I've come across some different fanfics where they had Ron suffering from a magical parasite that explained his attrocious eating habits. But then I got to thinking, what if that isn't all of what a magical parasite does? What if...it can completely control the person. Even have some modicum of intelligence so no one knows they are being controlled? Everyone just thinks they are a rude, lazy, bigoted pillock. So this plot bunny was born. Now, would the real Ron Weasley please stand up?
"Want one, Granger?" said Malfoy, holding out a badge to Hermione. "I've got loads. But don't touch my hand, now. I've just washed it, you see, don't want a Mudblood sliming it up."
Some of the anger Harry had been feeling for days and days seemed to burst through a dam in his chest. He had reached for his wand before he'd thought what he was doing. People all around them scrambled out of the way, backing down the corridor.
"Harry!" Hermione said warningly.
"Go on, then, Potter," Malfoy said quietly, drawing out his own wand. "Moody's not here to look after you now – do it, if you've got the guts –"
For a split second, they looked into each other's eyes, then, at exactly the same time, both acted.
"Furnunculus!" Harry yelled.
"Densaugeo!" screamed Malfoy.
Jets of light shot from both wands, hit each other in mid-air, and ricocheted off at angles – Harry's hit Goyle in the face, and Malfoy's hit [Ron]. Goyle bellowed and put his hands to his nose, where great ugly boils were springing up – [Ron], whimpering in panic, was clutching [his] mouth.
"[Ron]!" [Hermione] had hurried forwards to see what was wrong with [him].
Harry turned and saw [Hermione] dragging [Ron's] hand away from [his] face. It wasn't a pretty sight. [Ron's] front teeth…were now growing at an alarming rate; [he] was looking more and more like a beaver as [his] teeth elongated, past [his] bottom lip, towards [his] chin – panic- stricken, [he] felt them, and let out a terrified cry.
But Ron's two front incisors didn't stop growing. In a moment they elongated down to his chest, and they were growing wider and wider. As they grew wider they forced his other teeth to crack and split, falling out of his mouth. Blood was pouring from his upper gums.
The bloody teeth were down to Ron's knees, while everyone looked on, horrified at the sight. It was like a train wreck, the bystanders couldn't quite believe what they were seeing.
Suddenly, the weight of the teeth grew too much, and they finally detached from Ron's mouth, falling to the ground. Ron staggered back, staring at his fallen teeth. The expression on his face, if anyone were to notice, wasn't horror or pain. It was glee. Sheer, unadulterated happiness.
"Free!" Ron crowed, startling everyone around them.
They finally looked away from the bloody teeth on the ground to see the unusual sight of a bloody mouthed Ron dancing and jumping around the hallway.
"I'm finally bloody free! It's been so effing long!" Ron continued to exult, to everyone's bewilderment. Ron ran up to Malfoy, who was too stunned to react, and gave him a huge bear hug while spinning him around. "Malfoy, you beautiful bastard! I could almost kiss you! I won't, but I could!"
Ron abruptly dropped Malfoy, who fell to his ass, so discombobulated by a hated Weasley hugginghim, that he forgot to use his legs. Ron then turned his attention to Harry, who backed away nervously.
"Who's the best mate a guy could have?!" Ron questioned Harry. "You are of course! Thank you so much Harry!" And Ron grabbed him up in a bloody hug, smearing him with blood. He then reached over and grabbed Hermione, to make it into a three way hug. "I'm sorry, Harry, Hermione for being such a prat over the years. But you see, I've been in the grip of a terrible parasite since I was 8." Ron pointed at his giant bloody teeth lying on the ground.
At this point Snape made his presence known, looming over the students. He looked at Goyle and sent him to the hospital wing.
"And just what trouble are you causing now, Potter?" Snape sneered. Harry looked like he didn't even know where to start. Malfoy finally overcame his shock, and was about to open his mouth to lie about who started the trouble when Ron interrupted.
"It's the best thing ever, Professor!" Ron cheered out, jumping in front of Snape. Snape flinched back from his toothless bloody smile. "I've been rid of the parasite that infested my teeth years ago, professor!" Ron again pointed at his giant teeth lying on the ground.
Everyone turned to look at the bloody sight again, and this time they noticed that the teeth were shifting on their own. Many spider-like legs were sprouting out of it, as it attempted to get up and move, letting out a most disturbing chittering sound. Unfortunately their great weight prevented the two teeth parasites from doing more than rocking back and forth.
