Sander was surprised when a young Ravenclaw walked up to him and explained what he was supposed to do as a pawn. "Hello. Thanks for explaining the game to me. I'm Sander by the way. So all I do is move forward one square after I make my first move but on the first move, two squares? I only move forward. Got it...I think," Sander nodded as he took the younger girl's hand and followed her taking two steps across two squares in front of him before turning around and returning to his spot.

"So....um....who gets to move first?" Sander turned to look at the girl again. "I know white does but which piece?"

....yes this was so confusing. Who was going to keep track of each piece on the board in order for them to know where to move?

Mo was a Ravenclaw from a line of Ravenclaws and Slytherins. There was no doubt that he was not only familiar with the game of Wizard Chess, but he was proficient enough that he knew what position he wanted to play.

The King, obviously. He'd never have to move and could keep an eye on the rest of the board.

But when it became obvious that no one was going to take the knights, which were pretty major players, Mo groaned and moved out to take the kingside knight. For castling reasons, of course. Now, what was the rest of his team doing?

So they had a bishop, a rook, three pawns, and a knight. It was a good start, although Mo hoped they'd get a king and queen soon. Alice was looking particularly terrifying across the board.

He glanced at the taller boy who had (ironically) chosen to be a pawn. "White always moves first. I think one of the middle pawns should move out first, preferably one in front of our kingside bishop or knight, so we can get bigger pieces freed up and out on the board.

He tapped the head of Brynn, who was standing in front of him. "You go first. Two steps. That lets Adi and I move."

She was WHAT NOW???

No. No no no no no! Absolutely not. "I am not disposable Alice Fischer. I intend to liiiiive." A bit dramatic, yes, but first Hadley brings a coffin to class then McCormack makes her disposable??? Did no one question what this would do to the mental health of the girl? All these euphemisms about death and she was NOT interested.

Lex pointed across from them. "I want to go there. If I go there can I be a knight?" It sounded MUCH BETTER than being disposable thank you very much. "Or maybe I could stand there. What would I be if I stood there?"

But Alice wasn't listening, she was too busy bossing her around and nudging her forward.

"Hey stopit. I'm not a Pawn anymore, I'm a knight now." But somehow Alice had nudged her forward until she was now a square ahead. Lex turned, pursing her lips at her Cap'n. "I'm still a knight." And that was final...sorta. She'd play the pawn but no one was telling her what to call herself and when to be disposable.

Brynn smiled up at the tall boy as he introduced himself. "Hi.. I'm Brynn." Mmmk, niceties over with, let's get on with the game. She nodded as he repeated back to her what she said. "That's the basic of it, yeah. AND.. if you make it all the way to the other side without being captured, you get to be the queen." BEAM. So maybe Sander didn't want to be a queen, but she thought that part was pretty special too.

She quickly demonstrated how to move, pulling Sander along with her, before following him back to their original spaces. Now, who was to start? She turned around as she felt a tap on her head and beamed at the older boy behind her. Oooh, Mo Marcus was captaining her in this game too.. awesome! He would lead them to victory here too. "Aye, aye Captain," she saluted before turning around and taking two steps, sending this white pawn forward two spaces.

"Oy, black team!" Mo waved at Alice and Lex from his spot in the back row. They were CHEATING, and it wasn't going to be allowed. He waved again. "Oy... you moved out of turn. White starts, then black. We're taking a second move, and then you go in proper order."

He even stuck out his tongue at them to let them know. Alice should have let Lex be a knight. Like Mo. Knights were properly awesome.

Since black had already taken their turn, Mo decided it was white's turn to go again. He glanced up and down the row of pawns before deciding he was going to just let himself go. Privilege of knowing how the game was played and all that.

"Knights move in an L-shape. Two up and then one over, like this," Mo explained to the other players on his team as he moved up in front of the last pawn. "I think we should move up another pawn on our next turn. Who wants to go?"

... ... Chess.

Alec's eyes widened as he looked around at the giant Chess Board that was on the floor. Did he... know anything about chess? Not... really. Maybe a little bit but... no. Getting up from his desk, Alec manually moved his desk over towards the side with great difficulty. His things were still scattered on the desk and he'd leave it like that, with his bag plopped down on top of his notebook. Right now, he had a chess game to play.

Where was Caleb Bishop when you needed him?

