Ah, comrades, thank you for your reviewing kindness. I bring you, in the midst of my scholarly life, another chapter. Containing much Ron and much Christmas of the angst kind.

Enjoy!

Chapter Twenty-Five: Barbaric Game

Ron's Christmases had been spent at Hogwarts ever since first year.

The first year, the disappointment of his Sorting was still fresh and sore. He decided to take a short break from his family and give it time. He would come home for Christmas next year, when he felt better about the whole thing. It wasn't as bad as it seemed, he was sure. After all, there'd been five of them placed in Gryffindor already, not counting his parents; they had to run out of that sort of thing sooner or later. Surely Ginny would be joining him in Hufflepuff House next year—if anyone belonged there, it was the shy little girl. And then he could go home and not feel quite so shamed.

But then Ginny had been sorted into Gryffindor for no apparent reason, and Ron had become flamingly jealous. He'd fought boys twice his width, he'd never let his brothers walk all over him, he'd braved his mum's anger many times before on midnight kitchen raids. And yet he'd been placed in this house, this house for meek little people who had no use whatever. Why?

Cos you're an idiot, ickle Ronniekins, said a nasty voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like a sing-song chorus from Fred and George. They'd been fairly decent about the whole affair, but he couldn't help getting a feeling that everyone was laughing at him when he wasn't there.

And so he'd stayed at Hogwarts again in his second year of school, and every year since, skulking around the Hufflepuff common room and occasionally (when the skies were clear) indulging in a little flying. Luckily, the little black-haired Susan Bones usually stayed on as well, and they'd quickly become comrades-in-boredom.

This year, however, she'd had to attend a function at the Ministry of Magic in honor of her aunt, the distinguished Amelia Bones, who had just gotten promoted to the second seat of the Wizengamot. "Don't set the dorm on fire, Ronnie, it doesn't really deserve it," she'd told him before departing to her snow-swirled carriage.

And now the usually cheery Hufflepuff common room was silent and empty, leaving Ron in desperate need of something to do, as setting the dorm on fire had been prohibited to him and he'd already moped to his full capacity.

He wandered through the Great Hall, where the gamekeeper, Hagrid, had already set out giant pines for the feasting that night. It was late morning yet, and Ron didn't particularly feel like flying. He visited the other places he deemed worthy of a good haunt: the kitchens, kindly pointed out by Fred and George in his third year—most likely out of pity; the owlery, cold and smelly but with an inspiring view; even the Prefect bathroom, whose password he always overheard being boasted by Ernie McMillan, though he didn't feel like having a bath that moment. He returned to the common room feeling dejected and not looking forward to the evening at all.

Perhaps, he considered, it was time to visit the one place he'd never bothered to look into before. But was he that desperate? Didn't he have any pride left in him?

'Course not, Ron thought as he entered the library. That whole pride thing was done away with years ago—to an extent. At first glance, there was no one in the library. Shocker. But then, he rounded a shelf decorated with glistening holly and pixies, and saw a familiar head of brown hair.

She was sitting alone, of course, but this was the first time he saw her sitting without a book or class-work. Instead, in front of her sat a chessboard, whose shabby and ordinary appearance told him it was Muggle-made, despite the fact that the pieces were moving. She'd gotten a second-hand set and enchanted it herself. Impressive, Ron thought grudgingly.

She was the worst chess player he'd ever seen. Half her pieces were already discarded and the remaining were clustered together so closely that they could barely come, much less conquer. Intrigued at why someone so abysmal at chess would spend the hols playing it, Ron stayed and gazed at her increasingly irritated hands move the pieces around to certain defeat.

She lost that game, and the next three. Ron watched, torn between amusement and pity, as she buried her head in her hands after that fourth game and cried out, "Oh, sod it all!"

Ron burst out laughing. She snapped her head up at him and glared. "Something funny, Hufflepuff?" she asked.

For once Ron let the harsh words wash off his skin like rainwater. Grinning, he dropped into a chair and said, "You have no idea what you're doing, do you?"

Granger smoldered. "I'm practicing. Besides, you couldn't do any better."

Ron raised his eyebrow. "Think I can't? Wanna try me, then?"

In the next ten minutes, Hermione learned a valuable lesson in how utterly one can fail.

"How are you doing that?" she moaned. "You trounced me."

"You have to take the whole board into consideration; look at the entire picture. You're just doing it step by step like a bloody cooking recipe." Immensely cheered for this reminder that yes, there was something he could do rather well, Ron set about showing the girl how the game was played.

At the end of his lesson, Granger simply wrinkled her nose and said, "It's a terribly barbaric game anyway. I don't see why they aren't content to simply stay on their own squares and do something useful with them." Ron couldn't remember when she'd been more childish.

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