Prologue

Ron shivered. No matter how they tweaked the environmental spells at Hogwarts, the dungeons were ice-cold an hour after sunset, even in the dog days of summer, and eerie, besides. Darkness seemed to cling to the stones that surrounded him, and he could not escape the feeling of being a small animal in a deep, dark warren, despite the slivers of moonlight enchanted to light the halls. So when a sound rang out amidst all the heavy silence, Ron's heart leapt into his throat.

"Weasley!"

"Merlin, Malfoy," he said with a hand clutched to his chest. "Don't do that!"

"What do you think you're doing, wandering about after curfew?" Malfoy demanded, sliding out of shadow and into the false moonlight. A tired smirk graced his pointy features. "We'll see what Professor Snape has to say about this!"

Ron pressed his lips together for a moment in silent rebellion. "I don't have time for this now," he said. He slipped past the blond boy and continued to move purposefully forward. "Besides," he shot over his shoulder, "I'm on my way to see Professor Snape."

Malfoy looked around as if to share this blatant falsehood with someone, issuing an incredulous little laugh. Ron reached one of the several winding staircases that led down into the dungeons before the Slytherin found his voice again.

"At this hour?" He manoeuvred in front of Ron and drew his wand. "I suppose next you'll say you saw Snape and McGonagall sharing Firewhiskey out of the House Cup."

Ron's features went grim. "Out of the way, Malfoy. I mean it."

"Petrificus!" Malfoy exclaimed, with a theatrical flourish that would have gotten him killed in a real duel. "Expelliarmus!" Malfoy shook his wand, as though he thought the magic were stuck, and a few good waggles would loosen it.

"Come along if you want," Ron ordered, sidestepping the flabbergasted Malfoy. "Only, hurry it up."

"There's something... gone wrong, with..." Malfoy stammered, trailing after him.

"And a good thing, too," Ron replied. "A Petrificus might've cracked my head open on these stones." He eyed the Slytherin. "Good thing you're as hopeless with a wand as you ever were."

"Shut up, Weasel! Ten points from Gryffindor for resisting a prefect!"

Ron rubbed at an encroaching headache. He didn't understand why this never got any easier; it wasn't as though he and Malfoy had ever been friends. But looking at Malfoy – at the dark, dark circles under his eyes, the paler than pallid skin, the hands that trembled, even now – he couldn't help but feel a little horrified, despite everything. The expression of dawning surmise as Draco attempted to remove points never lost its hopeless edge.

"T-ten points from –"

"There's usually a sort of little nudge that means the points have been awarded or taken away," Ron prompted, but he didn't stop moving. It wasn't like Malfoy was his only worry, tonight.

Draco Malfoy looked unseated. He jerked a small nod and paled even further, though Ron wasn't sure how that was possible. "Something's happened, hasn't it? My wand – I'm no longer a prefect, am I? They found it out, didn't they? And you – you used that – that Map... you're here for me... you're taking me to Snape..."

Malfoy's panic finally brought Ron to a reluctant pause. "Easy," Ron said. "I left Gryffindor Tower for Hermione, she's out wandering again. It's nothing to do with you." He drew the Marauder's Map out of his pocket. "I solemnly swear I am up to no good," he whispered.

The small dot labelled 'Hermione Snape' was not far ahead of them; she looked to be in the Potions lab.

Malfoy blinked over his shoulder, then took a stumbling step back.

Ron folded up the Map and placed it in one of the many inside pockets of his coat, continuing in Hermione's direction.

"Professor Snape..." Malfoy kept shooting him wary little glances, but he trailed Ron to the Potions lab, as Ron had known he would.

Ron knocked on the door and poked his head in. "Hermione."

"…the beeswax with the oil of sulfur," Hermione murmured thoughtfully, the thump of her boots muffled under the susurrus of her skirt as it swept the flagstones. "Only, there's every possibility that would interact with the citrus. Severus?"

"No, it's Ron," Ron said clearly, stepping through the door and jerking Draco forward with a nod of his head. "And Malfoy."

"…that might work," she allowed, sounding somewhat sarcastic, "if hellebore were anywhere to be found this time of year. Why do you insist on employing the most caustic and dangerous ingredients? We've spoken about that death wish; it doesn't suit you. Why not something gentler and more common? Neville said –"

"'Mione," Ron tried again, walking up to her pacing form and standing in her way.

"… well aware of your opinion of Neville, but no one can deny his skill in Herbology." She blinked. "Oh, Ron! Hello. Sev, Ron's here"

Draco's eyes traced Hermione's scarred face, the white streak in her brown curls. "Granger?"

