Harry Potter and all it's associated characters belong to JK Rowling, and I don't mean to profit from this story in anyway.
I was hunched over the chessboard, observing my opponent's last move closely. This was the toughest opponent I had ever faced in my life, and it was getting harder with each move. It was like he was in my mind, I had never faced someone so amazing at chess before, I'd always thought I was the best, but apparently that wasn't true.
"Are you playing chess with yourself?" Fred suddenly asked me, incredulously. I looked at him and I winked. I had always been the best chess player in the school, even in my family. My father had introduced me to the game very early on in my life, because my mother had her hands full with all her other children, and so I had slaved over the chess board, watching other people play, sometimes my uncles, some other times the other few guests that came over to our house, and I learned.
When I beat my dad, a very good player in his own right, I realized that I had the knack for it, and I had gone on a roll. Among the more memorable chess games I'd played, one was in my first year, where I sacrificed myself to make sure Harry and Hermione go through. I had never regretted that move even once. As the years went on, I'd only gotten better at it, but now that I was back in time, there was really, no competition whatsoever, maybe this time if we go through the chess set, I'd be able to get all of us through.
"You're playing chess" George said.
"With yourself?" Fred finished.
"Alright" I snapped, "It was kinda funny when you did it to freak Harry out, you need to stop that and speak normally, we all get it, you're twins and you share an incredible mental connection, now will you listen to what I have to say"
That was what this was about, I'd used an owl and sent Fred and George a note, asking me to meet them at this hour, the hour where everyone slept.
"Okay Ronniekins, this better be good" Fred said as he sat down opposite me, and observed the chess board.
"Okay" I said to George. "Here's the deal, I need your help with a war"
George immediately perked up, Fred threw his arms in the air in frustration then looked at both of us, he was obviously interested too.
"What is this war you speak of brother mine?" Fred asked me.
"I thought that'd get your attention. Yesterday evening, after our charms class, Malfoy and his two female cronies, Parkinson and Bullstrode decided to accost Hermione, they called her a mudblood, nightmare and told her that she has no friends"
Fred and George were always jokers, but it was their reaction that solidified how great they were as people, they might not take much seriously, but even they knew that using the word Mudblood was not something we did, and anger flashed in their eyes.
"Isn't Granger your friend?" George began hotly. "How dare they say something like that to her, and you didn't do anything?" he asked me.
"Wait a second" I said defensively. "What they said got to Hermione, and I had to go calm her down and assure her that I really did value her friendship, I made a choice" I told them.
"If it was me, I would have hexed them" Fred mumbled.
"You still can" I told them. "I have something"
I pulled out the vial Neville had made, it would be fun using it for sure, but there were things that Fred and George could do that just didn't match up to anything I could think of.
"This, was made by Neville" I told them, tapping the glass vial. "It's a potion that is supposed to cure boils, but Neville's clumsiness meant that this potion actually gives people boils" I finished, smiling.
Fred and George stared at the vial, before identical grins began appearing on their faces.
"You want us to use this on Malfoy?" Fred asked me.
"Go nuts" I told him. Fred and George smiled as they took the potion from me.
"What about the two girls?" they asked me.
"Make their lives miserable Fred, George. I told them I was coming for them, which means Malfoy will think everything that happens to him is my fault, that allows you to evade suspicion, and I can always prove that I had nothing to do with any of the incidents, does that sound tantalizing enough to you?" I asked them.
They nodded.
"This is going to be incredible" I told them.
The next day, the mood around our breakfast table was more subdued than anything else. Harry had heard about what had been said to Hermione and he was blistering, his reaction brought a smile to Hermione's face. Somewhere along the way, they had become friends too. Seamus and Dean weren't too happy, nor were Parvati and Lavender, who assured Hermione that they were her friends.
"Not in the sixth year" I mumbled when I heard Lavender say that to Hermione.
"What did you say?" she asked me sharply. I was taken aback as I assured her that I had indeed, said nothing of note.
I was almost ready to settle into eating my breakfast when I was accosted, by Snape.
"Weasley" Snape said to me, his sudden appearance made poor Neville jump out of his seat.
