Harry Potter and the Overload of Gen Z

Friendship

There were many things Ron loved: his family, food (especially chicken), and a good game of chess. There were of course also things Ron didn't like: spiders, spiders, and spiders.

On a more serious level, Ron knew he was riddled with insecurities. He hated how poor his family was compared to others. How he wore second-hand robes, used books passed down from brother to brother, and barely had anything uniquely his. He hated how insignificant his existence seemed compared to the great things his brothers had done. Him, the youngest brother. The sixth child. Nothing special. Just another Weasley.

(Bloodtraiter. Scum.)

Of course, he knew that his family loved him and that his mother and father would do anything for him. And so when Ron stood outside the Hogwarts Express, not to send off his brothers but to instead board himself, Ron was excited. This was his chance to prove himself. To be great. To make his family proud. To be more than just the sixth son of a poor family.

But he was also nervous. What if no one wanted to be his friend? What if he couldn't keep up with his studies? What if he became a disappointment in the end? It was with false bravado that Ron stowed his worries away and made his way to a seemingly empty compartment, only to find it occupied by a lone, green-eyed wizard.

The boy had first offered him chocolate. Then the boy turned out to be Harry Potter. The Harry Potter that had defeated You-Know-Who. That every child in a wizarding family knew. There were bedtime stories about him, and aisles of books dedicated solely to him. But there was also the mystery. Where had Harry Potter grown up? Was it true that he was secretly being trained by Dumbledore? Would the boy be attending Hogwarts? What would the boy turn out to be like?

The first thing that Ron thought of Harry Potter was that he was cool. Not only had he offered him chocolate, he had let him stay in the compartment and had listened to him talk. And oh Merlin, he must have sounded like an idiot with the way he had been rambling on about Quidditch and whatnot but Harry hadn't looked annoyed at all. Only patient, and amused, a small smile on his face.

When the both of them had been sorted into Gryffindor, Ron had been ecstatic. And soon enough, there came a point where he could call the other friend. Him, Harry Potter's friend? It was a surreal thought, and yet deep down he knew that... Well, he didn't know how to put it into words. When it came to Harry Potter, Ron had learnt quickly to let go of all preconceived expectations he held. Harry Potter was many things. Brave. Good at magic. Funny. A good opponent in chess (not that Harry had ever won against him, though he did provide a nice challenge).

Harry was so much more than the title of the 'Boy-Who-Lived' and Ron was happy that he had the chance to learn about the real Harry despite his slight vindictive streak and strange way of talking. Ron was pretty sure that half the time, Harry was speaking a completely different language. Like what exactly was 'rizz'? Was it a new flavour of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans? Had he mentioned the strange clothes Harry wore?

While Ron wasn't the smartest in class, he knew there was something extra strange about Harry. It was a cloud of haze at the back of his mind that refused to solidify into an explanation of what exactly. And so Ron had shrugged it off, it wasn't his business to dig into and if Harry wanted to talk about it, he would have done so long ago. The strange thing though was that Ron seemed to be the only one to notice the extra strangeness Harry carried to him.

Then again, the wizarding world seemed to lack basic common sense, or at least, that was what Harry had told him some time ago.

Also, Harry obsessively carried around with him this shiny, grey rectangle around him everywhere like it was some extension of his limb. It was called a phone apparently. Ron thought it was cool because it had a bunch of cool flashing lights and did more cool things when you touched it. Ron personally found it much cooler than the other phone thingy his father had brought home one day. That one was bulky and didn't really seem to do much other than sit there and take up space.