A Friendly Game of Chess
June rolled around rather quickly, and before he knew it, Alex had been thrown into the stressful times of exam week. Although there was a bit of resistance from Malfoy upon which Alex shouldn’t be able to do his potion’s final, Alex still took all seven of his exams.
Even after being told that exam grades wouldn’t be posted for another week, Alex spent his time in the library with his nose in a book. Ever since Rowena had informed him about the Philosopher’s Stone, Alex did as much research as his brain could handle on this new form of alchemy.
He could hear students on the grounds outside, yet he preferred the dusty bookshelves and what stories they might be able to tell him. He knew Amarra was among those hundreds of students, and he knew that she was having the time of her life, but he hadn’t expected to be interrupted.
“What’re you reading, mate?” The chair creaked beside him and Alex saw Blaise sit. A black and grey-brown tabby sat on his shoulders, and Alex knew this fellow to be Erskine.
“An advanced form of alchemy.” He looked at cat before back at the boy. “Why aren’t you on the grounds with the others?”
Blaise shrugged, and then tapped the desk. Erskine jumped onto the table, and pawed at Alex’s journal. “I was out there earlier, but when I came in to get Erk, I decided to come find you instead. What kind of alchemy?”
Alex looked back at his notes. “What do you know about the Philosopher’s Stone?”
“The what?”
Alex smiled. He opened the large book on alchemical texts, and flipped to the page about the stone. “It’s an elixir, created by a wizard named Nicolas Flamel in the fourteenth century. Basically the owner or possessor of the stone will be able to live an eternal life.”
He eyed the cat—who played with his pen caps—and suddenly things started to make sense. He looked at Blaise with a wild look, and then inquired a new question. “What do you know about He-Who-Should-Not-Be-Named?”
Blaise looked taken aback, his face contorted in confusion. In a hushed tone, he told Alex all that he knew about the Former. “I know that he waged war against the Muggles and Muggle-borns, and that anyone who opposed him were killed. Mum used to say that my father was a follower of him, but after a while, he saw how cruelly the Dark Lord treated his supporters. After the Dark Lord died, some of his followers went off the rails and were sent to Azkaban. Others went into hiding, but there were a very selected few who went out in search of him.
“Why do you ask?”
“Because I think he’s trying to come back, or at least find a way to make it back to the physical world.”
Blaise’s face wrestled with confusion and a slight ruse of frustration. “He can’t come back to life, that’s not possible. He’s dead, the Wizarding world would know if he tried to come back.”
Alex pulled a newspaper from his bag, and handed it to him. “The Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures published this article a few months back stating that there has been a rise of unicorn deaths lately. According to both Professors Quirrell and Snape, unicorn blood can be used to preserve life, specifically to keep a person alive even if they are an inch from death.”
Blaise read the article, and then handed the clipping back. “What are you getting at, Snape?”
Alex could plead with the other boy as much as he liked, but even he knew that nothing would get through to him. The image of Quirrell and the deformed creature replayed in his mind. “What if He-Who-Should-Not-Be-Named didn’t die that night, but he was close to dying? What if for the last ten years, he has been living off of unicorn blood and has been in search of one of the most prolific elixirs known?”
Blaise contemplated the theory, but then shrugged again. He took Erskine in his arms, and patted Alex on the shoulder. The boy silenced a wince, and looked back at his fellow Slytherin. “It’s a nice theory, but I doubt that it’s true. Besides, we all know that the Dark Lord died that night. It’s best to leave these things in the past. Erk and I are gonna go down for dinner, you wanna come with?”
Alex looked back at his notes and the book, but shook his head. “Thanks but no thanks.”
“Suit yourself,” Blaise said. Alex watched him leave the library, and then he turned back to the table.
“I’m not crazy. I know this has to be the truth, but how can I prove myself in such a short amount of time? Not when those three Gryffindors have already beaten me to—” he looked out from the window and saw Malfoy’s gang under the ledge, as if they had been waiting for him to spot them. Upon his acknowledgment of them, Alex could hear Malfoy make foul accusations and jeers from the grounds below, but before he could open the window, he heard a group of footsteps.
“What are you doing here!” Alex turned back around and came face to face with the three Gryffindors. Weasley in his bright red hair and freckles sneered at Alex before he could even open his mouth, but it was Granger who caught his eye.
