- Ron is a member of the pure blood Weasley family. Both of his parents, Arthur and Molly, come from pure blood lines. Draco Malfoy describes the Weasleys as having, “red hair, freckles and more children than they can afford.” He is the fifth Weasley son to attend Hogwarts. His elder brother, Percy, is a prefect and his older twin brothers, Fred and George, excel academically and are extremely popular because of their pranks. Ron and his family don’t really know much about the muggle world and are often fascinated by the things that Harry tells them about that aspect of his life.
- Ron has six siblings: Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred, George, and Ginny. Ron often feels overlooked and left out. During their first meeting in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer Stone, Ron tells Harry, “Every one expects me to do as well as the others, but if I do, it’s no big deal, because they did it first.”
- Besides Hagrid, Ron is Harry’s first friend in the wizarding world and at Hogwarts. They meet on the platform 9 ¾ and then share a compartment on the train. They bond when Harry buys all of the tea lady’s sweets to share with Ron who only has homemade sandwiches to eat.
- Ron helps Harry defeat Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer Stone by directing their trio as they play a life size version of wizard’s chess. Ron sacrifices himself by allowing the white queen to smash his knight, which renders him unconscious, but wins the game. Harry and Hermione are then able to complete their quest.
- In the second book of the series, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Ron and his twin brothers, Fred and George, steal their father’s flying car and drive to the Dursley’s home to rescue Harry. Their father is curious about how this artefact operated, but their mother is livid.
- In the fourth book of the series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Ron and Harry fall out when Harry is selected as the fourth participant in the Triwizard Tournament. Harry insists that he didn’t put his name in the goblet of fire. Ron doesn’t believe him. He feels as if he is constantly in Harry’s shadow. They don’t reconcile until Ron sees how dangerous the tournament is and realizes that Harry would never sign up for it.
- Ron realizes that he may have romantic feelings for Hermione when she is Viktor Krum’s date for the Yule Ball.
- Ron’s first girlfriend is Lavender Brown. They start dating during their sixth year at Hogwarts. Part of his reason for doing it is obviously to make Hermione jealous. They spend a lot of time making out (snogging) in public. She gives also gives him the annoying nickname, Won Won.
- Ron destroys one of Voldemort’s horcruxes, Slytherin’s Locket, but not before the necklace convinces him to abandon Harry and Hermione. The locket plays on Ron’s insecurities and whispers to him, “I have seen your dreams, Ronald Weasley, and I have seen your fears. All you desire is possible, but all that you dread is also possible. . .Least loved, always, by the mother who craved a daughter. . .Least loved, now, by the girl who prefers your friend. . .Second best, always, eternally overshadowed. . .” Eventually Ron destroys, but not after much temptation and anger.
- Ron and Hermione wind up together! In the epilogue of the final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, we see how the characters are faring 19 years after the Battle of Hogwarts. Ron and Hermione are married with two children, Rose and Hugo. In this final scene, they are seeing their daughter Rose off to her first year at Hogwarts.
Tag: Hermione
Everything I Know I Learned From Harry Potter: Important Life Lessons From the Boy Who Lived
Books and films are formative influences for the people who interact with them; people carry with them the stories they love. This is true for fantasy movies as much as it is for documentaries—books like Harry Potter have a tendency to leave their mark on the people who enjoy them.
In the first book, Harry, Hermione, and Ron find themselves chasing after Voldemort. After Ron is injured, Harry and Hermione continue—only to be met with a test that will allow only one person to continue. Hermione volunteers to stay behind, in order to care for Ron. When she tells Harry that he is a great wizard, he says he is not as good at using magic as she is. She responds by saying while she is adept at books and being clever, that there are more important things that can help in a battle, such as friendship and bravery—Harry may not be the best magic-user, but technical skill is only one part of what will get Harry through this battle. Sometimes, the friendships someone has with others, and the knowledge that their friends will support them, is as valuable as weapons or skills. In the end, Voldemort’s army was no match for the family and friends Harry had; the support they gave him, the courage that support led him to claim, and their own bravery, was enough to triumph.
Later on, faced with an establishment that sought only to control them—and the reality of Voldemort returning to power—Harry and his fellow students banded together during his fifth year to create Dumbledore’s Army. With encouragement from Hermione, and additional help from Professor Lupin and Sirius Black, Harry taught his friends and fellow students how to defend themselves. Dumbledore’s Army was an inter-house effort of students, inspired to fight by a rising willful ignorance about the true situation of Voldemort’s return to power. This group of children—many of them underage—taught themselves and each other how to perform magic that most would have believed beyond their skill level. Instead of accepting this complacency in the face of true danger, Dumbledore’s Army risked almost everything to be involved in the secret society, including torture from Delores Umbridge, whose job it was to keep the students of Hogwarts controlled, so that they could not rise up against the Ministry of Magic, the Wizarding government. (Dumbledore’s Army took up the name of their Headmaster as a kind of sardonic joke at the ministry’s expense—the fear was that Professor Dumbledore could and would create an army from his students to take on the ministry.)
In their seventh year, Harry, Hermione, and Ron left school to find and destroy Voldemort’s Horcruxes in order to weaken him enough to finally destroy him. Snape became headmaster, and known Death Eaters not only openly held teaching positions but also used those places of power to torture students. The remnants of Dumbledore’s Army formed a kind of resistance. When the Death Eater Professors wanted them to torture younger students, they refused, and instead took the punishments themselves. The solidarity and resistance that Neville and the rest of Harry’s friends created lasted long enough for Harry to find most of the Horcruxes—and when Harry returned and needed help to find and destroy the rest of the Horcruxes, his friends did not hesitate to fight and risk their lives to help him or to help defend their school. They were invaluable in the battle that saw the end of Voldemort.
As children and people grow, they take with them the lessons they have been taught from their favorite stories, whether they learned them from a book or a film. The Harry Potter books and movies made sure to teach some incredible life lessons.