AN: short chapter, sorry. It also might be a bit before I update too, seeing as, well, I have to write some more…. :D

Ron knew what people thought of him. He knew that most of the royal court thought him dim, and none of them ever expected him to amount to much. None of the girls fawned over him, like they did Bill, and none of the young men laughed with him the way they did Fred and George. The older, and more "refined" had Percy to talk to, and everyone loved Ginny, no matter who they were. Charlie would have tons of admirers too, if he ever came to court. Even the wives of his brothers had more people to talk to than Ron.

And Ron thought it was for the best.

He hadn't always thought that way, of course. When he was younger, he had resented it quite a bit. Actually, he had resented it through childhood, all the way till last summer, when something had happened that had changed his life forever.

Ron Weasley had meet Hermione Granger.

Hermione had to be one of the most beautiful, intelligent, and peculiar women Ron had ever met. And Ron Weasley, Prince of England, had met a lot of women.

For one thing, Hermione had absolutely no patience for shopping, or dancing, or any of the other activities Ron had grown up associating with the fair sex. For another, she did not care, not one bit, that Ron was a Prince. Even though Ron was the least admired of his brothers, the very title Prince did allot a certain reverence from practically everyone. Hermione, on the other hand, only respected people with a rather high level of intelligence, a level which Ron felt he had no chance of passing.

After all, that was how they met. Ron had nearly failed his Transfiguration class. It wasn't that he was a bad wizard or anything…Transfiguration was just so boring! This, naturally, lead to some serious talks with Professor McGonagall, Lady, member of the 12 Council, and Transfiguration teacher for the resident royalty, or, in the slang of the day, the Re-Ros. After many long sessions with Ron, and his parents, McGonagall suggested a tutor. The King and Queen asked who she had in mind.

Ron was then sentenced to an hour long tutoring session with the best Transfiguration student in the school. To Ron's surprise, it was not a 7th year student. To his parent's surprise, it wasn't a royal.

Ron didn't mind. Even then, while she had still been in the lower classes, the legend of Hermione Granger had trickled through the grapevine. She was, it was rumored, the most intelligent student in Hogwarts history, beating out the King, Dumbledore, and, more importantly, Percy. This fact alone made Ron like her.

The minute he saw her, Ron liked her even more.

For Ron had never considered the fact that, while Hermione might be brilliant, she was also a teenaged girl. A pretty teenaged girl. And Ron, being a teenaged boy, did what all teenaged boys do in the presence of a pretty teenaged girl; he tried to show off.

This did not impress Hermione, to say the least. In fact, it made her dislike Ron immediately. Every action he thought was funny, she thought was as wasting her time. Every laugh he saw as cute, she saw as cruel amusement.

This went on for nearly a month. Ron started to get rather discouraged. Hermione had shown no signs of liking him in the least, and Ron didn't know what to do. He had asked all of his brothers for advice, and none of them told him anything helpful. He had even asked his father, but the King just shook his head and smiled. Once again, this was not at all helpful. Finally, when Ron was about to give up, Hermione accidentally brought up the topic of chess.

Ron loved chess. Unbelievably more than Quidditch, and, though he would never admit it, some times more than food. He had read everything about chess, owned dozens of sets, and had played everyone in the castle. Even the strategists of the Ministry would no longer play him. So, naturally, when Hermione, for the first time in her life, misquoted something, and that something turned out to be from Ron's favorite chess text, he had to correct her.

"It said "move your pieces with care", not "move your chess pieces carefully"," said Ron, interrupting Hermione's lecture. She stared at him in surprise.

"How would you know?" she asked, her brows scrunched together in the way Ron loved.

"I play some chess," said Ron, trying to be nonchalant. This, of course, lead to the first heated and intelligent argument between tutor and tutee. The argument was soon decided to be solved by a game of chess. Winner would be right. After those 10 minutes, Hermione didn't know if she had ever lost an argument so quickly.

And so began their first tradition. Once a week, instead of studying, they would sit together and talk, and play chess. At first, the time was spent in near silence, as Hermione struggled to convince herself that the first game had been a fluke, and Ron tried just as hard to prove her wrong. Eventually, however, Hermione began to loosen up; thus, so did Ron. The hours of silence soon gave way to loud discussion, and the hours by the chess board soon gave way to other meetings, outside the castle.

It was during one of these meetings that Ron discovered something, something shocking and amazing: he, Ronald Weasley, Prince and 8th in line for the throne, had fallen in love with Hermione Granger, common but brilliant, hardworking but pretty.

However, this led Ron into another set of problems. He knew that some would object to him associating with a peasant girl (though, of course, the very fact that Hermione was magical would stop the protests in his own family, and many others), and that those people could potentially make things difficult for them. However, the biggest obstacle in Ron's way was also the most fearsome and most dangerous: Hermione. For, as she often said, Hermione Granger did not need a man in her life. There would be no knight for her, and she was much happier that way… how in Merlin's name was Ron going to convince her?

Ron had been pondering this for some time now, until the answer literally walked up to him: he needed an inside man, a helper, some one to steer Hermione in the right path. Thus, Ron had two missions as he left the changing rooms that evening; one, inform the new Seeker about the practice scheduled for tomorrow, and two, enlist said Seeker's help in making the most brilliant, beautiful woman in the world fall in love with him.