She stared directly at his journal and the book on the stone. Alex moved to cover up his notes, and she went for the book, but he grabbed ahold of it first. “Let go.”
“No you.” He held on tighter to the corners, and stared her directly in her brown eyes. “I’m doing research on some alchemical forms, what do you need it for?”
“The very same, Snape,” Potter snapped.
Alex turned his attention to the boy, and held on tighter. “Tell me what you know about the Philosopher’s Stone and I’ll let you have it.”
Granger looked awestruck, and both her friends looked rather dumbstruck that Alex had mentioned the sole purpose why they were in there to begin with. “What do you want with the stone, Snape?”
“Like I said, I’m researching it. And I know where it’s hidden, as do you. But why are you in search for it?”
Potter suddenly looked frustrated. “We don’t have time for this, Hermione. Give us the book, Snape or we’ll tell McGonagall that you’ve been in the Restricted Section.”
Alex smiled. “You’ll only be incriminating yourselves, Potter. You’ve read this book before, and the only place you can find it is in the restricted section, you’d only be harming your own operation. A bit of advice, Potter: just because you catch the golden snitch as a hobby, doesn’t mean you get to play it now.
“I’ll let you have the book only if you tell me what I want to know.”
All three of the students looked at each other, and while Weasley and Potter contemplated on telling him, Granger let go of the book. “What are you doing, Hermione?”
“We don’t need it.” She said. Her eyes lingered on his notes, and he could almost sense that they had nearly the same information as he did. “Snape can use it, he had it first after all. C’mon.”
She turned quickly on her heels and walked away. Both Potter and Weasley stared at each other and then followed after her. As they walked out of the library, Alex could hear their bickers, but soon they were too quiet to even hear.
Alex sat back in his chair and looked at his notes further. “I have to assume that they’ve already told McGonagall about this case, or at least Dumbledore, but I doubt either of them will do anything about it.”
He turned his head again when he heard Hermione’s voice beside him, and he looked at her with a certain eagerness.
“Harry is convinced that your father is trying to steal the stone, and he’s willing to catch him in the act. Your notes say Quirrell, and I’m starting to lean towards the side that you are on now, but Harry is sure that it’s your father. That’s all I have, Alex, I’m sorry,” she told him, and then just as quickly as she had come back, she had left again.
Alex stared at the spot she had just been in, and then felt his face tug at the smile his lips had just created. Granger was on his side; she thought that it wasn’t Snape but Quirrell, but after a few second of thoughts, Alex’s smile faltered.
He thought back to the first Quidditch match. She lit his father’s robes on fire because she thought he had cursed Harry. After the troll attack, Alex had heard the trio discuss how they thought Snape let the troll in. It wasn’t that she was on his side, but that she had slowly deduced that it wasn’t Snape who was out for the stone, but someone else. Someone like Quirrell.
Alex gathered his books and pens quickly, and hurried out of the library. Students had returned from the grounds with cheery and sunburnt faces, but they moved out of his way as he headed for the dungeons. Before he could even knock, he heard his father’s voice call to him from the other side of the door.
“What is it, Alexander?” Snape sat at his desk with his head hovered over a collection of final exams.
“I know about the stone, and I think someone is going to break into the third-floor corridor tonight.” It was a hunch, Alex had no idea if Quirrell had planned to end his search that night or not, but he knew that something was afoot.
His father’s quill came to halt, and the screech nearly sent Alex into a frenzy. His father looked up from the papers and the vials, and stared at his son. “You know about the Philosopher’s Stone? How?”
Alex recounted to him the night he met the three-headed dog. He left out the part about him and his mother’s ghost, but he told his father exactly what happened and what Rowena had told him. He handed his father his journal, and let him read the notes he had comprised about the situation.
“You’ve known Quirrell for years, even when he was the professor of Muggle Studies, but you can agree that he’s changed since his time at that post. I suspect that Quirrell is going to find a way to the stone before anyone else gets to it.”
Snape carefully read the scattered notes inside the journal before he placed the book down. For a moment, he looked deep in thought and leaned back in his chair before he gave a small laugh. “Why would a professor try to steal the stone? What’s it to him? Half of what he says about his studies abroad sounds fantastical, but to purposefully steal something that could bring You-Know-Who back? Dumbledore asked him to help guard the stone, and as much as I think Quirrell is up to something, I don’t think it’s this, Alexander.”
What other evidence did Alex have? As long as he could search his brain for the images, or for any information, he kept coming blank, and his father began to notice.
