I DO NOT OWN HARRY POTTER AND ANY RELATED CHARACTERS

I stared at the Gaunt shack, and couldn't help but laugh at it. The Weasley's had always been a poor family but Harry had once told me that the poverty of the Gaunts put everyone's to shame. They used to be a prestigious family, full of wealth, all squandered away by drunks.

"Their pureblood pride got them nothing" I said bitterly, and I saw Dumbledore nod. Today he looked older, the twinkle in his eye was gone and replaced with something else. He had been like this when he had dueled Voldemort at the Department Of Mysteries, at least that's what Kingsley had told me. I was incapacitated because I wasn't thinking right.

"You're right Ron" Dumbledore told me. "No one knows, except you, me and him, that he was related to the Gaunts, and is half muggle. And if they do, he's done well to hide it"

"I don't think it would matter if people knew" I told him. He looked at me with his eyebrows raised.

"Voldemort is the most powerful piece on the chessboard. It doesn't matter what his origin is, he rules by fear. Even if people were to find out, his followers aren't going to leave him, because they fear him"

"Well said Ron, you are indeed insightful, but perhaps do you have any memory of this one?" he asked me. "This is the one I destroyed isn't it?"

"All I know is that you don't have to wear the ring, that's it. And that's why I'm here, to stop you from wearing the ring. It wouldn't do if you were to die earlier than usual"

"You place a very high value on my piece don't you?" Dumbledore asked me, continuing the chess metaphor. I just smirked. We moved towards the door, but before we could move any further, Dumbledore placed a hand on my shoulder.

"Wait" he said to me. "Do you sense it?"

"Sense what?" I asked him.

Dumbledore didn't say anything, except for cutting his palm open and moving on the door knob and letting the blood spill on it.

"You would think that he would teach the door to accept pure blood wouldn't you?" he asked me as the door opened and we walked in.

I had heard several times that Dumbledore's mum was a muggle born witch, but here was the configuration.

"That seems to be very common among all the greats" I told him. "Being half blood. He's half blood too isn't he?"

"Yes, Voldemort did terrible things, but there is no doubting that they were greatly terrible" he told me with mirth in his voice. "Be careful here, the whole place has several enchantments on it, and I do not like this one bit"

"How do you sense this?" I asked him.

"A bigger magical core, comes with the age, but the fact that your own core seems to be getting more development because of going back means that you might learn the skill too" he told me. "Now watch" he told me as he cleared the cobwebs, and made his way towards the center of the house.

"There is something here" he told me, pointing towards the floorboards.

"Yeah well if Harry told me correctly, then it won't be so straightforward so you need to watch out" I told him as Dumbledore carefully removed the floorboards.

As the last one came off, there it was, floating in the air, the ring that had caused him so much problem.

"Any curse on it?" I asked him impatiently.

Dumbledore shook his head.

"That's weird" I told him. "Why would there be curses on everything else except the horcrux, you'd think-" before I could finish the sentence I looked at Dumbledore's eye. He looked manic, like I had never seen him before.

"The stone" he said, his voice barely a whisper, and I watched as he picked up the ring and began to put it on his finger.

"What the fuck are you doing?" I shouted as I whipped my wand out and shot a Stunning Spell at him non-verbally, but the old wily bastard was far more wily than I gave him credit for, he effortlessly deflected my curse and then looked at me.

I had never seen Dumbledore snarl before, and he shot a golden light at me, it took all I had to dodge the spell. I watched as the spell hit a pillar behind me and the pillar turned into powder.

"I'm glad I'm not that pillar" I remarked just before jumping and dodging another golden light, another portion of the house was destroyed.

"What the fuck are you doing?" I asked him. "You're gonna kill me" I fired another Stunner at him, but he dodged that.

"WAKE THE FUCK UP" I shouted with all my power and shot the Reductor curse at him. He barely managed to get away as the part of the house the spell hit was turned into dust, and then he paused.

"Oh god" he said to me, barely audible.