"Yes Professor?" I asked him, trying to sound as polite as possible.
"Draco Malfoy tells me that you have threatened him with serious bodily harm" he said to me, almost snarling at me. Hermione gasped and Harry just looked impressed that I was able to stand up to Snape without bothering him too much.
"And where is his proof of that?" I asked Snape calmly. "I'm not going to accept something like that without any proof"
"I believe that two other witnesses have supported his statement" Snape told me with a sneer on his face. "Parkinson and Bullstrode" he added.
"Yeah, his very good friends, indeed, they aren't supporting him at all, just telling the truth" I said dismissively.
"Do not talk to me like that Weasley" Snape said dangerously, I had to admit, that even for someone who was a complete scumbag, Snape could be pretty intimidating.
"Listen Professor" I told him. "I have better things to do than to threaten Ferret Boy over there, but if you want him to stop getting threats like that, maybe you should stop him from using the word Mudblood" I told him. He looked gobsmacked at that, I realized that this was a look I liked on him.
"Oh yeah, and I'm willing to take Veritaserum to prove it to you if you'd like" I said bluffing. Using Veritaserum was not allowed on innocent people, but I was a first year, someone who was not expected to know these intricate laws that existed, and Snape seemed to almost buy it.
"Detention Weasley, tonight" he told me and swept away, bat like.
"Great" I grumbled, sitting down.
"That was amazing" Neville told me. "The way you stood up to him"
"Neville" Hermione said, scandalized. "Ron, you shouldn't have spoken to him like that"
"I can talk to him however I like Hermione" I told her. "He is a mangy cunt after all"
Hermione, Harry and Neville all looked scandalized at that. That was a slip up, it was something seventeen year old Ron would say, not something you'd hear from an eleven year old. I had the decency to quickly cover my mouth with my hands, and look as scandalized as the rest of them.
None of them spoke to me, instead they decided to just stare.
"I guess breakfast is ruined" I told them, suddenly not feeling very hungry and feeling more resentful at having to be trapped in the body of a eleven year old kid with little independence. "I'm gonna go and try eating a giant ball of cheese" I told them as I got up and left the table.
Detention that night with Snape was disgusting, to say the least. He had me clean nasty and disgustingly dirty cauldrons with a toothbrush, and made me wish I'd called him a mangy cunt a thousand times for having me do this. I knew how to do magic after all, but that was not going to help here, as Snape watched me with special interest.
However Fred and George had picked up on my detention, they realized that I now had an alibi, and as I was almost done cleaning the last cauldron the door to the dungeons burst open and the dog faced Pancy Parkinson stepped in. I'm still wondering what she was up to during the year of us doing the bunk, she wasn't talented enough to even make the ranks among death eaters, but she'd be having a comfortable enough time over there.
"What is it Parkinson?" Snape asked, not looking pleased that his watch over me had been interrupted.
"It's Millicent sir" Pansy told him, she sounded like she had been crying, and her eyes certainly were red. "She has nasty boils that have erupted on her face, and Draco has hair growing all over his face"
Snape turned to look at me, and I felt like he was trying to invade my head, I decided to defiantly stare right back at him, daring him to insinuate that I had managed to pull off a prank right under his nose.
"It was him" Pansy said shrilly, looking at me and pointing a finger at me. "He did it, I know it, I just know it"
"I was right here" I shot back at her, "Cleaning cauldrons for Professor Snape, are you suggesting that I somehow managed to get away from right under his nose and do something to your idiotic friends?" I asked her. She had nothing to say to that, but Snape did.
"Weasley, one of your friends is definitely behind this" he drawled, slowly. "And when I prove it, you better hope that the Headmaster does not expel you"
"Good luck with that" I told him, with as much sarcasm as I could show in my voice.
"Fifteen points for cheek Weasley, your detention is over, be gone" he told me. "And be careful"
"Shouldn't you be saying that to Pansy? I think she's supposed to be next" I told him as I left the room, slamming the door shut behind me.
