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Chapter 1: First Year

"So, boys, are you all packed and ready to go back to school tomorrow?"

Molly Weasley looked round the table expectantly at her horde of redheaded children. "Yes, Mum," they chorused, except for the two youngest.

Ginny, the first girl to be born into the Weasley family for several generations said nothing, but stared down at her plate with tears in her eyes. At ten years old, she was one year short of being old enough to go to Hogwarts, and she hated the boring, dreary months at home without her brothers. Up until this year, she had had Ron to keep her company, but now he too was to go to Hogwarts.

Ron, the youngest son and the second youngest child of the family, kept silent because he felt that if he opened his mouth, his dinner would make its way back up his digestive tract. He was far too nervous about starting at Hogwarts the following day to say anything.

He had a reputation to uphold. His eldest brother Bill had been Head Boy. Charlie had been a phenomenal Quidditch player. Percy was now a prefect, and Fred and George were mischievous pranksters loved by the entire student body. In short, people expected him to be smart, athletic, funny, or any combination thereof. As he forked some collard greens into his mouth, he didn't feel particularly brilliant at anything.

"Oh, let's not forget," said Fred suddenly, a wicked smile on his face, "it's Ickle Ronnie's first day at Hogwarts tomorrow!"

"Are you nervous, Ronniekins?" teased George, elbowing his younger brother in the ribs.

"Shuddup," Ron muttered, blushing a furious red color that rivaled his hair.

"Ah, thank you for reminding me," said Mrs. Weasley, beaming at her youngest son. "Ron, you're to take Fred and George's old robes, I just washed for you. They just grew out of them. You'll also take their old first year school books; thank goodness they require the same lot for you."

He felt his stomach drop. He already had Charie's old wand and Percy's old rat, now he was to have Fred and George's old school things as well? What would people think? How was he supposed to make friends that way? "But, Mum-!" he protested, but Percy cut him off.

"Mum, can I get a new cage for Hermes? I think Errol bothers him…"

"Muuuuum, can't I go to Hogwarts too?" whined Ginny, tears forming in her eyes.

"Molly, can I have some more soup?"

Ron sighed. Clearly he wasn't going to be heard, not with the rest of his family here. He loved his family, but he couldn't wait to get to Hogwarts and start to make a name for himself.

IIIIIIIIIII

All coherent thought left Ron's mind the moment he laid eyes on her.

He was only eleven at the time, but he did know that she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. He watched, mouth slightly open, as his mother began to explain to the girl and the boy he assumed was her brother (for the resemblance between the two was so marked that they must be related) how to get to the platform.

"This is Ron's first year too," he heard his mom say, as though she were at a great distance.

The boy and girl glanced at him, and the girl managed to catch Ron's eyes. Green eyes met blue, and it was in that instant that Ron knew that she was the only girl for him. He would never feel this way about any other girl; every fiber in his eleven year old being was certain.

He watched, still slightly in awe of her, as she and her brother disappeared through the barrier between platforms nine and ten. He quickly followed, eager to catch up to them and sit with them on the train.

However, when he arrived on the other side of the barrier, he could not spot either of them anywhere.

"Are they really them?" asked Fred, appearing out of nowhere, as he and George were so fond of doing, to Ron's left.

"What're you on about?" asked Ron irritably, glaring at his elder brother.

George materialized to Ron's right, saying, "The boy and girl on the platform! Are they really the Potter twins?"

"What?" spat out Ron. "What d'you mean the Potter twins?"

"Oh, come on, Ron," said Fred condescendingly, "We always knew you were thick, but even you can't be that thick."

"They both had black hair and green eyes," George said. "And I swear I saw a lightning bolt scar on that boy's forehead."

Ron felt his stomach drop. If the girl he so adored was in fact Sandy Potter, then she was most certainly out of his league. How could a nobody like him, Ronald Weasley, possibly stand a chance with someone as famous and supposedly powerful as Sandy Potter?

IIIIIII

"Wow," Ron murmured under his breath, watching as Harry and Sandy zoomed across the sky on their brooms, upstaging Malfoy in a spectacular fashion. They could fly.

As he watched them, he began to notice a trend. One twin would throw the Remembrall to a seemingly empty spot, but the other twin would be there in a split second to catch it. Their reactions were almost superhuman, as if they were reading each other's mind.

It was at that moment that Ron first noticed that, not only were Harry and Sandy incredibly close, but they moved fluidly together, almost as if they were two halves of a whole.

IIIIIII

Ron loathed Hermione. She was bossy, obnoxious know-it-all. To top it all off, it seemed to be her mission in life to make him look bad in front of Sandy. She was constantly humiliating him in front of her, pointing out his mistakes during lessons, calling him a good-for-nothing nutter when they almost got eaten by that three-headed dog and so on. It was because of this that Ron finally cracked during Charms class.

"Wingardium Leviosa!"

