thesaurus, which I thought was about dinosaurs until Harry laughed at me and explained) so you'd better appreciate it.

What you should keep telling yourself is that you will always be needed. Your guidance is invaluable. Your morals and ethics and amazing forbearance in the face of my needy idiocy and self destructive tendencies are essential for the ongoing reconstruction of my psyche.

Basically, in a nutshell that has no books that sound like dinosaurs, I'll never stop needing you.

I hope that makes you feel better. If it doesn't I hope that it at least crinkles the sides of your mouth into a smile rather than crinkles your nose and forehead even deeper.

So, anyway, you asked how I was doing with the big move.

I keep bracing myself to freak out about it. Everybody keeps telling me what a big step it is and Mum practically has us married already. George keeps popping out from behind boxes and talking as if I'll be living in fear my whole life from now on. That was only funny when Angelina heard him and told him she wouldn't be staying overnight at the shop any more so he could snuggle with his hot water bottle instead of his big scary girlfriend from now on.

I slept in the bed for the first time last night. It's great, and big enough for me to sprawl out all over it, but it's not quite right without you nudging me to give you some more room. The curtains came and your mum put them up and they were hideous..

We have curtains with yellow roses on.

I know.

I'll take them down and put up some simple cream coloured ones. I just want to find a spell I think I can tweak that will project the yellow roses onto it when she comes to visit so her feelings don't get hurt and we don't have to live with ugly flowers.

I love your mother but I really don't want to live in a bowl of potpourri any more than you do.

Speaking of my lovely mistress, Jean, while she fiddled with the hem of the curtains we talked through some little things and I found some little bad times from when I was a kid and Fred bullied me.

She reckons that I put them away because I felt guilty for having memories of Fred being an arsehole to me.

The funny thing was that getting them back made it sort of better. I also found some stuff I'd forgotten, so didn't think to remove, and I wanted to tell you about it.

When we were still too young to go to Hogwarts and Fred was taller than me, so really young if you think about it, he had an argument with George and mum separated them. She physically separated them. George was sent to Nana Prewett's house and Fred was going to go to Auntie Muriel's. Mum said she'd had enough and they were the reason dad was going bald.

When George went away Fred was all defiant and gitty in his Fred-like way just to show mum that nothing could stop him. He went to Muriel's and got sent back within the day after causing havoc and he was really smug about it. He said the George was going to do the same at Nana's and they'd be back together creating more mischief by bedtime.

But George was a pretty well behaved kid when Fred wasn't around to egg him on, especially back then. He was a good boy for Nana and she didn't send him back that night. She had him for the whole weekend and on the following Monday an owl came from George asking if he could stay for a couple more days.

She was teaching him to make this paste that burned without singeing anything or giving off heat. It's what they use for their wet start fireworks now, safe for kids y'know? Anyway, he was enjoying himself and Fred was getting lonely and taking it out on me.

I avoided him after mum left us to read, we did reading aloud and then finished our stories quietly while she made dinner, and he followed me and tried to annoy me. I hid from him again and he found me and threw something hard at the back of my head. I was really cross with him and told him he was horrible without George.

I threw my book at him, I remember that so clearly now, and he let it hit his shoulder and he didn't do anything. He didn't beat me up or threaten revenge or anything nasty like that. He looked at me and said he was sorry.

Fred never said sorry, not to me, not unless mum made him, but that time he did.

He wasn't doing anything to show he was upset. He didn't cry or sulk. He just stood there.

He was bigger than me so I dragged a fallen branch over to him and stood on it, then I gave him a cuddle. Me and the twins didn't cuddle. Fred and George aren't cuddly people. I gave him a cuddle and he cuddled back and after that neither of us spoke of it again. It was so against everything I thought about Fred that I put it away like a crazy dream and not a real memory.

But it happened. I cuddled him and he said he was sorry to me.

I would never have remembered that if this mess hadn't happened.

I didn't tell your mum when it came back to me, just that something had. I wanted to share it with you. I really wanted to write it down actually. I don't like that I forgot it, or didn't believe it really happened, so I wanted to make it real by getting it out of my head (we both know how unreliable my head can be eh?) and making it something I can hold and not spill.

Does that make sense?

I wrote something else down too. I wrote every humiliating detail in full. I burnt it straight after. I feel better for making it a physical thing outside of myself though.

I think I'm ready to tell you.

Not in a letter though, not this.

One thing your mum seems to know not to ask me to look for or describe has been re-plotted on the new and improved map of my mind and it's time to get it out of my head.

When you come home I want to tell you about destroying the locket.

Until then I'll paint all the yellowy beige ceilings white and wait for you to be overthrown by your ungrateful elf friends (joking!)

Miss you.

Lots of love from your Ron.

PS - The flat smells like dead flowers. Is this a Muggle thing? Your mother had a can in her hand and now everything stinks.

Drop me a note back with Pig and tell me how to make it go away.

End