Chapter 5
Charles took a deep breath, shifted the boxed chess set under his arm, and knocked on Erik's door.
There was no response for so long that he almost turned away, in mingled disappointment and relief. Then the door opened, and Erik stared down at him, looking stunned.
Stunned and fresh from the shower, Charles realized, his hair damp and messy, a dark bathrobe thrown over… nothing, as far as he could tell.
"Charles?"
"Yes. Um." Charles shook himself, tried to make his voice crisp and professional. "We're going to have to work together, Erik. The students will be the ones to suffer if we can't interact peacefully. To that end, I thought we might make an effort to f--" His voice broke, most unexpectedly. "To forget our history and be friends."
"Friends?" Erik said, with a strange mix of anger and gentleness. "No, Charles. I don't think that's possible."
And Charles already knew that, didn't he. He could never be friends with Erik Lehnsherr. He couldn't be friends with anyone who said and believed the things Erik did, and if, somehow, he could overlook those things… it wouldn't be friendship he wanted. When it came to Erik, he could either satisfy his heart or his principles, and this insane attempt at a middle ground did neither.
"Right." Charles swallowed, held out the box. "Well, whatever we are, can we be something that plays chess?"
Erik stared at him a long moment, then ran a hand through the wet mess of his hair. "I guess," he said, and stepped back to let Charles through the door.
Charles moved a half-empty glass of -- yes, German beer -- from a little table by the chair at the hearth, scouted out another chair, and set up the chessboard while Erik popped into the bedchamber. He emerged in a black turtleneck and slacks, hair smoothed back; Charles would have thought him ready to greet a new day, rather than a relaxed evening in his own rooms, except that he needed a shave.
Don't think about it, don't… But it was too late not to notice the firelight glinting off the ginger tints in his stubble, too late not to remember laughter and the cool slide of the canned foam, teaching Erik how to shave back in fifth year because even Charles's distant father had taken the time for that, but Erik had no father at all.
--"Ack, Erik, stop that, you're going to -- mmphm! That tastes terrible, Erik!" And Erik chuckling unrepentantly, wiping the foam from Charles's lips with his thumb before leaning in for another frothy white kiss--
"What is this, Charles?" Erik said, sounding uncertainly amused as he looked down at the chessboard.
"I seem to have misplaced several of the pieces from both my Muggle set and my Second Wizard War Commemorative set," he said sheepishly. "In order to play a complete game, therefore, one must combine the two."
"Bloody disconcerting, it is," said a white bishop in the shape of Ronald Weasley, "sharing the board with these dead lumps of plastic."
"I still have the black bishops," Charles said, "but I thought you'd prefer the 'dead lumps' in this case, since the black bishops are in fact Lucius and Draco Malfoy and tend to change sides without notice."
"I love how you've assumed I want to play black."
"Well, you always did before."
"It didn't used to involve actually casting myself as Voldemort." Erik picked up the pale, sneering, noseless black king with an expression of distaste.
Charles let his heart warm, for a moment, to the sight of Erik disdaining Lord Voldemort. He might have unpleasant ideas about blood purity, but he was no Wizarding Hitler.
Not being Hitler was surely the lowest requirement for the status of Half-Decent Human Being. Still, it was good to know Erik met the minimums.
"How strange to be living history," Erik murmured, setting Voldemort down again. "I wonder if they ever play chess with their own pieces?"
"Comparatively few of them are still living, actually." Charles couldn't help the sadness in his voice, looking down at his diminutive Lupin, Dumbledore, Snape… He'd studied them all so avidly in school, he almost felt he knew them.
"Enough to fill our halls with their out-of-control offspring," Erik growled, plucking his half-drunk beer from the hearthstone.
Charles laughed. "So you've encountered the phenomenon known somewhat unfairly as the Potter Pack?" James Potter, Freddy Weasley and Teddy Lupin had been the terror of the school for some years now, ably assisted by his own Victoire and Dominique, and this year had brought a fresh crop of younger siblings -- two little Weasley girls and James Potter's brother Albus -- who had only doubled the chaos. Mostly Gryffindors, thank goodness, and so Logan's problem -- though Logan seemed mostly to encourage them.
