Chapter 32: There For The Sacrifice

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One of Tom Marvolo Riddle's favorite games was chess.

Harry had often seen him play it with Lucius or Severus during days when there was little else to do, no meetings to attend or blood filled plans to construct. He could sit at the board for hours, analyzing the pieces, mapping out moves and countermoves in his mind.

Harry supposed that it was very much like what one did during a war. Pawns, like all of those nameless, faceless death eaters, were there for sacrifice, so that bishops and rooks, Luciuses and Severuses, could be protected.

Harry understood that well, but he had never been very good at chess.

"Do we have to - have to play?" asked Hermione hesitantly. The nearest chessman - a knight, Harry noticed - slowly turned its faceless head towards her. "To get across?" she continued, shrinking back ever so slightly.

Slowly, it nodded.

Harry winced. Hermione quickly stepped back from the edge of the huge chessboard and returned to Harry's side.

The boy glanced from Draco to Neville to Hermione. They were all intelligent in their own ways, even Neville, but intelligence wasn't the key. Strategy was.

"Can any of you play chess?" he asked, semi-hopefully.

They all shook their heads.

"Father tried to teach me," drawled Draco. "But I found the whole thing very tedious."

"Did you now?" snarled Harry. His stressed mind suddenly found Draco's arrogance very irritating.

Draco flinched back slightly, nonplussed at his friend's sudden vehemence.

Harry hissed out a breath and pressed his fingers to his temples. Closing his eyes and taking several deep breaths, he finally announced, "Everybody take the place of a black piece."

They were all silent for a moment.

"Which ones?" Neville finally asked, his voice shaky.

"Any of them!" Harry hissed, snapping his eyes open.

Neville jumped slightly and scampered off. Draco rolled his eyes and grabbed Hermione's arm. She immediately jerked away and strolled over to the board on her own.

Harry gritted his teeth against the nervousness swelling in his gut and strutted confidently over to the board. His first instinct was to scream at the king to get out of his way, but he fleetingly recalled that that particular piece could only move one spot at a time.

Flushing slightly with embarrassment, he barked, "Move it!"

The queen might've been offended by his rudeness, but her lack of a face made it hard to tell.

Settling into her spot, he unconsciously ran his hands down his wet uniform in a futile attempt to straighten the wrinkles.

"Okay," he hissed through his clenched teeth, glancing around the board. He almost rolled his eyes when he noticed that Neville had taken the place of a pawn. Hermione had chosen a rook, and Draco a bishop. "Draco, move-"

"White always goes first," Hermione cut in.

Harry narrowed his eyes at her. She nodded apologetically and looked pointedly across the board, where a white pawn had moved forward two squares.

"Move up, Neville," Harry hissed.

Harry first realized they were loosing when their other rook was taken most violently by the queen, who smashed him to the floor and dragged him off of the board, where he still laid unmoving. Harry vaguely got the sense that he had just been witness to a rather brutal murder, though he wasn't effected as much as Neville, who looked as if his heart was seizing.

"Had to let that happen," he said confidently. Keeping control of the situation was the key to preventing panic. At least he thought it was . . . Maybe he should've paid more attention to his father . . . "Uh, leaves you free to take that - that pawn, Hermione. Go."

"Pawn?" muttered Hermione.

"Do you see anything better?" he snapped.

The white players, Harry quickly discovered, were very much like Death Eaters - merciless and bloodthirsty. After a short time of playing, there had accumulated a rather large pile of what had once been black pieces along the side of the board.

"Hermione, move three squares to the right."

As soon as it was out of his mouth, Harry knew it was wrong, but Hermione had already started moving before he could get his mouth to work.

"No!" he exclaimed, but the girl had already jogged down three squares.

"What?" Hermione demanded.

Harry didn't get the chance to answer. The remaining white bishop went sailing through the opening Hermione had created and slammed into Draco, sending him flying backwards off the board.

"Bloody-effing-hell!" Harry cursed, grinding his teeth.

Hermione made a shocked noised. "Draco!" she shrieked.

The boy laid unmoving for several horrible seconds, during which Harry wildly imagined Narcissa sobbing her eyes out over Draco's coffin and Lucius pointing his wand at him with the Killing Curse on the tip of his tongue-

Draco wheezed.

Harry's knees almost gave out.

"Six - six spaces to the left, Hermione," he ordered, failing to keep the shake out of his voice.

Time almost seemed to dissolve after awhile, threading together into one big blur of cracking pieces and analyzing if-I-move-there-then-he-might-move-there-after-I-move-back-over-here-from-here-and-there.

Harry's brain felt like mush by the time he finally found enough confidence to announce, "I think we're nearly there . . ." His bleary eyes darted from piece to piece, gradually moving back and forth between Hermione and the white queen.

He swallowed convulsively.

"I have to be taken, don't I?" Hermione whispered, her voice deathly quiet.

Harry nodded.

"No!" exclaimed Neville. "I mean, no! Draco hasn't even woken up yet! And - and maybe he was lucky, or something! It might kill you, Hermione!"

"No," Hermione cut in. "It's the only way. It'll leave Harry free to checkmate the king."

"But-"

"Some maniac could have the key to immortality in their grasp," Hermione cut in. "And that, Neville, would be very bad."

"So would you getting your head cracked open," he murmured.

Hermione didn't reply. Trembling slightly, she stepped forward.

The queen was across the board before Harry could even register it. Her arm swung out and cracked Hermione across the side of her head, sending her flying to the floor.

Neville screamed, and Harry held his breath, crossing his fingers behind his back and biting his lip hard enough to draw blood.

On the spot where she had fallen, Hermione's chest slowly began to rise and fall.

He had the unfamiliar urge to faint, but he fought it down and forced himself three spaces to the left.

"Checkmate," he croaked at the king, who promptly removed his crown and threw it at Harry's feet.

Harry stumbled backward into Neville before regaining his balance and staggering through the chess pieces, who had parted before them.

"We won," said Neville hoarsely. "We . . . won."

Harry managed a smirk. "Don't sound so - so surprised, Neville. I always win."

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