I'm Dead

Purple Royalty, Gold Wealth and Red Blood

Everybody was silent.

All eyes were fixed on the two boys in the middle of the room, a chessboard between them. Ron sat opposite Hugo, both of them focused completely on the game, glancing at each other now and then. Ron was contemplating his next move carefully, while Hugo was weighing up the positions of each piece on the board. Eventually, Ron moved his knight to claim Hugo's pawn. In return, Hugo simply moved one of his pawns closer to Ron's King. Several moves later, with Hugo's pieces creeping up on Ron's King, Hugo moved his last pawn forward a space and said, 'Checkmate.'

Ron scowled, seeing he had nowhere to move his King to. 'You win,' he muttered reluctantly. Hugo smirked slightly.

'Bad luck, mate.' Harry clapped Ron on the shoulder.

'You're losing your touch, Ronnie,' Ginny grinned.

'I must've taught him well, that's all,' Ron reasoned to Harry, as if he was trying to convince him. Harry nodded understandingly, while Hermione hid her laughter.

'Of course, Ron,' she said kindly. 'Because everyone knows you're a wonderful teacher, what with all that patience you have.'

Ron glared at her, as Ginny giggled.

'I picked it up really quickly, Dad didn't really need patience,' Hugo shrugged. 'But I still won.'

'Don't worry, though, Hugo can only beat you half the time in the future,' Rose assured Ron, who was only slightly cheered up by this.

It was the next day after their Quidditch match. Lily was perfectly fine (which was just as well for Victoire) and, because they were all bored, they'd decided to see how Ron fared against Hugo in a chess match. Yes, that was how bored they were – they were willing to sit down and watch a game of chess.

'Rematch tomorrow?' Ron asked Hugo.

'You're on,' Hugo smiled.

'Hey, has anybody seen James, Fred or George recently?' Victoire asked suddenly.

'I haven't seen them since breakfast,' Scorpius said.

'Me neither,' Teddy said, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.

'Crap,' Rose said suddenly – Al and Scorpius looked at her in surprise, as Rose rarely swore, even mildly.

'They're dead,' Victoire announced suddenly. 'I don't know what they've done but they're dead.'

. . . / * \ . . .

'We weren't doing anything, we swear!' Fred protested from his seat in between George and James. He turned to Rose and Lily with doe eyes. 'You two lovely nieces of mine believe me, don't you?'

This was a mistake. 'Don't try that with us,' Rose warned, narrowing her eyes at him and looking so much like Hermione when she did so that Fred shrunk back slightly. Fred Weasley was scared of Hermione Granger, and it was a fact that no one would ever find out. Now he was scared of her daughter, too.

'We know James, and we know Fred the Second, and we know that when they disappear for three hours it can mean nothing good or legal,' Lily hissed. 'So it only stands that you two should be the same.'

'And given that you three just happened to disappear for three hours, it's logical to think that whatever you did in those three hours isn't anymore good or legal than what James and Fred do,' Victoire said.

'Oh, great, cornered by the three worst Weasley girls out of all my cousins,' James muttered quietly.

Not quietly enough. 'I heard that,' Rose snapped.