Title:  Your Move (Love Ridden 12)

Author: Romie

E-mail:  romie@r...

Archive:  anywhere.  In fact, I'd appreciate it.  Let me know if it's

convenient.

Rating:  G

Pairing:  prelude to Harry/Draco.

Spoilers:  none

Disclaimers:  Rowling is God.  There's once sentence that's almost but not quite lifted from Trainspotting.

Warnings:  this series features a same-sex romantic pairing.

Feedback: yes please, both on and off list

Summary:  Harry and Ron play chess

Notes: Between part 11 and this, I wrote an interlude from Crabbe's point of view. It can be found at http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=444004

=============================================

 

All day, I've been trying to talk to Hermione.  I hadn't realized just how difficult it is to get her alone; she's inevitably in class, or tutoring Neville, or at the library.  It's queer: I think of her as omnipresent, but we actually spend very little time together now that our academic concentrations are in different subjects.  When I do see her, it's in the dining hall, or with Ron.  How odd that at the time I feel closest to her, I see her least.

 

This makes things rather difficult.  I *need* to confide in someone, and Hermione's . . . sensible.  While Ron is my Best Friend, Hermione has always been my therapist.  She's ideally suited: she listens, takes mental notes, and offers well thought out solutions.  Thank God Ron and I went looking for her first year during the legendary "Troll Incident"; I can't imagine what life would be like now without her as a friend.  And I wish it was as easy to find her *now*; unfortunately, she dashed out a few hours ago, mumbling something about "project for Professor Sprout."

 

So instead of unburdening my soul to her, I've spent the afternoon in the common room, playing wizard chess with Ron.  (And losing.  Badly.  It's a good thing we never play for money.  Well, never unless we've been drinking.  But that was really just twice, and I was going to give him that shirt anyway.)  At least it helps take my mind off things.

 

I wish I could simply talk to Ron about it, but I'm too confused.  If I know what the problem is, I can rely on Ron to rush to my aid, no questions asked.  He might grumble a bit, but he trusts me to know what I can handle.  (And what I can't, which is probably more applicable to the Malfoy situation.)  But when I don't know what I want, he can be startlingly callous.

 

Ron, you see, always knows what he wants.  There are a few major desires: he wants the Chudley Cannons to win the cup, he wants enough money that he'll never have to worry about it, and he wants for someone to love him best.  Ancillary are legion short-term wishes, like a new set of dress robes, decent marks in Transfiguration, and sausage links for breakfast.  Ron is very accomplished at avarice.  It's more of an art form than most people realize - it's a balance of goals and imaginatiion.  It's drive and purpose and knowing who you are on a Saturday morning.

 

Perhaps if I asked him, he'd teach me to want the right things.  The house in the country with the 2.5 children.  A challenging and rewarding job which fulfills my thirst for adventure while providing both stability and direction.  A shelf full of cookbooks, and a shed bursting with spades and hedge clippers.

 

Wanting Draco is unhealthy, like eating an entire chocolate cake in one sitting.  One iced with cyanide.  It's an invitation to madness; the boy has emotional problems, intimacy issues, and a documented inability to relate to my friends.  I remind myself of this over and over again, running it through my head on an assembly line of excuses.

 

Red queen to bishop six.  I'm doing even more horribly than usual - my mind is simply not on the game, and my pieces can sense it.  The king's pawn is particularly demoralized; he keeps trying to hit my rooks with bits of sesame seed.

 

Why isn't Hermione back yet?  She'll explain it all away, I'm sure of it.  She'll tell me that my experience with the Dursleys led me to associate pain with family, leading me into abusive and/or neglectful relationships in later life.  Draco is simply a manifestation of the deep-seated conviction that I am undeserving of love.  He is attractive because I know he will hurt me; I have never reconciled the hatred I endured in the muggle world with my acclaim among wizards, resulting in repressed masochistic tendencies.  Furthermore, I want a relationship doomed to failure, because I am afraid success, (marriage, especially to a woman,) will turn me into Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia.

 

It won't sound like psychobabble coming from her.  It won't be so sterile, so clinical.  It won't reduce me to an unfortunate statistic.  I'll feel comforted, knowing what the situation is.  Perhaps I'll remember a particularly nasty episode from my childhood, and cry a little.  Afterwards, it will seem as though I've solved something; everything will be clear again.  And Hermione will watch out for me, to make sure I don't stray.

 

I'll be able to *believe* it when she says it, instead of feeling this violent need to prove I can make things work.  I won't point out the logic flaws; I won't question why these "tendencies" are just now surfacing.  I won't ask why I didn't think about Draco this way until he stopped fighting, which would seem to invalidate the "I want him to hurt me" argument.

 

I'm in check again.  Not checkmate, which I'd almost welcome - I'm too proud to stop fighting before I'm roundly beaten, but it's tiring when it's so clear that I'm going to lose.  I want it to be over: all my ripostes and counterattacks are merely stalling tactics.  And yet I can't just end it, I can't just walk away, or play at less than my optimal skill.  Stupid sodding bastard.

 

In this case, the best defense would be to sacrifice that seed-throwing pawn, but I've become rather fond of him.  At least he gets angry instead of just waiting to be crushed.  I move my knight to block, which surprises Ron.  He's now scanning the board, convinced that I'm trying a crafty and unorthodox strategy, leading him into a trap.  He can't understand why anyone would surrender his last knight simply to save one surly pawn.

 

A few minutes later, the game is over.  The loss of my knight gave his bishop an opening, and within three turns, I'm in checkmate.

 

The pawn survives.