Title: Pawn to Pawn.
Archiving: just ask.
Rating: PG
Date: February 2004.
Summary: Dark!Ron. Short.
Notes: For Mirabella. <3 you.
When Ron and Percy played Chess, Percy always won. Once after it happened three times in a row, Ron, sulking and angry, demanded to know Percy's strategy.
So Percy told him all about his favorite chess piece. So easy to overlook, he said, but it held all the real power. If you just paid attention, he said, it could become the most powerful piece in the game.
Ron had always thought that theory was stupid until he met Harry Potter.
He watched Harry Potter, the piece that kept advancing.
He watched Harry Potter, the piece that kept advancing, for a weakness.
One day Harry found the letters from Percy, the letters urging him to think before he blindly supported Dumbledore and the Order, the ones that Ron had gradually started to keep, and keep to himself.
Looking at the ashen face and accusing eyes, Ron suddenly realised he had known the weakness all along.
Harry Potter's weakness was obvious.
Harry Potter's weakness was Ron himself.
When he finally wrote Percy back, the letter was short, but it was enough.
I will win you the war, he wrote: pawn to pawn.