What it Means to (Want) to be a Weasley

I want to be a Weasley. More specifically, I want to be Ginny Weasley. I came to this conclusion about a week ago. Well, actually I think I subconsciously came to this decision close to a month ago while seeing Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. I walked out of the theater thinking, "Well, the movie was good, but I can't remember anything from the books. And I most certainly do not want to be one of those so-called fans who only know the films but couldn't give a stranger a single detail from the books. Therefore I will spend the rest of the summer rereading the series."

And thus began the fabulous journey I have been on for the last three weeks or so. I've enjoyed getting re-acquainted with Harry, Ron, Hermione and the rest of everyone at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It's been like spending every free moment of time with old friends: I'm sad when they're sad, happy when they're happy, and seeking revenge on Snape for the murder of our beloved Dumbledore just as much as Harry.

But now, as I delve into the 7th and final book, The Deathly Hallows, I'm torn between feeling excitement and sadness: excitement that I've made it this far in less than a month and am looking forward to accompanying Harry and the gang on this final journey; and sadness that when I close the book on the last page, I'll do it knowing there will be no more adventures and I can no longer pretend to be Ginny Weasley.

You see, Ginny is by far one the better secondary characters of the series: she knew to wait patiently in the wings for Harry to realize that he loved her, and she won out in the end! She got to be on the Quidditch team and be Harry's girlfriend. Doesn't everybody want to have that?

And on top of having the love of The Boy Who Lived, she also has a really cool family. Not that my family isn't cool, or crazy like the Weasley's (we definitely are crazy, but since I don't have 6 siblings and live in the Burrow, it's not nearly as cool), but Ginny has 6 older brothers, Fred and George among them to boot! Really, who wouldn't want older brothers who owned a joke shop?! Plus another brother who works with dragons and one who works at Gringott's Bank? We can forget, of course, about Percy because he's a pompous douchebag with a very large stick up his ass. But the rest of the Weasley family is just so cool that I can't understand how someone wouldn't want to be one of them.

Let's not forget, too, that Ginny is a freaking damn good witch on top of being a great Quidditch Seeker and Chaser! She is famous for her bat bogey hex and can perform a pretty strong Reducto spell. But the real reason I want to be Ginny Weasley? She's friendly and nice to everyone when she could easily let her popularity get the best of her and make her like one of those stuck up girls we all went to high school with. She doesn't pretend to be friends with Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood; she really does like them and enjoys spending time with them. And she never bullies the first years like her brother Ron, in fact, she, like Harry and Hermione, is nice to them (or at least that's what I imagine since it's never expressly mentioned in the books). But most of all, she's brave. Anyone weaker than Ginny would have been easily over come by Tom Riddle and the Chamber of Secrets, and anyone less than her would have fled to her room at the mention of going to the Ministry of Magic to save another person at the risk of their own life. Ginny showed bravery in the face of death because of her strong belief in what was right.

Yes, anybody could rebuttal and state that all of Harry's friends have done the same, but I make the argument for Ginny Weasley because I've had a soft spot for her since that first squeak of embarrassment on Platform 9 and Three Quarters when Harry and Ron boarded the Hogwarts Express for the very first time.