chess games

Lavinia Nina Wood, Sixteen. Ravenclaw, 6th Year, Chaser. “Fantasy. Lunacy. All revolutions are, until they happen, then they are historical inevitabilities.”

[reggiemulciber]

Reggie, ever the devoted student, was trying to get away from the noise in the library. She herself never would have imagined getting so invested in what was going on, but she found the whole bit ridiculous at the moment. Perhaps it was because she had straddled both sides for so long that she saw it differently. Regardless, the war was really putting a damper onto her goals and her fun, neither of which was acceptable. She tried to keep her focus, but that was made impossible by the screaming coming from the table behind her. Turning her head, she let out an exasperated sigh, setting down her quill. 

“Sweetie, you’re preaching to the choir. Going about class as if nothing’s going on is a bit asinine, but to be frank, I’ve never been one to place much faith in either organization. Or adults, really.” Not that the teenagers were fairing much better. Lifting up her books and easily sliding in to sit next to Nina so they could carry on their conversation, Reggie glad to have someone more on level with her to talk to or once, she continued, “None of us are safe here, yet here we remain. You’d think after the first lockdown stint back at the start of the year, something would have at least changed if they wanted to keep us here, yet I feel as if it’s more like we’re fenced in, like lambs for the slaughter when the wolves want to show their teeth.”

[rxversals]

Nina looked longingly through the closest window. Her choice of study place for the day was product of the bad weather. The fog was terrible out there and the rain was unforgiving. She knew it would stick from then on. No quidditch for a while. She was lost in thought again when Reggie approached her. “I don’t really care, actually. I shouldn’t have to hide my insatisfactions. Let them hear me.”

“Well, that’s something we have in common, at least. I place no faith in this war whatsoever.” Lavinia sunk in her chair, giving up on her paper for the moment. “There are better wars to fight out there. This? This is just ego.” That’s why she stayed out of it. Her sister never understood. Her family never understood. Maybe Reggie wouldn’t understand either, but at least she provided stimulating conversation. And if that wasn’t enough, a pretty face to look at. Merlin knew the pale faces didn’t become these kids and, lately pale and tired were the major trends around the castle. “Don’t you reckon we’re safer here after the new wards were put into place? And that’s not all, the very essence of this place reeks of protective magic.”

[cxeurdelion-blog]

The library wasn’t really Annette’s favorite place to do work, but sometimes, when the inhabitants of her dorm were feeling particularly rowdy (and she couldn’t join in on the fun) it was really one of the only places she could go to get a bit of peace and quiet. And it was quiet, until she overheard Nina’s… colorful rant. Glancing over her shoulder and spotting the other girl only a few tables away, Annette gathered her things and headed over.

Although the Wood sisters clashed …often, and Ara was her best friend, Annette was fond of Nina, too (really, she thought the two had a bit more in common than they’d ever want to admit, but she wasn’t going to risk Ara’s wrath by saying so). “Tell us how you really feel, Nina.” Annette slid into the chair next to her, resting her chin on her hands and she looked down at the half-finished essay sitting on the table, “I haven’t even started mine,” She groaned, shaking her head, “D'you think Binns even reads them? I bet he doesn’t–then again, it’s not like he has anything else to do with his free time. If I were a ghost I would definitely be taking advantage of the whole non-corporeal thing, not wasting my time teaching about Goblin Wars.”

[rxversals]

Nina was startled by the sudden presence near her in the sacred space of the library. She looked up from her piles of parchment quickly, reaching for her wand on instinct. Usually, people refrained from approaching her when she was working there, especially because most of her friends would be too busy with their own lives to bother her. The disturbance was uncharacteristically extraordinary, but then again, so was Annette. If there was common ground between her and her sister, it beared the blonde’s name. “Merlin. Stop sneaking up on people. What if I had my wand?”

She shrugged. “I never thought about it, actually.” Yes, it happened sometimes. And if Nina was quite honest, Annette’s question made absolute perfect sense. “Now that I do think about it, he is a non-corporeal magical being. He can’t even hold the parchment” Another thing to add to her list of History of Magic-related insatisfactions. “I mean, magic can do a lot of things, but change physical properties of spectres? That’s just not possible.”