Once he was done, the boy slowly made his way over towards the side where the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws were meant to be playing. The side of the white chess pieces. Yeah. While that was simple enough, he just needed to claim a chess piece. One he could manage and not have a lot of control over the game since his knowledge of chess was... low. Bad. Poor. Just... not great. So... he needed an okay position that he could play, like...

... Rook! The other one. He was going to slide into that spot while Mo took the lead.

Chess.

Ella's brother would LOVE this. Like, just thinking about his reaction made her grin and the blonde wished she had his chess skills right about now because she wasn't the best at this. Not at all. At least she had a general idea of the rules though, that was something.

Wandering over, she noted that the King and Queen were still unclaimed but she wasn't particularly eager to play either of those. The Queen was the most powerful and Ella didn't want to make poor decisions in that role. As for the King, well, he was a bit of a weakling and she didn't fancy that role either. So instead she headed over and took the spot of the Queenside Bishop. Seemed legit, yeah? "Hey guys." Grin! "Feel free to boss me around. I'm good at taking direction." Just saying. And Mo seemed like he was in charge so she looked to him. "Pawn sounds good. Any pawns ready to move?"

A little known fact about Benjamin Barton was his prowess at Wizarding Chess. It'd been his 'thing' way before he'd discovered skateboarding and quidditch. He just didn't really play it outside of his family. It'd been the thing he did with his Dad, and after he'd gone, well, playing just hadn't been the same.

It didn't mean Benjy didn't enjoy a good game though. Because he did. VERY much, and he knew what position he wanted straight off. "Nice choice!" he called out to his captain, as Benjy head straight for the same position on the other side. So, they could do with a King and Queen really, but Knight had always been his favourite.

"No. You can't be. You're a pawn." She would have actually tried teaching Alexa how to play but was saving herself the headache.

If she wanted her prefect to be of any use, though, Alice had to make sure she knew the basics. "Pawns can't move backwards, and they can take any pieces diagonal to them. If you see any Hufflepuffs or Ravenclaws in a square that you can take, kick 'em in the shin and tell them to get off the board." Yep. That was how proper Gryffindors did it for sure... if Lex could muster up enough energy to even lift her leg, which was unlikely.

And why was Mo shouting? Merlin. They could move WHEN THEY WANTED. Since his white knight had just moved, she went ahead and made the move for the Gryffindor-Slytherin side. Queen one square forward.

Was he supposed to move? It looked like everyone was moving all at once. Sander scratched his head and looked confused.

Oh what the heck!! Pawn? That was him. Taking his cue from Mo, the Quidditch Ravenclaw Captain and took two steps forward.

H2 to H4.

Was he right to have done what he did. He was waiting for someone to tell him differently.

Bart sat with a blank stare on his face. What was he doing? Why wasn't he being able to focus? What was going on again? He looked around confused and then at the girl who had spoken about him barely even understanding what she was saying. Stroke? What? NO he wasn't having something like that, that was for old people. He wasn't er well he was old now wasn't he. The thought of that made his heart race and he felt a bit panicked as the professor came near.

"I.." words were not coming to him, what was going on. He thought really hard as he tried to figure out what he wanted to say. "I...son't snow shas soing on." He stared forward feeling incredibly weird. Where was he again? Urelic right.. His school he was a first year. What class was this? He looked around. "Professor Wobison S sink S sine." He looked up at the professor in total confusion.

It seems people were moving and he wasn't sure what they were doing. He sat there watching them and decided maybe he should get up, but was he suppose to get up. Nothing in his mind seemed to be working right. What was going on..

He looked back up at the professor in a confused panicked state.

Wizarding chess.

Yeah, Layla had zero clue on how to play even regular chess. Also, how rude of her classmates to not even notice that something was wrong with one of their own! Especially those Gryffindors. Yep, way to go, guys.

So, since she didn't know and really had no desire to learn chess, wizard or otherwise, and she was flabbergasted that no one was offering to help, there was only one thing for her to do. She hurried over to help Bart. "You're still slurring." So, clearly not fine. "I'll take him, professor."

Braith could hear the students around him getting started with the game, some asking for help, but his focus was elsewhere. He figured enough of them would know how to play and he basically just wanted them to have fun anyway. He wasn't too worried about the outcome as long as they didn't get reckless or something. He was a little more worried about Mr. Maroon right now. And he did not appear to be doing well.

