Music for Mother
By: French Sorbet
I, French Sorbet, do not in anyways own the original works of Ms. Rowling. I only claim rights to the plot as seen here, and a few magical details here and there. This is also posted on fanfiction.net, under the same title.
Thanks to: plzthx101, she knows why, and to Angel of Grammar for beta-ing and giving me musical knowledge I was unaware of to help this story take wing.
I always liked Mrs. Weasley. After all, she was my mother-in-law, and most of all my friend. I still remember her telling Ginny and I about a love potion she made back at Hogwarts. I almost did the same to my husband once. But her children didn't always like her the way I did.
I'm sorry, I know I'm crying. But it's a funeral isn't it? We're suppose to do that: cry. Mrs. Weasley got one last wish before she died. Those who know her...might like to have known that she died smiling.
Mrs. Weasley has always wanted her children to do things the hard way. This was not because she was a bad mother and didn’t want to do it herself, or because she wanted them to live like muggles, but it was simply to give them pride in what they did. This worked when the children were very young and any small chore that included action then reaction, fascinated them with the delight that only a small child could muster.
One of these tasks that Mrs. Weasley had set for her children was that of achieving a gift of sorts; something that would thoroughly set them apart. Bill became a math genius. Charlie understood animals better then he understood people, which in Mrs. Weasley's endeavor to gain grandchildren became a double edge sword for her “Charlie-Aspirations”. The others had gifts as great as the two eldest, but the one that warmed her heart was the disappointment that broke it as well.
Her youngest son, Ron, had always had a great ear for music, and when he was five she’d scrimped and saved enough money to buy a small, battered, second hand piano. With the help of her old friend Glenda, who was a muggleborn daughter of a pianist, Ron began his scales.
While the sound of Ron’s scales of C, D, and G tore the rest of the family apart with musical rage that made them all hate Ron’s piano passionately , the child himself didn’t seem to mind. In fact his normal hyperactivity and grumpy attitude seem to fade as his small fingers danced across the mock-ivory keys.
Unlike with Ginny, who Mrs. Weasley would have to beg to practice the ballet Mrs. Weasley had set her to learn (Ginny gave it up at 9), Ron went to his piano gladly. In fact, it was hard to get him away from the piano.
However in time, the amazing aptitude of Ron’s playing slowly melted as he moved onto harder pieces. Mozart’s Turkish March made his fingers ache, and Bach drove him up the wall. Soon, out of his frustration, and the up coming first year at Hogwarts Ron abandoned the piano, leaving it in the Burrow for his once gleeful mother to dust with a heavy heart, wondering what could have come of it if only Ron had tried harder.
Perhaps this disappointment had come from Mrs. Weasley’s own lack of musical, mathematical, political, or dancing talent. She wondered if she’d forced too much on her children, if she was trying to fill the void she’d created in her own soul because of the barren talents she herself had. She could knit and cook. But so could millions of others.
But when the war hit, she didn’t think about unused pianos anymore, or forgotten dreams. Now her mind only dreamed of a night when her body didn’t cry itself to sleep over Percy’s betrayal, or wake in fear at every creak the old house made. One particular night that creak was more then a creak. It was the slow tick of luck running out for Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, and very soon they would be dead.
The death eaters killed Mr. Weasley before his head had lifted from the pillow, but Mrs. Weasley had been in the loo drinking some sleeping potion. She drunkenly scampered down the stairs the potion wearing her of the energy she needed so badly. She must have looked ridiculous on the floor in her pink floral nightgown, potion down her front.
They didn’t kill her outright, they bashed her head with a lamp, while she lay, crumpled and crying in the sitting room. They left her to die, which her body complied with. They went upstairs. They went to Ginny. They came back down.
They then left forever. Her eyes started to open and close, and come in and out of focus. She heard sounds around her as someone blasted the door over.
She could make out two men- one with black, messy hair (‘Harry’ she thought) and the other had red. It had to be Ron then, all the others were dead, missing, or hiding in the ministry. She heard a moan of pain as Ron’s eyes focused into view and he gingerly lifted his dying mother.
From upstairs she heard another lamp break. Not from smashing into a head, but smashing into a wall. Harry must have found Ginny’s room.
Ginny’s broken, raped body. Ginny’s bloody hand that had once graced a small engagement ring. A white diamond that had turned to ruby. Ron was cradling her body and muttering how everything would be alright. From over his shoulder Mrs. Weasley could see the blood on the walls she had trailed.
And then her eyes fell on the piano. Covered with dust, an old music sheet still propped up.
“Ron…please…” Mrs. Weasley started, her mind slowly starting to slip away.
“What, what do you want? I’ll do anything, it’ll be all okay! You’ll get better, you can come live with Mione and me. It’ll be okay…” a choked sob.
“Ron, I’m dying…please play…play the piano…” she said in a hushed voice. Ron sobbed again. Mrs. Weasely’s mind was slipping quickly. He cradled her body and lifted her over to the bench, standing behind her. His hands went around her to the keys of false grandeur and played the notes in front of him.
Mrs. Weasley died smiling. Perhaps the blow had damaged her mind, but I never thought so. I think, that with Ron’s arms through hers, she was imagining she was playing the piano.
I think that if Ron had known what song he was playing, he would have stopped. I think it’s better now that Ron never took the magical languages, because he would have taken Latin.
He would have known what Requiem Mass meant.
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