Hermione smiled smugly at Ron as she upstaged him once more. "You see, Ron," she said, a smirk playing on her lips, "perhaps if you pulled your nose away from your dinner plate and into a book once in a while, you'd be able to perform a simple spell."

Ron felt himself turn a brilliant shade of red. Sandy and Harry had both definitely heard; they were sitting at the next table over and had looked up when Hermione had spoken. Both twins were wearing looks of mixed shock and contempt directed toward her.

Clenching his hand into a fist, Ron said to Hermione through gritted teeth, "Well, maybe if you pulled your nose out of your books once in a while, you'd realize that absolutely no one here likes you."

He ignored the hurt look on Hermione's face as he turned back to his feather and began trying to levitate it.

As soon as class was over, Hermione dashed out of the classroom without another word. Sandy made her way over to Ron at once. "Are you okay?" she asked in small voice. "I heard what Hermione said to you."

"Yeah, I'm fine," he said, shrugging and trying to look nonchalant, though he was actually thrilled that she was concerned. "She's just a frumpy bookworm, why should I care?"

"What did you say to her though?" said Harry, appearing at Ron's side. "She looked like she was crying when she left class."

"Was she?" said Sandy, looking alarmed. "Maybe I better go find her."

"I'm sure she's fine," said Ron, biting his lip and sounding uncertain even to himself.

"She's been having a hard time adjusting," responded Sandy, lowering her voice once more. "She misses her parents terribly, and it doesn't help that she hasn't got any friends. I hear her cry herself to sleep at night." She thought for a moment. "Well, if I haven't seen her by dinner, I'll check on her."

IIIIIII

"What's going on?"

Ron heard his own voice crack as he anxiously peered up at Harry and Sandy sitting atop Harry's bucking Nimbus 2000.

"I dunno," said Hermione, sounding equally nervous. "It looks like Harry's broomstick has been jinxed…"

Ron's stomach gave a nervous jolt and he felt like he was going to be sick as the broom gave a huge lurch and Sandy went flying off. Luckily, one of his twin brothers (at this distance, he couldn't tell which) caught her. He made a mental note to thank whichever brother it was later.

Suddenly, Hermione snatched the binoculars from his hands. "Hey!" he protested, but she paid him no heed.

"Look!" she hissed, finding her prey and pointing an accusatory finger across the pitch toward the other side of the stands. "Snape's jinxing the broom!"

Seizing his binoculars once more, Ron fixed his gaze on Snape and saw that he was indeed staring fixedly up at Harry on his Nimbus, muttering under his breath and not blinking. "What are we going to do?" Ron moaned.

A blazing look of determination was set on Hermione's face. "I'll take care of him."

IIIIIII

"Get up, get up!"

Ron was woken on Christmas morning by a cascade of jet black hair throwing itself onto the foot of his bed, directly onto his knees. "Bloody hell!" he cried, sitting straight up in bed. "What's going on?" Looking around the dormitory, he realized that he and Harry were the only boys left in the room; Seamus, Dean, and Neville must have already opened their presents and gone down to breakfast.

Sandy was sitting on the foot of his bed, hugging her knees to her chest, her face flushed red with excitement. "It's Christmas!" she said enthusiastically. "And I have presents!"

She gestured to a pile of presents sitting on the floor near the doorway. Ron assumed that they were hers and she had carried them all the way from the girls' dormitory to theirs. "Why haven't you opened them yet?" he queried, picking up a present from the top of his own pile.

"Well," she said, blushing now, "with Hermione gone, you and Harry are all I have. I wanted to share Christmas with you."

It was Ron's turn to blush. Hoping to distract her from the brilliant red of his face, he ripped open the present he had grabbed. It was from his mother, another maroon Weasley sweater. He wrinkled his nose. "Why is it always maroon?"

"Sandy, what're you doing here?" said a thick voice. Harry had been roused by the noise of Ron shredding the wrapping paper.

"I'm here to open presents of course," she chirped cheerily. "Oh, and to give you two your presents. I didn't have a chance to wrap them until last night. Here you go." She grabbed two presents from the top of her own pile and tossed them at the boys.

Ron eagerly tore into it, wanting to see what she had gotten him. "Wow," he breathed, looking in awe as he gingerly took two tickets to a Chudley Cannons game over the summer out of a box. "Thank you so much, Sandy. These are prime seats, these are."

"Well, you mentioned how much you like the Cannons," she shrugged. "I figured you would like to go see a game."

"Thank you," he repeated, smiling up at her brightly.

"Blimey, Sandy, thanks!" said Harry, beaming at his twin as he opened up a whole set of books on Quidditch.

"Why don't you open your presents, Sandy?" Ron suggested.

As he had hoped, she grabbed his present first, as it was on top of the pile, and she began to open it. "Wow, how did you know I needed new Chaser gloves?" she breathed, holding up the gloves in the light, admiring them. "And… they're dragon hide!"

"Wow, Ron," remarked Harry. "And you just gave me some Chocolate Frogs." Harry smirked at his best mate.

Ron could not hide how red his face became.

