The Pieces
“So why?” Ginny demanded. “What’s the connection? Why are the British Ministry of Magic sending prisoners to Sendulla?”
“I don’t know!” said Undine, crossly. “And I didn’t know the answer the last time you asked me either.”
They were sitting at breakfast the following morning. Ginny had slept badly, plagued by thoughts of Anthony and Sandrin, and was edgily bad tempered as a result.
“And does it mean they know the House of Assembly is making Dementors?”
“Ask Sendulla!”
“I wish,” snapped Ginny. “He must have been out of here like a Nogtail at the end of term. I’ve sent him a Patronus…”
“Two big horned ones…” put in Ruby.
“Two big horned ones,” Ginny echoed, grumpily. “But no reply to that either. And McGonagall just shrugs, and says she’s too busy to talk about it.”
“Yeah, but she’s got a whole school who can’t go home for the holidays,” Ruby reminded her. “Plus hundreds of parents trying to treat the place like a hotel so they can visit their little darlings. Who else can you ask?”
“I’m out of ideas,” Ginny confessed.
“Harry?” suggested Ruby.
“No! No way!”
“What about Hermione Granger?”
Ginny considered that, moodily. “I’ll send her an owl,” she said grudgingly. “I don’t fancy a lecture on how busy she is.”
Ginny had expected all her guests to go home for the holidays, but Beatrix had decided to stay at Beauxbatons for the entire period, which meant that Ginny was then either catering for a houseful or competing for space in her own kitchen, while Beatrix and Undine cooked, leaving little leisure for thinking.
Gosse took shameless advantage of the extra guests to sequester the entire free household as models as he ran through his newly-discovered classical period like the Hogwarts Express, producing endless paintings of goddesses and satyrs and nymphs and all the rest. Ginny found herself forced to replace her position in the layouts with cushions so she could catch up with her extra responsibilities: Professor McGonagall had become entirely fed up with the endless demands of the Hogwarts parents, and left for a brief holiday.
“I am a headmistress,” she had told Ginny crossly as she stood at the gates before she left. “I am neither travel agent, hotelier nor agony aunt.”
“But I need to talk to you about…”
“When I get back, Ginny!” McGonagall Twisted with a crack, and disappeared.
Both McGonagall and Sendulla had left deputies, but both of them punctiliously – bone-idly, in Ginny’s view of things – sought Ginny’s advice on every matter, so her days were invariably full.
Fortunately Beatrix was enjoying the continued companionship of her fellow Triwizard judges, Maurice and Benjamin, who if not taking dinner at the Beauxbatons headmistress’s house were taking leisurely walks about the grounds or more ambitious hikes into the nearby mountains. So she seemed blind to Undine’s constant preoccupation.
Ruby appeared only when demanded for modelling by Gosse, and spent the rest of her time either asleep or at Hogwarts.
Undine spent as much time as she could in her room with Anthony. This reminded Ginny so powerfully of her time hiding Draco in her room at home that she connived on several occasions to smuggle the pair of them out of the house so they could enjoy some fresh air and greater privacy.
Anthony continued to behave himself, always polite and calm, but Ginny still didn’t feel she could entirely trust him. She cornered Undine on two occasions, trying to teach her some additional defensive spells, but Undine was both insulted and insulting about this, and Ginny could only leave her to it. After all, as Undine acidly pointed out, she was several years older than Ginny.
Beatrix, when she wasn’t staying with the other judges, slept soundly – and snored like a dragon - so any noises from Undine’s room escaped her, fortunately. Ginny told Gosse everything, to stop him complaining too loudly about Undine’s absence from his painting sessions, but he would only shrug when asked his opinion. When lying in bed, she would still cringe at any sounds coming from Undine’s room, but Gosse would merely sigh and turn over, often taking Ginny with him.
She also annoyed Undine by asking Anthony to repeat and expand his experiences since she’d seen him at the Battle of Hogwarts, but he couldn’t add much to his first telling. He wasn’t of a noticing disposition, she found, and he’d spent a disturbing amount of time clamped inside a wall.
