May 15th, 1895 - Great Hall

Willfully ignorant of the glares coming from nearby Slytherins, Mo was perfectly comfortable sitting across from Connor with a chess board between them, as had become a somewhat irregular way for them to pass a rainy afternoon when she couldn't get outside or classes had been particularly tiresome. It was rare to see a Gryffindor so at home at another table in the Great Hall, particularly the Slytherin table, but she rather thought Connor was more comfortable here than at her table, so she didn't mind.

He had taught her some good moves, but she was still learning how best to employ actual strategy so lost more often than not. Mostly she sort of enjoyed spending time with Connor, even if he was a little weird. She didn't mind, not really, he was just quiet, even moreso than Stella and she had to work to meet that level of silence sometimes. Mo had always been the kind to fill the silence with talking, but had slowly learned here she didn't need to.

Still, it was hard and so she usually found something to say after she couldn't take it anymore. "That was a dumb move, wasn't it?" She only had one rook left and she had most definitely just left it wide open. Would he tire of her silly mistakes eventually? Maybe, but who didn't like winning all of the time? That had to be some sort of saving grace.

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Connor Sinnet

  

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“You can’t take it back now,” Connor pointed out automatically; not that Miss Pendergast seemed to be about to. Actually, she seemed perfectly happy to lose all the time. This, to Connor, felt like some long, winding scheme to pull the wool over his eyes – he couldn’t comprehend it, otherwise.

Either she was getting better, or it was purely accidental, but only when Connor took her precariously-placed rook with his bishop did he notice said bishop was now at risk. He gritted his teeth and sighed before he could help himself, though he should have hid his frustration better, so as not to draw attention to his dumb mistake. Maybe playing with Ramona was making him worse.

Or maybe Connor had things on his mind today, and couldn’t make himself focus properly on the chessboard. Because – he had just found out for sure – he wasn’t going home at the end of the year. He was instead to take the train to Hogsmeade station to meet Angie again, because he was going to live with her. The winter holidays had all been well and good – an odd look into her life, as if through a looking glass – but this was different: this was all starting to sound very permanent. So he was annoyed at Angie for thinking she was in charge of him, and annoyed at his parents for not coming back for him, and at the school or whoever for letting this happen to him. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all.

And so he was annoyed at Ramona’s carefree attitude, too, leaving her rooks wide open and making him mess up too.

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Mo didn't notice his mistake, she was too busy trying to rectify hers to focus on what he was doing. "No, I know." She frowned, brows furrowed in concentration. She had no real sense of strategy, most of the time just winging it, but she peeked up at him and then back down at the board.

"What should I do?" She was going to lose no matter what, realistically, maybe she could learn some better sets of moves to employ. He might not even tell her, or he could make it so she made a really dumb move (worse than what she'd already done), but what would she really know anyway? Maybe she ought to work on it more at home this summer.

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He was too irked at the world to have the focus to knowingly manipulate her, to lead Ramona down the garden path until she walked into a trap. He was too restless, probably, to make a proper trap for her to fall into now, so – he gave a grand, dramatic sigh, and propped his chin on his hand.

Sincere advice instead, then. If he couldn’t fix his life, surely he could make her less useless a chess player. “You should have kept your rook safe, protecting your king,” he began. Too late for that now, he wasn’t going to undo their moves, but moving forward – “But you can’t be afraid to use your queen. You don’t want to lose her, but she’s more powerful than anyone, so she’s really your best weapon. See, like here –” he pointed out a potential move or two, pondering the board from her side (the way he did when he had used to play against himself), “– go on the offensive. Use her to check my king or take a piece, if you can.”

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Mo watched him, slightly amused by his annoyance, not sure if she was the cause or if it was something else. Surely her blunder was good for him, so what did he have to be flustered about?

Keeping an eye on his suggestions, Mo considered the board for a moment. She was not one for strategy, but maybe she was looking at it wrong. If she thought about it more like a quidditch pitch and less like a chess board, maybe she could figure this out. Use the queen, it wasn't a bad idea, she ran the possibilities over again in her head. She thought she saw something, so went for it, not pausing very long to consider all the ramifications, directing her queen to take one of his knights. "Like that?" It seemed like she would be fine, even as she looked at it after.

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“Yeah,” Connor said finally, his tone half-surprised at that, as he mapped out the potential consequences (smart or disastrous) of her chosen move. Maybe it was good to have something easier to concentrate on, a problem beyond his own life – even if she won this game, he could get the credit for it. And he didn’t actually think Ramona would mind, which was weird. He would have assumed anyone who liked quidditch was automatically competitive in all things. (He didn’t even like quidditch, and he already was.)

So he took a good long moment to move a piece of his own, towards one of her remaining pawns – innocuous, but part of a larger scheme – and gestured her on with a brief close-mouthed quirk of a smile. “Keep it up and maybe one day you’ll actually be fun to play.”

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Too busy scrutinizing the board, Mo didn't quite contain the laugh and roll of her eyes at his comment. "I'm already fun to play, otherwise you would stop asking me." True, she had asked him this time, but it wasn't always that way. Winning all of the time must have been fun at least. She'd have to ask Papa to play her at home so she could get better; he did not believe in taking it easy on his girls when it came to games. It was win or lose, no pity.

Without putting much thought into it (though more than the mess up move), Mo moved her knight towards the middle of the board. She had a little bit of a longer plan plotted out, but really it wasn't her strong suit. Which she supposed begged the question; would she ever actually get better at this or would she stick to quidditch and lawn games?

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“You keep telling yourself that,” Connor quipped back, half-distracted by her move that had, this time, slightly disrupted his scheme. She was right, though, he did ask her; and he had played against her enough times to be comfortable teasing her now, too. “And you’ve got –” he pretended to check a pocketwatch, “six years and a fortnight left of Hogwarts to try and beat me.”

Maybe he shouldn’t get too comfortable mocking her, in case she ever took it to heart – Connor didn’t have that many friends, so he probably shouldn’t dismiss any of them, out of hand. (Even a girl. Even a girl who seemed determined to coax him into being more sociable than he wanted to be.)

He moved another piece, triumphantly.

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"I will!" She beamed at him. "I'll get lucky eventually." She chuckle at his motions as she said it. Mo had to wonder if he knew he was sometimes funny or if he just meant for it to be sarcastic. Probably the second one, but she did still find it amusing.

Eying the board after his move, Mo was pretty sure she'd lost. He nearly had her in check and she really wasn't sure how to move out of it. She tried a little desperate move, using her queen to take out his remaining knight, but she didn't think it would actually make much difference.

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   Connor Sinnet

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Apparently it would take more than all this to dampen Ramona’s spirits (so far, Connor had only ever seen quidditch-related things dampen her spirits, like her not getting on the team). He really didn’t understand her at all.

Though he could see what she had been trying for, there; but her last hail mary hadn’t saved her. His eyes darted around the board, looking at her king in every possible direction. (Admittedly, even playing someone less-than-stellar was more exciting than trying to surprise himself.) “But that’s checkmate,” Connor crowed as he moved his piece, “so not today.” He grinned at her smugly, unthinkingly revealing his canines in his self-satisfaction. (Honestly, he had needed a win today.)

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It had been for nothing and she'd known it, Connor really was very good at it. "Well, at least I learned something." She chuckled, extending a hand over the board to shake. "Good game." She did have six more years of school to best him. If she beat him once in that time, she'd consider it a success.

Mostly she just played because he liked it, but he didn't need to know that.

Packing up her pieces, she sighed, content. "Can I stay for some tea, or are your housemates tired of me?" She laughed again, reaching for the pot; the question was rhetorical, she was staying whether they liked it or not.

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