"Actually, the whole thing is quite simple."
That was what Sherlock said when Hermione asked why Lavender suited Ron so well.
"We should start with the personalities of Ronald Weasley and Lavender Brown.
We're all well acquainted with Ron's family situation. He was born into a wizarding family blessed with many children—five excellent older brothers, and one equally excellent, equally doted-on little sister.
Being sixth in line put him in a rather awkward position. I've studied large families before, and found that they tend to follow certain patterns.
The eldest is usually steady and reliable, weighed down with a strong sense of responsibility.
The middle children tend to split two ways—either lively and unrestrained, bold enough to break the mold, or mild-mannered and forbearing, adept at bending with circumstance. And the youngest is, more often than not, the most doted on of all which tends to leave them a little spoiled.
Nowhere is this more vividly on display than in the Weasley family."
At this, Sherlock rubbed his long, slender hands together and smiled.
"Let's go through them one by one, shall we.
William Weasley is the most distinctive case. As the eldest, he's the only Weasley child who ever got to experience what it's like to be an only child. Before his younger siblings were born, he had his parents' full attention and that early environment shaped the steady, dependable temperament we see confirmed in him today.
Whether it was his outstanding record as Prefect and Head Boy at school, or his choice after graduation to travel to Egypt and become a curse-breaker at Gringotts, or his decision to join the Order of the Phoenix without hesitation once Voldemort returned—every one of these speaks to the sense of duty and responsibility an eldest son is expected to carry.
You might say Bill is the benchmark, the model older brother of the family—his standing secure, and thoroughly earned.
Next comes Charlie Weasley, who naturally lost the privileges of being an only child, but was also spared the heavy burden that comes with being the eldest.
That position shaped a somewhat freer, more unrestrained temperament in him visible both in his time as Quidditch captain and in his choice, after graduation, to travel all the way to Romania to study dragons.
Within the family, he occupies the role of the free explorer. He may not be as central as Bill, but through his singular choices he's carved out a place that's every bit as irreplaceable.
Then we come to Percy Weasley, and here things get a little more complicated.
You could say that being the third child dropped him straight into a competition fought in the cracks between his siblings.
With two older brothers already making names for themselves above him, he had to prove his own worth through meticulousness and unwavering devotion to the rules. And not long after him came a whole gaggle of lively, rambunctious younger siblings.
If you look at how he conducts himself, you can see he's been trying to prove himself this way all along—trying to earn everyone else's recognition. He had to work to be no lesser than his two older brothers, while also setting an example for the younger ones.
For a time, that made him seem rigid even cold and inflexible but at his core, he was never a bad person.
In the end, he carved out his own footing within the family in his own way, becoming its guardian of the rules.
The twins, Fred Weasley and George Weasley, might be the most unusual case in the whole family structure.
As the fourth and fifth children, they didn't have to shoulder an eldest son's responsibilities, nor did they need to go chasing attention the way Percy and Ron did. You must understand, Hermione—being twins in itself grants them a unique, symbiotic advantage.
In my view, their mischief-making was never aimless. It was a form of self-expression, executed in perfect, wordless coordination.
Among so many siblings, it takes exactly that kind of forceful, impossible-to-ignore personality to make sure no one overlooks you.
So, they became the family's makers of joy and its challengers of the rules.
That dual identity gave them a kind of standing within the family that's entirely their own and it's precisely that standing which Ron could never hope to reach."
Hermione rested her chin in both hands, watching Sherlock's profile intently as she listened to him lay it all out.
They say a man is at his most attractive when he's being earnest and in this moment, Sherlock was exactly that.
She truly hadn't expected that Sherlock would ever look into something like this.
Then again could this even really be called "research," coming from Sherlock?
Maybe he'd just said it off the top of his head?
But hadn't they started out talking about Ron and Lavender's romance?
Hermione had actually been looking forward to that had they gotten off track somewhere along the way?
"I haven't gotten off track at all, my dear Hermione."
Sherlock saw straight through her thoughts at a glance. He smiled faintly and went on:
"Let's finish up by talking about Ron and Ginny.
Ronald Weasley, as the second-youngest, occupies a deeply awkward position.
If he here were the very youngest, he'd naturally get to enjoy whatever affection and protection his parents and older siblings had left over to give.
