A/N: I have recently taken up a Harry/Ron 50 word prompt table at the LiveJournal community, 100quills. The prompt for this story was "Patience", hence the title. This is story 1 from the prompt table, which may be found in its entirty, if you go to my profile and follow the link to my website; that will take you to my LJ profile page. From there, you can access all of my LJ memories. On I'll just post each story individually since each is a one-shot. Stories may not be posted in numerical order, but I promise that EVERY story will eventually be posted. In the meantime, I hope you all enjoy this little scribble. :)
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"Come on, Ron, just make your move," Harry said rather irritably.
Ron tilted his chin up as if in deep thought. "Patience, Harry. This isn't something you can rush. Besides, you wanted me to teach you to be a better chess player."
Harry scowled a bit. "Yeah, but I didn't think it'd take all bloody night."
"There are some things that are worth waiting for," Ron tried to explain. "There are some things that need to be thought about and savored."
Harry laughed at him. "HA! And since when did you become so wise? Since when did you ever take that kind of time for anything — other than chess, I mean?"
Ron drew his eyebrows a bit and made a very carefully planned move on the board. He took Harry's Bishop with nothing more than a Pawn and now had his Queen in Check with his Knight.
Harry stared at him, open mouthed. "Huh? Wha… But how could you… I set up a defense for that!" Harry declared.
"Yes," Ron countered, "but only a sloppy one. "You counted on the big stuff: the Bishop, Queen, Knight; you never paid any attention to the smaller things, to the Pawns. Sometimes you just don't have the patience for the smaller things; you just want the big stuff to happen now so it'll be done and over with."
"Who the hell are you? Obi-Wan Kenobi?" Harry asked sarcastically.
"O-B who?"
"Never mind!" Harry sulked.
"Harry," Ron looked at him seriously, "When was the last time you really took the time or patience to fully enjoy something? Really?"
Harry was starting to grow annoyed and defensive. "Well, maybe it's a little difficult to when you constantly have to worry about a deranged, magical killer breathing down your back!"
"Shouldn't that give you all the MORE reason to savor things while you have them?" Ron asked gently. He lowered his head and voice. "As much as I hate the idea of it, if… if You-Know-Who should win, if something should ever happen to you, I'd like to think that you took the time to really enjoy at least a few things in your life."
Harry grew sober at the tone of true concern in Ron's voice, at the way he wouldn't look him straight in the eye.
"At least once, you need to have the patience to let a piece of Honeyduke's chocolate melt in your mouth instead of just chewing it up so quickly, or to hold a mouthful of Butterbeer and feel it's warmth just before it slides down your stomach. You need to have somebody kiss you, just because you're YOU, and not because of all that 'Chosen-One' shite; someone who isn't crying their eyes out, but just wants to be close to you because they want to be close to you. You need — "
But Harry interrupted him by reaching across the chess board and taking Ron's hand. And this time he was patient enough to notice just how large Ron's hands really were, how long and strong the fingers were, and where the skin was graced with freckles. He noticed how warm Ron's hand was.
Ron raised his head and finally looked him in the eye. Harry gave a small but genuine smile.
"Hey, Ron, you're gonna have me in Checkmate in the next move anyway. Do you wanna set up the board again? Maybe this time I can really pay attention and learn that move you were trying to show me."