Ron shivered, pulled his wand, and silently cast the hottest fire he could on the two teeth parasite. He shivered in remembered terror at his ordeal of not being in control of his body since he was 8. Ron delighted in watching the bloody things die by fire.
"I…see." Snape sneered. He looked at Ron in a calculating manner. "So, you've been possessed by the Dente Parasitus. It might explain your poor abilities in class, Weasley." Snape sneered again. He could hardly help it, he made that expression when he was six and true to the words of his mother, his face got stuck like that. "Go to the hospital wing, Weasley."
Ron nodded. "Sure thing professor, on my way!" And Ron danced down the hallway, singing about freedom, to the bemusement of everyone present.
"Oh, and 50 points from Gryffindor for fighting in the halls, Potter." Snape sneered. Just because Snape's face was stuck in a permanent sneer didn't mean he wasn't petty when it came to Potter. Bit obsessed, that one.
"Yes, professor." Harry muttered, resigned to how Snape treated him after three years of it. Harry and Hermione looked each other in the eye and wordlessly agreed to skip potions so they could question Ron about just what had happened to him. From the looks of it, the presence of the parasite had seriously affected his behavior. They needed to get to the bottom of this.
And that moment, when Ron was hit by Malfoys spell instead of Hermione, was the turning point for our plucky trio, and their future was much brighter than before.
Ron, no longer locked inside his mind by the presence of the tooth parasite, was able to return to how he was years ago. A bright and curious boy who had a thirst to live up to the name Weasley. A boy who had a very interesting and talented family.
The father worked as a department head amidst all the politics, working alongside law enforcement. The mother was a retired duelist and accomplished housewife, who spent her time herding 7 energetic children. The oldest brother was a curse breaker. The second was an aspiring beastmaster who worked with dragons. The third was also interested in politics, and studied to advance himself. The twins were especially interested in all things potions. And the sister who was a quidditch nut.
All the time Ron was locked in his mind, unable to act, led him to develop certain abilities to entertain himself, and learn. The parasite that was in control of Ron was lazy, and so it only did the bare minimum to keep people from forcing it to learn. The parasite's main hobby was to eat and play.
So when the parasite was forced to "study", it only paged through the books. This made it so if Ron wanted to be able to read or learn anything, he had to learn to speed read, and remember everything. Ron listened to everything his very interesting family would talk about at home. And when the parasite was doing nothing, Ron would learn how to create a mind palace, so he could revisit everything he'd seen and learned, making sure he never forgot anything.
Over the next couple of weeks leading up to the first task, Harry and Hermione watched Ron, bemused at the vast changes in the boy. The first thing he did was drag them to find his "best friend ever", one Luna Lovegood.
Ron had been captured by the parasite at about the same time that Luna's mother had died, so Ron felt horrible for not being there for his friend. Once he found out that Luna was being bullied by the Ravenclaws, he was furious. He found out who had done the bullying, and demanded, badgered, and hectored the professors into finally taking action. Luna was ecstatic that the wrackspurts had finally cleared up from her friend.
When Harry found out that his little crush, Cho Chang, was one of sweet Luna's bullies, that crush died a most ignoble death. After living with Dudley, and having to put up with Malfoy, there was no way a little bit of hormonal attraction was going to survive the huge disgust he felt for any bullies. This led Harry to opening his eyes to finally notice that Hermione was an attractive girl. Later in the year, encouraged by Ron, Harry made the smart choice and invited Hermione to the ball. They had a lovely time.
The second thing Ron did was to badger Harry and McGonagall to let him and Harry drop divination cold. They would spend the rest of the year catching up in Arithmancy and Ancient Runes. Aside from Divination being useless, Harry was stuck competing in the tournament. There was no time to be faffing about with a fluff subject when they could be learning something useful.
The third thing Ron set about correcting was his two new friend's (Harry and Hermione made friends with the parasite while Ron was along for the ride, but he liked them so he wanted to hang out with them) ignorance about wizarding society. It had been almost physically painful to watch Hermione go on about freeing house elves. That would be as good as killing the little buggers. But no one had bothered to tell Hermione that. Which caused quite a bit of scowling on her part when she realized so many people were laughing at her ignorance behind her back. Even the professors didn't bother to set her straight. Thus died any lingering reverence for authority figures she might have had after being friends with Harry for the past three years. Which led to the discovery that Dobby had already bound himself to Harry. Hermione then let Winky bind herself to her, to save Winky from her misery.