"Oh my fucking God" I told him. "Why are you trying to put that on, it's exactly what I told you NOT to do" I told him. He looked at me with guilt on his face.

"Ron, I'm sorry, I-"

"Don't apologize now, take the fucking ring, store it in a box or whatever, I don't care, just take the fucking thing and let's go already" I told him.

-x-

Everything else happened in a daze, and I couldn't help but express my amazement that I had almost been turned into dust by Dumbledore. He had managed to contain the ring in some sort of field, that he promised to teach me in case it would come in handy and had proceeded to Apparate me to some sort of moor, where he had unleashed fiendfyre and I watched as the ring let out a piercing scream, and a part of Voldemort's soul was gone.

Dumbledore then contained the fire, which took longer than I thought it would for someone as talented as he was, and we had directly apparated back to Hogsmede, and from there we made our way back to the school, while I used a disillusionment charm and we made our way to his office.

It was almost three in the morning when we finally made it, and I was seated in the chair, comfortably drinking tea as he stared at the stone that was on the ring. He had taken care to not burn the ring too much, for fear of the stone getting destroyed, and I don't know how he did it, but it seemed intact.

"Do you see the symbol?" he asked me as he pushed the stone that was resting on the table towards me. I looked at it, and there was indeed a symbol on it, a straight line in a circle that was in a triangle. I couldn't help but feel like I had seen this symbol somewhere.

"You seemed awfully fond of that stone, considering that you've tried to murder me for it" I said in a raised voice.

He sighed. "You are not going to let that one go anytime soon are you?" he asked me.

"Nope" I said with a smug look on my face. I had no idea what had possessed him to attack me, but I knew it was because of that stone.

"This stone Ron, is the Resurrection stone" he told me.

The Resurrection Stone, now that I had heard of. It was from 'The Tale Of Three Brothers', a tale that my mother used to tell us all when we were kids, a parable that told us about the importance of humility, and the ability to accept when it was your time to move on. But that was a fairy tale.

"Pull my other leg too"

"Ron" he said to me with a grave look on his face. "Look at me, I'm serious"

It didn't take a legilmens to see that Dumbledore was being serious, there was no twinkle or mirth about him now. He was really being serious, and then it suddenly came to me.

"Babbity Rabbity" I said to him. He raised his eyebrows at me.

"I mean Tales Of Beedle The Bard" I told him. "You gave that book to Hermione, I mean you passed it on to her after you-"

There was a look of understanding on his face.

"You wanted Harry to have the ring didn't you?" I asked him. There was no change in his expression and I realized that this was a Dumbledore of the past, he hadn't probably made his plan yet.

"So they're real, all of them?" I asked him. He simply nodded.

I couldn't help but let out a low whistle, to have the most powerful wand in the world would be pretty neat.

"So where are the other two?" I asked him.

"In this school, all three of them. Very close to being united" he told me, and I paled.

"You own the wand" I said to him, almost as an accusation. He nodded, and pulled it out. Now I knew why the pillar had turned into rubble, it made perfect sense.

"That still leaves the cloak" And then that came to me, Harry's cloak. The note that had been left to him had told him the cloak had been in Dumbledore's possession when his father had died, also it didn't look like a new cloak, it was perfectly old. Invisibility Cloaks that old generally lost their charm and were useless cloaks, but Harry's cloak worked. I had used it myself after all.

"Harry's cloak" I told him, my mouth was almost open. He nodded again, and in that meant I was tempted to get the cloak from him, to become the mythical master of death, but it was a fleeting thought, replaced by dread.

"If anyone ever finds out" I began.

"No one will find out" Dumbledore told me. "Ron, you can not tell anyone this. No one is going to find this out, do you hear me?" he asked me.

I nodded.

"Gellert and I, we looked everywhere, we dreamed of uniting these three, and today, it's possible, and I don't want it anymore" he told me, he was on the verge of crying.

"You looked for these things?" I asked him incredulously. The name Gellert seemed very familiar too.