Hermione leaned forward, head tilted to one side. "No-one's called me that in awhile." She frowned. "Are you quite all right?"

Draco sank heavily onto one of the low benches that ran along the front wall. "Your – your face –" He pointed out the long scar that ran across Hermione's left eye and down her cheek. Ron watched Draco's throat work. "I did that."

Ron lowered onto his haunches in front of the blond Slytherin and shook his head. "Your father did, with a head-on Sectumsempra. Thought it was poetic justice, reckon. She's pretty lucky, given that he meant to take her head off." Behind them, Hermione had taken up her monologue again, striding back and forth, arguing Potions with the empty air. Ron ignored her, for now: one thing at a time.

Draco groaned as he looked at Hermione. "You told me you were going to see Professor Snape –"

Ron took a deep, fortifying breath. "She is Professor Snape," he replied, his gaze trailing to Hermione's too-thin, pacing form. "The only Professor Snape for a long while now, no matter how she talks to him." He stared at Malfoy. "Can you hold the rest of your questions until I get her out of here?"

A sneer flickered across Draco's features before dissolving under Ron's unwavering gaze. "Y-yes. I mean, I suppose." Malfoy shook his head and rubbed the back of his neck.

Ron moved to intercept the agitated witch. "Hermione," he said.

Hermione's scar pulled her features ugly in her anger. "People are dying. I can go without a little sleep. I'm fine!" Then her shoulders fell forward, shrinking her frame. "Besides, we're close – so close. Just a few more permutations…"

Ron drew his wand. "Tempus. It's three in the morning. You're no use to anyone half-dead." He paused, then, a helpless expression stealing over his features. "Severus, you tell her."

Draco turned to stare at Ron, brows in his golden hair.

There was a stifling moment of quiet as Hermione tilted her head to one side in an attitude of fond yet exasperated attention. "…oh, very well," she huffed. "I know when I'm outnumbered. But I'll be back here first thing, you see if I don't."

When Ron reached out to clasp her hand, she jerked back from his touch.

"I'm not crazy," she said suddenly, cheeks flushed. "And I don't need to be led off to bed like a child." She nodded stiffly to Draco – "I hope you feel better soon –" and slammed the heavy, oaken door on her way out.

Wordlessly, Ron unfurled the Map atop one of the large workbenches and stared as the dot labelled 'Hermione Snape' moved again through the dungeons; Malfoy rose and peered over his shoulder. Ron breathed a deep sigh once she entered her rooms.

"What's the matter with her?" Draco demanded.

"She's alright," Ron said, defensively. "Mostly. It's just sometimes she thinks the war's still on –"

"Thank you, I divined that for myself," he snapped. "Her – her hair –"

Ron's lips flattened into a rigid line that trembled an instant before he replied. "She got that when she saw Harry die at the Battle of Hogsmeade. I never did credit it, but apparently, get someone scared enough and their hair really does turn white."

"The Battle of Hogsmeade – it's the Battle of Hogwarts that sounds familiar."

"It should. A lot of people died there. Including you."

For a minute, Draco only stared. Then, he took his wand out again and gave it an experimental little shake. "Lumos. Wingardium leviosa. Alohomora." The blond boy pocketed the wand with shaking hands. Malfoy's grey, luminous eyes scanned his; slowly, very slowly, the fog began to clear from them. "I went fighting against the Ministry Aurors. Surrounded, a dozen to one." He cleared his throat. "Some might say it was a very romantic end."

"Merlin's balls, Malfoy," Ron huffed. "You very nearly had me worried this time around."

Draco shook his head again, rapidly, from side-to-side. "How long was I out?"

"I haven't seen you in two weeks or thereabouts," Ron replied, "though time does seem to pass strangely, here." He eyed Malfoy. "You really look like hell."

"As you insist on reminding me," Draco replied, sniffing. "Let me reiterate that I was tirelessly working for my family's betterment when I died."

"Their survival, you mean."

"Better alive than dead."

Ron surveyed the empty Potions lab. "…maybe."

There was a space of silence. Ron was glad to have Draco back – loathe as he was to admit it – but there was always a few awkward moments shortly after his return. Ron wasn't sure what Draco thought about, himself – but for his part, Ron always began to wonder if someday Draco wouldn't come back. It happened to ghosts, sometimes: their sense of self dissolved away, especially if they'd died violently, and especially if they'd died without accomplishing something important. Draco's ghost ticked both boxes, and Ron couldn't help but think in these moments that it was only a matter of time.

