Top Secret

by Shealtiel

Rated: T for sexual references, adult themes, violence and mild coarse language

Summary: "Oak, fourteen inches, unpliant and resilient, excellent for Transfiguration with a knack for Charms. Veela hair core."

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Tuesday, February 24th, 1976

7:44pm

Library

My new Chess buddy is a Seventh Year Ravenclaw guy named Gavin, who is extremely intelligent and extremely attractive and makes me extremely nervous. He is also extremely good at Chess. I don't think I will ever beat him.

He's pretty nice too. He's trying to teach me how I can think differently about Chess, which is hard when I've already developed a thinking pattern when I play. It's a good challenge though, which Dumbledore says is what I need.

"No, you can never make a throw away move," Gavin's saying, because I just moved a pawn forward. I don't know how he knew it was a throw away move. How can he tell when I'm strategising and when I'm not sure what to do next? He's so smart!

"Look, my Queen is here. If you moved your Pawn there, in two moves I could have you in Checkmate, and your next couple of moves will make next to no difference now. See, watch." He's demonstrating how he can Checkmate me now. God, this is not at all fair. He's way too smart for me! I just told him that.

He said, "Well, maybe it would be a little fairer if you stopped writing in that book and actually paid attention to the game we're playing."

He's right though. I'm never going to improve if I don't try and learn from him while he still has the patience to play with me.

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