She didn’t manage to catch him out in any lies, or detect any unkind motives. He seemed genuinely delighted and grateful at being rescued by Undine, and although his geeky nature dwarfed any romantic inclinations he might otherwise exhibit, he seemed genuinely fond of her as well.
He didn’t mind Ginny quizzing him, or take it amiss. He was almost annoyingly nice, in fact, which didn’t stop Ginny worrying in the twilight hours between going to bed and falling asleep, or the grey ones between waking and being able to get out of bed in the morning.
Three days after sending her owl to Hermione, she was awoken extra-early by a silver-grey flash.
“News to me,” said Hermione’s voice. “Keep me informed.” By the time Ginny’s eyes were fully opened, the Patronus had disappeared.
She was sorely tempted to send an angry Patronus message back, but decided there was no point.
Beatrix insisted that they should hold a Victory Day celebration just before the next term started.
“Victory Day?” Ginny asked in puzzlement.
“Celebrating Grindelwald’s defeat,” said Beatrix. “And Voldemort’s, of course. Do you not celebrate that in England?”
“Not specially,” Ginny admitted, cautiously. “How do you celebrate it?”
Beatrix shrugged. “However you like, I suppose. But in my family simply by eating and drinking too much. Ah! You were working last time, I remember. I’m glad your job is so much easier this year.”
“Oh, is it?” shot back Ginny, pointedly, but Beatrix didn’t recognise the irony. Ginny was horrified at the effect the forthcoming Victory Day was having on her kitchen. Every plate, utensil, pot and pan was needed, it appeared, and her larder emptied days in advance. Telling Gosse that it was his mother’s fault there was no food left cut no ice with him, and Ginny was reduced to running over to the house-elf cavern to put food on the table for two evenings in a row.
Having said that, the banquet – there was no other word for it – that Beatrix produced was incredible. As well as platefuls that simply made her moan with pleasure, there were soups that flashed a dozen different colours, drinks that made her skin sparkle, nibbles that caused her stomach to play rhythms for half an hour afterwards, desserts that flew, wine that made everyone speak in rhyme, coffee that sang and after-dinner mints that tickled not just the palette but everything else as well.
Ginny drank more than she meant to – both Holombecs were partly to blame here, making sure her glass remained full – and only when it was very late did she lurch to her feet, ahead of everyone else.
“Where are you going?” demanded Beatrix.
“Bed,” enunciated Ginny, carefully. “I’ve got… losh to do tomorrow.”
“You work too hard,” said Beatrix, blithely.
Ginny glared at her. “Somebody hash to,” she said, pointedly.
Ruby nodded. “Victory belongs to the most persevering,” she pronounced.
“Excu’ me?”
“Napoleon Bonaparte!” carolled Beatrix. “I didn’t know you were a fan of his, Ruby!”
Ruby looked suddenly pink. She shrugged.
“Howja know French quotes?” asked Ginny, puzzled.
Ruby gave her a long sidelong glance. “It’s in my blood,” she said. “And yours too, I thought.”
“Wait,” said Ginny. “Blood?”
Ruby merely hitched an eyebrow and gave her an enigmatic smile.
Ginny got it then. “Has Stonelake given you that language sposhion?” she demanded. “Potion? Why’d he do that?”
“Why shouldn’t he?” Ruby asked. “Because I asked him to.”
“And?” Ginny shot back.
“And what?”
“And what else…?”
“That’s a nosey question, Ginny.”
Ginny was feeling rather fragile the following morning, so perhaps not her persuasive best.
“Ruby!” she said, trying to ignore the ache behind one eye. “I was just wondering,” she began.
Ruby seemed untouched by the previous night’s carousing. She hitched an eyebrow in Ginny’s direction, but didn’t respond any further than that.
“I was wondering,” Ginny had to continue lamely, “Whether you’d like a job…”
“What sort of job?” Ruby asked, suspiciously.
“Well, seeing as you speak French really well now…”
“Ginny, I’m not going to do your English teaching,” Ruby overrode her.
“Oh. How did you guess? But you’d be great…”
“Anyway, I’ve already got a job, thank you.”
“Have you?” Ginny asked blankly. “You mean, modelling? For Gosse?”