The entire school was in an uproar over what had happened to Malfoy, however the efforts weren't as serious as we'd hoped. Both Bullstrode and Draco were right back at breakfast the next morning, I made a finger wagging gesture at them, and was pleased to see both of them gulp. However Fred and George had decided that since Pansy had gone unpunished, they'd just have to punish all of them again.
Draco ended up in the hospital wing again, he slipped on some sort of gunk and had broken his lung. Millicent Bullstrode had been locked in a broom closet and had shrieked for almost an hour before she had been let out. Pansy was left unharmed again.
Something told me that Fred and George were just putting her on the edge without doing anything to her, which in and of itself was a very potent prank. Snape was glaring at me as usual, but this wasn't Fred and George's first rodeo (a great saying Hermione once taught me) and they had managed to somehow avoid being caught, and since I had nothing to do with it, I got away with it too.
The spoiled boil potion was replicated, and then used on the Slytherin table, and the entire table erupted in nasty boils the next day, no one had any idea (including me) as to how someone had managed to pull off the prank in full view of the teachers, and Fred and George seemed adamant that they weren't going to reveal their 'trade secrets'
October passed into November, and I fell into the motion of the new year again. The prank war had stopped and so had Malfoy's attempts to belittle Hermione for being Muggle Born, and Harry's friendship with her continued growing stronger, till it reached a point where it was similar to what they had shared the previous time we had gone through all of this.
November also brought the first quidditch game, the last time I had seen this, Harry had got the snitch, by swallowing it. I went up to a senior Ravenclaw, who was responsible for the Hogwarts Gambling Scene.
Gambling was illegal to say the least at the school, and was punishable by detention, and yet there was a complete, secret gambling ring, and it ran deep, really, really deep. I had borrowed a Galleon from Harry, telling him that it was due payable later and had gone off to place my bets, telling the Ravenclaw that I wanted to bet on Harry Potter swallowing the snitch before getting his hands on it. He was so amused by my bet that he gave me odds of seventy five to one, and I smiled, knowing that it was going to be his loss, and wishing that I had borrowed more.
The match went exactly as I remembered it, I wanted there to be a smooth game, but I felt that it was time to arouse the suspicion of Snape trying to kill Harry into my best friends, and as usual, after a certain amount of time, Hermione spotted Snape, mumbling something and went off to set a fire, which was fine. The match ended with Harry swallowing the snitch, and the Bet master to look at me with suspicion in his eyes.
"Here you go" he grumbled later on, handing me seventy five galleons. That was probably more money than all my family had at this point, maybe only Fred and George were richer. Making a mental note of buying a better want next year, I went and had the money safely stored in my trunk, only after returning two galleons to Harry, and feeling strangely tempted by running a pyramid scheme (another thing about those crafty Muggles that Hermione had taught me)
The classes seemed very easy, including potions, and I was getting really good at this, I decided to make notes, like the Half Blood Prince had in his own book. It had come as a shock to me that they never directly told us things that I discovered as I read about the ingredients in my pastime. I wasn't sure if I was going to take to reading, but the things eleven year old's did never seemed to excite me like it had the last time, which was why I ignored Harry and Hermione when they pestered me about Snape being guilty.
"We met Hagrid after the match, remember?" I told them. "He told us Snape had no reason to kill you, and I believe Hagrid"
Somehow, Harry had wandered alone in the corridors at night and discovered the infernal three headed dog known as Fluffy. Quite honestly, I was angry that he had gone without me, I had hoped that we'd discover it while having a go at his invisibility cloak that was due Christmas, but apparently that was not going to be the case anymore.
"I'm telling you" he said to me defaintly. "There was a three headed dog, on a trap door, alright, it was on a trap door, and it is obvious now, there was a package removed from Gringotts, and then they tried robbing the vault, but obviously it had been moved, to the safest place there is, Hogwarts, the package is right here and Snape is trying to get to it"
I was impressed by his skills of deduction, but I had to play the part of the skeptic. "You're reaching too far Harry" I told him. "I don't think that there is anything you need to worry about from Snape"
Harry seemed adamant enough to drag me out of bed and show me the three headed demon dog, which looked as imposing as ever, I still couldn't believe that it was called Fluffly.
