Dedicated to "Mischief. Managed. 1998" Because her birthday is Monday and she's awesome ;)

This is something completely different than I usually do (it's Ron/Hermione because thats her favorite).

Disclaimer: I'll own Harry Potter when Tonks becomes graceful

First year

Ron loved chess. It was always his favorite activity, but not for the reason people thought. Harry thought he only played because he was good at it. That helped him like it, sure, who didn't want to be good at something? It wasn't the reason he loved it though. He loved it because it was the only time he felt smart.

Other people thought he looked smart with it too, even Percy couldn't beat him. Yes, there wasn't much Ron Weasley was very good at, but chess was one of them.

He didn't want to play it right now.

He wasn't scared to take the knights place. He didn't really care if he was hurt. He wasn't the important one right now, Harry and Hermione were. He was smart enough to admit he wasn't able to really bring anything to the table. Hermione was brighter than he would ever be, and Harry was more… well, he was more Gryffindory.

He was scared to risk his friends lives. He didn't want to mess up. He didn't want to fail them. So he stood in front of the giant chess board, something out of a nightmare, and he couldn't move. He could hardly even remember the way the pieces moved.

He felt a brush of warm skin against his shoulder, the feather light fingers barely grazing his skin were the plant had ripped his shirt earlier. He'd turned his head just in time to see Hermione removing her hand, a small, reassuring smile on her lips.

With the simple look and touch he found his mind quieting. He was able to remember. He could win the match.

He stepped forward onto the black square and began the game.

Second Year

Ron didn't hate spiders. He loathed them. Nothing on earth was as bad as the long legged, twitchy, fast creatures. It was rather a girlish fear he knew, but that didn't change the way he felt about them.

It was Fred's fault of course, even if people only laughed when he told them that it didn't change the fact. He had never been frightened of spiders before he was three. Ron knows Fred didn't mean to give him arachnophobia, but it happened.

So he simply hadn't wanted to follow Hagrid's advice, it had seemed quite mental in the classroom. Now, standing on the edge of an impossibly large forest, watching the dark silhouettes of the black spiders crawling through the night into the woods, he felt the idea was not simply mental, it was utterly insane and suicidal.

He had to go in there, after the spiders, and he couldn't even light his bloody wand.

And then Fang had howled and Ron knew he was going to die. "There's something moving over there," Harry had breathed out. "Listen… sounds like something big…"

Never in his life had Ron Weasley wanted to bolt more. He could hear the snapping branches, and horror stories Charlie had told him as a child came back to him. Stories of gigantic, killer spiders. He had never been any good at Divination, he'd never known how to go about it, but at that moment, he just knew that the huge monster lurking unseen in the shadows of the trees was a spider. He just knew.

It was of bright brown eyes and soft, bushy hair that he thought of as he stepped forward into the darkness, towards the noise. He had to see if the spiders knew the answer, he had to save Hermione.

Third Year

Ron had already had more excitement this year than he ever bargained for. He'd been attacked by a crazed cat repeatedly, his rat had died only to be found alive again, he'd nearly been stabbed by a mad murderer, and he'd had to watch an innocent animal be killed because some self righteous idiot ministry employ hadn't bothered to look at the brilliant defense he had concocted.

And still, things only got worse.

Ron had had half a second to act when he saw the Grim. He could either run for it, or he could warn Harry and Hermione and take the hit himself. He'd paused just long enough to take a breath before yelling for his two best mates to run. They'd turned around and dropped to their knees like he'd ordered, and then the massive black beast had lunged for him.

It was a terrible mess of heat, fur, and blood, and then he was being dragged away while he clutched onto Scabbers, unable to fight the massive monster off. Ron was dragged towards the whomping willow, and for the first, and only time in his life, the murderous tree didn't hit him. The beast pulled him down a narrow hole and Ron's leg got stuck on a root.

For a wonderful moment he had thought the creature was going to let go of him, that he was going to be free. That sensational moment was quickly replaced by an even greater fear as his leg snapped. He could see Harry and Hermione running towards him, and he knew with a terrible sinking feeling that they were going to follow him.

His worst fear was realized mere minutes later as Harry threw himself in front of Ron in the Shrieking Shack. The animagus-for that's what the beast was-laughed at Harry's antics and Ron knew what he was going to do. He pushed himself off the bed and grabbed at harry, forcibly pushing his best mate behind him. Hermione was on his other side, and for a wild second he contemplated pushing her back as well, but she had moved again before he could act on the impulse. She pressed her bare arm against his, completely blocking Harry off.

Ron wondered if her arm was tingling as much as his was at the contact.

Fourth Year

Ron was furious, and he knew that he really shouldn't be.

Fred and George told him to give Harry a break, he probably hadn't put his name in the Goblet. Harry was too honest to do something like that, and if Ron was completely honest with himself, he knew that Harry really didn't want to be a Triwizard Champion. He really just wanted to be normal.

The horrible thing was, he wasn't actually annoyed about that, not any more at least. Oh sure, he'd been plenty angry about it when Harry's name had first been called, but that was no longer the reason he was holding his ridiculous grudge.

No, he was upset about the article Reeta Skeeter had published. He'd wanted to laugh when he'd read what she wrote about Harry-he was probably mortified about the 'I cry my eyes out every night' thing. The part that upset him was the last two sentences.

Harry has at last found love at Hogwarts. His close friend, Colin Creevey, says that Harry is rarely seen out of the company of one Hermione Granger, a stunningly pretty Muggle-born girl who, like Harry, is one of the top students in the school.