“No, actually. Site Manager.”
“What’s that?”
Ruby looked annoyed. “Well, it’s not teaching. Is that a crime?”
Ginny put her hands up in puzzled surrender. “No crime. Unless you’re knocking off brooms, or something.”
“Looking after New Hogwarts,” said Ruby, shortly. “Like a caretaker.”
Ginny opened her eyes in amazement. “Really? You mean like Filch?”
“See?” complained Ruby. “See?”
“Ruby, I’m not saying anything! If you want to be… whatever it was… you do it, OK?”
“Site Manager.”
“Site Manager. Are you enjoying it?”
“Yes, I am,” said Ruby. “Actually. I really got into helping out Undine, kitting the place out, and everything, so I didn’t fancy seeing everyone wrecking it. OK, most of the time they don’t mean to, although there’s a handful who think it’s funny to write stupid messages on walls. And giving the portraits moustaches, things like that. Like that toerag Duncan Ackerly.”
“Duncan Ackerly?”
“Yeah, Stewart’s younger brother. Haven’t you had the pleasure? Like Stewart only worse. I sort of feel for Filch these days. I could fancy putting Duncan in chains and giving him a flogging sometimes, but McGonagall’s against it, not sure why. Where was I…?”
“Floggings.”
“Shush. And there’s things like making windows wider, hanging doors the other way round, fixing leaks in the pipes, all that stuff. So, Raz gave me some helpful spells, so I didn’t have to ask Undine to fix everything, when she’s still got Durmstrang to look after, and she’s a bit distracted at the moment, I don’t know why.”
“So why the language potion?” Ginny asked loudly, uncomfortably. “Does Stonelake prefer you whispering French in his ear, then?”
Ruby looked revolted. “No! It’s just that… Look, no laughing, right? I want to get trained, that’s all. And the best place is here. Well, in Paris.”
“Training for what?” asked Ginny, struggling to keep up.
‘Well, it started when the Hogwarts ghosts kept moaning at me.”
“That’s what ghosts do, isn’t it? Moan?”
“Yeah, well I don’t pay them any attention when they’re on about their sticky ends, and all, but I have to go past their portraits every day, and, tell the truth, Undine didn’t really reckon on all those extra paintings everywhere, and it was getting a bit crowded. And the ghost paintings were saying they wanted their own space, how they didn’t like being stuck next to fictional characters, or dragons. You name it, they moaned it. So I borrowed one of Undine’s books. Effing complicated, but I sussed it, eventually, with a bit of help from Raz, and built them their own gallery, out the back, over the house-elf cavern.”
“You carved out a new room?” Ginny asked, aghast. “What if it had gone wrong?” She could still remember the tremors of fear when Undine and she had built New Hogwarts, and the risk of it all collapsing.
“Well, it did sometimes, tell the truth. But I did it when everyone was out the way. Like during the Triwizard challenges. I’ve turned into a right hermit, believe me. But with the right spell you can fix anything, just about. Anyway, now the ghosts have got their own room, so they can talk in private to each other. They’re a bit like that, ghosts. And then there was Helena Ravenclaw and the Bloody Baron.”
“What about them?”
“They’re back together. Didn’t you know? Potter’s fault, I think. And McGonagall didn’t think it was very appropriate for the kids to be watching all that. So I had to make sure they had somewhere they could go. Anyway, short version, I got hooked, I suppose, and I want to do it properly. I want to be a proper Magical Architect.”
“Seriously? Ruby, that’s amazing,” Ginny said in awe.
“Hold your horses,” said Ruby, putting up her hands. “I’ve got to get in first. Raz is helping me, as well as Undine. I’ve applied to the same place Undine went, in Paris, and they’re saying my grades aren’t good enough. Nor my French. Anyway, sorted the French now, and Raz is helping me with the geometric spells, and all that Transfiguration stuff, which does my head in.”
The new term started unusually damply – it rained solidly the entire first week, to the complaint of many. And not only was Henri Sendulla still too busy to talk, but Ginny also found she hadn’t the time to track him down and argue.
