How Wizards Do Money: Ron Weasley

Ron and Hermione’s children were at least one-third Muggle, or something like that — maths were never Ron’s strong suit — and Hermione insisted they spend as much time with their Muggle grandparents as they did with the Weasleys. Since he and Hermione spent nearly every Sunday dinner at his parents’ house, that meant he also spent a lot of time watching Hermione zoom away in her little silver Prius, Rose and Hugo in back, on their way to London.

Ron didn’t often go with them. He still felt a little discombobulated by the Muggle world. At one point Hermione said “well, I learned everything about your world,” and then she stopped saying it and took the children on her own.

But then there was the afternoon when the children returned from their trip to the dentists and Ron noticed Rose staring at him with a question right between her eyes, and he supposed it would be a birds-and-bees thing, or maybe “why can Nana do magic but Granny can’t,” and instead she found him after dinner and asked him if he was a time-traveling Dumbledore.

It was something she had seen on the internet. Ron was still desperately unclear on what the internet actually was, but Rose explained that she had found a website that seemed to have information about their lives, and that one of the pieces of information was that her daddy was a time-traveling Dumbledore.

“Stay away from webs,” Ron said, trying to turn it into a Dad Joke. “They have spiders in ‘em.”

Hermione swept in and explained to Rose that just because it was on the internet didn’t mean it was true, it was like being foolish enough to believe everything Rita Skeeter wrote, and then she said something to Ron about how she’d have to take care of that website later, and Ron nodded as if he knew what she meant, even though they both knew that he didn’t.

But Rose’s question made Ron very curious: was he a time-traveling Dumbledore? Just because he hadn’t time traveled yet didn’t mean that he wouldn’t someday. And they did own a Time Turner; the ones in the Ministry had been destroyed during the Second Wizarding War, but he had one built for Hermione as a birthday present — expensive gift, especially because she never wore it and they were still paying off the debt, but it was theirs. If anyone was a candidate to become a time-traveling Dumbledore, it was him.

It took him three nights to work up the nerve.

The first time he opened his eyes after using the Time Turner he was immediately relieved to discover that he was still Ron, and not Dumbledore. His body was still his own body.

Of course, maybe he had to take the Time Turner to Hogwarts to make it work. So Ron made an excuse to visit Neville, and at one point he cadged a reason to use the toilet and then he quickly traveled back in time to when he was eleven. When he left the toilet he wandered around until he found the eleven-year-old version of himself talking to the real Dumbledore. That seemed to solve the problem. Of course Ron couldn’t be a time-traveling Dumbledore because he and Dumbledore were two separate people.

Ron decided that while he was still at Hogwarts, he would use the Time Turner to watch himself play Quidditch. He climbed up to the last row of the stadium and nobody saw him, and he watched everything. He didn’t let that Quaffle in, just like he remembered. He was their KING!

After that Ron developed a minor addiction to time travel.

He went back and watched everything: the Wizard Chess match, the first time he kissed Hermione, their wedding day, the birth of their children, the first time he saw Hermione naked.

One day he accidentally did the maths wrong and found himself watching him and Hermione fight. They were arguing about money. Hermione was shouting that if they had just saved a little more last year, they wouldn’t have this problem today.

Ron didn’t like watching Hermione shout at him, even in the past. So he turned the Time Turner a few more times and found the night where Hermione had received her annual bonus for excellent service to the Ministry. He swiped the cheque off the table, ran it down to Gringotts, and told the goblins to deposit it to their savings account.

Then he used the Time Turner to jump ahead to the scene of the fight. Hermione was no longer screaming at him; instead, she was snogging him and starting to take off her dress. Good job, Ron!

Ron spent the next several months using the Time Turner to go back in time and transfer more money into savings. Every time he returned to the present, they seemed happier. Yes, certain things disappeared from their home — Ron’s electric guitar that he couldn’t really play was gone, and some of Hermione’s jewelry was missing, and he couldn’t find a pair of his shoes — but life overall seemed better.

Also, Ron seemed cleverer, better able to hold his own in the family, although he didn’t understand why. He was thinking a lot more about actions and consequences, both in the past and in the present. He hadn’t ever thought of life as being like a chess game, but he was starting to see the similarities; one careless word or thoughtless move could have effects that lasted for years.

Not to mention that it took a lot of maths to do all this time travel and Gringotts business. Once, when his children were learning about compound interest, which Past Ron had always viewed as a Muggle thing, time-traveler Ron stole Past Ron’s umbrella so Past Ron couldn’t go out to the Leaky Cauldron and had to stay in and help his kids with their homework.

After that night, Ron suddenly understood why they had so much more money in their home, simply by taking the time to save it when they were younger. Compound interest was magic! Why was it a Muggle thing?

Ron decided it was time to learn more about Muggle culture.

A month later, when Hermione was preparing to take the kids to their grandparents, Ron said “Well, I’m going too, right?” and Hermione said “Of course you are, love, they’re expecting you,” and later when they were visiting Hermione’s parents — who seemed to like him much more for some reason — Ron felt his back pocket buzz, and he reached into his pocket, and he had an iPhone and Hermione had just texted him a kiss, and he knew it was a kiss even though it looked like two dots and an asterisk.

That was the night that Ron went back in time once more, found Past Ron, and said “Oi Ron. You’re absolutely 100% sleeping right now, and I just have to say — Hermione doesn’t really want that Time Turner. She’ll never wear it and you can’t afford it, not really. Why not buy her a book instead? She’s quite fond of books.”

When Ron returned to his own time period, as he had predicted, their Time Turner was gone.

Three days later, after a lovely evening with his family, Ron decided to Google “Ron Weasley is a time-traveling Dumbledore.”

Google returned no search results.

Previously: Cho Chang

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