Multi-fandom Oneshots

Checkmate {Ron Weasley}

The match was set. The final moves in place and their fates were sealed. There would only be one winner tonight. Only one player would make it out of this alive. On one hand, we had a tall ginger boy. Child six out of seven. A nervous, prone to jealousy, dashing, smart, protective, sarcastic, and adorable Gryffindor boy. He was a master. On the other... we had a girl. Who was SO. TIRED. Of losing to him. It seemed fate was not on her side as Ron moved his final piece. He looked up at her with a sheepish smile.

"Checkmate?" He said in a questioning tone. The girl across from him stared blankly at the bored. Disbelief. Pure disbelief flooded through her and rendered her frozen, doomed to stare at her loss for all eternity.

Until Ron snapped his fingers in front of her face and snapped her out of her mindset. She blinked rapidly, looking up at him, her brows still furrowed deeply.

"How? How! I was winning," she exclaimed. Ron winced. She actually hadn't been. Sure, she had more of his pieces, but he knew the sacrifice that he had to make in order to win the chess match.

"Afraid you weren't, love," he replied. Her furrowed brows were put to good use as she glared at him. She glared between him and the bored. She tried to remember their moves up until he won.

The memory of her moving her Rook away from her King flashed painfully in her mind. She knew where she had gone wrong. That seemed to happen a lot. No matter how many times she lost to Ron and no matter how many times she realized what went wrong and learned to fix it, whenever they played again, she ended up making an entirely new mistake.

She huffed, pushing the board of muggle chess and all of the pieces she had collected away from her and falling back into her chair in the Gryffindor common room. Students who walked by, looked at the game and then down at her, sending pitiful looks her way. The students of Hogwarts knew her and Ron's everlasting game of chess. She had never won a match. In all of the four years they had been playing, she never got to win. But she wasn't ever planning on giving up. Her eyes fell onto all the pieces she collected and she straightened in her seat.

"Well, if we base who won on who collected more pieces, I clearly won," she stated, motioning towards the many pieces she collected and then looking in mock smugness over at Ron's smaller pile of pieces. Ron smiles at her with an intense fondness, his smile completely lighting up his eyes. Not that she ever noticed.

Whenever they had the chance, the pair would play over the year. She would continue to lose and Ron would feel bad each time. Though she didn't let him dwell on it as she would tease him and make him blush and try and get their minds off of it. Sure, she was bad at the game. She knew that. He knew that. All of Hogwarts knew that! But if she ever won, she wanted to win fairly. She didn't want him throwing the game; something she knew he would do.

Through all the chaos their fourth year of Hogwarts brought, their chess games were their relaxation and their serenity. Even if they were short and their games were cut off early, their games became the light when they were surrounded by so much darkness.

Once summer rolled around, they had a lot more time to play chess. And they used that to their advantage, happy to have the time off from the impending war and happy to have the distraction from Dumbledore's order not to talk to Harry.

They sat outside of the burrow in the grassy plains behind Ron's home. She had been there since fourth year ended, not bothering to go home as she knew she would end up there in a week anyways. Her parents, who weren't entirely interested in magic, allowed it and there had been a few owls sent since.

Ron had moved his knight and had taken one of her pawns that currently protected her king. She looks up at him from the board with a brow raised.

"Seriously?" She remarks, a plain tone to her voice. He smiles, looking dopey.