A dangerous energy was filling the Great Hall. Normally this could be attributed to the enchanted ceiling or Professor Snape, but today it was from a different source.
Fleur Delacour's aura, which had been entrancing, and in some cases beguiling, the male population of Hogwarts for the six weeks since her arrival had taken on a new effect. No longer was it the aura of a gracious angel, blessing the castle with her presence, now it was the aura of an angry goddess, ready to strike out at any who annoyed her.
That petite chienne had smirked when she showed Fleur the chess puzzle, and Fleur, fed up with British food, Scottish weather and men of all nations, had accepted the challenge immediately. If she were honest with herself, she would admit that the solution was beyond her, but Fleur was too frustrated and angry to be honest.
Another gaggle of students came towards her, fell within range of her aura and then quickly scurried away. Except for one. He must be a particularly stupid one, Fleur thought, if he can't recognise the deadly feeling she was projecting.
The soon-to-be-dead boy stopped in front of her, no doubt about to make some obvious lie of a boast, or stammer his way through a love confession.
"It's not bishop takes knight, is it?"
Fleur blinked. That indeed had been the move she first thought of, an hour ago when she started, but it didn't work because...
"Non" she said, not looking up, "the bishop is needed to defend the king."
"Oh, right. How about pawn to c6?"
Fleur stared at the board in surprise. She hadn't even considered that, but, after a moment's calculation, it looked promising.
"No," the voice said. "That doesn't work either."
Fleur looked up. It was one of the red-headed family. The one who was with the Potter boy all the time. She hadn't spared him a moment's thought after he had fallen so quickly under the power of her aura during the welcoming feast, but now, when her aura was twice as powerful and thrice as intimidating, he didn't seem fazed at all.
"Look," he said, pointing at the board. "The black queen has too many open lines of attack. c6 might look good, but there's no way to follow through."
"I see," she said slowly, examining the board again. "I was thinking about knight to f5."
The boy was silent for a moment. Fleur looked up to see his eyes darting across the board at high speed.
"That's clever," he said. "Let me see..."
"Stop 'overing, it is distracting," Fleur said sharply.
The seriousness and confidence fell from his face.
"Oh, sorry. I'll just..."
He turned to leave.
Fleur rolled her eyes.
"I meant, sit down," she said.
"Oh."
He sat down, studying the board again.
"Fleur," Fleur said.
"Hi," said the boy.
Fleur stared at him, trying to hide her disbelief.
"And you are...?"
"Oh, right. Sorry. Ron. I'm Ron."
"Ron," she said, nodding. "So, knight f5?"
"Yes, hang on. Let me get my board out."
The boy, Ron apparently, reached into his bag and pulled out an old, battered wizarding chess set.
"Copy that set-up," he told his pieces softly. They started moving without complaint. Fleur was impressed. Chess pieces, especially old ones, could be reluctant to follow commands if they didn't believe in their player's skill.
The two of them stayed quiet, mostly, only offering a possible solution every few minutes. Fleur's aura relaxed, turning from unrestrained fury to a strict 'I'm concentrating and cannot be disturbed'.
"Oh, I'm an idiot," Ron said after half an hour had passed.
"What? Do you see it?"
"It's a long castle."
"A what?"
"A queen-side castle. Watch. You two," he directed his pieces. "Castle queen-side."
Fleur watched the two pieces move.
"It's easy to miss because this is so far into the mid-game, but the king and rook haven't moved," said Ron.
And then the rest of the combination appeared before her.
"The king's in check and his only move is here," Ron said, pointing. "Then captures, captures, captures, captures, captures, then this pawn..."
"And then this pawn underpromotes to knight. Checkmate. It's genius."
"Is that right?" He asked.
Fleur opened the envelope that her, ahem, 'friend' had written the solution on and showed it to him.
0-0-0
"Ha! It reminds me of a puzzle I saw a few weeks ago. Look."
He whispered to his pieces and they began moving into a new position, but Fleur wasn't going to let him rest on his laurels. Before he had slid his board over to her, she had given a quick instruction in French to her pieces and was sliding her board over to him. He gave her a surprised look.
"What? Fair is fair, non?"
But before she had even begun to disentangle the problem he had set her, he was giving quick instructions to her pieces, the white king quickly forced into checkmate.
She looked at him with fury and disbelief in her eyes.
"'Ow?"
"Sorry, but I've seen that one before. It's Simons Vs Robespierre at the French Ministry tournament last year, right? Their third round match?"
Fleur narrowed her eyes dangerously and gave another instruction to her pieces to rearrange themselves. She refused to be beaten.