“Listen, I understand that this has been a hard year for you, son, but you don’t have to worry about something so unimportant. Grades will come back next week, and then we’ll go home for the summer. You shouldn’t have to worry about something that doesn’t concern you.
“Why don’y you go to dinner, and enjoy the rest of the term out in the sun with your sister? You look like you could need it,” Snape said, condescendingly. “Leave these matters to Dumbledore, McGonagall, and I.”
Alex took his journal back, and then stopped in the doorway. He debated on telling his father about the vision he saw when he touched Quirrell, but for once, he didn’t say anything. He left and headed back to the common room—where to his happiness—was entirely empty. He played chess by himself, and watched the fireplace grow more and more dim as the evening carried on.
——
In the wakes of the night, Alex felt his body grow stiff in the confines of his bed. When he opened his eyes, he found himself not in his bed, but in the very room that the three-headed dog had been in. A harp played around him, and when he turned to find the dog, it was sound asleep.
He heard footsteps, and found the trio of Gryffindors at the door, but they moved around him as if he wasn’t there. Although they questioned who had sent the dog into a slumber, they proceeded through the trapdoor and into the first puzzle with Alex on their heals.
The trio and Alex moved through these trial rooms with difficulty, but they figured each one out in a speed Alex was so sure that they do would mess up in. But alas, they passed each room until they lost Weasley in the chess room and walked past a dead troll, and finally they reached the final puzzle.
Alex watched as Granger disappeared behind a veil of purple clouds, and he turned to followed Potter through a similarly black veil, and he knew who stood behind door number two even before he stepped through. Quirrell greeted the boys, and while the professor explained to Potter why Snape wouldn’t be the one to betray the boy, Alex found the desired mirror off to the side.
Still, all he saw was his older self. The older boy smiled once the younger one stepped forward, and the fang-like teeth on the right greeted him. This time, however, there were new additions to his features. A streak of white had been painted into his hair, and the left eye was now slitted and cold. The more Alex looked at this different version, the more he saw a resemblance to the red, slitted-eyed man in the cavern. Then the sight of the exact man appeared in the reflective glass, and Alex turned to see that Quirrell had taken his turban off and the Former’s face was now truly seen.
Alex felt sick. This was his predecessor—the parasite—the deformed Dark Lord. Both he and Potter looked sick, but the latter held an expression of triumph and refused to hand over the stone that the Former desired.
Alex looked back at the mirrored image, and knew something was off by the whole situation. Potter knew where the stone was, the two-faced professor grew more and more agitated, but Alex felt a wave of sheer sickness wash over him.
He wanted to hurl. He felt acid climb the ranks of his innards, he felt his body rise in heat, and then the room went cold.
When Potter put his hands out in defense, Alex screamed at him to stop. When the little lion boy’s claws dug into the skin of Quirrell’s face, Alex felt an unimaginable pain sear itself into the creases of his skin.
He looked at his arms and watched them sizzle and smoke. A spark was all that was needed, and before Alex knew it, a black and red flame engulfed him while Potter and Quirrell fought for possession of the stone.
“Alex!”
He closed his eyes to try to calm himself from the hellscape he’d been thrown into. Voices called to him from the outer worlds; some familiar and some were older than he. He saw faces among the haze; old and young, sane and criminal, borrowed and bruised. His skin prickled and crackled, and then…
He screamed. Something cold washed over him. Something wet and stinging. “Alex! Wake up, son!”
He saw his mother’s face in the madness—her sweet smile and kind eyes—she whispered to him, “Wake up, darling. You have to wake up, my sweet boy.”
Alex jolted up. His arms stung in a reverent pain. His eyes rapidly scanned over his arms, and through the pain, he hysterically tore the cloths that covered his arms off.
He felt hands grab him and pulled him back into the mattress. His eyes darkened in clouds of panic, but he was so sure he saw his father above him. There was reassurance in his father’s face, but the same amount of pain and panic clouded the man’s face. “Calm down, son. You’re okay, just relax.”
He looked at his arms, they were raw and discolored. He writhed in agony and discomfort at the touch of others’ hands and the wet cloths, but after a few minutes, his body went still. Only his breath could be heard, and he looked at the infirmary’s ceiling before his eyes fell heavy.