(Hermione would find out in years to come that that single act of compassion based on what the elf needed, instead of assumptions and what her crusading spirit told her to do was nearly the best decision she ever made. Winky proved time and again a priceless aid in helping her mistress in her studies about the very nature of magic and integrating magic and technology. A story for another time.)
Ron also knew that Harry had no clue about the Ancient and Noble House of Potter's role in wizarding society. So it fell to Ron to help him learn about his inheritance, how he could go about forcing the government to have a trial for Sirius Black, and what he would have to watch out for to avoid people taking advantage of his naivety to steal from him. As a pureblood raised in the magical world with a Department Head as a father, Ron was able to overhear quite a lot about politics and dirty dealings. He would be a poor friend if he didn't help educate his friends about the pitfalls they were falling into.
Ron also made the move to rope Neville into their group of friends, as well as being much more welcoming to Ginny. Ron was able to convince Professor McGonagall to take him and Neville to get a properly matching wand, taken out of the discretionary scholarship funds. With a new wand that responded to Neville like never before, as well as having friends to back him up, Neville's confidence grew.
From then on, the group of Harry and Hermione, Ron and Luna, and Neville and Ginny could always be seen studying together.
When Harry discovered that dragons were the first task, the group kicked into Save-the-Potter-from-Fiery-Death-and-Digestion mode. The group copied and dissected any books about dragons while Ron and Ginny pumped their brother Charlie for tricks of the trade.
It was good they acted so soon to make copies of the books about dragons, because Ron noticed that after Harry tipped off the nature of the task to Diggory, somehow the books disappeared from the library until after the first task. They were all checked out by various Hufflepuff students.
It might be possible the huffle-jerks that were still calling Harry a cheater might not have deliberately tried to sabotage him, except for the fact that every meal time up until the first task there were several Hufflepuffs that would sit across from Harry conspicuously reading their books about dragons in an overly smug manner. When Ron pointed out this act of Hufflepuff loyalty to Harry, it cooled Harry's desire for a fair contest by quite a bit. After that, Harry was out to win the tournament so he could rub his win in their faces. Bunch of gits.
Thanks to a bit of insider knowledge gained from Charlie, when Harry faced his dragon, he was able to accomplish the task in three easy spells. The first spell lured the Horntail's attention to a different part of the arena. The next was to make his presence and scent almost invisible to the dragon. The last was to finite the spells.
Of course the judges from the other two schools gave Harry few points in a very biased manner. They were still unhappy at the inclusion of a fourth contestant.
Thanks to the inclusion of Luna in their group, within a day of getting the egg they knew the poem that was the clue for the second task. Ron wasn't sure if there were many magical animals that Luna hadn't at least some knowledge of.
The Yule ball ended up being a smashing success. Harry took Hermione, Ron took Luna, and Neville took Ginny.
When Diggory told Harry to take a bath with the egg out of the blue, Harry followed the etiquette that Ron and Neville taught him and politely thanked Diggory for his advice. But once they were behind closed doors, the mocking commenced. It didn't help their opinion of Diggory that he took the bullying bitch Chang to the ball.
"What a passive aggressive tool. I at least told him straight out what the obstacle was. Did he tell me to open the egg and listen to the poem underwater? No, he tells me to take a bath. Whatever. He didn't even bother to ask if I already knew. He was just trying to make himself feel better by no longer 'owing me one'." Harry ranted the next day.
The day of the task found the group, minus Hermione, down at the docks waiting for the start of the next task. Harry was looking very nervous and determined at the same time. Thanks to Neville and his knowledge of gillyweed, the whole group had explored the black lake and knew where the mer village was.
Harry had learned the bubblehead charm and he had extra gillyweed as backups in case something went wrong. They had practiced underwater silent casting, and Harry's spells packed a punch. He was ready for the contest, but nervous at Hermione being the one in danger.
The contest started! And Ron, Luna, Neville, and Ginny sat in the stands, bored and nervous for the next hour, with nothing to look at.
15 minutes before time ran out, Harry came out of the lake, pulling Hermione (who was awake and had a bubblehead charm on) and a small blonde girl that looked on the verge of death. When Harry got out of the water with Hermione's help, they saw he had a spear in his leg.
Fleur had been dragged out of the water by grindylows and dumped on the shore, half drowned, 15 minutes previously. She had only just recovered and was about to make a second attempt at recovering her sister, when Harry showed up with little Gabrielle in tow.