IIIIIIII

"Hagrid is so mental!" Sandy fumed, pulling books about dragons off of the library shelves and slamming them onto a nearby table.

Ron nodded absentmindedly. "Yeah," he agreed. "Totally mental." However, he could not bring himself to rage about Hagrid just now. Harry and Hermione were down at Hagrid's helping out with Norbert, so he was quite alone with Sandy in the library, doing research about Norwegian Ridgebacks. He savored every moment he could spend alone with her, for Harry and Hermione were around so often he almost found himself annoyed with them.

Almost.

Harry was his best mate and Hermione was a very close friend as well. How could he loathe their presence?

However, that did not stop him from seeking out opportunities to spend time alone with Sandy.

They sat down at a table and began poring over books, looking for things that may help Hagrid (or help them convince Hagrid to give up Norbert). Finally, Sandy slammed her face into a book, saying, "I can't do this. I just can't."

Ron closed his book gingerly. "Are you okay?"

"There are just so many things on my mind," she admitted. "Norbert, Snape trying to steal the stone, the fact that the safety of the stone relies on Quirrell, which is not reassuring in the least… not to mention final exams, which Hermione just will not shut up about…"

"Hey," he said, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder, "it will be okay."

She glared at him. "How do you know?"

"You've just got to take it one thing at a time. Besides, Harry, Hermione, and I aren't going anywhere. You'll always have us."

She offered him a small smile. Then she said, "Let's just go back to the common room, I'm beat."

"Sure," he said, standing hastily, knocking over his chair in the process. Over her chuckles, he said, "Are you up for a game of wizard's chess?"

IIIIII

"There has to be another way!"

The terror in Sandy's green eyes almost made him tell the truth.

Almost.

"There isn't another way!" he retorted loudly. "I've got to sacrifice myself to the queen, then Harry is free to check the king! Then you three can go on and stop Snape from stealing the stone!"

It wasn't entirely true. There was another way. However, the alternative involved sacrificing Sandy, and that was something that Ron would simply not allow to happen. He could not stand there and watch her be knocked off her feet by an oversized, unfeeling white chess piece. Besides, he was more than willing to sacrifice himself so that she, Harry, and Hermione could go on to accomplish their goal.

Before Sandy or anyone else could utter another word of protest, he made his move and turned to face the white queen.

IIIII

Ron and Hermione sat in between Harry's and Sandy's hospital beds, anxiously awaiting their awakening. "What if…?" started Ron, but Hermione promptly cut him off.

"Oh, don't start this again," she said sharply, glaring at him,

"I can't help it, Hermione!" he cried. "I'm worried! What if they don't come to?"

"They'll come to, Ron," she said firmly, though she, too, was nervous. "Don't even think otherwise."

"What if… what if something's wrong with her memory and she doesn't remember anything when she wakes up?" said Ron, continuing to venture into the unknown.

Hermione noticed his shift from 'they' to 'she,' but she decided to let it slide. "It'll be fine, Ron," she said soothingly, putting a friendly hand on his arm. "I think you're getting hysterical. Maybe you should take a nap? Neither of us have been getting very much sleep."

"Yeah, I reckon you're right," he murmured, yawning. "You always were the smart one."

IIIIII

Harry, Ron, and Sandy burst into laughter as their house of cards exploded in Hermione's face.

Even Hermione, who, at the beginning of the school year, would have scowled at them for laughing, gave a good-natured smile and even chuckled a bit.

Ron leaned back into his seat next to Sandy, enjoying the camaraderie among his closest and dearest friends. He had found his place at Hogwarts; he had even begun to make a name for himself, earning fifty points for Gryffindor for defeating McGonagall's chess set. His best friends were better than he could ask for: incredibly intelligent and good-hearted Hermione, brave and noble Harry, and loyal and steadfast Sandy. He no longer had to live in his brothers' shadows, for the four of them were a force to be reckoned with. He no longer had to strive for attention; the three people around him gave him more than enough attention.

And Sandy… though he had not believed it possible, Sandy felt the same way about him as he did about her. She fancied him. She wanted to be with him… one day, when they were older, when they were more ready for whatever being together meant.

Hermione derailed his train of thought. "Don't you forget to write to me over the summer, you lot," she said, her voice thick with emotion. Tears were shining in her brown eyes. Sandy reached across the compartment and grasped her best mate's hand tightly. Hermione flashed her a watery smile.

"Never," she promise. "Harry and I will work Hedwig and Thunder to their avian bones."

"Is there any chance of us seeing you lot over the summer?" asked Harry tentatively, catching his twin's eye. Both Harry and Sandy were nervous about losing contact with Ron and Hermione over the summer. They could not bear to lose the only friends they had ever had.

"Oh, definitely," said Ron, nodding his head vigorously. "I'll ask Mum and Dad, and then I'll owl you straight away." Smiling, he glanced at Sandy and he managed to catch her eye. In her emerald green eyes, he thought he saw something like hope, happiness… and a promise of something more, all in the days and years to come.