"Many moons ago" he told me. "When I was a foolish youngster, I learned my lesson Ron, and today you helped solidify the lesson. Everything I think about myself is right" he told me, his voice heavy with regret.

I was almost worried about him now, he was on the verge of tears, and then he began sobbing. I didn't really know what to do, whether to comfort him or wait for him to stop, so I decided on the former.

"Professor" I told him as I got up and moved towards him, awkwardly patting him on the shoulder. I glanced back at the clock and it was now fifteen minutes past three, I had no idea how the time had passed that quickly.

"Thank you Ron" he said to me after a minute, taking a handkerchief and wiping his face with it. "That must be tough to watch, an old man cry"

He was right, I had never seen anyone old cry. Dumbledore had never cried in my previous life and my Dad looked like he could cry when he had that fight with Percy, but it never went beyond that. Sobbing was for children, not for old men.

"Wait a minute" I said to him as it came to me. Gellert was "Gellert Gridenwald? The guy you defeated?"

Dumbledore nodded.

"We were fools" he told me. "We dreamed of being the masters of death, immortal, we dreamed of ruling the entire world, overthrowing the Statue Of Secrecy and ushering in an era of peace, fools, maybe I knew"

"Knew what?" I asked him.

"I knew that it wasn't right, deep down, but you have to understand Ron, I loved him" he told me.

If it was possible for my eyeballs to pop themselves out of their socket and roll on the floor, it would happen right at that moment. I just stared at him googly eyed.

"Is it that surprising that I was in love with a man?" he asked me. I didn't know what to say, but suddenly it made sense. He was awfully old, wore weird clothes and had never taken a wife.

"You're-" I began. "You're-"

"Yes" he said to me shortly. "I was in love with him Ron"

I was moved that he chose to share something like this with me.

"Thanks for telling me that, it means something to me, you know" I told him.

"I know" he said simply.

"So you were in love with him, and went along with his plan?" I asked him.

"Something about him, perhaps my love for him made me buy into his plan Ron, but that changed when Ariana died"

"Ariana?" I asked him.

"My sister. It's a long story I don't want to start telling you, I'm afraid if it'll make you think any lesser of me"

I looked at him, and suddenly I saw him as myself, a man filled with regret, and a man who didn't even get the chance to fix it, the chance I was getting, the chance he never got, in that moment I understood him a lot better.

"Listen" I told him. "You told us nothing, left us with nothing. We spent months in a house, with an uncooperative elf, to stage a break in at the fucking ministry" I told him, almost shouting. The portraits of the headmasters had woken up, or stopped pretending to be asleep.

"We were hungry, we had a locket that made us think negative thoughts. It made me think the woman I love secretly loved my best friend, it made me jealous, it made me regret being born, and I didn't take it the right way. I shouted at them, I insulted them, forced her to make a choice that I shouldn't even have asked her to make, ever" I told him. He stared at me silently as I continued my tirade.

"I left them, abandoned them, the last thing I heard was her calling out my name" I told him. "I abandoned my best friend and the love of my life because I couldn't deal with jealousy"

He still didn't say anything.

"That is going to make you think lesser of me, and I'm not asking you for your story, but I just want you to know that I can't think any lesser of you than I think of myself" I told him.

I rose from my chair. "I'm not going to classes tomorrow, make an excuse for me, and whenever you feel like I'm ready to tell me the story, you know where I am" I told him, slamming the door behind me.

I half expected him to give me detention for shouting at him the next day, but it never came. He sat at the breakfast table, but he looked away whenever I looked at him. Was he guilty, or ashamed, or was he angry at me, or was it all the three, I had no idea.

The days began melding and the first year began winding to a close, and as per schedule, we discovered Hagrid's dragon egg. I didn't want a repeat of the last time, and I was torn between stopping something absolutely dangerous, or letting it happen the way it had the last time. That was the next time I went to Dumbledore's office.

"You've been looking away from me" I told him as I sat in the chair, and helped myself to another lemon drop. Those things were pretty delicious.

"I have" he said to me simply.