Ron, Ginny, Luna, and Neville later learned that Gabrielle was being tortured by the Merfolk when Harry showed up. He had woken Hermione with a bubblehead charm to help him swim the girl out while Harry defended them from the Merfolk, getting injured in the process. Gabrielle would likely have died without Harry and Hermione's help. That was the moment that House Delecour became staunch allies of House Potter, even several generations later, the ties between houses were strong.
As time moved forward towards the third task, Ron became more worried about the dreams Harry was having about Voldemort. So Ron contacted his brother Bill and arranged for him to come in the middle of March check Harry for any curses. It wouldn't surprise Ron to find out some death eater had cursed Harry when they had a chance.
The checkup found that Harry had a soul leach in his scar, which siphoned off magical power to the owner of the soul leach. Bill also discovered that Harry was laboring under magical bindings that locked up over 75% of his available magical reserves. Harry had various other bindings that locked his intelligence and various magical abilities. He had also been fed potions that inhibited his growth and sight, making him nearsighted.
Bill was aghast at the shackles that Harry was laboring under while still being an above average wizard. And if the magical bindings were still in place when they hit their 17th birthday, then they became permanent. Ron looked around at the group of friends, considering just who benefitted from Harry being shackled. What about those around Harry? Would they be targets too?
"Hey, Bill. While you're here, check us five also, would you?" Ron asked.
That simple question would lead to the future downfall of Dumbledore. (Dumbledore has been binding Hogwarts student's magic for years so that he would always be the most powerful. Slughorn and later on Snape helped him with potions to control and lessen the student's abilities. It would be discovered later that Dumbledore should actually be average in power, except that he had been binding so many students magic that by 1995 he was nearly the strongest one around, anymore.)
They immediately all went to Gringotts and had the rituals to take out the soul leach and use it in a ritual later to destroy all of Voldemort's Horcruxes. All their bindings were removed, Harry was put on potions to overcome his early years of starvation.
Bill then started spreading their findings around to different families on the down low. That summer found practically all the wizarding and muggle families making their way to Gringotts for evaluation and binding removal rituals. It was great business that Bill brought to Gringotts, and he was rewarded for his hard work.
So when Harry got to the final task, with no bindings, he tore through the maze. Once Barty Crouch jr. saw how Potter was going so fast, he realized he didn't need to imperious Krum to help Potter get through, so Fleur was just fine and never crucio'd. And Harry never had the chance to offer a joint win with Diggory. Not that Harry would do that in this timeline, since he thought Diggory was an arrogant pillock.
So Harry arrived in the graveyard vastly more powerful, trained, (and without the cheating of J.K. to give him a headache that incapacitated him just enough so he couldn't resist being captured to be made a part of the ritual due to the fact that he didn't have a soul leach in his head), and easily took down Pettigrew. He then killed Voldebaby, and Nagini. Without any horcrux, Voldebaby be dead.
So then Harry returned via portkey with Pettigrew as final proof that Sirius was innocent (Sirius was exonerated shortly after Pettigrew's trial that summer). Crouch jr. was caught and Harry's friends made sure Amelia Bone was around to prevent accidental soul removal by kiss that Fudge oh so wanted to instigate.
(Incidently, Umbridge made such a nuisance berating Madam Bones for not licking Fudge's ass that they ended up in an honor duel later that week. Umbridge ended up not being able to talk her way out of a spell battle and died, leaving all the assets of house Umbridge to House Bones. When they went through Umbridge's records, the Bones women learned just who was responsible for the death of Amelia's fiance as well as Susan's parents. Vengeance was had shortly after.)
Dumbledore's misdeeds were soon found out, he lost everything and was cast through the veil. With no Dumbledore to protect him, Snape went out the same way.
Harry, Hermione, Ron, Luna, Neville, and Ginny never had their fifth year field trip to the ministry, but the ties of friendship they had from their momentous fourth year lasted a lifetime.
Harry and Hermione married and had a passel of kids while rewriting everything the world knew about magic and technology, making space travel possible.
Ron and Luna spent their honeymoon and many other vacations looking for more magical creatures. In the future after Harry and Hermione made it possible, Ron and Luna spent many years introducing their kids to the magical creatures on other planets. It was a never ending adventure.
Neville and Ginny married, and worked well together. Neville worked on his Herbology potions ingredient business that swelled the Longbottom coffers while Ginny had a nice career playing quidditch. She always had her husband and children to come home to.
And life was generally good, all because Malfoy hit Ron instead of Hermione with a teeth enlarging spell.
The end.