Ron was seated at one of four chairs around a large checkerboard. All three of his opponents watched him intently, and whispered amongst each other. All three were from Slytherin house. Their four-player game, one of many in the group stage of the Hogwarts wizard chess tournament, was spectated by a chattering crowd of students and teachers. Each player set up their own corner of pieces, and drew a hand of cards. The board had the checkered pattern of a traditional chess set, though it was larger to accommodate all four players. Each piece was confined to its square on the board, but within those confines each was animated, crackling with magical energy. Ron's own pieces were donned in gold, while his opponents had pieces that were green, black and silver.
When the game was in play, the cards gave off subtle vibrations. They felt strange to the touch. The cards had illustrations like those of a tarot deck, with shifting hues and shades, and animals that snarled and lightning that flashed. Each had an individual effect: swapping piece locations, blocking and randomizing movement, creating barriers and passages, granting temporary abilities. They could be played in combination with other cards, or with specific positional patterns on the checkerboard, to produce new effects.
It was a complicated game, with seemingly endless permutations of moves and card combinations to consider each turn. Each player had a fifteen minute hourglass, which only dripped down when it was the player's turn. A player was eliminated if they ran out of time, or if their king was captured.
Bad luck, thought Ron. He had proven himself as a capable chess player during his six years at Hogwarts. Probably the best amongst Gryffindor House, if not all of Hogwarts. Unfortunately, the seating was randomized for this round of the tournament, and Ron found himself facing three Slytherins at once. In theory, a four-player game was every player for themself in a chaotic free-for-all. In practice, a game with one Gryfinndor and three Slytherins would be a lopsided gang-up. Ron was confident in his skills—he won a few two-on-one games against Harry and Hermione—but one against three were steep odds, especially considering the talents of the seventh-year girl across from him. Marcy was an excellent player in her own right, one who Ron had traded wins with in the past, and played most games to a draw. It would be an entirely different beast to defeat her and two of her cohorts (who happened to be competent players as well) on one board. She grinned at Ron, toothy. A strand of dark hair hung over his eyes.
The game started slow. Ron was in no rush. Be patient, Bill had always told him when they played games back at the burrow over the summer. Ron took his time with a balanced opening, developing his pawns and minor pieces, and setting cards facedown. The three Slytherins were in no rush either. As Ron expected, none showed any signs of breaking rank and attacking each other. This was a coordinated effort to take him down.
Ron struck first. He went after the third-year boy to his right, Evan. Ron spotted a subtle flaw in his defense, and he had the opportunity to exploit it. Ron flipped a card with the image of a buzzing hornet, which altered the movement of his bishop, allowing it to leap over a pawn and directly attack the Slytherin boy's queen. If Ron could knock one of them out early, then, with a little luck, he could hold off the other two. Evan grimaced at the loss of his strongest piece so early on. He played a card of his own, shuffling his remaining pieces around, trapping Ron's bishop. Evan's reorganization of his forces left him exposed to the other Slytherins. In a typical game, he would be picked at by both of them, benefiting from Ron's initial thrust. But they paid Evan no mind on their subsequent turns. All attacks were centered on Ron.
Ron's bishop was lost—that was unavoidable. And with the first strike dealt, the deluge began. Blood was on the checkerboard. Each Slytherin began flipping cards, and organizing with each other, going after Ron on three offensive fronts at once. Ron had to sacrifice a couple pawns, and use up several of his strongest cards in creative combinations, just to avoid the total collapse of his position. He was forced deeper back into his corner, and all he could do was build a stalwart fortress around his king in an effort to outlast the attacks. Ron was holding his own, considering the circumstances, but he was decidedly on the backfoot. He was reacting to threats instead of attacking with initiative. He didn't have a moment to breathe. Whenever Ron tried to counterattack one of the Slytherins, he was shut down by trap cards and the swift interference of the others. They were chipping away at him, piece by piece, square by square, turn by turn.