"Well, I don't care. I need you to know that Hagrid is planning on raising a dragon in the forest" I told him. He raised his eyebrows at that.

"Long story short-"

"What do you want to do?" he asked me.

"What do you mean?" I asked him. If there was one thing Dumbledore was not particularly known for, it was getting to the point.

"This happened the last time, Hagrid is well meaning, but he can be foolish sometimes, which means the dragon is going to hatch, and he is going to let it in the forest"

"Actually, we had to sneak Norberta out of the school, my brother Charlie, who works with dragons took him"

"Norberta?" he asked me, I thought he was trying to suppress a chuckle.

"Yeah, the Norwegian Ridgeback. Hagrid thought he was a male, but it turned out that he was actually a- well- she" I told him.

"Fascinating" he said to me.

"Harry and Hermione got detention for it, and they went to the forest. Voldemort was drinking unicorn blood" I told him.

"If anyone can commit a sin that dire, it would be Tom" he told me.

"He's not your student" I spat at him. "Not anymore, calling him Tom just humanizes him" I told him.

"Yes Ron, but he is a human being, one day he will die" he told me.

"He created Horcruxes with the sole intent of not ever dying"

"Yes, but death doesn't really care, death is something that Tom fears, which is why he created the horcurxes, but what goes up must come down someday, don't you think?" he asked me.

"So you're telling me that I have to decide whether to let things play out as last time?" I asked him. "Or change it?"

"You are the agent of time and fate, so yes, it is up to you, I won't stop you"

I thought about it for a bit, I couldn't help but feel resentful at being called 'the agent of time and fate' and I wondered if that was how Harry felt when he was called The Chosen One way back in my timeline. If he wanted to defeat Voldemort, he was going to have to face all those things that he faced, they were going to help him prepare.

"I want to say that it should happen the way it is, but I can't help but feel like I'm manipulating him, putting him in danger"

"I know that feeling" he told me. "We are quite similar, both of us"

"I'm nothing like you. You are talented, and I'm average. You are so talented that when you fuck up, you end up changing the world"

"Language Ron" he told me, but it wasn't to scold me, his eyes twinkled. "But that is well put. My mistakes do end up being pretty big don't they? Gellert, Tom, the list just keeps getting big" he told me.

"Your mistakes led you to your own grave" I told him.

"How did I die?" he asked me.

"Snape killed you" I told him, not caring if he knew about the future. "You should get rid of him yeah?"

"Severus would never betray me" he told me. I couldn't help but feel rage at that, here I was telling him that Snape was responsible for his death, and on his chair he sat, confidently refuting what I'd just said. For someone so smart, he was being awfully stupid at the moment.

"Well, he did kill you, why do you think he'll never betray you?" I asked him.

"Not my secret to tell" he told me, and I sighed. Another thing he wasn't telling me. "So your decision is to let things play out?"

I nodded.

"It's going to suck being bitten by a dragon again" I told him.

"Ron, maybe you should come up with another excuse to justify your absence from detention" he told me. "One that involves not getting a dragon bite"

I nodded again, that was indeed a good idea. I rose and told him that I was going to have to leave, as I was about to exit, he spoke again.

"By the way Ron" he told me, I stopped and turned to look at him.

"There is nothing average about admitting your mistakes, actually, there is something great about it, and it didn't make me think less of you, it made me think of you in a more positive light"

I had no idea what it meant, or maybe I did and I wasn't willing to admit it.

The events played out the way they were supposed to play out, and I couldn't help but feel guilty as Harry told me about his escapades in the Forbidden Forest. I couldn't help but dread what happened as we wrote our exams later on. Dumbledore still hadn't reached out to me after our brief meeting, and the days were passing by very quickly. Then we heard Hagrid tell us how he got the dragon egg, and it was time.

I rushed to the office before Harry could come to the conclusion that the stone was going to be stolen tonight.

"Harry thinks it's Snape" I told him as I barged in the office, he was writing something down on a piece of paper. "Philosopher's Stone" I told him.