[rxversals]

Nina was very much proud of her proficiency in bulshitting History of Magic papers she had no actual interest in writing. It wasn’t that she didn’t like the subject, quite the contrary. It just seemed rather shallow to study pre-Statue Goblin wars when there were much more important matters going on. “Diplomatic relations my arse! Professor Binns is absolutely nutty. But really, what can you expect from having a ghost for a teacher? Death Eaters and Order members fucking things up and he wants to talk about Goblins. Honestly.” 

To give her sanity some credit, Nina didn’t realise she was thinking out loud. Really, it was a simple case of exhaustion. The girl had been at the library for at least two hours and the mental exercise was starting to take its toll on her mind. It was when someone answered what she believed was going inside her head that she finally thought she had gone completely bonkers.

[ofwoodsandwars-blog]

Frustrated, Ara resisted the urge to scream. Or hit something. Her sister drove her up the fucking wall. To say the didn’t get along was an understatement. Ever since the two were little, they’d always butted heads. Ara with her act first think later ways, and Nina with her more cautious, reasonable attitude. Rarely did they see eye to eye on anything. Throwing her hands up in the air, Ara gave Nina an exasperated glare. “For fucks sake just stop fucking lecturing me! You’re not mum. I know younger sisters are supposed to be the bane of the older one’s existence, but this is ridiculous. Get your own fucking life instead of cleaning up after mine.”

[rxversals]

Lavinia sighed. Arabella was such a fucking drama queen. “I’m not lecturing you, I’m giving you some well-placed advice. Clearly you should be the younger sister what with your absurd need to do stupidly reckless things.” Nina rolled her eyes and sat on the vacant teacher desk. “You wanna misbehave, do it properly. The problem isn’t doing it, but getting caught. I’m just telling you to choose your battles.” She added, narrowed eyes locked with her sister’s across the room. “Maybe I could be living my own fucking life if I wasn’t stuck with you in this miserable classroom.”

[rxversals]

shadowedfool:

“Hypocritical, don’t you think? How you explode at the mere mention of your sister when she decided that it’d be fun to try and test my patience by bringing up my sister? Maybe I wouldn’t talk about your sister that way if she stops talking about mine. Keep her on a leash, Wood. She seems to need one. Maybe I’ll let this entire thing go if you decide to do me a favour and do so.”

“Hypocritical? You should take it up with her, right? I’m not the one talking about your sister. I fight fair, Vaughn. One on one. I don’t need to mention your sister to prove how much of an idiot you are.” She stood up, preferring to resume their discussion with a smaller height difference between them. He was still much taller than her. If they weren’t who they were, she thought the scene would probably be funny. Nina, smiled, but there were no pleasantries in it. “You know very well no one can keeps us on a leash.” With that she sat back down, she wouldn’t bother with paying him any more attention: she had already done too much for his ego. And yet, Nina mumbled, under her breath, just because she couldn’t stand not having the last word. “Yes, because your forgiveness is everything I need to survive.”

[rxversals]

reggiemulciber:

“Honey, I play Quidditch too, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t invest that little bit more to make sure that a little sweat doesn’t wreck my image. A little cink after a long day is understandable, but a rat’s nest like that is a different story.”

“I can’t and won’t bother with charms in my hair for quidditch, Mulciber. My hair is too thin for spellwork. You have that magical black hair my gene pool didn’t allow me. Good for you. That doesn’t change the fact that my hair sucks when the weather is damp like this. It gets frizzy, but I guess it’s somehow authentic.”

[rxversals]

ofwoodsandwars:

“I didn’t ask you to step in and help – don’t fucking blame your inability to stay out of my business on me, Lavinia. Either stop judging me or piss off, don’t make this detention harder than it has to be.” Ara loved her sister, truly she did, but fuck sometimes it was hard to remember why. 

There we go. To say they weren’t always sunshine and rainbows was an understatement. They were never sunshine and rainbows. “It was exactly this shit I was trying to prevent. All I did was try to pull you out before you got caught, so stop acting like you’re twelve, Arabella. You love to get messy, but you just fucking can’t clean after yourself. That’s why I have to do it for both of us.”

[rxversals]

reggiemulciber:

“Look, sweetie, just because we are all forced to wear these drabby, dinky robes on a daily basis doesn’t mean that your hair also needs to be dull. Ever heard of a curling iron? Or, I don’t know, shampoo?”

