A Game of Chess

A Game of Chess

I

She couldn't tell much of what went on in the first days; she kept drifting in and out of consciousness, colours and shapes less distinct than normal as they blurred into one another. A couple of times she could hear her mother's voice and feel a wrinkled hand holding hers, a large diamond ring digging into her hand. Once, she could feel her eyelids being pulled open by a trainee healer to see if her pupils could contract, but there wasn't really anything solid to indicate if she was dead or alive or not.

When she eventually came to, it was to an empty ward in Saint Mungo's with a bunch of wilting gerberas beside her bed and a stack of old papers on the ground. She was too weak to call out at first, and lay there for what felt like hours before a rather apathetic looking orderly noted she'd stirred, and her family was fetched immediately. The next forty minutes were spent with her mother clutching her to her chest, her father trying to calm her mother down, and a doctor trying to explain the potions they'd dosed her up with to stem the bleeding in her stomach and intestines. She would be all right, they said, after a few more days in the Urgent Care ward, because she was young and plucky and able-bodied. She would be able to cope with the sleeping potions that would make her vomit up her dinner, and she should be able to mobilise fully after another day or two: everything was in woulds and shoulds and coulds: nothing was solid or definite.

Bloody bureaucratic language, she thought to herself with the irony of a disillusioned public servant, and she vomited again, her bruised stomach stinging awfully.

II

Nobody really told her of what'd happened in the Ministry until the day after she woke up, after which time she was able to prop herself up on the pillows and keep her eyes open for more than an hour at a time. The word of the day seemed to be Oh, because it was pretty much all she could come up with at the time. You'll be wanting your privacy, of course, said her mother, to grieve. She didn't bloody well want privacy at all, in fact: it was her mother's way of saying that she was perfectly incapable of being present for any display of sincere, negative emotional outpouring. She just nodded, letting her mother sidle out, and spent the rest of her hour awake just staring at a patch of blue blanket covering her knees and picking at the scabs on her hands until they bled again.

III

He came to visit her two days after that, looking ambivalent and carrying a stack of books. I thought you might be bored here, so I brought you something to read, he'd told her as he sat down beside her bed, his hands folded together in his lap. After that had come the obligatory oh, thanks. She didn't know what to say after that, and evidently neither did he. She thought he looked like a corpse, with slack grey skin and runny red eyes, but also thought it more polite not to mention that to him. She picked through the books: old Muggle novels in fabric covers that looked thoroughly dull, with trite names like Wuthering Heights, and The Hound of the Baskervilles, and other varieties of florid titles. She said thanks, but she had no intention of reading them at all. He told her not to worry, because he'd read them all a thousand times already and he thinks they're very good books and that she'd enjoy them quite a bit. You can keep them if you like, he said, not meeting her eyes.

Terrific. More crap to clutter her unit with.

He told her that he supposed that she was probably inundated with visitors, and that he wouldn't keep her long because she needs her sleep. This wasn't true at all, because apart from her family the only people who've come to see her are Kingsley Shacklebolt and Rufus Scrimgeour, and that was just to fill out some paperwork approving a leave of absence for her. But she nodded and said yes, I suppose. He nodded, and left quietly, shutting the door behind him. She felt guilty, possibly because he must've been feeling as dreadful as she did, and he probably needed the company more than she did, but it was too late then, and her voice was too weak to penetrate through the door to call him back in.

IV

The next day she woke up to him sitting beside her bed, peeling an apple with a short knife. The waxy red skin spiralled down, and she watched him until he noticed that she was awake. He offered her a piece of the apple, which she accepted with thanks.

He wanted to know if she was up for a longer visit, and she nodded enthusiastically. He asked her if she'd made a start on any of the books: she lied, admitting she was already halfway through Wuthering Heights, and she really liked the Digby character.

He was a teacher, and was therefore not fooled, but felt it best not to say anything. He offered her some more apple, and asked how she was feeling. Comme ci, comme ca, she replied, although I've grown rather accustomed to the taste of my own bile. He laughed, quietly, and asked her how she really felt.