Fleur lost track of time while they gave more and more complex puzzles to each other. She had to refer to a couple of books that she carried with her, but Ron seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of the problems stored away in his head.
"Okay, then," he said. "How about this one? Black to play and win, but there's a twist. You can't lose either this bishop or this knight."
She gave him a look. This was not how a typical chess puzzle was played. Nonetheless, she examined the position and found it in just a few seconds.
"Zat is easy. The knight goes to h3, then after the queen captures, the bishop goes to c5."
Ron nodded, rubbing his head distractedly.
"And can you do it without losing the knight, too?"
She gave him another raised-eyebrows look, but studied the board again.
"No," she said after a minute. "I don't think so."
"Neither did I."
But before she could ask him what he meant, she heard the sound of approaching footsteps. She looked up to see the severe Hogwarts deputy headmistress. The woman said... something, but, while Fleur was perfectly capable of understanding written English and was alright with most of the various accents she heard around the castle, she struggled with this one.
"Sorry, professor," Ron said. "I must have lost track of time."
The teacher spoke again and, now that Fleur was concentrating, she managed to follow it.
"While I don't disapprove of this display of international cooperation, curfew started ten minutes ago, Mr. Weasley."
"Yes, professor."
"And have you finished that Transfiguration homework for tomorrow?"
"Yes, professor," he said immediately, but Fleur didn't quite believe him.
"Hmm. Well then, off with you then."
"Yes, professor," he turned to leave, then stopped and turned back around. "Uhh, thanks."
Fleur had to stop herself from rolling her eyes.
"Would you like to continue this, tomorrow?" she asked.
"Oh, yeah. Good idea."
Fleur watched him leave, then caught the professor staring at her.
"What?"
The next few weeks passed by quickly. They traded puzzles in the Great Hall. They played slow, classical games on the grass by the lake. He bought her a foldable, magnetic set that his Muggleborn friend had told him about, so that she could carry an ongoing game in her pocket. She bought him an expensive, antique chess clock. They sat in a tiny tearoom in the village, their knees touching under the table, and played a dozen three-minutes blitz games, their instructions to their pieces getting so frantic and loud that the proprietor had to ask them to leave.
On one particularly cold day in mid-December, he had led her up into the castle, higher than she had gone before. When he pulled her into a secret passageway behind a tapestry, she thought that he was finally going to make his move, which she considered long overdue, but instead he led her to a little balcony, looking out over the grounds. There was just enough room for them to sit on the wall with the board between them.
As Ron pulled out the pieces, Fleur looked out at the setting sun. It was just above the tops of the mountains and it painted the sky an incredible, vibrant red. It lit up Ron's face and hair so that it looked like he was wreathed in flames like the gods of old. Maybe, she admitted to herself, Britain wasn't all bad.
"Do you want white or black to start?" he asked.
Ten minutes later, they had just left opening theory, but Fleur was distracted.
"You know, it is only a few weeks until the Yule Ball," she said.
"Yeah?" Ron said, staring at his rook.
"And nobody 'as asked me to go with them," Fleur continued.
"That's a shame," Ron said, now fiddling with one of Fleur's captured bishops.
"Zat is a lie. A dozen people 'ave asked me. Two dozen. Too many to count."
"Oh, that's nice."
"But not the person that I was expecting to ask me. Who I wanted to ask me."
"Who's that then?"
Fleur stared at him. How such an idiot could be such a genius at chess was beyond her.
"It is you, of course," she said.
"Uh huh," Ron said.
Fleur watched him patiently, waiting.
"Huh? What!? Me?" he said, now ignoring the board and staring at her.
"You," she said calmly.
"B... B... But, why?"
"We 'ave been going on dates, five times a week, for a month," she said, exasperation leaking through.
"No, we've just been playing..."
He slammed his jaw shut.
"Ask me to go to the ball with you," Fleur commanded.
"Please go to the ball with me," Ron said, his voice faint.
"I accept," Fleur said primly. "Do you have dress robes?"
"Yes I... no. No, I don't."
"Good, because you don't know fashion."
"Is it that obvious?" Ron said.
Fleur gave him a look.
"I don't mean you, I mean you British. Can you leave the castle to go shopping?"
"But there isn't another Hogsmeade weekend before..."
"I didn't ask if you could get permission, I asked if you could leave."
"Oh, right. Then, yes."
"Tomorrow, then."
Ron continued to stare at her for a long moment.
"So, shall we keep playing?"
Fleur sighed, rolled her eyes, grabbed the front of his robes and pulled his lips to hers.