The strangest thing was that Hermione seemed to have jumped on to the 'Snape is guilty' bandwagon too. She'd done this the last time, but after knowing her for almost eight years, it was amazing that she had actually considered this option.
Hermione and Harry continued their snooping, and I tagged along, acting reluctant as to not raise any suspicion. I continued working on spells, my Transfiguration seemed to improve, and so did my Potion making. I had come across an Anti-Animagus potion in a library, and had managed to have a few test swings at it, and I had no idea if it was working. It still was the blue color the book had suggested, and I was sure I had done everything right. I decided to go to McGonagall during the Christmas break (as it was the last time, we were staying over) and asking to try the potion on her and seeing if it would work, then I would ask her if she'd stay and observe what happened when I tried it on a non-animagus, pull out my rat, and viola, Peter Pettigrew exposed.
I was working on non-verbal skills too, trying to get as better as I could so that I could teach Harry and Hermione to be as good and prepare them better for the troubles they were going to face, but I needed to work on that.
"Wow Ron" Hermione gushed as I non-verbally changed a toothpick into a very sharp needle. She hadn't noticed that of course, or she'd be extremely suspicious.
"You are really good at transfiguration" she told me with a mixture of admiration and jealousy in her voice.
"You can be too, you're even more naturally intelligent than I am" I told her. There was a faint blush that had begun to creep up on her face, I wondered if she had started harboring a crush on me already, Ginny had once told me that girls developed crushes earlier than boys.
"Come on Ron" she chided. "You are lying, there is no way I can pull this off"
"You can" I told her. "I can teach you"
I had done some research on magical cores, and how they developed, and the concept was pretty simple. Some people had naturally great magical cores, while some others were good at it by repeated practice. I suspected that Hermione and Harry, who in the original timelines were much better at magic than I was, were people with great magical cores. A great magical core was one that was large, and thick, and it got bigger with age and practice.
There were ways to find magical cores that involved Arithmancy, something I hadn't picked up yet and had decided to wait till I was in the third year to learn, but with Hermione signed on to train with me, it didn't take me long to rope Harry into it too. I pretended to fake discover the Room Of Requirement (which I did by pacing in front of Harry and Hermione on the seventh floor, hoping for a class room while they stared at me bewildered, until a door suddenly popped up) and I learned that I was really good at teaching.
It felt good to help them with spells, and with repeated practice, they were already getting better. Soon they'd probably surpass me, or equal me at least, and things would go back to normal, the way they were supposed to be. I didn't want Harry to be forsaken like he was the last time, I wanted him to be able to meet Voldemort (I had finally managed to get over the hump and say his name) on an equal ground, because there was no way for me to know the power Voldemort himself knew not.
The days soon melded into each other again, and time flew. Harry and Hermione had marked improvement in Transfiguration, they seemed to get everything almost as soon as I had (I had to try and hold back a little and make it look like I tried at least five or six times before getting it), meanwhile I had taken some alone time and started working on conjuration, which hadn't been the strongest thing in school for me.
It began snowing, and Christmas was going to come upon us all soon. Mom had already asked me if Harry was going to get something for Christmas, and I wrote back telling her that he wasn't, which meant he was going to get a nice Weasley sweater (something I had come to miss dearly)
A day before the Christmas break had started, Hermione had come up to me. The snooping around and badgering Hagrid meant that he had, on due time dropped the name of Nicolas Flamel, and Harry swore he knew that from somewhere. I knew where he'd seen it, the chocolate card, his first ever. It was weird that it was the same for me too, Dumbledore was my first ever Chocolate Frog card too.
"Ron, as you already know, I'm leaving for Christmas break and-"
"-I need you to work and find out who Nicholas Flamel is" I finished her sentence for her, and she blushed.
"Yes" she said, apparently too embarrassed to say anything else.
"Hold up" I told her, I dug around in my pockets and pulled out a box of Sugar Quills.
"This is an early Christmas present, I think you'll like them" I told her. She thanked me profusely and told me that she was going to make sure I got my present on Christmas.