“I came straight from the quidditch pitch after three hours of practice, give me a break.”

[rxversals]

shadowedfool:

“Tell me something I don’t know, Wood. And you and your sister are both equally irritating. So why don’t you kindly move out of my seat and find some your sister or something?”

“And who are you to talk about my sister? You don’t talk about her, do you hear me? Or anyone, for that matter. You are scum, Vaughn. What do you think treating other people like they’re beneath you will bring you? Nothing but a pathetic and fake illusion of power. You wanna seat here? Shut your mouth and exercise your patience. I’m not moving.”

[rxversals]

shadowedfool:

“Well, they are true. So excuse you, this is my spot.”

“No, they’re not. You’ve got to be kidding me. I always sit here and I’ve been here today for the last 45 minutes! I’m not moving. And your arrogance is astounding.”

[rxversals]

shadowedfool:

“Were you, now? Maybe I was here before you arrived and decided to get up and find a decent book to read.”

“A lot of things may be true, but that doesn’t mean they are, right?”

[rxversals]

xrowanclaw:

“If you think about it, the fact that we’re sorted by a hat that quantifies our personality, and that sorting dictates our future for the next seven years is kind of wild. Does the hat ever feel mischievous? How can we trust it? Does it ever think ‘fuck it’ and put people into the wrong house just for laughs? I’d be pretty tempted to do that… I guess that’s why I’m not a Sorting Hat.”

Nina sighed. “That’s why it’s a hat, Rowan. Not a person. A magical hat enchanted by the combination of magical cores of the four ancient founders of this school. I don’t think it plays around, though it would be fun to see half of Slytherin in Hufflepuff and vice versa.”

[rxversals]

shadowedfool:

“Ahem. Excuse me.”

“Why exactly? I was under the impression  — sorry, I’m certain I was here first.”

[rxversals]

footballingxgrace:

                 “Listen, we’re here with our football team, and you’re here with your Quidditch team. There’s no need to hog the whole bloody field when you’ll have the air and we’ll have our ground. So just, I don’t know, remove the broomstick from your arse and learn how to share?” Ellie raised her eyebrows, not daring to backdown. The days were getting colder and while they knew they could use magic in the coming months to regulate the temperature – it just wouldn’t be the same. It never was and with the year they had already had? The Hufflepuff wouldn’t back down, and she really didn’t understand what the fuss was about. Well, maybe she did. If there was only one football field, she knew she’d be fighting tooth and nail for it, that much was sure. 

“Are you trying to kill your own team?!” Nina said, louder than necessary, to make sure Ellie’s teammates would hear it. She winked at them.“I happen to like the broom far up my arse. Have you tried that yet?” She replied, growing more irritated by the second. There really was no room for discussion. The outcome would probably be worse if she let the girl have the ground than if she didn’t. And more, if any of them got hit by a bludger or other accidents happened, shit would go down for her team and her house. ”It’s not safe for you guys to be out here while we’re up there and you know it. Are you completely out of your mind? Don’t be difficult, Ellie.”

[rxversals]

ofwoodsandwars:

                     “ — — Why am I getting detention? I didn’t do anything wrong!                                                              He was being a dick!” 

                                    “You fucking punched him in the face! And managed to drag so much attention that I got detention too, for trying to break the fight. Next time you wanna hit someone stupid, hex them. That way I don’t have to lose practice over it, Arabella.”

[rxversals]

forrestxdweller:

“See, lad? And that’s why Atlantis is real. I’d bet it on my life,” Forrest finished explaining to the first year —- an hour and a half after he begun. 

“Can’t say I’m impressed.” She smiled, only slightly teasing him. “I can say, however, that the poor little kid would’ve believed you if you kept it the short version, Forrest.”

[rxversals]

                    Of all days in which they could clash, it had to be in that particular one. It was almost unholy. The first day since school started that the heat was low enough to fly for more than a couple of hours. It was clear the Ravenclaw team had booked the pitch, so Nina didn’t understand why the other team was even trying to put up a fight. “Are you done yet? We have a practice to start. Our bludgers might be rather nasty today. It wouldn’t be smart to defend both you down here and ourselves up there. It’s not a productive idea.” She heard someone say they also didn’t need rats watching their practice, but Lavinia felt she’d made her point without the use of such smart words.