Though Ron wondered who he was to judge. Sometimes, he would look up, and the depth of grey eyes and shock of white hair in the boy before him would startle him badly. Some part of him still longed for, expected, even, to be met with Harry, shoving his spectacles up his nose with one finger, lips stretching into Harry's wry, self-deprecating smile. And if mistaking Malfoy for Harry wasn't full-moon lunacy, he didn't know what was.

Sometimes he liked to imagine Harry was outside flying Quidditch, or down in the Great Hall, or hunched over a book in the library in desperate study for a Potions exam...

Sometimes he envied Hermione –

A low whistle emanated from beside Ron, and for a moment he worried he'd said that last part aloud.

But it wasn't Ron's strange thoughts, voiced or otherwise, that had garnered Draco's attention. "Would you look at this," he breathed, pointing out a large stack of parchment in a half-open drawer.

Ron lifted the pile free from the confines of the desk. It was covered with Snape's trademark chickenscratch as well as Hermione's flowing, elegant hand. Either the work was something Hermione read over and over, the work was something begun with Severus and continued on her own – or, worst of all, it was solely Hermione's work, and Hermione had taken up forging her husband's hand to further her fantasy. It wasn't dusty, so it must have been something that Hermione handled often.

"Your little girlfriend's been busy," Draco observed. "Do you know what this is?"

"Hermione was never my girlfriend," Ron snapped.

"A fact that still stings," Draco laughed. At Ron's severe look, he cleared his throat and began again. "These are Arithmancical calculations. Look at this, the Umlaght Equation, only – with one variable missing." He frowned.

"Queen's English, if you please."

"Gr – Sn – Hermione and the Professor were working on some potion that changed the perception of time."

"Why would you want a potion to do that?" Ron had learned over the years since Draco's death that the ex-Slytherin loved Potions and Magical Theory, and would babble on about them to anybody breathing, and sometimes to those who weren't. "I mean, the potion would only affect you, right?"

Draco grimaced in his inimical, Slytherin fashion: the kind of face that both mimed and mocked displeasure. "As always, you show no appreciation for the subtleties of the craft," he stated primly. "Saying space and time is a redundancy. There aren't just three dimensions: length, width, and height. You're not just your position in three-dimensional space: you're also who you are at this very moment. In the next moment you'll be slightly different, affected by your every experience. So whatever affects your physical body's position could also theoretically affect the moment in which you exist. And there are plenty of Transportation points."

The redhead considered this, rubbing at his chin. Ugh – he needed a shave. He was amazed that Draco hadn't mistaken him for one of his older brothers during his lapse. Hmm. Come to think of it – "is that why ghosts can get so confused?"

Draco beamed. "I knew you couldn't be as stupid as you look! That's exactly it. My body can't continue, so I can't progress forward in time, either – not without 'borrowing' from the living. The Hogwarts ghosts never lost track of time and place because there were always so many of the living to interact with, even over the summer..."

Ron nodded wearily, suppressing a yawn.

"What –? how insulting! This is fascinating stuff, Weasley! Fascinating!"

"Yes, yes, anything that drops from your lips is a pearl of wisdom. But some of us," Ron said, "are the living. And need sleep."

"I'm sure you could use all the beauty rest you can get," Malfoy replied considerately. He nodded to himself. "At least I died pretty."

Ron couldn't stop this second yawn. He rolled up the Map again and pocketed it, weaving a bit as he stood. "You... always say that," he commented, yawning again.

"Only," said Draco, "because it's still true."

When Ron finally made his way back to Gryffindor to sleep for what remained of the evening, Ginny was sitting up in the Common Room, warming her hands by the fire. She jerked up at the sound of his entrance.

"Hey, Ginny," he said awkwardly, opening his arms to her and patting her on the back when she leaned in. "Hey."

She pulled back and gave him a brave smile. "How's Hermione?" she inquired.

Ron shrugged. "The same. I'm sorry I took so long, but I ran into a certain Slytherin on my way down to collect her."

"Malfoy, or Draco?" she inquired.

"Malfoy," Ron huffed in amusement. He rather thought of them as Jekyll and Hyde, himself. "Took longer than usual, too, to bring him back to himself."

"Do you suppose he'll just forget everything after awhile," she wondered, "and not come back?"

A chill ran through Ron at this echo of his own thoughts. He'd come to rely on Draco as the only other denizen of Hogwarts castle who'd retained his sense of humour, not to mention that he played a mean game of chess. Ron found himself casting back, weighing the passage of moments and hours in his mind; this episode had been longer than the last; but what about the time before that? Had that been longer than the time before it? "Maybe, Gin," he conceded roughly.

