Paper Confines

ii. And I Bid You Welcome

PAPER CONFINES.
02. / And I Bid You Welcome

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There was a ghost of her frame at the fourth desk chair in the library, second to the lovers shelf where Timothy Knell and Esmerelda Renaux carved their initials in the wood. It was thin, slate-grey in the pewter velvet, and a reminder every time Amoret pulled into the seat that she had sat there almost every day for the last month.

In front of her was a pile of history texts, periodicals, spellbooks, a large stack of notes, and a cup of tea. She stirred the mug with a sharp finger and a demitasse spoon and drank with a wince; it was all dregs; nettle dust and rooibos and a hint of something sweet. One of Colette's concoctions. The tea stuck to her tongue and she coughed, spat, tried not to make a scene of it, but how could she, anyway? Saturdays were filled to the brim with students who didn't care much for studying at all, and the library was louder than the great hall at breakfast. No one was looking at her.

Amoret wiped her mouth and almost choked again when a crowd enwreathing the chess tables broke into a cheer. Well, less a cheer and more a muffled alloy of applause and some reluctant murmurs of congratulations. Bets were won, others were lost, and such was the way of wizard's chess.

The librarian, Madam Gowne, was the shade of a bruised fruit where she was usually a rouged white, purse-lipped and trying to find an opening where arm met flailing arm and a few boys swapped coins. To no avail. She was boxed out and two seconds away from fainting.

Amoret pushed out of her seat with a sigh. Gowne tensed as Amoret put a hand to her shoulder, but relaxed when she realized it was her. "McTavish left a mess in the Charms section. I'll sort this lot out, all right?"

The madam looked grateful and then newly crossed. Still, Amoret knew the woman had a habit of refusing to abandon one issue unless there was another to replace it, and Gowne was better suited to McTavish's antics, a tad too aged to elbow her way through an eager horde without being trampled. This was a head girl's duty: how to subdue, how to pander, when to coddle and when to scold.

Chess fanaticism was always an amalgam of one and four; subdue, scold, rinse, repeat.

"Hey," Amoret said, pushing her way into the pack, nose scrunched at the sudden olfactory assault. "Hey—all right, excuse me."

The boys smelled of sweat and cigar smoke, the latter prohibited and the other... highly discouraged. Gryffindors careened over each other for a better look, a couple of girls out of uniform squinted in taciturn appraisal, the Slytherins, of course, whispered amongst themselves, and Amoret was internally grateful she'd worn her mother's best heels today. She could figuratively step on toes, but materially was her way through the crowd.

It was a marvel a casual game of chess could draw so much attention, but if Nadya was playing...

Well. The melodrama of it all made significantly more sense.

And there in the middle of the crowd, she grinned.

Nadya's stature was comfortable, broad shoulders for slim arms crossed loosely over her chest. Dark skin peeked out of the cuffs of a coat only those familiar with muggle fashions could appreciate, and Amoret did. She was playing white, her fingers rapping on an arm, so evident by her expression that it was not of nerves, but condescension. I win, each tap said, pay up. The chess clock was still ticking, but Amoret knew the game well enough to know it was over. The red king was toppled, a white rook in its stead, mallet wielded firmly in its palm. Checkmate. Nadya wiped a strand of hair from her eyes and tucked it into her braid, and Olive Hornby stared blankly at her dead king. Though it went unheard under the clamour of students trading knuts and sickles, the underpinnings of the table shook with the stammer of her knee.