Chapter 1: A New Beginning

He had tried. Merlin's beard he had tried. But it had all been too little, too late.

It wasn't that he was dumb, he'd always had it pretty easy when he was learning his letters, sums, and geography. Mom had always said he really had a talent for writing. But Hogwarts had just been so different.

The twins had been right after all. "We'll see how great our Ronniekins is once you get to the real school," they'd said. "You probably won't even get past the Sorting Troll." The Troll was a joke, but everything else had been true. He'd failed them all, Harry most of all. He couldn't do the spells, he couldn't concentrate long on studying, he couldn't do anything, really. He had promised himself that he'd be a great Quidditch Keeper, but no matter how good his flying was, Harry was the one that got on the team, because of luck. They wouldn't even need Ron until Woods graduated, and by then he would be in 4th year. If they even wanted him.

All his dreams had turned to ash. And then there was Hermione and Harry. He didn't know what hurt most, the fact that they were so good at what they did, or the fact that they kept trying to help him. These were the gloomy thoughts occupying 12 year old Ron Weasley's head on the train.

He was sitting alone, he'd given some excuse to get away from his friends, that he had to go to the loo. Right now he was sitting in the very back of the train, looking through the rear window at the beautiful Scottish hills. It wasn't as rough and wild as further north, where they'd come from, but this looked more like the area he'd lived in for most of his life.

He had practically given up after a month of failing his studies and all spells he tried, and Halloween had been the worst of all. He had tried to levitate the club, but the Troll had just shook it off. The Troll had smashed his club into Harry's shoulder, and the shock had woken Hermione from her frozen state. She had used a 3rd year freezing spell to make the behemoth slip, dropping Harry in the process. They had run out of the bathroom, where the teachers had found them hiding in a broom cupboard.

If Ron had been stronger, Harry wouldn't have had to regrow his shoulder blade and upper arm and mend his left lung. Ron's only comfort was that he'd been able to help with the living Chess board. Ron Weasley, failure at everything except playing a stupid game.

"What are you doing here, Weasley?", asked an older, confident voice. Ron looked up and saw Oliver Woods. Woods was talking to him? To Harry, Woods was a trainer, to his twin brothers, he was yet another target for pranks. For Ron, Oliver Woods was his idol. Not only was he a great Keeper, that was the easy part, in his opinion. No, it was the great strategical mind and wit that he displayed in all his games that Ron admired.

"I had thought to have the back all to myself, usually everyone is as far to the front as possible, to get to Mommy and Daddy faster."

"You know me, sir?" Ron asked, a bit out of his comfort zone.

"Of course, you are the best friend of my star Seeker and brother to the Bludger brothers, after all."

Ron flushed, of course, everybody knew him as the brother of, the best friend of, the extra bit that was below expectations.

"But it's not really why I recognized you."

"Oh?" was all Ron could come up with.

"I saw you slip out of the portrait door yesterday, while everyone was having their goodbye party. You had the same expression then as you have now. Do you want a listening ear? I'm a good pep talker, you might have heard."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"No? Okay, I'll do the talking then. I've heard the twins' insults, their talk about their little disappointing brother. But I've seen you play chess, I've seen you fly once when I was scouting for new talent, and I almost felt like giving my spot on the team for you. You weren't great, but I could see it wasn't a lack of skill. Do you know what magic, Quidditch and chess have in common?"

"You need to practice?"

Woods laughed, "That's one thing, but you can practice all you want, and still be mediocre at all three."

"Talent?", was Ron's second guess.

"Talent will only get you so far, I have to tell your brothers that all the time. But they have something that you lack, confidence. I want to help you with that."

"Why would you care? Did Harry ask you? I told him I'd be fine, but he can never leave things alone."

"Because you remind me of myself after my very first match." Oliver said softly, "Captain Weasley, your brother Charlie, had taken me as Keeper after seeing me training in the dark one Friday before the try-outs. Charlie's strategy was a simple one, but it depended heavily on all team members being their best. I got hit by a bludger 5 minutes into the game. I woke up in the Hospital wing an hour later, certain that I had cost our team the game. Charlie was already there, sitting next to his fallen team member while everyone else was celebrating the close 170-180 victory they had gotten. And he apologized to me."

Ron was confused. "But..."

"You see, Charlie's strategy had a big flaw. The offense depended on the chasers, the game length of the game on him and the Beaters, the defense only on me. Slytherin being Slytherin, they took out the weakest link. He had effectively painted a target on my back. To recompense, Charlie did something that changed my life. He gave me responsibility. And with that, he gave me confidence. It's only right that I help you the way he helped me."