"Feral savages, the lot of them," Erik was ranting, "all but your Dominique, and I get the uneasy feeling she's only quieter about it. They think they can get away with anything, and the devil of it is they almost can, they're cheeky and violent and never seem to be listening, but they still know the right answers to everything--"
"They're not bad kids, any of them, you just have to earn their respect," Charles said, moving a pawn. "They've grown up as celebrities, through no fault of their own, and they need a firm hand."
"Oh, they're getting it, never fear." Erik's smile was alarming. He moved a knight -- Amycus Carrow -- out from behind his pawns.
"How's it going with the Slytherins?" Charles asked, and listened intently as Erik treated him to a detailed report on the manifold flaws and achievements of his students -- the pleasantly surprising competence of his prefects, the continuing discipline problem of the Ashworth brothers, his certainty that Professor Logan had a grudge against the House. He talked a great deal about Scorpius Malfoy, who was clearly becoming a favorite.
"He follows me around," Erik said with exasperation. "I turn around and he's there, not even wanting anything, just there, offering to help me with whatever I'm doing, hanging on everything I say. It's annoying. And it's not going to win him points with the other boys, to be such a brown-noser."
"He's very close to his father, I think," Charles said, "misses him a great deal. You seem to have been elected substitute parent." He knew he was smiling at Erik with ill-advised fondness, couldn't seem to stop. Erik was so animated now, so passionate, affection and intelligence pouring off him largely in the form of irritation with the occasional dash of unholy glee. It was so achingly familiar and the more it hurt, the more Charles smiled, because the alternative was to flee the room and he couldn't bear to do that.
"Careful, now," said his Dumbledore piece as he moved it to intercept Erik's Bellatrix Lestrange and oh yes, that wouldn't work at all, would it? Charles quickly put Dumbledore back in his original place and moved a rook instead. "Your mind isn't in the game tonight, lad," Dumbledore said. "Keep your focus, or you might find yourself in serious trouble." He glanced sideways at Erik.
Erik had stopped talking, studying the gameboard with silent focus. The candles in the room had guttered, one by one, leaving only the fire in the grate, which fluttered and crackled and glinted in Erik's gingery stubble. For a moment Charles felt utterly light and breathless, watching the light dance over Erik's hands and hair and shoulders and sharp, pale, changeable eyes. Erik reached for a pawn, teeth worrying his bottom lip, and Charles shivered.
"Are you cold?" Erik said, glancing up. "Fire's getting a bit low, isn't it?" He put out a hand for the poker but, only half-looking, missed and touched the metal screen over the fireplace instead. He snatched his hand back, hissing, and Charles was beside him before he could think, kneeling by the chair and gripping Erik's wrist, turning his hand to see the burn.
"Nasty, that," he muttered, pulling out his wand with the other hand. "This ought to help. Tepesco!" Soft blue-green light settled over the burn and soaked into it, leaving the skin considerably less red than before. "You ought to see Madam Pomfrey tomorrow, though, get some of her burn-healing paste, it works wonders."
"Of course," Erik said. "Thank you."
Charles became aware that he was not getting up, nor was he letting go of Erik's wrist. He could feel Erik's pulse beneath his fingertips. It was getting faster.
Very slowly, Erik raised and shifted their joined hands, pressed his lips to the center of Charles's palm. "Thank you," he murmured again.
Heat washed through Charles's body, and he suspected he would have swayed on his feet if he hadn't already been kneeling. He tried not to look at Erik but Erik's eyes were locked to his as he bent his head to kiss Charles's wrist. Charles felt his fingers curl, gliding across the skin of Erik's jaw, and Erik's eyes fluttered closed.
"It's your move, Professor," the Ron Weasley chesspiece called, hurriedly hushed by Dumbeldore, and Charles came to himself with a gasp, pulling his hand away -- not nearly as quickly as he meant to.
"It's late," he said, and cleared his throat, trying to steady his voice. "It's late. I should go to b -- I should go. We can finish the game tomorrow night."
Erik's face was unreadable -- disappointed? resigned? rattled? -- but he said, "All right."
Charles saw himself out, leaving the chessboard where it was -- and sank to the floor as soon as there was a door safely between him and Erik, knees to his chest.
Deep breaths. There's a lad.
And after all, it wasn't like he hadn't already known he would die still in love with Erik. This didn't change a thing.
Tears prickled in his eyes, and Charles pressed them to his knees, dragging in a breath that threatened to become a sob.
Because it really didn't change a thing.