"It's Quirrell, I know already" he told me. "But you should probably stop him yourself right?" he asked me.

"Harry stops him, I just help" I told him.

"You do more than 'just' help" he told me. "The shame is that you never realize that"

"Did your weird conquests and dreams also give you the unfortunate ability to speak in riddles?" I asked him, and he laughed at that. He actually laughed.

"That is a very funny thing Ron, you do have a great sense of humor"

"Yes" I said to him dryly. "I'm hilarious"

"You really are more than just help Ron, and the way you handled yourself at the cottage, you survived" he told me.

"No thanks to you"

Dumbledore laughed again. "I really am sorry about that Ron, but it's time you forgive me for that, I told you exactly what happened there didn't I?" he asked me.

"You never did tell me the entire story"

"Ron, will telling you the entire story help you?"

"I don't know" I told him.

"I'll tell you, after you deal with this today. I suppose I'm going to have to leave the school right?" he asked me. I nodded.

"Fill up on your supplies of lemon drops" I told him, looking at the now empty jar. He laughed again.

Later that day, Harry went to look for Dumbledore but ran into McGonagall instead, and realized that he was going to have to do something about it himself. Events played out like they always did, Neville tried to stop us, we stopped him. We played music for Fluffy and he fell asleep. We went down the trap door and fell onto devil's snare. I didn't give Hermione the chance to panic and lit the fire myself, the devil's snare retreated.

I couldn't help but feel like it was bollocks as I saw Harry catch the key snitch, it was the one with slightly ruffled feathers. The protections were something anyone could have gotten past, the only one that actually mattered was the mirror, Dumbledore's mirror, and I hadn't seen Snape's puzzle, but I was sure it was tougher than anything we'd have to do.

And then I came across the chess board, Harry was rook and Hermione was bishop again, while I was a knight.

I was a lot older this time though, and the chess was ridiculously easy, almost like the chessboard wanted to lose. I smiled as I took another piece and watched with a smirk. There was no choice, the opponent had walked into it's own trap, and one capture later, it was checkmate. This time I didn't even have to get smashed to bits.

I watched Hermione decode the logic behind the bottles, then I cringed as I realized there was only enough for one. We decided that Harry was going to be the one to go through, and we waited.

-x-

I watched as Harry's eyes fluttered open, as per the schedule, he had missed the quidditch match again and Oliver Wood was a sad sight to see, but Harry was alright. I couldn't help but feel guilty for putting him through this. And yet I wasn't going to be able to tell him anything in the future, however I consoled myself, nothing sounded convincing though, how was I going to navigate next year, when my own sister was going to be possessed. I needed to plan things out more carefully this time.

"It was Quirrell" Harry said to me, he sounded weak.

"You need to eat" I told him, shoving a box of beans in his direction. He smiled as he took one.

"You gave us a right bloody scare" I lied. I wasn't scared of whether something was going to happen to him, I was scared of not being scared, of underestimating fate and time, of manipulating him into almost getting killed.

'Calm down' I said to myself before a panic attack was going to sweep in.

"Awake then Harry" it was Dumbledore who walked into the hospital wing. "I believe you do have a visitor" he told me.

I watched as a clean shaven Sirius Black walked in, and while I was happy to see an old friend again, I couldn't help but think that something was going to give out.

"Just like your father, first year and already getting into trouble" he said to Harry with a smile on his face, and Harry smiled right back at him. Sirius then turned his attention toward me.

"Ah, the red hair has to mean you're Ron" he said. I nodded, and Sirius came over and gave me a hug before ruffling my hair, something he had never done in the past life. "You're padfoot to his prongs" he told me.

"I have no idea what you're talking about" I lied, I knew exactly what he was talking about.

"Long story" he told me. "I look forward to telling you"

"I look forward to listening to it" I told him.

I then looked at Dumbledore, who nodded at me and then I left the wing, Harry needed his time with Sirius and I needed time alone.

The end of the year feast was pretty much the same. I got fifty points for a great game of chess, Hermione got it for demonstration of cool logic, Harry got sixty for being the savior and Neville got ten for standing up to us.