Feeling the mounting pressure of his dripping hourglass, Ron attempted a reckless attack with his knight and rook. It was a blunder that almost cost him the game right then and there. He was left at a stark disadvantage in terms of material, positional control, and time.
Ron sat back in his seat. He looked up at the ceiling. The image of the board was burned into his mind. He tried closing his eyes, but it was still there. Harry and Hermione were spectating from the side. By their expressions, they could both tell that Ron's position was in shambles. He wasn't hiding it. Harry didn't have much knowledge about opening theory or endgame principles, but he possessed good instincts for the game. He had a straightforward playstyle, and Ron thought that if Harry played a bit slower, and if he relied less on his pieces and more on his cards, then he would improve greatly. Hermione didn't have the same natural instincts, but she made up for it with her memory of popular openings and tactical patterns. She was the kind of player to develop a strong position, only to lose because of her expiring hourglass. Ron found himself thinking of his past opponents, trying to glean some wisdom from the various styles of play he had witnessed. Fred and George were tricksters, often opening with dubious gambits. They were always trying to sacrifice pieces in exchange for positional control. They faked their emotions, acting desperate and unsure, to get opponents to drop their guards. Percy usually opened with the Pegasus Defense, and focused his efforts on patiently expanding his territory. Charlie played fast, and burned through most of his cards early on in the game. Ginny played an unpredictable game—she would play a brilliant move one turn, as if it was the only natural choice, and then blunder the next. Bill was the best player that Ron had gone up against. He always had a plan.
The fifth-year to his left, Dacre, made a move that Ron hadn't expected. It was a move in his back rank that could be interpreted as aggressive toward Marcy. It looked like she hadn't expected it either. She scowled at him. He tried to avoid eye contact.
There's always more to the position, Bill once said after an elegant counter to one of Ron's traps. Widen your view.
Ron thought deep about his position. He considered all the cards that had been played, and the cards that remained. At this rate, he would lose. But then what? After Ron's inevitable defeat, the remaining three players would duke it out for the ultimate victory. Ron supposed Marcy had the strongest position of the three Slytherins, though Dacre's was playable. Evan stood little chance, as he had already blundered several of his pieces to Ron's trap cards. Ron saw all four players, including himself, as pieces on a larger board.
On Ron's turn, he set a couple cards: one to alter movement, and another to swap positions. He took a gamble, abandoning the defense of his king to try to stir up the position. He sent his queen out into Dacre's territory, capturing a bishop. Ron left the queen exposed for recapture. Dacre scratched his head, first examining the board anxiously, then raising an eyebrow. He spent over a minute considering his next move.
"Are you trying to bluff me?" said Dacre. He stared at Ron's facedown cards.
"Think about it for a bit longer, why don't you?" said Ron.
Dacre frowned. He moved his rook to recapture the queen. Ron flipped a card with the image of a drunken fool. The rook's trajectory altered, missing Ron's queen and sliding into Marcy's corner, hitting one of her pieces instead. Dacre gritted his teeth, though he didn't look totally unsatisfied with the result. Marcy flared her nostrils in annoyance. On her turn, she captured Dacre's rook.
"You can trap his queen!" said Dacre, gesturing to Ron's queen in the midst of his territory. "Leave the rook!"
"He's already finished," said Marcy.
"He's still hanging around," said Dacre.
"He's a dead man," said Marcy. "And you're next."
Dacre shook his head. Ron chuckled. With his queen spared—missed by Dacre's rook, ignored by Marcy, and unreachable by Evan—Ron flipped the second card. The card had the image of an old fisherman in a storm, with little droplets of rain that glinted on the card's face. Ron's queen swapped places with his polymorphed knight (transformed earlier in the game, capable of jumping further, and even wrapping around edges of the board). Now, in his queen's prior location, the polymorphed knight had the ideal angle to strike at Marcy again, capturing another piece, further weakening her position.