The Triwizard judges had happily produced a design for the third challenge – a huge chessboard, populated by no less than thirty-six Sphinxes (pawns) and ten each of Hippogriffs (rooks), Yetis (bishops), Unicorns (knights) and Manticores (kings and queens) – but showed little interest in planning or producing their design, most of which seemed to descend on Ginny.
If she had any spare time, it was spent in the library, trying to find spells to calm and encase the chess pieces to prevent their ripping out each other’s throats - and hopefully the contestants’, too.
None of which prevented Ginny from joining in on both sides of a domestic argument, one that grew to involve the entire household.
“It’s my painting,” she heard Gosse saying. From the kitchen, Ginny could clearly recognise the mulish tones of her boyfriend being unreasonably inflexible, and she decided she needed to address this.
“But I asked you to paint it!” That was the exasperated tones of Ruby.
“Is there a problem?” Ginny asked as she hurried into the studio, with admirable even-handedness, she thought.
Gosse merely glared at her, but Ruby gave her an impatient look. “No,” she snapped.
“I painted it,” said Gosse, grumpily. “So it’s mine.”
It annoyed Ginny that Gosse seemed to have an entirely Goblin-based morality regarding his work: To a Goblin, any creation belonged to its creator, in perpetuity. Any money that changed hands purely represented a loan fee. Even the substantial cash prize his Joan of Arc painting had earned him did not change Gosse’s view that the painting was still his.
Ginny was determined to ween Gosse out of this behaviour, so jumped in.
“Now, Gosse,” she scolded. “If Ruby commissioned a work from you, then it’s hers!”
“It’s mine,” he glowered. “It stays in this house.”
Ruby started to say something, but Ginny overrode her. “Don’t be ridiculous!” she said bossily to Gosse. “She can do whatever she likes with it!”
Ruby looked at her hopefully. “Really?” she asked, gratefully. She was clutching a painting, which was presumably the article of debate.
“Of course you can!” said Ginny, magnanimously.
“Ginny,” said Gosse angrily. “Stay out of this. Please,” he added.
Ginny didn’t know whether to be more surprised by the order, or the politeness. Gosse considered please and thank you as entirely unnecessary additions to the French language.
“It’s a brilliant picture, Gosse,” coaxed Ruby. “Let me take it!”
He shook his head, looking like a gargoyle.
“Come on, Gosse,” Ginny said, sensibly. “Let her…”
Without warning Gosse lunged at Ruby, dragged the painting from her arms and presented it to Ginny. Keeping her smugness at her victory in check, Ginny turned the painting round so she could examine it. “Is it of you?” she asked Ruby, with a smile.
“Well, yes,” said Ruby, less certain now.
It definitely was of Ruby – there was no disguising that. And there was no disguising Ruby either. This was one of Gosse’s recent classic period paintings. Smaller than most of his works, it was barely fifteen inches high, yet the image loomed hugely in Ginny’s eyes.
It depicted Ruby as a nymph. Unsurprisingly, she was naked, but this was no coy maiden, blushing and hiding her secrets. This nymph, although alone in the picture, had blatantly experienced a recent assignation, and she was dozing in a grassy glade, a wand in her outstretched hand, her expression of pleasure and sprawled legs making the broadminded Ginny cringe with embarrassment.
“Can’t…” Ginny had to take an extra breath before she could continue. “Can’t it stay in the house?” she asked.
Ruby looked at her in open-mouthed shock. “But you said…. You promised…”
“I didn’t promise anything!”
“You said it was mine!” Ruby said with growing annoyance. “You agreed with me! And I want to give it to someone else!”
“Who?”
Ruby’s look was pure amazement. “That’s none of your business!”
“She wants to give it to Stonelake,” put in Gosse, grumpily.
“What?” Ginny gaped. “No! No, you can’t!”
“Can’t what?” asked Undine behind her.
“Can’t… Can’t give this painting to Professor Stonelake!” spluttered Ginny. She shoved it towards Undine, angrily.
Undine’s eyes rose when they saw the painting, but instead of coming out loyally on Ginny’s side she started laughing, uncontrollably.
“See?” Ginny said to Ruby. “You can’t possibly!”