"He totally just wanted us to win" I told Fred and George who just agreed. But Neville did deserve his points and I was going to have to make up to him.

Sirius enthusiastically cheered the Gryffindor win, and the next morning we were supposed to get on the train for the last time that year. That night was going to be the last night I was going to see Dumbledore for another two months, and I was determined to find out exactly what had happened to him that changed him.

As I reached his office door, I heard some slightly raised voices, one of them was Sirius, the other was Dumbledore. I decided that intruding on this moment was probably not a good idea and decided to hide.

"There is no need to hide Mr Weasley, you can come out now" the voice called out. I grumbled about Dumbledore being too aware for his own good and then made my way towards the two of them. Sirius did not look happy at all.

"Hey Ron" he said to me as I came over.

"Hey" I said to him. "Sorry about spying"

"No problems" Sirius told me. "Maybe you can help convince our barmy headmaster that what he's doing is absolutely foolish"

He was probably talking about sending Harry back to his relatives.

"You're sending Harry back to the Dursleys?" I asked him.

"Well spotted Ron" Dumbledore told me, he then looked at Sirius and added "He's really perceptive isn't he?"

Sirius nodded in agreement and I just blushed a little.

"Tell him Ron" Sirius told me. "Tell him that he's being stupid here"

"You're asking a student to insult the headmaster?" I asked him chuckling. I then turned towards the headmaster. "If I may Professor, he is right, I think you should consider having Harry stay over with him, or if not him then us" I told him.

"There are my reasons for him not staying at The Burrow, or with you Sirius" Dumbledore told both of us. "And that is final"

"This is ridiculous" Sirius said to Dumbledore. "I'm going to head out, I'll meet you guys at the station alright?" he said looking at me. I nodded and waved him goodbye as he left.

Soon after everything was settled, I was back in Dumbledore's office, and we were talking about what happened to him in his youth, and he told me about his sister, how she was tortured by some muggles, how his father was punished for cursing them, how he grew obsessed with The Deathly Hallows (which is what he called them), how Aberforth, his brother had tried to stop him, and the fight.

I didn't know how to react, except in shock and disbelief that someone as great as Dumbledore could be so fallible. And his follies were dangerous, but then again, I'd already said this to him before.

"What do you think now?" he asked me.

"I don't know" I said to him as I reached out to take a lemon drop from the now replenished jar. "But it doesn't matter"

"Why doesn't it matter?" he asked me.

"If you could have changed it, you would have. I'm just glad I get the chance to correct my mistakes"

We didn't say much and I left soon after that, still not sure about what to do with all the new information.

-x-

The mood was somber at breakfast the next morning. I suppose people were happy that they were going to start their summer holidays, but Harry hated the Dursleys and Hermione loved school, and both of them looked glum at the prospect of not seeing the castle for another two months.

"Hey" I said to Hermione, as we sat in the common room, for the last time for two months.

"Hey" she said softly.

"I'm going to miss this" I told her, she nodded and let out a small 'me too'

"I'm going to miss all of you" I told her. "Harry is not coming to the Burrow and you're going somewhere right?"

"I'm taking a vacation in France Ron" she told me smiling. "We do this every year, but this year I wish I could be at The Burrow" she told me.

"There are six more years" I told her. "You'll figure something out"

Fred and George seemed jovial that the school year was finally at a close, Percy looked worried and wondered if he had done well on his OWLS. If I remember correctly, he had gotten around eight OWLS, then again I could be wrong. It had happened before.

It was with a heavy heart we said good bye to each other as we reached King's Cross, but there was always going to be another year, and I was going to have to plan this out carefully.

I know this chapter was a bit on the shorter side, it was mostly Ron Dumbledore interaction, but I was mostly just trying to get that first year out of the way. I will expand on this story now and the next few years should me much longer, so I want you guys to keep reviewing and telling me what you think. Send in pairing ideas for the other characters if you want to see something particular.

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