"Ron, I'm going to miss you, and Harry" she said.
"We're going to miss you too, come back soon alright?" I told her before hugging her. She then went off to say her good byes to Harry.
The break began, and the school emptied, which meant it was time for me to get this done. I had managed to put Scabbers to sleep, and then had cast a nice 'Muffiato' in my coat to make sure that he wouldn't hear a thing if he woke up, and then made my way to McGonagall's office.
"Good evening Professor" I told her as I entered her office. She smiled at me politely and wished me back.
"So Mr Weasley, is there anything very important that you wanted to talk to me about?" she asked me.
"Well" I began, lying. "I wanted to try to be an animagus"" I told her, she raised her eyebrows at that statement.
"Mr Weasley, while I think you are a very talented wizard at the art of Transfiguration, this doesn't seem to be the time for you to start training to be an Animagus, most people start in their NEWT years" she told me.
"Yes Professor, I am aware of that, but I did a lot of research and I came up with this Anti-Animagus potion" I told her, pulling out a flask of blue liquid. She stared at it in wonderment.
"Mr Weasley" I swore she was gushing. "This potion is very much above your level, how did you make this?" she asked me.
"Well, I don't know if I have, but I wanted to test it, and I didn't want to be unsupervised while doing so" I told her.
McGonagall gave me a small smile of approval. "That was the right thing to do Mr Weasley, so let's hear it then, what are you going to do now?" she asked me.
"Well" I said, pulling Scabbers out, my heart thumping. He was still asleep and McGonagall watched with raised eyebrows. "The book said that using it on a non-animagus would have no effect what-so-ever, and the potion should turn green as it fell to the floor" I told her. That wasn't exactly true, but I had managed to brew it in a way that seemed to have a side-effect of turning green when I tried it on the owls of the school.
"So this is Scabbers, my rat, a non-animagus" I told her as I held the vial above the rat.
Time seemed to slow down as I poured the drops on him, and then, right there in front of me, Pettigrew changed. The form of a rat slowly expanded, before becoming a very mousy, Peter Pettigrew.
A Pettigrew that was awake.
"Pettigrew?" McGongall was too shocked to do anything, but apparently my sleep drops had failed, and he had heard at least some of what I had said to McGonagall.
"Stupefy" I shouted, which was the wrong reaction, I was supposed to look shocked. And before Pettigrew could do anything, he was stunned.
"Weasley" McGonagall said to me, stunned, I wondered if I had hit her with the spell.
-x-
I found myself in Dumbledore's office, along with the still stunned Peter Pettigrew, who was now bound in ropes and a stunned locking McGonagall, who couldn't believe what was happening today. Dumbledore didn't look too bothered with it, in fact he seemed like he had always seemed, cool, calm and collected. It was incredible, and yet at the same time, I had given it away, I had been too prepared for someone who was going to discover that his rat had been an animagus all along, and McGonagall was on to me, as was Dumbledore.
I had lost my secret.
"This" Dumbledore said, breaking the silence in the room. "This is certainly a very interesting Christmas"
"You can say that again" I muttered.
"You knew that the rat was an animagus?" Dumbledore asked me sharply, he was in interrogation mode, it wasn't something I was used to from him, he had always been the slightly crackpot old professor that was kind and fair with everyone, this was the man who had fought Gridenwald, the only person Voldemort had feared.
"Yes" I told him. "And before I say anything else, I need you to swear a magical oath that without my permission, what I say next won't be repeated in front of anyone" my voice had a lot of confidence.
"Both of you" I said, looking at the still shocked McGonagall.
"Mr Weasley" Dumbledore began, there was a hint of warning in his voice. "You shouldn't be making such demands"
"I'll swear one too" I told him. "What I'm going to say to you is going to be true, all of it. I'm going to share some memories, something that hasn't been modified at all, something that I am willing to back, with Veritaserum" I told him.
Dumbledore stared at me, wondering if I was serious. He didn't have to, my face seemed to give away how serious I was.
"Fine then" he said to me. "We'll swear the oaths, but after this Ronald, you are going to tell us everything, is that clear?" he asked me. I nodded.
