AN: JK Rowling owns it. I don't. My hands are gonna fall off. Did she dictate or something? Dang.

Chapter 14

The Ginger Snaps

Ron Weasley hated Hogwarts.

It hadn't been the same since early in fourth year, when Hermione and Harry scarpered, and left him behind.

Not that he didn't have friends, like Dean and Seamus and all, but still.

He spent much of fourth year in a rage. Bloody Potter. Bossy Granger. Stupid Yule Ball with ugly robes and his own date laughing at him. See if he asked that Bones girl to anything ever again!

By fifth year, he'd succumbed to melancholic nostalgia: The Three Musketeers, Hermione once called them. He'd no idea what that meant, but they were a three. Adventures and dangers and wild stories he could tell a girl someday were, obviously, very important.

On the other hand, which finally held a decent wand because Bill felt sorry for him on his fifteenth birthday…

Boy-Who-Lived.

Brightest-Of-Age.

And, oh yeah, that Weasley kid.

Ron Weasley, last of the Weasley boys, the oh-yeah-him Weasley. Not the cool curse-breaker, the dragon-tamer, the prat, the twins or the girl. Just… That one.

Returning for sixth year, Ron only anticipated the food, the Quidditch, and the comfort of not having his mum breathing down his neck like a stubby ginger-headed dragon.

He had even Ginny in stitches with his wicked impersonation of their mum.

"What will you do with your life, Ronald? What will you do, Ronald? Your brothers knew! Why, Charlie farted rainbows and Bill sneezed gold at your age!" His sneer fell. "And the twins are employed at least."

"Zonko's will regret it," Ginny assured him, kindly patting his hand. "They'll overrun him like they do everything. Wait, Mum didn't say anything about Percy?"

"No. Not this time," groused Ron, slouching. The Hogwarts Express had long ago lost its thrill for him, particularly without a friend to buy buckets of sweets off the trolley. "You know how it is with him and Dad."

Ginny nodded sympathetically. Percy had fully supported the new legislation to force magicals to attend Hogwarts through year five, if they were born in Britain, regardless of their parents' wishes. Ron hadn't really seen the problem, until his dad took him aside and explained that while muggles weren't less, precisely, it was best to let them go their own way if they wished. "A squib's different, Ronnie," he'd said, studying a plug as he held it up to the sun. "There's a chance for their children. But, well, muggles… It isn't nice somehow, Ron, telling them what they have to do. If they don't want magic, then so be it."

Ron could understand that.

Percy, on the other hand…

"Ugh, that prat," snorted Ginny. "He's Auntie Muriel, only a boy."

Ron yelped in mock horror. "Oi! That's a thought nobody needs, Gin!"

Sadly, however, Ginny had the right of it. Pratty Percy felt it was best that magicals born outside magical families be brought up properly. And Ron sort of understood that, too. After all, hadn't Harry and Hermione been bloody useless and even comically ignorant? Not knowing about Quidditch? Or Dumbledore?

Not that it mattered. The know-it-all's house was reduced to such fine ash that it vanished in a wind, it was said. As for Harry, he'd decamped without a backwards look. Took Longbottom, of all people, with him!

Okay, yeah, fine, Longbottom went because his gran's a vicious old vulture. Probably ate the one on her hat!

But then Snape was gone.

Rejoice, right?

Slughorn was the new potions master. Cancel rejoicing!

Sluggy, or Hoary Horace, was lost in his own glory years, from before Ron was a twinkle in his dad's eye (whatever that meant), and nearly as boring as Binns.

Worse, Ron had to repeat fifth year, because, well, his OWLs were pretty bad. He'd gotten an EE in Divination, but his grades ranged from acceptable in Potions to Dreadful in Transfiguration. Then came the news he had needed at least an EE in Defense, same in Potions, Charms and Herbology, and a year of Runes (what the bloody hell for, he wondered), or he'd never make an auror. Never be the wand-wielding hero. Never stroll through Diagon Alley and know people would nod to him with respect.

Not that auror robes flattered him, but still, he had no idea what else he'd be.

