Chapter 28: Cheer Up Chess
Harry resumed his seat in Potions with a sigh. Granted, since he and Draco had beaten the snot out of one another their partnership had become one of the best in the class, despite the small sense of awkwardness between the two students.
"Can you pass the two ounce silver ladle please, Potter?"
"Sure. Can you hand me the armadillo bile, please?"
A polite nod of thanks was exchanged and then back to work they went. This is how it was, every class period of every week. Harry didn't see why this week should be any different. Hermione was still slapping Ron's wrist whenever he jumped the hex on adding an ingredient, Pansy Parkinson was still whimpering about Blaise Zabini being missing from her pair, and Snape… well, Snape was being Snape-ish. Harry sighed again, feeling bad for Pansy but not knowing what he could do about it.
"It's kind of sad, don't you think?" muttered Draco out of the corner of his mouth.
"Yeah. …Wait. Huh?"
"About Parkinson. She and Zabini were…" Draco gestured absentmindedly with his hands, and Harry waved him off.
"I get it, Malfoy. I really don't need to know the slimy Slytherin details. You were saying?" He pointed to the silver dagger lying on Draco's side of the desk and the blonde handed it to him, watching curiously as Harry began slicing their Hasher Root with even, meticulous strokes.
Draco cleared his throat and continued. "Well, much to their surprise it was turning into something more serious. We could all see it from a Quidditch pitch away, but not those two. They refused to admit that they were dependent on one another."
He pointed to the glass vile of unicorn saliva, Harry shrugged non-commitedly and passed it to him. Trust Draco to turn something so crude into a somewhat eloquent statement.
"I kind of wish there was something we could do to shake Pansy- and everyone else- out of this funk."
"Me too," agreed Harry, gesturing toward the bottle of crushed Hippogriff feathers. Draco passed it to him and Harry added it to the potion while Draco stirred three times clockwise. "Any ideas, Ferret?" he asked pleasantly while neatly slicing his ginger root.
"I was thinking I could wallop the Weasel King at chess again."
Harry snorted quietly. "And how would that raise morale? Other than in your own house, that is."
Draco shrugged while he added the ginger root Harry had sliced, setting a shriveled bat's wing on the cutting board in its place. Draco stirred thoughtfully (three times clockwise, two and a half counter, once straight down the middle) as Harry grated the bat's wing. This was how it went, every period of every day. Harry did the slicing, chopping and grating while Draco did the adding of ingredients and the meticulous stirring. Harry could swear up and down that the reason the blonde Slytherin didn't want to slice jellyfigs was because he 'didn't want their tentacles to get underneath his perfectly manicured nails', and Draco could insult Harry's measuring and stirring until he was blue in the face but they both knew the reasons why they each had their own particular tasks when it came to potion making- Draco was more precise with his spoon strokes (some insane limp-wristed flick that Harry could never imitate) and Harry was better at chopping from all the years he had spent in his Aunt Petunia's kitchen (whereas Draco's House Elves would never allow him in his own).
"Well, everyone seemed to have a good time when we played before," Draco commented as he set down the silver ladle on their desk. "Why not make it so the entire school could watch?"
Harry raised a thoughtful eyebrow. "That COULD work, but not many people are interested in chess, even with the added appeal of you and Ron playing one another and the chance that you'll get tired of attacking each other only figuratively on the chessboard and decide to just beat each other senseless in the literal way."
"True," Draco agreed, "maybe there's some way we could make it more… hands on? Other than another Muggle brawl, that is."
Harry levitated the cauldron over to the sixth year's corner while Draco adjusted the flame underneath it with his wand to a simmer. Heading back to their workstation they cleaned up silently while they each thought of a way to possibly make a chess tournament the talk of the school instead of the battle's casualties. It was when they were leaving the dungeon at the end of the period that Hermione and Ron stepped up to them.
"Why not make it a live chess match?" Hermione asked. "Instead of a board and stone pieces, have REAL people be each piece. Draco and Ron can be the Kings of each respective side and they can choose people from any house to make up the rest of their team."
"It will be just like McGonagall's chess set from first year!" agreed Ron excitedly. "Only without the being knocked unconscious part."
Draco raised an elegantly arched eyebrow. "You're on, Weasley. One week to prepare. The match will take place in the Great Hall one week from tomorrow at seven p.m."
He extended his hand to shake Ron's, who agreed enthusiastically.
"I'll take it to Dumbledore," Harry offered. "I'm sure he'll love the idea!"
Dinner took place at its normal time, with the chess match being set up promptly afterward. Most people had dropped off their evening study materials beforehand and stuck around to watch the Professors conjure a life size chessboard into existence. Draco and Ron stood at their appropriate ends and began to select their teams. As each person was selected Professors Flitwick and McGonagall charmed and transfigured their clothing to the appropriate color and style for the piece they were to portray.