Unfortunately for him, there's one child born after him—Ginevra Weasley. And more unfortunately still, Ginny isn't just the youngest, she's also a girl.
As I stressed a moment ago, in large families, the youngest child is naturally showered with love and indulgence by everyone else in the family. Not to mention that this youngest child also happens to be the only girl among a houseful of boys.
Put those two things together—the family's cherished only daughter, layered on top of being the lovely baby of the family and Ron doesn't stand a chance; there's nothing left over for him at all.
His parents can't help but favour her a little more without even realizing it, and his older brothers instinctively look after her too.
Ginny's spirited courage, and the sheer amount of affection she receives, are the direct expression of that position within the family.
As for poor Ron—caught between five older brothers and a favoured little sister, he has none of Bill's steadiness, none of Charlie's freedom, none of Percy's rigor, none of the wordless understanding and personality Fred and George share, and certainly none of Ginny's special status.
He tries to prove himself, but keeps getting overshadowed by his brothers' accomplishments.
He wants to be noticed, but has no choice except to yield the spotlight to the only sister in the family. And even if he wanted to swing the other way and cause a bit of mischief himself, his prankster twin brothers already got there first, long before him.
You might say it's precisely this in-between position—neither one thing nor the other that leaves him prone to feeling inferior, sensitive, even impulsive at times.
Do you remember what I told you about the Mirror of Erised?
Everything he saw in it back then Head Boy, Quidditch captain those were nothing more than a direct reflection of him struggling to find his own sense of self within the family.
All in all, Ron's situation within the family is no accident.
It's the inevitable outcome of how birth order and personality interact within a large family like the Weasleys.
Malfoy once mocked Ron, saying the Weasleys had more children than they could afford but in truth—"
Sherlock gave a cold little laugh here.
"His own parents probably envy the Weasleys more than he'd ever admit."
"Envy? Why would they?" Hermione couldn't quite follow for a moment.
"In an age when both the Muggle world and the wizarding world are facing a growing decline in birth rates, the Weasleys are practically a defiance of the odds. Not only do they have a great many children—their success rate in raising them well is remarkably high.
Back when Ron first started school, we used to hear constant complaints about how hard-up his family was. He even had to wear old, secondhand dress robes to the Yule Ball in fourth year.
But these past two years? With three of his brothers having graduated one after another, Ron's even bought himself a brand-new broomstick.
You could say the hardest stretch is already behind them and now all it takes is the right opportunity for that family to really take off. That said, as far as Ron himself is concerned, what he still needs, more than anything, is to be taken seriously or to put it another way, to be recognized by others."
Hermione nodded. As Ron's close friend, she understood this all too well herself.
Back in third year, she'd had a long falling-out with Ron over Crookshanks and Scabbers.
Even though it later turned out Crookshanks had been right all along, and Scabbers had been no good at all—her own behaviour during that stretch had been rather too self-centred.
Once she'd realized that, she'd apologized to Ron.
Looking back on it now, years later, she felt more and more that she really had gone too far back then.
The thought left her looking faintly pensive.
"You said earlier that Lavender suits him, did you mean—"
"Quite right. As should be clear from my analysis, Lavender is, for Ron, the perfect candidate to fill an emotional void.
"Ron's awkward place in the Weasley family is, at its heart, a kind of emotional starvation—the hunger of being overlooked.
We both know this well: he's never once been the sole focus of anyone's attention. He's never been loved without reservation. He's never experienced what it feels like for the whole world to hold only him at its centre.
Even after coming to school, there was a stretch when he seethed with helpless resentment, because of Harry and me because he could only ever appear as our friend, never as himself.
Helpless resentment—"
Hermione looked at Sherlock, a little exasperated, but she had to admit—the description fit rather perfectly.
"It's rather amusing, actually, how aptly chosen Miss Lavender Brown's name is."
"Brown lavender?" The words slipped out of Hermione before she could stop them, and she immediately realized her mistake.
After all, "Brown" was the surname—"Lavender" was the given name.
Sherlock, however, didn't seem to mind the slip. He simply carried the thread of her words forward:
"Just so. Lavender, in the language of flowers, means waiting for love.
And Ron is exactly that—the poor soul quietly waiting, tucked in the cracks of his family, for a kind of attention that belongs to him and him alone.
