Author's Note: There are two Harry Potter fanfics called "Groundhog Day", in which Ron Weasley relives the same day of his life over and over again. It's a good premise for a story, but why does Ron get all the time-warped love? Why can't Harry or Hermione get their own Groundhog Day stories?
Neither of the two fanfics have been finished, so I decided to write a completed Ron Weasley / Groundhog Day story.
Groundhog Day
Albus Dumbledore leaned over his cauldron and stirred it carefully. The potion inside the cauldron was immensely complicated; it took over twenty years to complete the potion, and a single mistake made over the course of the two decades would render it completely useless.
Dumbledore had started the potion during the first Voldemort war, in hopes of using it to defeat Voldemort. Little did he know that, by the time the potion was finished, a second war with Voldemort would be underway.
Dumbledore added the final ingredient: lemon drops. The potion instantly changed color, and the aged headmaster felt like cheering.
"It's finished! The Groundhog Day potion is done!"
You probably don't know what the Groundhog Day potion is, seeing as Professor Snape only discusses it in his NEWT-level classes. Put simply, the potion allows a person to relive a certain day, for twenty years in a row. The potion only affects the person who drinks it; for everyone else, time seems to move normally.
Dumbledore planned on giving the potion to Harry Potter, on February First. This would ensure that, for the next seven thousand and three hundred days, whenever Harry fell asleep, he would wake up on February Second. This would give Harry twenty years of preparation in a single day, and it would almost certainly result in his learning how to defeat Voldemort.
That night at dinner, Dumbledore walked to the Gryffindor table and stopped near Harry. After making some small talk, Dumbledore handed Harry an envelope entitled Do not open until February Second, along with a goblet full of the potion.
Dumbledore walked away, smiling. He did not notice that, behind him, Ron took Harry's goblet and drank the entire thing.
"Hey!" Harry said. "That's mine!"
"Mmmemptuh," Ron said through a full mouth of food. He swallowed it all and spoke again. "Sorry. Mine was empty."
February 2nd, Cycle 1
Ron woke up and yawned. He rolled over in his bed, then he fell back asleep.
February 2nd, Cycle 2
Ron muttered something before falling back asleep.
February 2nd, Cycle 3
Ron woke up for all of three seconds, before returning to the land of slumber.
February 2nd, Cycle 4
Ron slept.
February 2nd, Cycle 5
Yep, still sleeping. Wow, a lazy kid!
February 2nd, Cycle 6
Ron woke up more thoroughly this time, and he checked the clock. It was a half hour before he was scheduled to wake up. Seeing that he had time, he rolled over and went back to sleep.
February 2nd, Cycle 7
I'm seriously starting to see a flaw in the "day resets every time he falls asleep" plan. Who could have guessed Ron would wake up drowsy on the morning of February 2nd? And since the drowsiness reset every time the day reset, he was basically stuck in a state of perpetual sleepiness.
February 2nd, Cycle 1,234
In this cycle, Ron stayed in a half-awake, half-asleep state for ten whole minutes, longer than another other time in the past three years.
"Ron? Are you awake yet, mate?" Harry asked.
"I'm just drowsing..." Ron said, his eyes firmly shut.
"You'd better get ready, if you want to get to the showers before the others."
"All right, I'm getting up," Ron yawned. He pushed his bedcovers aside, sat up, and...
He instantly fell back onto the bed and wrapped himself in his blankets. "'S too cold," he mumbled.
February 2nd, Cycle 2931
Ron slept soundly.
February 2nd, Cycle 4
Ron mumbled a bit before falling asleep again.
February 2nd, Cycle 7000
Ron started to snore.
February 2nd, Final Day
Ron slept until Harry woke him up. He yawned, then looked at his best friend.
"Oh, Harry, I just had the best night's sleep, ever!" Ron said happily.
"Really?" Harry asked. "I could barely sleep. I had the weird feeling that I was missing out on something important."
The two of them went through their day like normal. Harry was confused when he read the Headmaster's letter, but he presumed it was a joke of some kind, so he threw it away and forgot about it.
And that is the story of how Ron Weasley slept for twenty years in a row, without knowing it. The next time Dumbledore gave the Groundhog Day potion to Harry, he made sure that Ron did not interfere. Of course, things were thrown into chaos when Luna Lovegood accidentally drank some of the potion, on Harry's 200th day of the cycle, but that's another story.
The End