WEST LONG BRANCH, N.J. – Recently, I was able to revisit one of my favorite childhood books, Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone. When I read the book the first time, I was immediately drawn to Hermione Granger, the bushy haired witch who made a family for herself in the magical world of Hogwarts. This time, however, I felt myself straying from the witch on towards the awkward red head that rounded the trio out, Ronald Weasley. He was so different from what I remembered him to be and the characteristics that made him obnoxious the first time around just made him all the more endearing this time around.
My favorite literary character of all time might actually be Ronald Weasley.
Hear me out, the book Ron is about a bajillion times better than what the movie portrayed him as. The movies got rid of the sharp-wit that Ron delivers as the quirky sidekick of Harry Potter. In the novel, Weasley showed me the importance of friendship, and that having insecurities doesn’t make you any less deserving of love.
Weasley is one of the only characters to actually reach out to Harry as a person and not as a celebrity. Ron made Harry more human, he grounded him and reminded him that he was just a boy who was forced to shoulder a burden far greater that he should ever have known.
The first time we meet Weasley, he’s being made fun of by his older brothers and doted on by his mom. Out of the three main characters, he was the only one who was born into magic with a family that was also magical. He was the bridge into the way a child was raised in magical society; his was a different upbringing, and I could somewhat relate to him in the sense that I was being raised in an Indian household while most of my friends were experiencing life from the “white” perspective.
He was always just a little bit different from Harry and Hermione, and it made me appreciate him so much more as they got older because even though he wasn’t the best at showing his feelings, they were there, and no one ever said they were not valid.
We got to watch Ron grow up from the boy that we first met on the train to a person who would put himself in harms way just to protect the friend that became his brother. He was the one to offer Harry a family, sharing his own just so that Harry would feel welcome and loved. Ron made it okay for the funny friend to be just that, funny. One of the most important things I learned from Ron was that even if you don’t get what you want in the start, you can end up with something a whole lot better.