Arguably, all three Slytherins still held stronger positions than Ron. Yet, the pace and momentum of the game had changed. Ron attacked Marcy in Dacre in such a way that it not only made them more vulnerable, it made them especially vulnerable to attacks from each other. Ron was trying to force-start the next phase of the game, the battle amongst Slytherins that wasn't supposed to begin until after his elimination. It was working. Over the next few turns, Marcy and Dacre partially withdrew their offensives into Ron's territory, and started positioning themselves to attack and defend against each other. Evan looked more confused than ever, unsure of who to attack, and instead opting to fortify his own defenses. Their coordinated effort was falling apart. With a couple more piece swapping and augmenting cards, Ron complicated the board even further. He rotated the positions of the Slytherin pieces, leaving Marcy, Dacre and Evan exposed to each other, and stunting their movement options. One card temporarily conjured layers of dense fog over sections of the board, blinding all players and forcing them to rely on memory and intuition. Another card adjusted the relative heights of various sections of the board, converting the flat checkerboard into a sort of grid-partitioned topographical map. Ron made moves that would have appeared docile and almost random to a novice player, but to a keen-eyed expert they subtly diminished the territorial control held by Marcy and Dacre. The game was devolving into a chaotic mess, wherein Marcy was no longer the obvious dominant player, and the true controller, if one existed, was much more nebulous. Ron much preferred chaos over the disciplined three-against-one onslaught that he had endured.
In the disarray, Ron feinted as if he was attacking Evan, only to sacrifice a piece for the purpose of infiltrating Marcy's corner. Both Ron and Dacre were pressuring Marcy, blocking her king's routes of escape. Simultaneously, Ron goaded Evan into a trap, a clever pawn-card combination that resulted in not only the capture of Evan's piece, but the total change in its allegiance. Ron used Evan's piece to bolster his attack on Marcy, leaving her in a state of paralyzing zugzwang. Marcy was running low on time, and in her time-pressured panic, she blundered in an attempt to defend herself against Ron. Dacre was ready to land the finishing blow. He captured her king, knocking her out of the game.
Dacre's excitement at defeating his old rival, his Slytherin upperclassman, was short lived. Ron was low on material, and his pieces were stretched out all across the board, but the rate at which he was winning territory and enemy pieces continued to rise. He had a lot of catching up to do. Dacre and Evan were painfully aware of his mounting comeback, a seemingly impossible feat only ten turns ago. He had an almost unreal inertia. It was a psychological game as both Slytherins, now without their seventh-year leader, and with waning sands in their hourglasses, assessed the situation. Neither wanted to overcommit to an attack against Ron (afraid of his exponentially growing control of the board, and tendency to play moves they had hardly considered), nor did they fully trust each other to strategize together. Working together, they almost certainly would have overwhelmed Ron with the sheer material advantage. Their hesitation gave Ron time to cement his position, covering the holes in his defense.
Dacre blocked himself in with his own pieces, tripping over his own feet as Ron surrounded him. The mating net was set. Just as Dacre thought he saw a way out, and an opportunity to counterattack, Ron surprised him by underpromoting a pawn to a knight to deliver check. Dacre's next two moves were forced, his king fleeing from danger, and he realized that there was no possibility for him to escape the imminent checkmate. He was bound to lose within the next three or so turns. His hourglass expired as he stared down at his hopeless tangle of misused, confused and threatened pieces.
Evan resigned. He opted to end the game then and there instead of playing a complicated blitz endgame with Ron, who now controlled the majority of the board, and had overtaken Evan in terms of remaining hourglass time. He shook Ron's hand (unlike Marcy and Dacre, who rose from the table and left as soon as possible). Ron remained seated at the table for a few minutes after the game, receiving congratulations from his friends and teachers in the small crowd. It was funny: Ron guessed that only a few of his spectators realized the magnitude of the terrible position he had escaped from. It might not have looked as exciting as saving a shot in Quidditch, but by Merlin, it was just as difficult. He went over the wild sequences of moves in his head, still hardly believing he had managed to scrape by with a win.