She tucked herself under his arm.

He took her upstairs to the boys' dorm and slid into his old bed. She slid in across from him and they faced each other in the dark, like they had as children.

"What will you do tomorrow?" she queried, brown eyes intent.

"Tomorrow," he said, his voice soft with sleep, "I'll rework the low stone wall that pens in the animals at Care of Magical Creatures."

"And the rest of the month?"

He sighed gustily. "After that, I'll start in on the Great Hall."

She stiffened in surprise. "That's a big job."

"The biggest. I've been avoiding it."

He could hear her smile through her words: "…and at the end of the year?"

"And at the end of the year, Hogwarts will open again." He repeated their mantra and paused a solemn moment to believe it, to let the words sink into him until he was filled to the brim, until Gin could see the truth of it in his eyes. "What will you do tomorrow?"

Ginny nodded once and closed her eyes, her breathing going even, and he feared she'd fall asleep, too exhausted to keep their nightly ritual; but after a moment, her voice sounded groggily. "Tomorrow I'll finish harvesting the last of the potatoes," she whispered.

"And what will you do for the rest of the month?"

"Strengthen the notice-me-not charms around the perimeter of the grounds," she answered, her voice stalwart. "If only Draco's magic still worked!"

"And at the end of the year?"

There was a longer pause, and Ron shook her shoulder. "Gin?"

She opened her eyes and pillowed her head on her hands. "Ron, we really will, won't we?"

"Yeah," he assured her, then tried for bluster. "D'you think I'd be doing this much work if we weren't?"

"It's just – we were expecting help... but we haven't heard from anybody in so long…"

"What about Percy?" he prompted. "He told us the Ministry's back on its feet again."

"Percy'd say the Ministry's back on its feet if it were six feet under, Ron, and you know it," she said with a peevish frown. "Besides, when was his last letter?"

"A month or so ago," Ron admitted. "But that doesn't mean a thing. I'm sure he's very busy."

She snorted.

"No, really, Gin. Think of all that responsibility – all those people depending on him." He shrugged his free shoulder. "Percy's finally got all important – just like he always wanted." He paused. "Bet he wishes right now he wasn't."

That thought seemed to cheer Ginny. "Yeah – reckon you're right," she said, thumping his shoulder with her fist.

Ginny had always snored, loudly, but it would take more than that for Ron to send her packing. They guarded one another's dreams like this, Ginny kicking him smartly in the shin to remind him of where he was. He had the bruises to prove it, yellow and mauve and pale purple, some fresh and others nearly gone.

She turned back around and settled down.

He was three-quarters asleep when he heard her murmur her third and most important answer: "...and at the end of the year, Hogwarts will open again."

"Too right it will," he replied, and fell into slumber.

Draco usually shadowed Ron for a few days after he lost his place in time, waspish and uncertain by turns, but for some reason, perhaps due to his attitudes in life, he never actually entered the Gryffindor Common Room. Instead, he would camp out by the portrait of the Fat Lady and wait for the two Weasleys to emerge.

After Ron and Ginny stumbled out of bed and exited the portrait-hole, Ron lurched to a halt: the Slytherin boy was not following his usual routine. He looked up and down the hallway for the glint of white-blond in vain.

Ginny, still bleary-eyed, ran into Ron from behind. "Ow! Rooonnn," she whinged.

For a moment, he grinned; no matter how skewed things became, there was always Ginny for constancy. Ron slung an arm around her shoulder, and together the pair made their way to down to the kitchens.

"Have any new supplies come in yet?" Ginny wondered, selecting an apple for her brother, and tossing it to him.

"No," he replied, mouth full of damp fruit. A bit went flying across the abandoned kitchens and landed at Ginny's feet.

"Oh, gross," Ginny intoned. "For Merlin's sake, Ron! Are you twenty-two or just two?"

Ron paused, examining his half-eaten apple. "Am I twenty-two?"

Ginny quickly gave in to another grin as she leveraged herself up to sit on the edge of the kitchen table. "I figure it's March something-th."

Ron didn't like to think about how much time had passed since the last Battle of the war. "Could be." He removed some eggs from storage and lit a bluebell flame to cook with. By now, he was very familiar with the Hogwarts kitchens, though Ginny was better at manoeuvring in the place; everything except the small kitchen dining table was House-elf sized, including the circular wrought-iron apparatus hanging from the ceiling at periodic intervals, housing pots, pans, and various other kitchen implements, dangling at shoulder-height. He banged his head into one of them at least once a meal.

