Chapter Fifteen: Cards and Games
The next morning, I got up early and went to the library as soon as it opened, foregoing breakfast. I had decided, belatedly, to send a Christmas card to the Longbottoms on behalf of Magistra Whitehawk. I spent most of the morning creating two, and they came out quite good, considering my lack of artistic talent (boy, does magic help out tons!). I signed the first, "From your beloved cousin Everly Whitehawk, courtesy of her student Melantha Cardigan Potter," for Frank and Alice in St. Mungo's, and the second, "From your loving niece Everly Whitehawk, courtesy of her student Melantha Cardigan Potter," sent to her Aunt Augusta. I just hoped Magistra (and Mrs. Longbottom) didn't think me presumptuous, sending cards in her name.
I spent another hour after lunch making a third card for Neville, as a big thank-you for not blowing my cover to Harry, Ron, and Hermione. "I'm always here," the card read, "if you need someone to talk to. Gratefully, your friend Mel." After that, I went up to the Owlery to see if the owls were more interested in delivering my mail. This time, probably since I wasn't asking them to go four thousand miles in a blizzard, three thousand miles of which was over water, I had many offers to take the missives to their addressees.
I chose two of the school's tawnies, tied the scrolls to their legs, and sent them off with a thank-you kiss to their beaks. The third card, the one for Neville, I snuck up to his dormitory room and slipped into his Herbology textbook. I'd heard Ginny saying that was his best subject, so I knew he'd go for his favorite textbook as soon as he got back from visiting his parents.
My deliveries made, I went to find Angelina and Emily. They were in the Great Hall playing wizard's chess, with (a bit surprisingly) Luna Lovegood watching them dreamily. Of course, she wasn't really paying attention; she was more interested in her current copy of The Quibbler, but I was a little taken aback that she was even there at all.
Watching the girls, I was swept into a memory of Daddy and Uncle Sirius playing chess from my favorite vantage point, Uncle Remus's knee. The next thing I remember, I was lying on the floor under a bench, with Angelina fanning my face and Emily holding my hand. Luna was standing over us, expounding her latest theory that I'd been attacked by wrackspurts. I apologized, for a large group had gathered, and I didn't want attention. I laughed it off as a simple fainting spell due to missing breakfast and having very little lunch. Luna and Emily accepted my explanation, but Angelina looked a little skeptical, because she knew I'd had them before.
I got up and suggested that we try a game that Cat and Try had sent me. I pulled from my pack a board that looked similar and yet different to the chessboard on the table. I explained that it was for four-way chess, very complicated. I'd never played it with a set of wizard's chess pieces, only Muggle ones, but it proved to be very interesting. I brought out two more sets of chess pieces in gold and silver (another gift from the bag of conjuring) and we set up the game.
Amazingly, Luna sat down and roundly trounced the three of us. I'd never seen such skill, not even from Pete Pingui, and he came back from the National Wizard's Chess Tournament and the National Chess Tournament (Muggle-based, was two- and four-player games) every year with first place trophies. I was swept off the board in about five moves, Emily in ten, and Angelina lasted around twenty.