He'd gotten a Troll on one OWL. From fairness, even his parents admitted nobody expected much out of him when the magical creatures in question decided to kill the wizard overseeing the test. Who knew pixies were such little rotters? Ron would have a shielding spell on his eyes for the rest of his life after witnessing that. Right through the bloke's eyeballs!

Still lost in thought, and wondering if that Troll grade would see him lose his position on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, Ron slogged up to the castle, then met his sister and friends to attend the Sorting.

The hat was placed on the stool by…

Hold on, what's that?

Where's McGonagall? Got Sluggy, Sprout, Flitwit, I mean Flitwick, Dumbledore, Vector, but where's McGonagall? Who's that bit?

The slim young-ish witch who placed the hat on the stool… Who was that?

The whispers reached him.

New DADA professor, and head of Gryffindor, graduated the same year as Bill Weasley, Amaranthia Fudge, niece or daughter-in-law or something like that, to the impossible-to-budge Fudge.

"Isn't she meant to be home with her kids?" muttered Ron to Ginny.

His sister kicked him under the table. "Guess not."

The hat gave an impression of rolling its eyes.

It then split at its brim to sing.*

"When upon your head I sit

Sorting you, per my remit,

Be faithful to your hearts,

Lest Hogwarts split apart.

Magic is a wild bird

That will come at call

But if you utter one wrong word

Hogwarts will surely fall.

Danger lurks much nearer

Than you let yourselves see;

Take it from me, hearer,

On guard you must be!

Lion, claw, puff or snake,

Understand you all:

Now's not a time for mistake,

Or fighting in this Hall!

So honesty be in your heart

When I sit on your head;

The Sorting Hat has his part

To stop the coming dread."

Nobody applauded.

"Blimey, I miss Hermione," muttered Ron. "That's her sort of riddle."

A dozen heads turned towards him.

"We've lost McGonagall and you can't figure out what that song means?" exclaimed Parvati Patil, disbelieving. "The wrong word is bound to be related to You Know Who! So if someone summons him… Here…"

"Dumbledore can take him," said Ron confidently, because, well, y'know. Dumbledore!

Parvati Patil exchanged a look with several others. She lowered her voice as an Abbott was called to the stool. "If Dumbledore could, then why didn't he? If Dumbledore can't, why didn't he make things right with Harry? It's been nearly two years!"

"Because Potter's a spoilt git," answered Ron grumpily, and clutched at his middle. "Oi, I'm starving here!"

"Speak of spoilt gits," said Seamus Finnegan, under his breath. "Draco Snake-O is smiling. I hate when he smiles. Means some Gryff is about to get it in the…"

The Sorting Hat levitated.

He (or it, rather) announced loudly, "This child refuses to be sorted. Why is she here, unwilling?"

The shyly shrinking Violet Abbott clutched the stool, pale as milk. "My dad got me in Beauxbatons," whimpered the girl, and her voice somehow boomed and echoed around the Great Hall. "But the law says I got to come here. My mum went to Beauxbatons. I wanted to go to Beauxbatons!"

Her shrilling stopped at a gesture from the headmaster. "Enough, child. While we sympathize, we must adhere to Ministry law."

Oi, hold up! Didn't Dumbledore back that law? Dad said he did. Got to keep them taught proper and all.

Parvati shook her head fiercely. Her dark eyes flew to her sister, Padma, at the Ravenclaw table.

Violet Abbott was sent to Hufflepuff by Dumbledore's decree. The Sorting Hat went on the next head.

As one, the twins rose, and slipped out of the hall.

Nobody stopped them.

They had, after all, done well on their OWLs, and were purebloods.

That was what seeped into Ron's mind.

Suddenly, Ron Weasley wasn't hungry anymore. Not even for the pudding.

HP HP HP

The sixth parchment to fall victim to Ron's frustration flew across the Gryffindor common room, batting a student in the back of the head. They flung the parchment back without looking.

It was the eighth night of term, and Ron had been going through parchments faster than he did meals every single evening. Homework demanded his attention, but he'd ignored homework for years. Assignments piled up until he stayed awake all night and finished them in a hurried scrawl. He was fair certain he'd passed History of Magic the previous year because the long-dead professor assumed he wrote it in ancient runes.