Undine shook her head, trying to catch her breath. “No! No!” she choked. “Of course she can. Why not?” Then she was laughing again. Ruby was still annoyed, but her mouth was tugging into a smile. “I never had you down as a prude, Ginny!” Undine laughed.
Ginny’s face was instantly hot. “I’m not…”
“You hadn’t been in our house ten minutes when you set your cap at Gosse. And not long after you were out of your clothes and after me as well! And then you were jumping between our beds like a cricket! And now you’re like my great aunt!” She pulled a mocking face of old-fashioned disapproval.
“Seriously?” asked Ruby, gratified. “Tell me more!”
“I’m not…. I didn’t…. Undine, that’s just not true!”
“Which part?” asked Ruby and Undine at the same time. Both of them were laughing now.
“What’s the joke?” asked Beatrix, entering the studio. “Don’t keep it to yourselves!”
“They’re saying…” began Ginny in frustration. “Ruby wants to…. Gosse won’t let…”
“Don’t listen to her!” Undine called out in joy. “Ginny’s a hypocrite!”
“I’m not…!”
“Pretty picture,” said Beatrix, examining it over Undine’s shoulder. “Is this for your new lover, Ruby?”
“You can’t!” Ginny objected feverishly. “You can’t give that to someone! Not a Hogwarts professor!”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Ginny,” said Beatrix. “Men like him must be led. They have to be shown. They have to be shown everything!”
“You knew about this? But doesn’t he prefer men?” Ginny tried in desperation. “He’s never…”
“Ah!” crowed Undine. “Because he isn’t ripping the underwear off you, he must be gay!”
“No…!” cried Ginny in anguish.
“Why can’t he like both?” Beatrix demanded. “Men and women? Why can’t he choose?”
“That… That’s not choosing!” objected Ginny, stabbing a finger at the painting. “That’s… that’s coercion!”
“Big word, Ginny!” mocked Undine, silently clapping.
“Come on, Gosse,” Ginny pleaded then. “Stick up for me here!”
Gosse frowned. “You weren’t on my side at the beginning,” he said.
“But… Look…”
“When you are at the bottom of a hole, Ginny,” said Beatrix, kindly. “Try looking upwards.”
It was the day of the third challenge. The Room of Requirement was as large as Ginny had ever seen it: It held a vast, square arena, centred around a vast chessboard, with stands on all sides. Each individual chessboard square was a dozen yards in each direction.
Ginny was nervous and edgy. She was sure she’d forgotten something, to start with. And although she would happily have faced any or all the monsters on the board, she was terrified that at least one of the competitors was going to meet a hideous end. That three entire schools of impressionable children would soon be watching a fellow pupil being eaten.
The judges, behind her, seemed to have no such worries – she could the three of them chatting and laughing amongst themselves. In the distance, in the front row of their school’s stand, she could see the other heads, but they were too far away to discern if they shared her worries.
It was time; She stood. Once more Professor Stonelake stood behind her to provide the English translations, but this time it was Professor Bjorn-Espersen who handled the German translation.
“As I promised you last term,” she began, “This is about chess, and you can see a chessboard in front of you. There are some things missing at the moment – there are no chess pieces on the board yet – and some extra items.
“Firstly, this is a bigger board than the usual eight-by-eight square. On each side, there are two additional rows of eight squares, so the board’s now cross-shaped. Those extra sets of squares will hold the champions’ pieces.”
She checked her notes, nervously. She needed to get this right. “The next additional item is the Triwizard Cup! That stands in the very centre of the board, on a larger square, twice the dimensions of the other squares, so covering four standard squares.”
She flicked her wand, and the Triwizard Cup appeared in the centre of the board, on its own golden central square. As she’d hoped, cheers arose from all sides.
“The final addition:” she went on. “Three more sides! As well as Black and White, this chessboard also holds red, silver and gold pieces!”
Suddenly the Room of Requirement was full of sound as the audience chattered. Ginny waited for the noise level to drop.
“Each champion plays the Queen for their side, and they have all their other pieces to help them, of course. They have to compete with each other – but also with the other two teams. So let’s meet the teams, and our champions!”
There was a roar of approval.
