Hi everyone, this is a two-shot response to Lara1221's Embrace the Majors Challenge. The idea is that one writes two connected one-shots, one for a promt idea related to a subject in the sciences and one for a promt idea related to a subject in the humanities. I came across it by accident, and as I generally agree with the stance that all majors are important, I thought I'd take part. I admit that mine is closer to two-shot than it is to two one shots. The first is the sciences one. The prompt was "Calculus: the fancy way to do slope and area with lots of math and multiple dimensions - write about: something that is more complex than it seems to an outsider (a with benefits relationship, an Auror mystery, etc.)". I do not own Harry Potter.
A matter of the mind
Hermione put her arms onto the table and burrowed her head in them in despair. She had never given up on anything before, but maybe now was the time. She felt Harry pat her back and looked up to him. He didn't seem any less exhausted than she felt, though of course in his case it could have to do with the Tri-Wizard tournament. The second task was only two days ago after all and despite any reassurances it had been plenty dangerous.
However, Hermione had another problem right now. Ron's birthday was coming up in three days and they didn't have a present for him. It has just slipped their mind, with everything else that was going on. Yesterday in the morning Hermione had come up with the idea of giving Ron a self-made chess set. Harry had readily agreed to do some research and enchanting work, both of them certain that Ron would appreciate it even if it didn't turn out as good as the ones available in shops. They had done research into the necessary enchantments and runes yesterday and where sure they could manage. They had even found a book titled 'In the Court of the King: A book on Chess Enchantments', specifically on the enchantments for the chess figurines and how to weave them into each other, so that they worked well together. Today Hermione had gotten a very beautifully carved Muggle chess set via mail from her parents. Of course Hedwig, intelligent owl that she was, had made sure Ron wasn't there when she delivered it.
However, that had been the extent of their success. They had spent the whole day in an empty classroom trying to produce the easiest of the enchantments, the one for the pawn, but nothing they tried seemed to work. Not even the simple enchantment that would get him to move on command, if the commanded move was legal. Hermione had searched through the section on pawn enchantments multiple times, but hadn't found anything they did wrong. By now Ron was certainly wondering where they were.
"Come on, we'll get him some sweets from Honeydukes. He will like that." Harry suggested.
Hermione shook her head. "No. I want us to get this to work." It was a matter of pride now.
"I want it to work, too, but we don't have that kind of time. Why not try to do this properly until next year? It is a good idea." Harry tried to reason.
Hermione shook her head again. "We cannot give up yet."
Harry looked at her for a while, probably deciding whether it was worth arguing about this, but then he sighed, nodded and smiled at her like he was indulging a stubborn child. "Alright. I suppose I can send Hedwig out to Hogsmeade and back if we don't have anything in two days."
Hermione nodded and opened the chess enchantment book. After another hour, which Harry spent by browsing through the other enchantment books, Hermione closed the book and ones more burrowed her face into the crook of her elbow.
"Maybe we can ask someone for help?" Harry suggested. "Who is good in charms and runes and theory? Other than you I mean."
Hermione looked up again, pondering her best friend's question. A smile formed on her lips. The answer was obvious and because Harry asked, he couldn't complain about it either.
"Granger, while I am honoured that you would request my help, I'm not quite sure what you want with Potter here?"
Harry cringed as he heard the even, haughty voice of Daphne Greengrass the moment he entered the room behind Hermione.
"He is here because he is helping me in this project." Hermione answered confidently which made the Slytherin girl snort.
"Potter? Really?" She looked at him critically, before her face softened somewhat. "Well I suppose there are people who are worse than him. At least he is reasonably powerful, even if highly inelegant."
"I'm standing right here, Greengrass." Harry said somewhat irately.
The girl looked at him with an amused smirk. "Of course you do, Potter. There would be little point in me trying to rile you up if you wouldn't be standing right there. The beauty of it is that as you want my help, you can't really come back at me either."
Harry gritted his teeth, but recognised that she was right. Hermione wanted this chess set and for that she had said they needed Greengrass' help. Harry wasn't going to keep Hermione from trying, so he couldn't really do anything that would make it harder to get the Slytherin's help. But he would spend a whole lot of time during this meeting, imagining what he would have done if he didn't care about Hermione so much, even though then he wouldn't be here in the first place.
"Great." Hermione smiled to both of them. "Now that we all got acquainted with one another, how about we start?"
Hermione started explaining to Greengrass what they wanted to do, what resources they had and where their problem was. If Harry wasn't mistaken, Greengrass was slightly impressed. At least her eyebrows rose a bit during Hermione's explanation. Harry also added one or two things that he had tried himself, and was satisfied as Greengrass' eyebrows rose a bit more. At the end of the explanation however, the Slytherin shook her head.