As with every other such night, Ginny helpfully gathered up the discarded parchments, uncrumpled them, and erased them for future use.

Dear Harry, you stinking ar…

Ron tossed that one, too, and his sister made a graceful leap to catch it mid-air.

Harry, hi, mate, how you been?

Ron groaned, and banged his forehead into the palm of one hand. How could he beg for someone to come help when he didn't know the problem?

"I can send a bludger at you if it'll help," volunteered Seamus. "Your whinging is worse than hearing Professor Fudge tell us to read the textbook five times a class. Defense against papercuts, that's what we'll learn."

Ron groaned loudly and flung himself flat onto the couch. "Blimey. How did Hermione write all the time?"

"Well, she was doing your homework," pointed out Dean reasonably, "and that was a load there, wasn't it."

Ron gestured rudely at his dorm-mate, then sank back. He tried to do it in his head. The problem was, other than chess, he had no clarity in his thinking. And he only knew the word clarity because of Hermione Granger, may her pieces rest, or whatever it was muggles said.

Right then, I'm a Weasley.

Have a go.

He drew a breath, and decided to head up to the privacy of his curtained bed. Also, he had chocolate frogs up there. Nothing helped a man's thinking like a chocolate frog. Unless it was flan, or tart, or pie, or cake, or biscuits, or butterbeer.

Dear Harry, How are you? It's Ron, in case you forgot me.

Ginny, who had plunked down alongside him, shook her head. "Y'know, I never thought I'd see the day I'd say this."

"Say what?"

"Mum's Howlers are more eloquent."

They were. That hurt.

"Go to bed, Gin, and in your dorm. You've snogged near every bloke your year and up in Gryffindor, try not to end up married before your OWLs, eh?"

Ginny slugged him on the arm, hard enough to bruise. Ron shrugged. Other than the missing Harry and Neville, and her brothers, Ginny had, in fact, gone through the males of Gryffindor like Ron did a sweets cart. He'd taken his whack at that snogging business, but really, girls were no fun for much else. The purebloods all looked at a man like they were counting his family's galleons. The half-bloods raised magical were worse, what with knowing the Weasleys were poor enough to consider such an alliance. The only blessing was that muggles did not do that nonsense. It was a good reason to fixate on Hermione Granger for a potential mate. She was muggle-born. She'd need him. Potter? The wealthy git had fame. He'd have his pick, without half the effort a Weasley needed to put into it.

If I'm not at least considered for a betrothal by graduation, Mum will go spare. Prewett this and Prewett that. Bill's marrying that French bird, that has her round the twist. Charlie? Nah. Percy is betrothed to Penelope, for now. The twins? Eh. They'll ignore Mum. Always do. Must be nice. Gin? I reckon…

It occurred to Ron, a little late, that he was regarding all this much as a Malfoy might.

Still, this is how our world works. Can't throw it over because a few muggle-born start crying about this or that. Hermione and her elf nonsense. And Lupin was good but, no, no werewolves, they all go dark. Dunno what you even do about hags and vampires if you don't hit 'em with a reductor or ten. Right around the neck, Mum says.

He shook that off, and plunged back into the lip-gnawing, white-knuckled task of writing a letter. Where had he been? Yeah, there. The greeting.

Yeah, Ron Weasley. Rubbish at this, I know. Missing you and the good times here at Hogwarts. Snape left, no word why, can you believe it. Thought we'd have fireworks. Came in for term, and you won't believe it, mate. McGonagall is just Mc-Gone.

Ron viewed that joke with pride, then returned to his letter.

Some Fudge relative took DADA and is our head of house. The slitherers got an old wart named Slughorn.

Frowning, Ron reached into the box under his bed, and retrieved a chocolate frog. He knocked it on the head with his wand before he unwrapped it, then chomped.