“Currently in third place, playing Black with eleven pieces, Chloe Langenberg of Durmstrang!”
Chloe’s pieces appeared out of nowhere. There were roars of approval, then a massed drawing of breath and oohs and aahs. Eleven of the squares now held black pieces – but these were live magical animals. And Chloe was there too, looking casually unconcerned, astride a huge saddled Manticore, next to a second even bigger Manticore.
In front of her were a broken line of Sphinxes, and, on one side of the Manticores stood a Yeti, on the other side a Unicorn, with Hippogriffs beyond. All the animals were coal-black, even the Unicorn, and Chloe was dressed in a black Barbegazi suit.
“Chloe has four pawns, both rooks, a single bishop and one knight, as well as king and queen. A cheer for Chloe!”
The cheers for Chloe were lusty and committed. There was no trace of booing from Sandrin Krum and his cronies.
“Next, in second place, with twelve pieces, playing White, is Caroline Moore-Hexham of Hogwarts!”
Caroline appeared, dressed in white, together with her entirely white pieces.
“Caroline has seven pawns, only one rook, a bishop, both knights and her king and queen!” There was a full-blooded roar from the Hogwarts contingent sitting behind her.
“And currently in first place, with fourteen places, playing red, is Jehanne Blavier of Beauxbatons!” Another roar, this time from the Beauxbatons sitting on the far side of the board to Ginny. And there was Jehanne, in scarlet, with her team of red animals. Jehanne was uninhibitedly punching the air with her fist and whooping.
“Jehanne has all eight pawns, both rooks, both knights, but no bishops!”
Ginny was looking at her notes once more. “Let’s see what they’re up against!” she called. “Here’s the Silver team!”
The side of the board immediately in front of Ginny was filled with gleaming silver pieces.
“You will see that the Silver team has all sixteen pieces…” She had to wait while the good-natured boos from all sides subsided. “The silver team has no champion, but will play under a modified version of the enchantment used to play the competitor for solo wizard chess. A further modified version of that enchantment controls the Gold team!”
The fifth and final team appeared, gleaming gold, surrounding the central square.
“The Gold team has only a dozen pieces – King, Queen, two Rooks, two Bishops, two Knights and four Pawns, that occupy the twelve squares around the central square where the Triwizard Cup sits. Champions will have to defeat the Gold team pieces – and of course each other, and the Silver team – to reach the Triwizard Cup. But notice they can only do so from two sides – the opposite sides where the Gold King and Queen sit. And only the Queen can enter the centre square, and so win the game. In normal chess, pawns can be promoted to major pieces by reaching the first rank of their opponent’s side, but that rule does not apply here. As in normal chess, White starts, and in our version the playing order is White, Black, Red, Silver, Gold. But Gold can only move when they can directly attack another piece. Otherwise, Gold misses a go. Each human player has a maximum of one minute per move!”
These rules raised lots of discussion from the audience, and Ginny had to wait once more to be heard.
“So our champions have to fight each other, the Silver team and the Gold team to be able to win. Champions, are you ready?”
She could see three lifted arms around the board.
“Begin!” Ginny yelled. “Chloe, your move!”
It had been a relief to discover that all three champions were chess players, and hadn’t seem worried about competing for the Triwizard Cup on a chessboard. Had the Goblet of Fire known this, somehow? Either way, Ginny could see it had chosen its champions well – they all looked calmly confident on their Manticore steeds, even as the animals roared and pawed the ground, and flapped their wings threateningly.
She’d also worried that the game would be excessively cerebral - and dull – but with five teams the moves were rapid, and the fights between the pieces titanic. Because it was wizard chess, of course, taking a piece meant a battle, and the taking piece didn’t always win. Countless times a struggle between two pieces meant the attacker had to return to their original square, their queen’s strategy blocked.
Ginny wasn’t a chess player, but soon it became clear that Chloe was intent on securing her flanks – she was attacking both the Silver pieces on her left, as well as Jehanne’s pieces on her right. Jehanne, on the other hand, was blazing forward, ignoring her competitors and the losses on her left flank, to engage the Gold pieces in the centre of the board. She had an advantage, Ginny saw – she could aim straight for the Triwizard Cup. But the Gold pieces were fighting back strongly, and Jehanne was suffering heavy losses.