"I'm afraid I don't know anything more than you do. Your attempts seem feasible to me and the runes you showed me all seem alright." Harry prepared to glare at Hermione. All this for nothing. But the girl wasn't finished. "I might however know someone who can help you."
"Who?" Harry asked immediately.
Greengrass smiled. "My little sister."
Hermione appeared confused. "Isn't she a second year?"
The Slytherin nodded. "But she is the chess master in our family. What is more she has repaired her own sets ever since she was allowed to use magic."
Harry nodded. "Alright, can you get her?"
Greengrass smirked. "Not so fast. I want something in return."
"But…" Harry started, before Greengrass interrupted him.
"Surely you didn't think I would help you for nothing? If I did, and it came out, they would laugh me out of the Slytherin common room."
Harry sighed. "Ok, what do you want then?"
"Teach me to cast a proper stunner." The girl said commandingly.
"Pardon?" Harry asked.
"I want to be able to cast a proper stunner. We won't learn until the end of the year and when I tried to teach myself it didn't come out the way it should. It's usually orange instead of red, indicating that it has too little power, if I trust the book I used. I heard you learned them early for the tournament. I want you to teach me."
"Why?" Harry asked confusedly.
The girl shrugged. "I want to know how to cast it."
Harry looked to Hermione, who nodded slightly, before he turned back to Greengrass. "Alright. Show me what you usually do."
After the little Greengrass listened to Hermione's explanation, she shook her head sadly. "No, no, it is more complicated than that. Firstly, you need to start with enchanting the king. The other enchantments have to be woven so that they are interlaced with the king's one."
It was Harry's time to raise his eyebrows as the second year went into lecture mode in front of the three older students.
"The king is the centre of your chess set. He needs to be the centre of the enchantments." It was really like watching a smaller version of Hermione, with lighter hair and grey blue eyes.
"The book didn't say anything about that?" Hermione questioned.
"Of course it didn't. It's a book about chess set enchantments in order to repair your sets. They assume that the basic enchantments are already there. Otherwise the book would be much more complicated." The girl seemed to go into a rant. "You cannot expect to read a couple of books and suddenly be an expert in an ages old art."
"Ages old art?" Hermione asked confusedly.
"Of course. Chess has been in the magical world nearly as long as it has been in the Muggle world. It is in fact one of the few things where magical and Muggle world are strongly intertwined. Of course, when playing Muggles the magical chess masters do use usual pieces, but even here you cannot be a chess master without knowing many of the Muggle treatises on strategy."
"Really?" Hermione asked interestedly.
The girl rolled her eyes. "How can you not know this when you have Ron Weasley for one of your best friends? Seriously. Anyway, it isn't enough to simply know a few enchantments and how to link them properly. You have to infuse the set with strategic knowledge; otherwise if the figurines talk back to you, they won't make any sense at all. There is a whole theory surrounding that kind of thing. Some say it is better to infuse the board with knowledge, as in that way all figurines have the same knowledge base. The disadvantage is that then you need additional runes on the figurines, and it is not like there is a lot of space to begin with. On the other hand, if you infuse each figurine directly, their knowledge might slightly differ. It might create a biased board, especially if the difference is between a black and a white figure."
Hermione gulped. "I didn't know all that."
"Well, Weasley is very good, so probably he doesn't often need to repair his sets, other than putting the figurines back together. Maybe he doesn't know either." The girl granted. "But the fact is that creating a great chessboard is certainly worth an Outstanding NEWT in charms. Even a minor one is OWL charms- and runeswork and that doesn't take into account having to build the knowledge about chess strategy needed. You cannot do it on the back of a napkin."
Harry felt a grin sneak on his face as Hermione was intellectually taken apart by a second year. He decided that just maybe the little Greengrass wasn't that bad. Harry quickly schooled his face however, when Hermione turned towards him. "I guess we have to go with Honeydukes then, Harry." She said dejectedly.
That wiped away all his mirthfulness. He knew that Hermione really wanted to make this work, and his best friend was important to him. He looked at the little Greengrass. "Is there really no way we can make this work?"
"I never said that." The girl said with a grin. Hermione turned around hopefully. "I can help you. I have sufficient strategic knowledge and I can cast the charm that is used to infuse it. You will have to cast the other enchantments though."
Harry smiled at Hermione. "See, everything will work out." Hermione nodded.
"However, my help isn't free." The little Greengrass suddenly said with a grin.
Harry rolled his eyes. "Of course it isn't. What do you want then?"
"You will play chess against me two hours long, twice a week after dinner for the rest of the school year." She demanded.
Harry gaped at her. "What? Why? I'm certain you can find better players."