---
They did finish their chess game the next night, and started another which had to be finished the night after that, and before they knew it playing chess after dinner was simply what they did. They went sometimes to Erik's room, sometimes to Charles's -- Erik tried to steer toward his own as often as possible, because Raven tended to pop into Charles's without warning (apparently Charles didn't believe in making his sister knock) and spend the evening sprawled casually on the sofa, grading papers, loudly chewing pistachios and glaring at Erik when Charles wasn't looking.
The chess games definitely helped with their public-interaction problems. They no longer fought much at the staff table, because why bother with the polite public argument when you could tear into each other so much more thoroughly in private?
And if the other teachers raised their eyebrows at exchanges like "I'll wait until we're alone later to show you how wrong you are about that," and "We might better go to your room tonight, then," well, that certainly didn't bother Erik. He wasn't trying to hide Charles; he'd learned his lesson on that subject.
He couldn't even pretend not to enjoy their fights, not even while they were happening. Few things improved his mood like turning Charles flushed and sputtering, his exasperation laced with helpless amusement -- even affection -- when Erik said something intentionally, blatantly irrational. More than once the conversation reached a point where, ten years ago, it would have dissolved into ridiculously frantic snogging, but Raven always managed to be there to put a damper on that.
Besides which, Charles seemed to be taking every precaution against letting something like the hand-kissing incident happen again, dodging even the most casual touches. Even when he'd had several drinks, which usually made him rather handsy, he only watched Erik with a wistfulness that he clearly thought he was hiding. He might talk and laugh with Erik, might watch wits with him, but he would not touch him.
With one notable exception.
Professor Shaw had caught up with Erik in the corridor after he and Charles parted ways after breakfast. "Settling in, then, Erik? Making friends among the faculty?"
"Er, yes, sir," Erik said, which was surprisingly true. He'd discovered that he got on particularly well with Charms Professor Frost, and Alex Summers, the former delinquent Charles had pity-hired as Hogwarts Groundskeeper -- but he suspected that was not what Shaw was concerned about.
He was right.
"Spending a lot of time with my dear deputy, I hear," Shaw said, his tone of polite interest belied by the cold irritation in his eyes.
"Yes, sir," Erik said, spine rigid. "I enjoy his company."
"I rather thought you had more class than that. He's well-suited to the grunt work of administration, but… Erik, the man is simply not in your league, in terms of intelligence or talent or -- anything, really. I fail to see how you can possibly benefit from the association."
Erik felt his hands clenching into fists as he fought contradictory impulses -- the first, to his own surprise, was the old urge to do as he'd done all through school and play along, then continue to see Charles regardless; the second was to put a fist right through Shaw's face and promise him worse if he ever spoke that way about Charles again.
"On the contrary, sir," he said, voice hard and a little hoarse, "I've always found Charles to be my equal or better in any area worth measuring. Perhaps you should look to your staff's actions, more than their bloodlines, to evaluate their abilities."
Shaw looked so taken aback, Erik thought he might fall over. He didn't wait for the headmaster to recover, but brushed past with a curt nod.
He'd gone ten steps or so when he rounded a corner and nearly ran right over Charles.
It wasn't hard to guess whether he'd overheard the conversation, because he was staring at Erik in a sort of wondering delight. He pressed fingertips to Erik's chest and pushed. Startled, Erik made no resistance as Charles backed him through the nearest door, into the dimness of an empty classroom.
"Don't... don't attach too much significance to this, my friend," Charles said, a little breathlessly, "but it just wouldn't do not to reward that kind of behavior." He bounced up onto his toes, hands cradling Erik's face, and kissed him.
The kiss was quick and light -- almost delicate -- so much like their first that Erik could have sworn he smelled gingerbread and snow. He barely had time to kiss back before Charles withdrew -- but Erik was having none of that. Without consulting his higher thought processes at all, his arms pulled Charles tight to his chest and held him there, to be kissed properly, hands dragging up his back, through his hair, missed this missed you need you god Charles--
There was a brief hesitation, then Charles arched into the kiss, a helpless, desperate sound rising from his throat, setting alight every nerve in Erik's body.
Then footsteps and voices thundered by outside the door. Charles started, pulled back, and was gone before Erik could speak.
For the rest of the day, Erik tried to keep the dazed grin off his face when the students were looking, but rather thought he failed.
It took him less than twelve hours to ruin everything.