Bet you're having loads of fun. We can't. We overheard Dad say to Mum that the Ministry is in a right furry-ore, whatever that is. Dumbledore has it in hand, some Order of the Phoenix thing. Mum won't let us near it. Last year, it was mental. Everyone running around looking in corners, throwing hexes at shadows. Near got a few in myself for fun.

After this poetic masterpiece, Ron finished the chocolate frog.

The Patil twins left at the Sorting feast. The hat sang rubbish again. No idea why on either but if you were here, bet we'd go sneaking and find out! Ron.

There, he decided, was nothing better he could do.

He folded up the parchment, sealed it, and addressed it: Harry Potter. Somewhere.

Up at the Owlery, his sister's voice startled him half out of his pajamas. "Are you mental? No, don't answer. Are you bloody stupid?"

"Oi, respect, Gin! I'm the big brother here!"

"The big idiot," snarled Ginny, and yanked the parchment from him. "You're as bad as Mum and Dad. Dumbledore has it all in control? That's the problem! Nobody knows anything except Dumbledore. Nobody lets us find out anything… Unless Dumbledore says so!"

"Look, I'll do my bit, get Potter back, and everything'll be fine, yeah? He knocked down sYou-Know-Who once, he'll do it again."

Ginny whacked him in the gut.

"I have six older brothers." She tapped her noggin. "Honed my survival instincts. Something isn't right. It's really not right. I'm afraid, Ron!" Her voice dropped into a sob. "I'm scared, and nobody will hear me."

Ron awkwardly hugged her. She clung, distressingly so. Ginny was regarded as the most dangerous Weasley, after the twins. If she was frightened…

"Don't worry," he said, knowing he sounded as ineffective as he felt. "We're purebloods. Mum's even a Prewett. We keep our heads down…"

Ginny shoved him. He nearly fell. He screeched, rather like an owl, and dropped panting to the stones. "Are you barking mad?"

Tears ran down Ginny's face, barely visible in the moonlight. "What if we can't, Ron? What if we have to fight?"

"Dumbledore is the greatest wizard of the age! We fight with him, we'll be fine, we just… Y'know… Stay out of it until we can't."

Ginny shook her head, eyes blazing fury, mouth curled in Prewett disgust. "You utterly worthless coward. No OWLs, no spine, no brain… You're a walking corpse, and you don't even know it! Haven't you seen the way Professor Fudge watches us? Watches the headmaster? Watches everyone? The Ministry has a spy at Hogwarts! Teaching nothing about Defense but how to turn pages in a book! And Dumbledore…"

"He's got it taken care of, Gin, you're working yourself up for nothing," said Ron, aware that he needed to be ready to duck a hex. "Dumbledore hired her. He has to know what she's doing, so he's fine with it."

Ginny's eyes went wide. Her mouth dropped open. She shuddered. "I'm not Hermione, and I'm not Harry Potter, but I'm not stupid, or a coward. Something bad is coming, even the hat knows it, and that means the headmaster knows, and he is letting it happen."

"What is he letting happen?" yelled Ron, out of temper himself. "Look, I want to send a letter, that's all! Take your theories to someone who cares!"

"I will," whispered Ginny, snatched the letter back from him, and blew it into ashes, quickly dispersed by a ventus. "I hoped you'd care, is all."

HP HP HP

The next Saturday morning, Ginny Weasley went home for a visit.

She never reached the Burrow.

Ron remembered that night, among the owls, when his mother arrived to scream at him.

After her lengthy rant about his insufficiencies as a student, son, and brother, to say nothing of what an indifferent wizard he was, and how hard it would be to convince any girl of decent heritage to marry him…

Thanks, Mum. Any louder, they'd hear you in Ireland!

…Molly Weasley sat down right there in the Great Hall at lunch and sobbed.

The last time Ginny disappeared, Tom Riddle's diary was involved.

Tom Riddle.

You-Know-Who.

Ginny, what're you doing?

He patted his mother on the shoulder, handing her one handkerchief after another, as the Gryffindor boys passed them along the table.

His father arrived, hurrying, and put his arms around both son and wife. "You know Ginny. She probably popped off to visit the twins and forgot to tell us. Hush, now, Molly, Ron, she'll turn up fine, she always does."