Alongside the eggs, he fried up two sausages, planning on splitting them with Ginny, Hermione, and Crookshanks; the Castle's other occupants usually fended for themselves. They had no bread because prepared foods had recently become hard to come by, but he had a little flour. Ginny came up alongside him and began to work it through with some water and a small bit of egg. She pounded it very, very thin and cooked it over a bluebell flame. The resulting mass was cracker-like, and smelled very good after so long without toast or muffins.

Perhaps it was the homey scents of bread and sausages in the morning, but the day had a vaguely festive feel. "I have decided," Ginny stated, at length, "that it is, in fact, March the first."

Ron frowned at her as she worked the edges of her cracker with a spatula and flipped it. "Well," he said. "Then Happy Birthday to me, I guess."

It was then that Crookshanks entered, purring with joy. He twined around first Ginny's ankles, then Ron's; Crooks had always had a fondness for girls, and for Hermione and Ginny in particular.

Once Crookshanks had been fed and petted and made much over, the two went off in search of their other living charge. Ron unfurled the Map, his eyes trailing automatically to the Potions labs. Much to his surprise, there were two dots there, and neither of them was Hermione. Taking off at a good clip, Ron reached the labs far ahead of his younger sister.

"…need either hellebore, avena, passiflora, or – yes – withania to accomplish that," a young male voice stated with confidence as Ron threw open the door. "Oh, hullo, Ron."

Draco Malfoy, luminescent and pale, was seated Indian-style atop a long, low, potions desk. Hermione's notes were spread out all around him in a vague semicircle.

"What are you doing in Hermione's things?" said Ron.

"Hello, Mister Wheezy!" rang a far smaller, and much-beloved voice.

"Dobby!" Ron greeted the small elf, pumping his arm up and down in joy. Then, "Dobby," he repeated in a much more sombre tone of voice, "what in Merlin's name –"

But it was Malfoy who responded, just as Ginny slid through the open door, his eyes wide, his usual flaxen-blond locks askew. "Weasley, I was wrong about the Muggleborn. I realize that now."

Ron blinked and eyed his out-of-breath sibling in shared dismay at this non-sequitur.

"Your girlfriend," Draco went on, waving his arms about for emphasis, "is amazing. A genius."

Ginny rolled her eyes and her lips parted to speak, but Malfoy didn't let her.

"No, no! – not like everybody always said in school. Like – like Einstein, or Merlin, or the Dark Lord. The sort of clever that – that changes the world."

Ron's amused dismay had left him, and left him cold. Shivers ran down his limbs. He felt himself assume that wartime stillness that meant he was ready to move in any direction. "Really?" he said. His voice emerged disinterested, despite the way his heart thrummed in his chest. "What has Hermione done?"

"Oh, it truly is incredible, Mister Wheezy, Geenie!" Comfortingly, Dobby looked as excited by Hermione's findings as Draco, bouncing a bit on his toes. "We is looking at her papers all the night long!"

"You've been at this all night?" Ginny demanded, looking concerned.

"Oh, yes!" Dobby continued gleefully, looking not a bit the worse for wear. "And what we is finding is that Mister Harry Potter, sir – we could be bringing Mister Harry Potter back, sir!"

A/N:

Why, hello, there.

For those of you who haven't already heard the story behind the story, the history of A Game of Chess is a decade long.

I started writing this story after Secret of Slytherin - yes, you read that right, about a decade ago.

Secret of Slytherin was the first Harry Potter fic I ever wrote. Afterwards, it seemed that, no matter what I tried, my characterization, themes, and plot points seemed not similar to but identical to the ones in SoS.

So, to break myself out of this rut I purposely took tropes that I never use - generally because they're handled very, very badly - and slapped them in a blender. Out popped the first few chapters of Game of Chess, which did not read like SoS in the slightest.

Can you guess all the unfriendly tropes?

Let's start with the most obvious one.

Ron is the main character. And while Harry plays an integral part in this story, you'll note he isn't even listed as one of our four main characters here because Snape, Hermione, Draco, Ron - and even Neville - get more 'lines' than he does in this story. Nevertheless, he is the lynch pin, the hub around which all the other characters' actions must swing: the king on the board, if you like.

I'd never written Ron's perspective before. This Ron is the ur-Ron who produced Geas of Gryffindor's Ron and Being Harry Potter's Ron. Without A Game of Chess and my game of awful-trope-bingo, we might never have gotten to know those guys.