She didn't know how she felt, and she told him this. She asked him how he was feeling, and he had a funny look on his face for a minute before responding, the bastard could've at bought me a birthday present first, it was three months ago and all.

She laughed at him until she saw him looking sad and tired, and patted him on the arm and told him to go home and get some sleep. He replied that he didn't have a home to go to for the moment. There's not a lot one can really say in response to this, so in the place of words she simply gaped like a stunned goldfish, eventually expelling her customary oh. He asked if he could stay a bit longer, and she nodded back to him, grateful for the company.

He didn't say anything for the longest time, but just kept slicing at the apple and handing the pieces to her to eat. She asked him if he could bring a pack of cards, or a board game, or anything, the next time he visited, and he replied in the affirmative, picking up the skin and the core of the apple on his way out of the ward and dropping them into a waste bin by the door.

V

When I got accepted into Auror training, she giggled, high on the cheering potions that they'd been pumping into her ever since they caught her in the supply room with a bottle of rat poison and a cheeky grin - I didn't mince my words, I said to Mum myself that I'd be prepared to kill, or wound, or maim, if it meant I was saving lives. You always said you wanted me to do the right thing, didn't you? You did, I was there, Mum. You do the right thing, Dora, and fight for your right to exist.

He moved his one last bishop four spaces to the left. She looked happier that day, but an artificial sort of happy: one he was only too familiar with. She moved her pawn forward to capture his bishop: it was an entirely illegal move, but he didn't mention it, moving a rook forward two pitiful squares, directly in front of her queen. It was only a Muggle chess board, because when he tried to bring in a wizarding chess board she got scared of the little moving men and started crying.

You're not very good at this, are you? Suppose not, eh Moony. Does anyone ever call you Moony any more? Would you like me to stop talking about this subject? I can if you want me to.

It's all right, he told her. You can say whatever you'd like.

She deliberated, as though she couldn't see an easy capture in front of her. I told Mum, if you don't like me being an Auror, you can get on with it, I said to her. What's the point of being a blood traitor if you don't try and foil the bastards in the process?

Your move, he said, and she finally moved her queen to take his rook. Well, last Thursday when we were in the Ministry I saw Aunty Bella, and she invited me to duel with her - it wasn't so much an invitation as it was something I was dragged into, like any normal family function, only she was shooting hexes at me, and then I heard Sirius laughing at her, he was always laughing at her. And you know, if I'd accepted that invitation, if I shot something back at her--

She looked at the chessboard, noticing her own formidable array of pieces compared to his puny army of a king and a couple of pawns. She didn't know how she'd beaten him thus far, as all she'd done for the past three hours was blather away, and she couldn't even remember what she'd told him, and he was looking at her strangely now, raising his hand to her forehead. His hand felt nice there. And it all became apparent to her, there with his hand on her forehead, that the potions were wearing off, and all that was left was a cold feeling in her gut and a desire to just curl up under the blankets and end the game once and for all.

You all right, he asked her, taking her hand in his and leaning in closer to her.

She nodded weakly, and lay back down on her bed, curling her knees into her chest. The few remaining chess pieces scattered onto the bed, and he scooped them up and dropped them on the table beside her bed.

It's not your fault, he told her, holding her hand with one hand and stroking her hair back from her forehead with the other. Nobody blames you in the slightest, least of all me.

She lay there, quietly, and pulled the covers to her chin. I'm tired, she said, I think I want to have a sleep.

He kissed her on the back of the head, and removed the chessboard from her bed. I'll stay until you fall asleep then.

I'm not a little kid anymore, I can go to sleep on my own, she said.

But I'd like to stay here, he said, sitting upright in his chair beside her. I won't make a noise, I'll just sit here and read about Digby's exploits.

She laughed, and closed her eyes, grateful that she was facing away from him as she buried her face into the pillow. After a while, her body stopped shaking and she lay still, and when she closed her eyes she felt his hand on the back of her head. There was something distant and hollow in the gesture, like she could tell that he was deriving nothing of the experience and that he obviously had no idea what to do next, and after a minute, he withdrew his hand, sitting quietly in the chair with the book in his lap, though not reading it.

She was asleep long before he left the room.