Caroline’s strategy was less obvious. She was playing for position, not a bloodbath. True, she had fewer pieces than Jehanne, but Jehanne had already lost more than the difference in their piece count. Caroline was having to fight off the Silver pieces too, but was only slowly giving ground.
Fortunately Ginny didn’t have to commentate for this match: The three judges had taken on this role, although Beatrix had to be reminded on frequent occasions not to only comment on Jehanne’s performance.
The fights between the pieces were bloody, too. Maurice Eeylops swore that the protections would avoid fatalities to all the pieces – and the audience – but the taken pieces defended their honour aggressively, and many of the surviving pieces were covered in scratches and streaks of blood.
The commentators often had to pause their remarks while a particularly fierce battle took place, until the roars had stopped. And no sooner had one battle finished than another would start on another square of the board.
Ginny expected the champions to crumble under the pressure, but it seemed the Goblet of Fire had chosen well.
Ginny realised with horror that the Beauxbatons champion’s strategy was putting her in real danger. Her initially complete rank of pawns was almost all gone now. Without her bishops, Jehanne was finding she had to use her Queen to cover the diagonals, putting herself at risk.
Beatrix was loudly reminding her of the rule about only being able to win with the Queen, but Jehanne was fiercely locked in combat with the Gold pieces. The Gold knights and bishops facing Chloe and Caroline had abandoned their squares to fend off Jehanne’s queen.
One Gold bishop suddenly had Jehanne’s King in check, and Jehanne’s queen – and Jehanne herself – leapt to defend her king. But she failed to notice the lone remaining opponent’s knight, and the Gold unicorn leapt without warning onto her square.
Jehanne’s Manticore fought valiantly but folded under the attacker and fell, flinging Jehanne to the ground under a maelstrom of red and gold.
The entire crowd were on their feet, the cheers now groans and yells and intaken breaths. Ginny’s heart was in her mouth, and she was cursing Maurice Eeylops, when she could see Jehanne struggling to her feet. She was limping, but whole. Madame Cotte sprinted across the board, ignoring the roaring animals around her, and took Jehanne’s arm. She led the defeated champion off the board.
Ginny could hear singing: The whole of Beauxbatons school, it seemed, were bellowing the school battle song, all about courage and endurance, and Jehanne waved tiredly in acknowledgement.
Ginny dragged her attention back to the board. Both Chloe and Caroline were taking advantage of the suddenly peaceful Red players, and the badly mauled Gold players, but were now having to battle each other for control of the centre of the board.
Chloe managed to copy Caroline’s strategy to fend off the silver pieces, who instead turned to attack the remaining Gold pieces opposite them. So the important action was on the part of the board nearest Jehanne’s defeated position. Both players were determinedly defending their queens, learning from Jehanne’s experience, and were pitching their other major pieces against each other.
It seemed that Caroline had the upper hand now. She was hammering at Chloe’s sole rook with her own rook, bishop and knight, and Chloe came forward on her Queen in defence of her embattled rook.
“Oh, careful, Chloe!” Ginny found herself saying out loud.
Caroline suddenly brought her bishop forward, onto Chloe’s rook’s square, and the crowd were silent now as the Yeti roared and downed the screaming Hippogriff. There were chants from the Hogwarts supporters, scenting victory.
Chloe’s queen was moving now, diagonally. To everyone’s surprise, she landed on the square next to the central Triwizard square. The roars were tremendous. There was nothing Caroline could do. She tried to distract her opponent by bringing her own Queen forward, but at the very next move, Chloe’s queen was on the central Triwizard square, and Chloe was leaping down from her Manticore, avoiding its proudly flapping wings, and stepping forward to claim the cup.
Ginny couldn’t breathe as Chloe’s hand reached out to touch the cup, and the roar of the crowd was suddenly quieter. Everyone here knew the story of the last Triwizard Tournament. But this cup wasn’t enchanted, and Chloe was lifting it into the air, acknowledging the cheers of the crowd, and above all, of her own school. Durmstrang had won the Triwizard Cup.