Sometimes, I wonder about how exactly I managed to grow up in the house
that I did, with the parents that I had, and the relatives that I did. To
say that I grew up in the limelight would be the understatement of the
century. When your dad's a world-famous doctor of animal studies (who
discovered another twenty uses for dragon blood), your mum's the Magistrix
(or Mistress of Magic, whichever you prefer) and used to be a world-famous
auror, your uncle is just plain world-famous for what seemed like thousands
of things, and your other uncles created "Weasley's Wizard Wheezes" and are
making billions off of fake wands, it is hard not to grow up in the
spotlight. Rather than spotlight, often my sister and I were stuck in the
prominent shadow of our relatives. In a hundred years, who would remember
Landon and Emily Weasley, and Evie, James and Rachel Potter? Probably no
one. But everyone would remember Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger-Weasley and
Harry Potter.
My Grandmum Weasley was often sensitive of this, and told the five of us something that I will never forget. She sat us down, once, while our parents were at one of those "famous people parties" that we weren't allowed to go to. She and Granddad let us spend the night, which we loved to do.
Well, anyway, she said to us, "Now, I know that growing up is hard for children to do; especially hard for you, dears. Now, I'm going to tell you something that I told Uncle Ron a long time ago. Instead of living in your parent's shadow, you need to want to make yourself better. You need to step out of their shadow and make some shade of your own. Now, don't you ever use your parent's fame as a defense mechanism. You are not your parents; you are you."
People ask Emily and me if our parents put too much pressure on us in our childhood years. I can honestly tell them that, no, they did not. Mum and Dad never asked anything of us, except that we do our best. Looking back on it, I saw that I was the one who put the pressure on myself to be the best. After all, I always did take after Mum.
Emily, on the other hand, could have been Dad reincarnate. However, that wouldn't really have been possible because both of them are still alive, and there couldn't have been two Ron Weasleys, even if one of them was reincarnated (I told you that I took after Mum). To say that Emily was a tomboy would be a severe insult to her. She was much, much more than a tomboy. One time, she got sent to the Headmaster's office for fighting- someone had called her the G-word. That's right, G as in "girl".
I honestly don't know how I survived my Hogwarts years. I wouldn't have, without my two best friends. James Potter, Charlotte Bronte (NOT the writer) and I were the best of friends. All of the teachers who knew out parents said that we were the spitting image of the three of them. Charlotte would get kind of confused about that, considering that she was in no way related to our parents at all, but James and I understood. We understood each other like our fathers do. Sometimes I can swear that we have mental telepathy or something, but then I remember that Divination is a load of dragon dung. Charlotte, on the other hand, was an entirely different story. She and James hit it off all right, but my feelings were slightly…different. Mum would have had a coronary if she had heard me voice my opinions about poor Char.
If there was one thing that my parents taught me, it was to never judge people by first impressions. I cannot tell you how many times I had heard the story about how they hated each other, and then they were best friends, and then BAM!, one day, they were getting married. They would always say that a person's appearance, financial status, and popularity quotient did not matter one bit. I promptly ignored this lesson when introduced to Charlotte, but don't all children do that at one point in time?
I really hated it when people expected me to behave all the time. Of course, I loved to learn and study (something about learning and gaining knowledge just invigorates me), and I really don't enjoy breaking rules because that ends up in getting in trouble, but there were times when I just wanted to behave like a normal wizard boy and randomly run into the Forbidden Forest with James and Charlotte in search of adventure, like Mum, Dad and Uncle Harry did. People always expected the son of Hermione Granger to be well behaved (not all of those people know half of the stuff that Mum did in school, though), forgetting that I did have Weasley genes in me.
Hogwarts was probably one of my favorite places on earth. I had been there many times with Mum (back when she taught Defense Against the Dark Arts), and knew my way around like the back of my hand. I could hardly wait to start my first year, and like any normal child growing up in the wizarding world, I was also completely terrified.
My Grandmum Weasley was often sensitive of this, and told the five of us something that I will never forget. She sat us down, once, while our parents were at one of those "famous people parties" that we weren't allowed to go to. She and Granddad let us spend the night, which we loved to do.
Well, anyway, she said to us, "Now, I know that growing up is hard for children to do; especially hard for you, dears. Now, I'm going to tell you something that I told Uncle Ron a long time ago. Instead of living in your parent's shadow, you need to want to make yourself better. You need to step out of their shadow and make some shade of your own. Now, don't you ever use your parent's fame as a defense mechanism. You are not your parents; you are you."
People ask Emily and me if our parents put too much pressure on us in our childhood years. I can honestly tell them that, no, they did not. Mum and Dad never asked anything of us, except that we do our best. Looking back on it, I saw that I was the one who put the pressure on myself to be the best. After all, I always did take after Mum.
Emily, on the other hand, could have been Dad reincarnate. However, that wouldn't really have been possible because both of them are still alive, and there couldn't have been two Ron Weasleys, even if one of them was reincarnated (I told you that I took after Mum). To say that Emily was a tomboy would be a severe insult to her. She was much, much more than a tomboy. One time, she got sent to the Headmaster's office for fighting- someone had called her the G-word. That's right, G as in "girl".
I honestly don't know how I survived my Hogwarts years. I wouldn't have, without my two best friends. James Potter, Charlotte Bronte (NOT the writer) and I were the best of friends. All of the teachers who knew out parents said that we were the spitting image of the three of them. Charlotte would get kind of confused about that, considering that she was in no way related to our parents at all, but James and I understood. We understood each other like our fathers do. Sometimes I can swear that we have mental telepathy or something, but then I remember that Divination is a load of dragon dung. Charlotte, on the other hand, was an entirely different story. She and James hit it off all right, but my feelings were slightly…different. Mum would have had a coronary if she had heard me voice my opinions about poor Char.
If there was one thing that my parents taught me, it was to never judge people by first impressions. I cannot tell you how many times I had heard the story about how they hated each other, and then they were best friends, and then BAM!, one day, they were getting married. They would always say that a person's appearance, financial status, and popularity quotient did not matter one bit. I promptly ignored this lesson when introduced to Charlotte, but don't all children do that at one point in time?
I really hated it when people expected me to behave all the time. Of course, I loved to learn and study (something about learning and gaining knowledge just invigorates me), and I really don't enjoy breaking rules because that ends up in getting in trouble, but there were times when I just wanted to behave like a normal wizard boy and randomly run into the Forbidden Forest with James and Charlotte in search of adventure, like Mum, Dad and Uncle Harry did. People always expected the son of Hermione Granger to be well behaved (not all of those people know half of the stuff that Mum did in school, though), forgetting that I did have Weasley genes in me.
Hogwarts was probably one of my favorite places on earth. I had been there many times with Mum (back when she taught Defense Against the Dark Arts), and knew my way around like the back of my hand. I could hardly wait to start my first year, and like any normal child growing up in the wizarding world, I was also completely terrified.