Checkmate

"Come on, one more game Ron?" Hermione pleaded.

"Ah, Hermione, you know I'll beat you so what's the point?"

"Please, just this one last time?" Hermione asked again, batting her eyelashes as if daring him to back down. Ron gulped, as it was so hard to turn down that look on her face.

"Oh, all right," Ron responded and he sat cross-legged across the chessboard that Hermione had set up twenty minutes before. The fire burned heartily behind them, slightly warming their backs. Harry was out at Quidditch practice, and so Ron and Hermione were left in each other's company. This either could result in a stronger friendship between the two of them or a very messy murder scene.

"I'm going to beat you this time, I can feel it," threatened Hermione.

"Uh huh, sure you will," Ron answered sarcastically. He looked up from the familiar checkered board to the intense expression on Hermione's face. Her eyes were flashing and she lay on her stomach, swinging her legs back and forth as she chewed on her lip in deep contemplation. He held his breath as her long, delicate fingers tapped her slightly pink cheek gently. She whispered softly to her players, and looked up at Ron with a devilish expression that caused his heart to skip a beat.

The chessboard was familiar territory for Ron. He had grown up in its field of violence, learned the strategies for the battlefield and was able to conquer on it. The game lay in the palm of his hand as he looked down upon it and forced it to follow his will. Opponents quaked with fear when they looked up to his knowing face and pleaded for mercy. Now Hermione, that was a completely different game.

He studied her in fascination as she would study a new book from the library. He suddenly remembered moments late at night once everyone else had left the common room, when he would creep down with Harry's invisibility cloak and watch Hermione doing her homework. He had once, a long time before, tried to sort together what made him so nervous whenever Hermione was around; why his heart would start pumping so, and his tongue grew thicker when he tried to talk to her and explain how he felt. Most of the time when he tried to express any of his feelings for Hermione, insults and stupid remarks came out. Ron's thoughts drifted back to his fourth year, during the Yule Ball. He knew that he no longer wanted Hermione just as a friend, and was afraid that she would never feel the same way since she had Viktor. He wanted to punch the ugly, duck-footed git's guts out and make him forget that there ever was a Hermione. Who cared if he was a professional Quidditch player?

"Ron, it's your turn," Hermione reminded and Ron quickly shook his head from his daze.

"Uh, right" was his clever and witty response and he was about ready to bang his head against the chessboard because of his stupidity. Hermione was sure to have noticed; she always noticed when he acted stupid. He slipped back into his state of unawareness as Hermione's legs swung faster with impatience. The anticipation grew greater on her face with each passing second.

Ron gulped and studied the board quickly. Smiling, he whispered to his knight and Hermione's bishop was dragged off the board despite its protest. Ron looked up, feeling smug, but nearly fainted at the expression on Hermione's face. Ron's stomach dropped and his hands went clammy. He cleared his throat and felt the warmth going strait to his ears. He tried to cup his hands over them in attempt to hide his embarrassment, but it didn't matter. Hermione was too caught up in the game to notice him. How could he dare to win? Hermione looked as though she would never speak to him again if he beat her yet another time. NO! He wouldn't lose. He had one thing that was strictly his, and no one could take that away from him, not even Hermione.

He slowly lowered his hands, his embarrassment now fading, and went back to studying Hermione. Her bushy hair was all over the place and when she started to move her hand to the board, a stray strand landed across her eyes. Ron almost reminded her that it wasn't Muggle chess that she was playing, but she quickly drew her hand back, blowing the strand back to its proper place out of frustration. Her face suddenly brightened with realization and she motioned one of her players to move forward.

Ron rubbed his hands together with the challenge and studied the board once again. He was entering his playing field. It took almost no time whatsoever for him to realize that Hermione had just left a space open for him to take her king. All he had to do was move his rook and the king would be trapped because of all the other players surrounding him. Ron screwed his face in confusion and bewilderment, and made it seem as if he had no clue what he was doing and had moved his rook randomly.

Hermione looked as though she had bought it at first, but she soon saw the trap that Ron was planning.

"You forgot to say Check," she spoke up.

"Oh did I? Wait a second, isn't it Checkmate?" Ron answered, scratching his head.

"No it's Check," Hermione answered happily, and told her knight to capture the rook. Ron's jaw dropped and he looked from the board to Hermione. It couldn't be possible. He had made the wrong judgment. How could he, the master of the chessboard, make the wrong move? He studied the board intensely, almost as intensely as Hermione had before him and secretly mapped out an ambush in his head. He'd come to the conclusion that Hermione had never beaten him at chess, and he was not about to let her. She was going down.

Their next couple of moves passed quickly for each was going through with his or her own plan. Their glares looked as if they were going to burn holes through Ron's precious board. Ron started getting antsy at the taste of his short coming victory. He could see it all happening in his head. Hermione just had to make one more move and he would be able to checkmate her king. He had looked at every possibility this time and there was nothing that she could do.

His focus, unwillingly, went to Hermione once again. Her tongue ran lightly across her lips, and her eyebrows were drawn in concern. She wasn't so sure she had a chance any longer. Ron's heart started beating faster as the adrenaline started pumping through his veins. He realized that there was a reason why he constantly looked at Hermione, and perhaps he should make a move towards that game. Should he attempt to tell her?

"Hermione," he started to say.

"Oh, what do you want?" she almost yelled out.

"Never mind," was all Ron could say, his pride badly hurt. He was only one move away from winning the game of chess, yet at the same time, one move away from losing matters of the heart. His stomach dropped even lower and he felt the blood rushing back to his ears. Hermione quickly told her knight to capture a pawn, even though all of her players, including the ones that had been dragged to the sidelines, screamed at her, saying that the king was in the danger of checkmate. She hid her face in shame on the rug, waiting for Ron to make the final move.

"Hey Hermione," Ron tried again, the blood now reaching his cheeks and highlighting his freckles.

"Yes?" Hermione answered, lifting her face from the rug. Her lips were red from the pressure of chewing on them so much. She slid her tongue across them once more, making them glossy. Ron could no longer resist. He leaned across the chessboard towards her, knocking players down in the process. They rolled around on the floor, swinging their weapons at each other so that someone might notice them and put them back in their proper places. Ron gently kissed Hermione and looked into her eyes once more, fiery from the challenge of the game.

"Checkmate", Ron muttered softly but was quickly shut up by Hermione's lips, closing over his once more.