——
Three days. Three days he spent in the hospital wing. His sister came to visit multiple times, and so did Blaise. Salazar came to tell him that Quirrell was left to die in the lower rooms, and that the stone had been destroyed, but even as the ghost said that, Alex could hear a lie in his voice. But Alex didn’t question the ghost any further, and counted down the hours until he could be free of the infirmary.
On the day before the end of term, Alex released and he spent the day in the dormitory. Blaise helped him pack, and while Alex was grateful, he also wanted to do this on his own. He found that the pain and the discoloration only affect his upper arms, and the time it would take for his skin to look like its previous state would take time to heal.
While Alex was more than willing to move forward and into the next school year, he felt as if he had some unresolved business to deal with first. So, that same afternoon, he called a meeting with Malfoy in the Great Hall.
“What do you want, Snape?” Malfoy stood in front of the Slytherin table with his goons, and his arms crossed over her chest.
Alex had set up his chess board, and smiled at the other boy. “A friendly game of chess, that’s all. Have a seat.”
Malfoy looked around them. The Great Hall was widely empty, the green and silver banners of the house hung above them from the rafters, but the pride seemed to be non-existent among the group of boys. Malfoy sat across from Alex, and waited for him to say something.
“You take white,” Alex said. His arms had wraps of bandages around them, and he moved slowly after Malfoy made the first move. “I heard that you were worried about me the other night.”
Malfoy stammered the get out his next few words, and a tinge of pink flustered on his cheeks. “You scared us, that’s all. We were all sleeping, and then you started screaming. Don’t let it get to your head, Snape.” He moved his next piece, and Alex smiled.
“I find it so weird that you’re more than willing to denounce your compassion for me, but you spend all of your time bullying the likes of others. Myself included. You have a particular interest in Potter, and well I can see why, but I also know that you don’t like to be outranked.” Alex took a moment to think, and then moved his piece. “Is that why you harass me too? Because I outmatched you?”
Alex folded his hands together, and smiled again. Malfoy stared at him, his face contorted in a mix of anger and jealously, and Alex knew he had struck gold. “What are you talking about, Snape?”
“I think that you and your goonies have enough people to harass in the coming school year, and that you don’t need to pick on Potter or me anymore. And you know why I think you should stop?”
Malfoy shook his head. Alex motioned him to play, and the second after the blonde-haired boy moved his piece, Alex laughed quietly. He moved his third piece, and then reached his hand out. “Checkmate, good game.”
Malfoy looked dumbfounded, and Alex watch his dark eyes search for the answer that was in front of him. When Malfoy didn’t reach over to shake hands, Alex cleared his throat. “I know some secrets about you, Draco. And if you don’t agree to stop harassing Potter, or his friends, or myself next school year, then you leave me with no choice but to tell the school that your father was a Death Eater.”
Alex stood and gathered his chess set. “Think about it, okay? I don’t want you to get worked up over a little secret, it’s not something your father would be proud of.”
He left the Slytherin table with his set under his arm, and he left Malfoy (and his gang) in a complete and utter state of bewilderment and fear.
——
The end of year feast was quite boring to Alex when he reentered the Great Hall that evening. He couldn’t see why anyone would be so prideful in their work, and be so cheery when others cheated at a fair game, but house points were house points and people had a right to be proud of their housemates.
But thank god for the downfall of Slytherin overachievements.
The train ride home was just an uneventful as the night prior, but Alex found peace when Blaise entered the compartment. He, Amarra, and Blaise talked about who would be the new Defense professor, and if there would be any dangers in the upcoming school years, and how they might get involved.
While Blaise helped Amarra get her trunks from the overhead bin and get them onto the London platform, Alex was stopped by the grey grasp on his shoulder. Salazar smiled at him, and motioned for him to sit.
“I’m sorry I’ve haven’t been able to talk with you about your dreams these past few weeks, but I can assure you that I will be around more in the following days. I have come to warn you that these dreams are only just beginning, and that there is another one to come soon. I enjoyed your presence this year, Alex, and I hope the feeling is mutual.”
Alex nodded. “It is, don’t be a stranger.”
He pulled his trunk and bags from the overhead bin, and joined his sister on the platform. He could feel Serpentine coiled around his neck, and the green and black head appeared to his right as they stepped out into the cool London air.
If danger truly lurked around every corner, then why was it always in search for a young Slytherin heir and his Ravenclaw sister? Why have the Fates designed for them to have such terrible stories and unhappy, happy endings…?