The girl shook her head. "It's not that easy. My sister is fed up with losing to me. Slytherin's in general don't like to show weakness, especially not in strategic thinking, so no one there wants to lose in chess against a second year girl. And as you know well yourself, the other houses don't trust us much." She looked at him for a moment, then she offered "We can go to an abandoned classroom and no one will see how you get your ass kicked by a second year."
"It's not about that!" Harry defended himself. "Don't you think twice a week for the rest of the year is a bit much?" he tried.
"Then maybe you want to go look for someone else to enchant your chess set for you. You already started with the runes, and they are too big to fit any others beside them. So instead of just enchanting the board I will have to carefully enchant each single piece, making sure they are balanced."
Harry put up his hands in surrender. "Alright, alright. But in the two weeks before the third task we cut it down to once a week, ok?" The girl nodded after a brief consideration.
"How do Tuesdays and Thursdays sound to you?"
His negotiation partner simply offered her hand to shake on the deal and Harry took it. Their birthday present was saved.
Hermione worked on the other runes for the rest of the day, while Harry started learning to cast the enchantments needed. Both Greengrasses stayed with them, Astoria to guide them through the process, Daphne because somehow she had been dragooned into helping by her little sister.
The youngest in their group repeatedly explained to Harry why the enchantments had to be woven the way they had to be, but Harry didn't quite understand most of it. It had something to do with how one wanted the chess pieces to act. One wanted the pieces belonging to one colour to be somewhat of a unit, which is why all enchantments on the other pieces were bound to the king.
The pieces of different colours should be opponents, but they shouldn't simply run at each other unless the players direct them too. Make the enchantments too strong and the pieces would constantly be at each other's throats, even if no game was played. To weak, and they wouldn't knock each other out when the players called for it.
That was how far Harry got. The rest of the things the little Greengrass explained as if she was teaching them that two plus two equals four was simply beyond him. When he looked at Hermione and even the older Greengrass, at least he got the feeling he wasn't the only one. It didn't seem to bother their supervisor though. She went on and on about how the different characteristics of the pieces on every wizarding chess board added an additional dimension to the chess game and then explained tactics and strategies that were meant to make wilful pieces submit to a player's wishes, or to make too peaceful pieces more violent.
Harry idly thought that what she said sounded extremely interesting, if only he was able to understand it. He had never thought that so much thought and spellwork went into something that could be found inside a wizard's Christmas cracker, was astonishing to him. Though then again maybe his Christmas cracker set wasn't very well enchanted and that's why the pieces were so contrary and stubborn.
"Are you listening to me, Potter?" Harry was shaken out of his thoughts by the voice of Astoria.
"Sorry, what is going on?" he asked sheepishly.
The girl rolled her eyes. "I said you can now start by enchanting the black king, the runes are finished for that one."
"What? No, I mean, me? Are you crazy?"
She looked at him entirely unimpressed. "Do you think I made you learn the spells for fun?" Then miraculously her expression softened a lot, she even gave him a little smile. "Don't worry, I'll guide you through it. It will be fine."
And guide him she did. Harry was impressed at how good she was actually at explaining the stuff he had to do. It was still complicated as hell, but by the end of the evening, when they agreed to meet again the next day, Harry had the feeling he had really learned something, not only about chess, but maybe about enchantments in general.
"Wow, this is awesome. Thanks so much!" Ron pulled first Hermione and then Harry into a hug. "And you really made the enchantments yourself?"
Both teens nodded.
"This is really great!" Their red-headed friend said again. Harry and Hermione smiled at each other.
"You are overlooking that I threaten your queen in two moves." Astoria said in a quiet voice. Harry looked at the board carefully again for twenty seconds again, before he found it. In two moves his queen would be threatened by Astoria's bishop, but he wouldn't be able to move it then, because the king stood right behind her. After a little thought he decided to simply move his king now.
He looked up to Astoria who smiled at him and nodded. It had gone like this for two weeks now. After she had beaten him hands down several times in their first two evening sessions, she had taken to instead give advice and explanation on the fly. Sometimes she would even halt the game for fifteen minutes or so to explain certain more complex strategies. Currently it was still a lot as if she was actually playing against herself, but Harry knew that with her help he was slowly getting better.
He didn't believe that Astoria was as good as Ron, but he didn't care that much. She was much better in explaining. If he was honest with himself, he would have to say that he was somewhat enjoying the distraction these chess sessions provided from his usual modus operandi this year: do schoolwork, prepare for tournament. They were a nice time-out, as neither Hermione nor Ron was with them and Astoria never pestered about the tournament. Idly he thought that if they kept this up he might one day be able to beat her without her help. Little did he know when he thought this, that that day would only come many years later.
Thanks for reading :)