He wasn't sure where Skeeter got off saying that Creevey was a close friend of Harry's, but he'd overlooked that farse. He couldn't get past the bit about Hermione though.

He couldn't have been more upset about it. Harry and Hermione, that idea had been on his thoughts a lot more than he wanted recently. It seemed that no matter what he did, he couldn't stop thinking about it, actually. It made his stomach hurt and his insides feel heavy, as though they'd been filled with lead. It made him rant and rave and want to toss his action figure of Krum at Harry's head. (He was quite glad he didn't because he'd found much better things to do with it after Hermione had gone with that git to the Yule Ball.) He knew that Harry really didn't care about Hermione that way, and he was pretty sure she only saw him as a brother, but by the time his brain had accepted that fact, Harry wasn't talking to him.

He knew another thing by the end of the year as well. He was never following Fred and George's advice on women again. He had been trying to be smooth, he should have known better than to listen to his git brothers though. It had taken him forever to get Hermione to talk to him again after that fiasco.

Year Five

Ron had put up with a lot from Harry, it wasn't easy to do, but he had managed it. Now though, he was at the end of his rope, again. Harry had locked himself up in Buckbeaks room, just because he heard a crazy, impossible rumor from Moody and Tonks.

Granted, if he had been in Harry's place, he probably wouldn't have been too happy to hear that there was a chance he was being possessed by the single most evil wizard in history. News like that tended to put rather a damper on things.

Ron could have overlooked a bit of a grumpy attitude, Merlin knew he had been doing it all year. He could not, however, overlook Harry locking himself in his room and acting like it was their fault.

Things had gotten rather desperate, and Ron was contemplating blasting into BUckbeaks room and freezing Harry until he listened to reason, when he heard the front door to Grimmauld place open. He had barely gotten up from his chair before he saw who the new arrival was, and then he couldn't stop the grin that lifted his lips.

She was adorably pink cheeked from having been out in the cold, and her crazy hair was windswept, making it look even bushier.

He hardly noticed it. She barely had time to say 'hello' before he was in front of her. He told her about Harry and he found himself grinning even wider as a determination filled her chocolate eyes. They went up the stairs together, eternal allies in bringing Harry back to himself.

Yes, he had put up with a lot from Harry, but he always had Hermione to help him, and he'd rather have a grumpy Harry with Hermione by his side, than a happy Harry with Hermione between them.

Year Six

Very little went right for Ron this year. Actually, in retrospect, he can't really think of a thing that went right. Other than winning at Quidditch (and he thought he had cheated at that!) The source for the troublesome year was obvious to him, and anyone else that had eyes or ears. As a matter of fact, he can some it up in one, wonderful word.

Hermione.

It was the lack of her that made it so terrible. He'd let himself believe Harry that Hermione had kissed Krum (though he would never admit that had upset him, and he would never understand why he had trusted Harry on that fact.) He had stopped talking to her because he did have the emotional range of a teaspoon, and he'd gone out with Lavender.

If he was ever to make a list of the biggest mistakes in his life, he was pretty sure that would be right at the top for number two. Number one would happen in his seventh year, but he didn't really like to dwell on it.

No, Ron did not enjoy his six year at all, and even winning the house cup hadn't helped to improve it. the only thing that could do that had incredibly warm brown eyes that had little flecks of gold around the rim.

Lavender could never understand why his favorite color was brown.

Year Seven

Ron had made a huge mistake, and he'd been trying his hardest to make up for it ever since. He couldn't pretend that it was fixed though, despite his valiant efforts.

It was on the rift that had developed between him, Hermione, and Harry that he was thinking of as they ran down the corridor, his arm full of basilisk fangs.

He had just watched his sister run off, when a terrible thought had occurred to him.

The house-elves, the hundreds of house-elves that worked at Hogwarts had no idea what was going on. They couldn't leave, they were stuck in the castle, forced to stay and die!

"Hang on a moment!" He said sharply, skidding to a stop. "We've forgotten someone!"

"Who?" Hermione asked, her voice nervous and her stance unsteady.

"The house-elves, they'll all be down in the kitchen, won't they?" he answered quickly. Harry's eyes widened in surprise while Hermione narrowed.

"You mean we ought to get them fighting?" Harry had asked. Ron frowned at his best mate and shook his head. That wasn't what he had meant at all.

"No, I mean we should tell them to get out. We don't want anymore Dobbys, do we? We can't order them to die for us –"

Time completely stopped around him in the next few seconds. He'd stopped talking when Hermione had dropped her lot of fangs, they made a terrible clatter as they fell to the floor. She was running at him, her eyes filled with emotion, tears streaking down her dirtied cheeks, her arms held wide open. He barely had time to suck in a breath before she reached him and wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him full on the mouth.

If Ron had died right in that moment, he wouldn't have minded. He had accomplished the one thing he'd been trying to do for Seven long years. He had finally gotten it across to Hermione that he loved her, and judging by the way she was kissing him back, she felt pretty much the same.

After so many long years denying it, and then trying to hide it, he had finally gotten the girl.

When they finally broke apart he knew that he was going to do everything in him to win this battle. He was going to fight with all he had, because he could see the future that awaited him if they won.

He'd be with Hermione, and that was all he ever really wanted.

A/N: Happy early birthday, I'd post this on Monday, but Merlin knows with my memory I would forget it! Thanks for betaing my stories and always being open for a chat ;)

TO everyone else, I hope you enjoyed it and don't forget to review!