"Your roommate—Miss Brown expresses her feelings with a heat that borders on utter bluntness, fixed entirely, single-mindedly, on Ron. And that is precisely what gives him all the emotional validation he needs.
"Within the Weasley family, he's the sixth of six sons, Ginny's brother, one indistinct member among many in the Weasley household.
"But in front of Miss Brown, he finally becomes the absolute lead—Won-Won, belonging to one person, and one person only.
"I think, Hermione, that's often how emotional compatibility works.
"It isn't about perfection. It's about happening to fill the deepest gap in the other person—the way lavender always seems to draw in exactly the soul that needs comforting."
Hermione stared at Sherlock in surprise.
Was—was that some kind of hint?
But looking at the calm, unruffled expression on his face as he said it, Hermione found herself silently shaking her head.
She really was reading too much into things.
For someone like Sherlock—a mind built on reason, admirably rigorous almost to the point of rigidity, cool and composed surely all emotion, and romantic feeling most of all, sat entirely at odds with his nature.
Otherwise, Mrs. Holmes wouldn't have had quite so much trouble with him.
Fortunately, Sherlock still hadn't come of age yet.
There was still time for things to change.
Though, of course, she couldn't manage that on her own.
Once they'd finished with Ron and Lavender, Hermione moved on to recount their visit to Hagrid's the other day.
Whenever Sherlock wasn't around, Harry was the undisputed lead of the story.
"Do you know what they said to each other?"
At the time, Hermione had genuinely been frightened but looking back on it now, she just found the whole thing funny.
"'If you don't open the door, we'll blast it open!'
"'I'm a teacher, Potter! How dare you threaten to blast down my door!'
"'Sorry, sir.'
"'Since when do you call me "sir"?'
"'Since when do you call me "Potter"?'"
By the time she got to that part, Hermione couldn't hold it in any longer and burst out laughing, swatting Sherlock's arm.
Sherlock's eyes lit up at that.
No surprise there—Harry Potter, his little brother-in-arms, certainly had a way with words.
"So did the two of you manage to smooth things over with him in the end?"
"Mm-hm," Hermione said, straightening up. "We told him we trusted him completely, and that we really wanted to take Care of Magical Creatures, but our schedules just wouldn't allow it—"
"You were lying."
Sherlock cut straight to the point.
"If you'd genuinely wanted to take that class, you'd have found some way to fit it in. Let me guess—I'd wager the two of you went so far as to say some things about Professor Grubbly-Plank that you didn't really mean, either."
"Er—I should've known there was no getting anything past you."
"Understandable enough. I imagine Hagrid believed every word of it. So what else did he say?"
"He said... Aragog's dying..."
"Dying, is he." Sherlock considered this. "As I understand it, among a colony of Acromantula, once the patriarch—in this case, Aragog is on the verge of death, it means his hold over the colony is about to collapse."
"Yes. Hagrid said that for the time being, no one but him can safely go anywhere near that part of the forest."
"A touch more confidence in that sentence, if you please—you can drop the 'for the time being.'"
"There's also... he might be expecting us to be willing to feed Aragog some giant grubs."
"Ah—the ones that squirm about endlessly, roughly a foot long, pale and slick-looking, aren't they?"
"Your description is really quite—"
Hermione thought it over for a moment and had to admit that Sherlock's description really had been spot-on.
In any case, that visit to Hagrid's had given them no end of things to gripe about.
By the time they left his cabin, Cho Chang and Ginny neither of whom knew Hagrid especially well couldn't stop complaining the whole way back.
Only Luna carried on in that same dreamy, faraway manner of hers.
By the time the conversation wound down, it was more or less lunchtime.
When they arrived in the Great Hall, Watson delivered that day's copy of the Daily Prophet.
"Watson's a bit late today—do you suppose he stopped off to play with Hedwig and Pigwidgeon?"
Hermione asked, curious.
Ordinarily the delivery owls arrived at breakfast; but today's post hadn't come until midday.
"Not quite, my dear Hermione."
Sherlock took the Daily Prophet from her, glanced over it, and a distinct smile spread across the corner of his mouth.
The deepened collaboration between the Ministry of Magic and Hogwarts had, at last, arrived.
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