Ron thought of the fire in his little sister's eyes.

He felt a strange presence at his shoulder.

He turned, and saw a peculiarly dressed Ravenclaw with fair hair and light eyes.

"Ginny is my friend," she said simply.

Loony Lovegood, this is not the time!

But Ron said aloud, "Yeah," because that worked.

Luna Lovegood finished softly, "Look at the headmaster. He is worried."

"He should be," growled Ron, as Arthur Weasley took over Molly-soothing duty.

Still, he looked.

His stomach dropped, and not because it was empty. Dumbledore worried? Yes. Oh dragon dung!

Luna concluded, with a light touch on his hand, "See the castle as a chessboard. See people as pieces. The king is at the high table. We are the pawns. The professors are bishops. Where is the rook?"

"What about the queen?"

Luna smiled at him, and shrugged.

Wonderful. Barkers.

Nevertheless, Ron Weasley sat down, covered his ears, closed his eyes, and practiced those breathing exercises that Trelawney insisted would open any inner sight.

Oh who needs this? I have the map!

He ran for his dorm.

He found… No map.

No map?

No, you idiot, Harry's map. Harry, who went and left!

He sank to the floor. He swore.

Then he clutched his hair in his hands, threw his head back, and told his brain to do what it was told.

See the castle as the board!

See Dumbledore as the king!

How mental is this?

I'm talking to myself. Yeah, mental.

Ginny, where are you?

HP HP HP

Ron stirred mere minutes later.

His head, without his pestering it, had sorted it.

Black and white squares replaced rooms and corridors and towers.

Pawns.

Bishops.

Rooks.

Knights.

Queen.

King.

Dumbledore.

Professors.

Students.

Who's the rook?

Wait.

Luna didn't mention the knights.

Memory flew up from first year, a chess set as obstacle between children and danger.

Revelation dawned.

I was the knight.

I am the knight.

He shot to his feet, flew down the stairs from his dorm, out the portrait hole so fast that the resident portrait called him some unflattering names, and moved.

Dumbledore was in the Great Hall.

How to rescue the rook? For it was his sister. She always did move directly.

Knight from g1 to f3. Rook in danger of capture at… b7, because his rook, the secret, the whatever-she's-after is his rook, at a8…

It lit up his mind, as if he'd devoured some odd potion, and the chessboard was suddenly clear to him.

No. Avoid center of board. King and bishops. Watch the queen. Which is the queen?

That made absolutely no sense to Ron, and yet, Ron understood precisely what it meant, and how to react.

Down the stair, across the corridor. Outwait the movements of a few pawns and a bishop.

The students were being herded back to their houses.

Ron slammed himself behind a heavy tapestry until they passed, holding his breath. Next move. Up and over. Gotta do it.

He ran.

In his head, he was on f-something, but it didn't matter. He didn't need charts or notes or books on strategies. He understood.

He arrived, at last, outside the headmaster's office, panting with exertion, and then understood something.

Ginny wasn't going to attack the king.

Her goal was…

A bishop.

He groaned, reversed, and went down the corridor, up a stair, down a hall, and down a stair (why couldn't the castle sit still for once?) and ran smack into his sister.

"You," he snarled.

"You!" she squeaked.

"Mum's frantic, Dad's raging, and what's that?"

Ginny clutched her parchments to her chest. She reddened, which was, for a redhead, always a terrible moment. "I, uh, copy-spelled this notebook, and it's horrible, Ron, she is spying for the Ministry, and it's worse!"

He yanked her down the nearest stair, threw her into an empty classroom, and growled, "You go downstairs and you tell Mum a really good lie, yeah? Right now!"

"But…"

"You, Mum, now!"

"But…"

Ron shoved the sheaf of parchment under her nose. "Is this worth your life? Your death?"

Ginny's eyes went wide. "Yes. I think it is."

"Okay." Ron stopped. He needed Harry. Hermione. Anyone, really.

"You can't…"

"I won't," said Ron. "Just…"

Inspiration struck.

Or, as the inspiration might say, a wrackspurt or two.