We swore oaths, a magical oath is slightly less punishing than an unbreakable vow, violating the oath meant a loss of the magic of a person, till he was forgiven by the other oath taker. Pettigrew just lay there, bound in ropes as we swore oaths.
"Who are you?" was the first question he asked me.
"Ronald Billius Weasley" I told him. "Sixth child of Arthur and Molly Weasley"
McGonagall had finally come around from being shocked, and now looked positively pissed off.
"How do you know that your rat was actually Peter Pettigrew in disguise?" she asked me, rage in her voice. I wasn't sure if it was directed at me.
"That's simple, this has happened before, except it was in different circumstances"
"What does that mean?" she asked me.
"It means I've come back in time, I was seventeen when I died for the first time, and I came back in time, I don't know how it happened, but it seems like I can't shake it off. I've tried killing myself, only to keep going back in time, to the day I first started school" I told them.
There was a gasp from McGonagall, Dumbledore remained impassive.
"I still have my magic" I told her, trying to relieve the tension, and failing at it, she was still angry.
"I need you to show me what happened, can you do that?" Dumbledore asked me. I nodded before extracting the memory of the worst day of my life, all of it, raw, unedited, if I was telling them everything, I was going to have to do it with brutal honesty. I showed them my first death, and then my next two ones, and then my decision to do things in a better way this time.
I waited, keeping watch over Pettigrew as they went into the Pensieve, and when they came out, Dumbledore looked distressed, it had finally gotten to him and the facade of remaining calm had broken. McGonagall looked like she wanted to murder someone.
"Ron" Dumbledore said to me softly. "What happened to the world, why were the three of you in the tent?" he asked me.
"You died" I told him, and that was all I needed to say, because Dumbledore and McGonagall both seemed to understand just what that meant.
"Tom came back didn't he?" Dumbledore asked me. I nodded.
"Yes, Voldemort did indeed come back, in our fourth year" I told him. "And yes, he does have ugh-things" I said, not wanting to reveal horcruxes "They are something we need to get rid of, as soon as we can" I told him.
"How?" he asked me. "How did he kill me?"
"He didn't" I told him. "Are you sure you want to know Professor?" I asked him. "Because I'm afraid that the timeline would get too meddled"
"The timeline is already meddled with Ron, I don't think the old one even exists anymore" he told me.
"What is that supposed to mean?" I asked him.
"From what little humans have figured out about time, the only thing that is certain is that it is cruel, and the world you were in, it's gone, you're in another world now, and that's how it is going to be"
"What do you mean the other world is gone?" I asked him, panic in my voice.
"I understand your panic Ron" Dumbledore told me softly. "But I think that old world has been ripped apart, and it makes sense now"
"What makes sense?" I asked him. "What are you talking about?"
"Albus, surely you don't mean the prophecy, is he the one?" McGonagall asked him. Albus nodded.
"What prophecy?" I was almost shouting now. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"Watch" Dumbledore told me as he tapped the Pensieve on his table, and an image rose from it. It was Sybill Trelawney.
Harry had told me about the prophecy, the exact wordings of it, but I had never seen a prophecy being made, and I knew what was coming as Trelawney began speaking.
'The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... helped by the agent of fate and time itself...setting right things that went wrong...and the Dark Lord will mark The One as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies...helped by the agent of fate and time itself...'
I stared as the figure went right back into her Pensieve.
"I suppose she wasn't a fraud then" I remarked, no one in the room felt too eager to laugh at my joke.
"She wasn't" Dumbledore told me. "But you seem to understand what is going on don't you, you were aware of the prophecy in the other world I suppose?"
"Yes, there was no 'agent of time and fate' bullshit in the last one"
For some reason, both the Professors weren't too eager to chide me for bad language.
"So basically, I'll keep coming back, time and fate will keep sending me back till I make things right?" I asked Dumbledore, who nodded.
If being 'The Chosen One' was bad enough, I wondered just how much responsibility 'The Agent Of Time And Fate' was going to mean.