"I select Hermione Granger as my queen," Ron said, waggling his eyebrows at his girlfriend amidst all the catcalls coming from around the hall. Hermione stepped gracefully forward and held her breath as her clothes were transfigured. Professor McGonagall even took a silver salt and pepper holder from the Hufflepuff table and transfigured it into a tiara that she placed on Hermione's head.
"It looks lovely on you, dear," she said with an uncharacteristic smile. "This was a wonderful idea, Miss Granger. I hope it works as well as I think it will."
"Thanks, Professor," Hermione grinned as she took her place on the board next to Ron.
The selection of teams wore on, where it wound down to the last two pawns (two first years by the side of the board waving their hands and shouting 'Pick me! Pick me!') Draco completed the black side of the board with his own first year mentee, Aurelia Formosus, as his queen, Pansy Parkinson and Daphne Greengrass as Knights, Theodore Nott and Melanie Pazelton (from Ravenclaw) as Bishops and Crabbe and Goyle as Castles. Ron's team stood strong with Hermione as queen, Harry and Ginny as Knights, Neville and Luna as Bishops and Max and Seamus as Castles. The pawns on each side ranged from first to seventh year and all houses were represented (a politically tasteful decision on Ron and Draco's behalves).
While still attempting to maintain the original shrewdness of real wizard's chess, in order to keep the violence to a minimum triumphant players would be able to jinx, hex, or levitate their losing opponent off the board, as long as said hex or jinx was easily rectifiable and could do no permanent or lasting damage. Harry couldn't help but smile as many of Draco's players were literally running away from Ginny, who was favoring the bat-bogey hex. He, Ron and Luna shared a laugh at Hermione as she transfigured Draco's team into all sorts of fluffy and defenseless animals. Ron's favorite was Crabbe being turned into a baboon (complete with red bum), followed by a close second of one of the rambunctious first year boys being transformed into a fluffy minute owl (looking remarkably like Pigwidgeon) as he hooted around his square. Aurelia Formosus seemed to be holding her own as she transfigured her scepter into a toucan only to have it poop on Colin Creevey's head. Many were eager to be taken by Harry in his Knight's position after they saw him have Sanguine "flash" Daphne Greengrass to the side of the board. Pansy Parkinson confounded Luna into thinking that she was a knight attacking a dragon who was keeping Neville (who had also been confounded into thinking he was a damsel in distress) locked in a tower. Pansy ended up being eliminated by Harry, who confounded her into believing she WAS the dragon that was keeping the knight Luna from her damsel-in-distress Neville.
The match wore on to the point where it was only Ron, Draco a few pawns and scattered higher pieces littering the board. Aurelia had eliminated Ginny, only to be avenged by Ron shrinking the blonde first year to a height of six inches, dressing her in a leafy-green outfit and giving her pixie wings. Hermione placed Draco in Check, but was then taken out by the black king himself, who seemed to glow with the opportunity to hex the Gryffindor Prefect and not get in trouble for it. Draco grinned as Hermione stared at him, waiting to see how he would hex her out of the game. A muted word and an elaborate wave of his wand and Hermione shrank down to a miniscule size in her square and blinked her now beady brown eyes back up at him. Ron doubled over in laughter with the rest of the hall as Harry conjured a mirror and placed in front of Hermione so she could see what she had been turned into.
"Who's the ferret NOW, Granger?" Draco smirked saucily. Hermione-the-ferret sat up on her haunches, placidly groomed herself in the mirror and readjusted her tiara before she stuck her ferret tongue out at Draco, ran up Ron's leg to nuzzle his ear and then off the board to join Ginny, who was still wearing a pink tutu and pirouetting around the Great Hall. While the Professors had cleaned up anyone that had been in need of a good counter-jinx or scourgify charm, they let all the other players remain in their jinxed states (especially since all the animals couldn't be returned to human form except by the witch or wizard that had originally transfigured them). Hermione-the-ferret seemed to be having an especially good time with a quaffle that the escape squad had brought in from their before-dinner extra help session.
One by one everyone began to get eliminated, Draco finally dressing Harry in a Slytherin green unitard to match his prima-ballerina wife and Ron transfiguring Melanie Pazelton into a chicken to match her boyfriend, Theodore Nott, who had been turned into a rooster by Luna in the second move of the game. The game drew to a close- stalemate- each team the victor. Dennis Creevey took his brother's camera and had all the players line up (in their transfigured and jinxed states) on the board in the original game position so he could take photos to distribute later.
"Nice game, Weasley," commented Draco after the photo shoot, coming forward to shake Ron's hand.
"You, too, Malfoy. I must say my girl does look a lot cuter than you as a ferret. I hope you aren't jealous."
"Nah," Draco shrugged. "I prefer human form any day."
Harry grinned as he and Ginny posed ballet style for a photo, and then joined the rest of the group crowding around Ron and Draco. It really was something to see- Ron and Draco both wearing crowns robed in white and black, shaking hands, surrounded by their friends and teammates all transfigured into animals, pretending to be animals, holding the animals that had pooped on them or fluttering around everyone's heads with their newly acquired wings, and Dennis Creevey snapping pictures in the background.