Loony's dad runs that freak paper.

Ron bolted away.

His sides ached. His muscles burned. Acid crept up his throat because, frankly, his body wasn't used to all this exertion.

He half-collapsed in the hallway leading to Ravenclaw Tower.

A dreamy voice said, "Hello, Ronald. You found the queen."

She's too strange for words!

Ron Weasley handed the parchments to her. "Can your nutter, ah, your dad…"

"Of course. I'll see him later today. Thank you, Ronald."

She skipped.

She skipped.

That was a girl with serious crazies, decided Ron, then raced over to the proper place for him to be.

The kitchens.

He really needed some food.

HP HP HP

Head flung back, Ron Weasley snored himself awake in History of Magic.

That wasn't unusual.

What did catch his attention was the whispers of other students, passing around… A newspaper? What would the Daily Prophet say that anyone didn't know?

The Quibbler reached his desk, proudly declaring its defiance of nonexistent conspiracies, and shattering new revelations about "Dark Forces".

Trying to force himself to care, Ron flipped to the ragged pages in the middle of the nonsense-filled tabloid.

"EXPOSED!" was the headline.

Beneath were excerpts from "an impeccable Ministry source with close ties to Hogwarts".

The articles showed Ron nothing new. Can't have muggle-borns trying to change what they didn't understand, can't have muggle-borns educated where the benign Dumbledore and Ministry had no sway… He yawned. The last two years had been the same old song, and nobody died yet. Well, not nobody, but…

Y'know. Nobody we can't live without. There's what, thousands more muggles out there? Not like they'll die out.

Then Ron spotted the paragraph that had his classmates in an uproar.

This can't be real.

He re-read it, more slowly.

"Advise Ministry to build fear of You-Know-Who return. Status of You-Know-Who questionable, per Dumbledore. Advise continued lack of support for muggles with magical children." Ron read that aloud, softly, not aware he did so until he heard his voice crack. "Light families firmly in Dumbledore camp. Neutral families can be persuaded with repeats of Granger example. Suggest Halloween. Ministry deniability. Dumbledore opportunity. No hope of Potter return."

The newspaper went on to assure its loyal readership that this was a true copy of a true message sent to Minister Fudge, who had apparently decided where to stand. (Or, rather, sit, in Ron's opinion.)

Two words caught his eye again.

Granger example.

Five more joined it.

No hope of Potter return.

He felt eyes on him. He met his sister's despairing gaze.

Around him, he heard snippets of conversation.

"…dad says it's only right, threats to our way of life…"

"…my mum is only half-blood, hope they don't go after my nan, I better write her about this…"

"…need to owl home, what's this about Ravenclaw and Slytherin mean?"

"…What prophecy?"

"…lack of support… What was a Granger?..."

"…fiendfyre, nothing left but ashes, not even bone…"

"…mean You-Know-Who isn't really out there?"

Ron passed the newspaper on to the next student.

Binns droned on about the same goblin rebellion that had been the subject for autumn term for six years in a row.

Ron's thoughts spun.

He began to doodle on his parchment.

He found he had drawn a chessboard. Complete with letters and numbers and all that.

If Dumbledore is a king on a chessboard…

He mentally sketched out the places each piece held on the board.

He drew them carefully, as he once had done when trying to teach Hermione Granger how to play chess.

He saw it.

Blimey. Four-five more moves… checkmate. If that's all true, what's in that paper… Checkmate. Except two kings can't do that. No direct checkmate of another king.

Very carefully, Ron folded up his parchment, addressed it to Neville Longbottom.

Neville was with Harry, last he knew.

Where Harry was, there was Sirius Black.

And, maybe, Ron realized, a few other people he knew, too. And they, unlike Ronald B. Weasley, would probably understand what in the name of unicorns was going on.

HP HP HP

*Yes, I made this up.

No, I can't play chess well. Or even at all, really. I learned it, and discovered I am easily checkmated in six moves, and I don't care. Poker's my game.

Essentially, we get a glimpse of the current wizarding mindset: "Sure, we love muggles, as long as they're just like us!" sort of thing.