"I don't know why it was Ron" Dumbledore told me. "There is no explanation, but something happened, that wasn't supposed to happen, and you were chosen as the agent of time, the one who was going to help, and till the Dark Lord is not defeated, you are going to keep reliving this life"
"Great" I said to him, not feeling great at all, this was more responsibility than what I was supposed to get.
"There might be a reason Ron, you've always been overshadowed haven't you?" he asked me. It was amazing how insightful he was, but then again, he was the greatest wizard to ever live.
"Yeah" I told him.
"Then if time and fate were real people, they chose correctly. You've been given a chance, to do the right thing, to learn lessons that need to be learnt, but then again, the machinations of time and fate are beyond the grasp of mere men like you and I" he told me.
I didn't say anything, choosing to stay silent instead.
"So now what?" I asked him.
"Change things Ron, set them right. Do it properly, the way it would be in a perfect world" he told me.
"It's not perfect, a lot has already happened" I told him.
"Then make sure nothing too bad happens" he told me, with a twinkle in his voice.
"Yeah, that's going to be easy" I told him.
"It isn't" Dumbledore told me. "But you should take this like a game of chess, I'm told that you are very good at that"
I nodded.
"Then make sure that every piece you move, moves with purpose, and make sure that no one finds out, discretion is important" he continued.
"Great, what are you going to do about him?" I asked, looking at the prone form of Pettigrew.
"Interrogate him, him being alive means that there is going to be a chance that Sirius Black is innocent, and he might be really pleased to get out, and meet his godson, but I bet you already knew all that"
"Yeah, and what do I tell Harry?" I asked him. "I've been gone for hours now, he's gonna be looking for me"
"Do what you do best Ron, and lie" Dumbledore told me, grinning. I grinned back. McGonagall still looked pissed.
"So, uh, he escaped last time" I said as I got up. "Make sure that doesn't happen this time" I told him.
"Indeed" Dumbledore told me. "Now Minerva, I think you should take Ronald here back to his dorm" he told her, and McGonagall stood up too, and we left the office.
"It's not fair what happened to you Weasley" she told me as we walked back to the Gryffindor dormitories. "But you seem like someone who can make something of a bad situation, someone who can improvise, and I must say that no matter what happens, don't regret it too much, focus on fixing it" she told me.
"Thanks Professor. Coming from you, that means a lot" I told her. She gave me another smile, she really was a softie inside.
"Run along now Weasley" she said to me as the door to the dorm opened. "And make it a very good lie, alright?"
I nodded, and watched as McGonagall hurried away.
"Where the heck were you?" a very worried looking Percy asked me, Harry was right behind him, looking relieved that I had come back.
"Yes Ron, we sent Fred and George to look everywhere for you" Harry added.
'Make it a good lie' I chanted in my head, as I gulped and cleared my throat. "Well guys, today has been a very interesting day"
So that was end scene. I had Ron tell Dumbledore and McGonagall, because someone has to know otherwise nothing would happen. Now I know there were better ways I could do this, but this was what came to me first, and I had it written down. I guess I could have been more erudite in the way I had it all revealed, but you guys need to learn some things for yourself.
Now you might have concerns as to how Ron will do stuff from here on out, but rest assured. Ron realizes that it's important for Harry to have the experiences that he has had, so while there are going to be changes, the core of the cannon stays the same. Ron won't become some Godlike figure and will stay in the shadows, like the king on the chess board, limited by what he can do, but someone that the entire game revolves around.
To all the Ron haters, don't bother. I don't answer to you, and yes, Ron/Hermione and Harry/Ginny are confirmed pairings as of this point, but there's still the matter of other pairings.
A chess game is full of necessary sacrifices, so the world Ron makes will be a different one, some pieces might be lost, it's not going to go all according to plan, but that is quite a ways away.
Suggest other pairings you'd like to see, particularly for Sirius and other students, and I might write them.
Please review this story, as it will give me the added impetus to write. I know it's a pain to review, but just take one minute of the fifteen you've spent reading this chapter and leave a review. I know I'm begging for it, but the feeling of getting a review of a latest chapter, and wondering how it came off is one of the greatest things for me, so please, do review.