A Gang of Slytherins - Oneshot Collection

Soccer and Chess

A/N: This is a bit of a longer story, I had fun here! Also, I'm not entirely sure how the fifth-year timetables work, so yeah. That might be a bit wrong XD Also they're playing down by the lake, if that's a bit hard to decipher. ALSO I'm practicing writing in past tense this time!

A ball whirled through the air before making contact with Mattheo's head. 

'Nice!' I exclaimed as he kicked it to me. I dodged around Blaise before giving the soccer ball another strong kick, sending it to Pansy who shot it between the makeshift Butterbeer bottle goalposts. Pansy ran after the ball as it rolled toward the lake.

Mattheo walked up to me, 'I think I'm starting to like this Muggle game.' he said, brushing sweaty hair out of his face. I grinned at him before whipping around to face Draco, who was watching from the nearby stone steps. 'See Drake, it is fun. Quit your "but it's a MUGGLE sport! moan glug groan" and come play! Or are you afraid of getting mud on your delicate fancy cloak?'

He rolled his eyes and muttered something about hexing my mouth shut. 

'Oh, come on, Draco.' said Pansy, walking up from behind me with the ball tucked under her arm. 'If you won't play soccer with us then you're playing chess We aren't going to be able to play anything for ages because Christmas break is coming.'

I nodded enthusiastically as Draco raised a skeptical eyebrow. 'No squirming out of this one,' I said. 'This evening after dinner, my dormitory. Wizard chess.'

'If you don't show up, I'll make you.' threatened Blaise, who was helping Pansy collect the beer bottles.

'Fine, I'm coming, okay?' Draco exclaimed, a funny mixture of exasperation and defeat on his pale face. 'Good.' Pansy and I replied together. I started walking back up to the castle, 'Now, if you please, Blaise and I need to get to ancient runes. That means you guys are already late for your extracurriculars.' I added, before flouncing off.

~~~

That evening, I took up some snacks and extra cushions from Pansy's room to my dormitory. I made space on the floor before dragging over my fluffy dark green rug and dumping the cushions on it. I then plopped down on a royal purple cushion with gold tassels, opened a chocolate frog, and waited for my guests.

A few minutes later there were multiple knocks on my door. 'Come in!' I sang as it opened and my friends poured in. There was some chatter and some usual teasing as everyone sat down, and I opened a pack of Bertie Bott's as Draco set the chess set. 

'Who first? Blaise?' Draco asked, and Blaise shuffled over.

There was a thump 20 minutes later as Draco's knight kicked Blaise's king off the board. 'I win.' he smirked. 'Who next?'

Blaise and Pansy swapped places as the board reset itself.

'Checkmate.' Draco announced, nearly two hours later (Pansy was quite good at chess). 'Your turn, Matt.'

'Since when did you get good at chess, Malfoy?' questioned Mattheo, rubbing his eyes (he may have fallen asleep) and sitting opposite Draco. They played quickly, and soon enough Draco's king lay defeated on the rug. 'You're turn, Maria.' said Pansy excitedly.

Everyone stared at me, Mattheo did so with a slightly worried expression. I was notorious for being extremely hard to defeat; I had usually only lost to the Gryffindor, Hermione Granger. My last game with her lasted nearly four and a half hours, and neither of us won because Madam Pince kicked us out of the library because it was closing time.

We started to play. Matt took my rook (lol). I took his knight. He took my queen. I took his queen. He took my bishop. Then he took my knight. Soon he'd cornered my king, which left me scrabbling around trying to figure out what to do. I managed to protect my king with my other bishop, but then he attacked that with his bishop and then I was stuck.

'Checkmate.' he announced, looking a bit surprised. I put up my hands and shook my head in defeat as he knocked over my king, still looking surprised. 'Good match!' I congratulated, shaking his hand over the table and ignoring Draco's remarks about "the pressure of winning".

We all flopped over onto the rug and opened another box of Every Flavour Beans (I felt better about Draco's mocking when he got a grass-flavoured one). Then we ended up having an arm-wrestling contest (I beat Draco and felt even better), ate more sweets, and talked about random stuff. 

Blaise blew up my alarm clock and turned Mattheo's nose green when we did some spell practice.

It was only at two in the morning did we finally collapse, the chess set abandoned in the corner, and Draco acting even haughtier than usual the next day.

The end. I hope you liked this one! I'm not sure I'm super happy with the ending - I might change it a bit, but it was challenging and pushed me out of my comfort zone a bit!