He watched the boy carefully as he tried to speak and could tell by his expression that he was very confused. A very bad feeling came over him, but he tried to mask his dread to not further alarm the child. Though he couldn't help the frown as the boy continued. Not only did he have difficulty forming words, but he seemed to have his name wrong - and not even a close version of it. "Bart," he started calmly. "I really think you need to go see the Healer now. She can make you feel better, I'm sure." Or he hoped.

"I.." he started, but was soon interrupted by the Slytherin girl who first expressed her concern. "Thank you Miss Channing-Sands," he said as he turned to her with a grateful smile. He glanced back at Bart and gently put his arm around his shoulder to begin to help him out of his seat. "This lovely young lady is going to help you get there. Are you able to walk?" That might pose a further problem if he was unable, but he'd see to get the boy help somehow.

Lux was still not getting help from any of her fellow classmates, but whatever. She could do this on her own if no one was going to assist her. It seemed that people were doing random things anyway.

Maybe random was how the game was supposed to be played?

Shrugging, she moved forward on the chess board. There. She had done something. Now what was her next move?

Adi heard Mo say something about moving. He looked perplexedly at the older boy. He was totally lost. Yup. "Mo, where do I need to move to?'' This second year required all the help he could get here, please.

Ugh! He was so confused. Chess definitely wasn't his thing. But it was sort of reassuring to see he wasn't the only one unfamiliar with the game. They'd all learn together.

He looked up at the professor still very confused as to what was going on. What was this about a healer? "sre the swins born?" had his mother had the babies, is that why he was needing to see the healer to go see them? Weren't they due in the summer though? This was confusing him even more. What was going on and why was this girl talking again about taking him. He had been to Urelic healer before he knew where it was.

Though he wasn't sure about getting up at the moment. He didn't have much time to think about it when the professor had his arm around him and was lifting him. Walk? Of course he could walk. He nodded instead of saying any words still trying to figure out what as going on. He stepped forward and stumbled a bit. Stopping and gripping the professor to steady himself. He could do this, he had walked everyday since he was a year old.

Looking towards the girl he gave her a lopsided grin. She was going to show him to the healer. "Sankyousrofessor" Nodding a few more times he took the girls arm a bit and started shuffling his feet not picking them up at all to head out of the classroom.

Alex stood in her assigned spot and looked around at all the movement with confusion. Thankfully, Bay was shouting instructions to her from across the room. Who knew how long he would be able to keep that up since he was on the opposing team. So she could stay put until the pawn in front of her moved. And then.......she knew how she could move, but had no idea where she should move. Hopefully someone would step in and help her out when the time came.

For now, it seemed as if the Quidditch captain was taking charge. This was good because there appeared to be a lot of clueless people on their team. Alex continued to watch the game as it progressed and tried to make sense of it all.

Sander looked around and waited for someone on the black side to make a move. He was glad that they weren't playing the same version that Ron, Harry and Hermione had to play against to get to the Philosopher's Stone. Now that was one scary game.

Standing where he was at....let's count...5 squares from the bottom, Sander waited for either the Mo to yell out the next step after the Gryffindor/Slytherin team made their move.

Deciding that it would be awhile before he was needed, he decided to sit down on the board. Might as well rest while he could. Being old did have its privileges.

Mo glanced back to where Adi was still waiting to take a turn. It wasn't really his turn, but then... it wasn't anyone's turn. The black team was chilling, the white team all wanted to go.

And no one was watching to see if they were playing by the rules.

"You can only move diagonally as a bishop. So you could move one square towards me, and then you can move diagonally onto the board beyond the pawns. The goal is to pin down their king, and since they don't have anyone playing king, that should be pretty easy. It isn't our turn right now, but then a few of our pawns have already moved out of turn. If you want to give it a go... do it."

He glanced at the other white team players waiting to move. "Let's just go get their king."

Wait a few of their pawns had moved out of turn? Did that mean him? Sander suddenly found that his shoes looked really interesting and began playing with his shoe laces, looking all innocent.

Then he heard Mo call out to go ahead and get their king and Sander looked up. Who was playing the King on the other side? No one was wearing the crown. He knew that Lexa was the Queen. Could he get her instead?

Sander got to his feet. Was anyone going to move? Hey the Quidditch Captain said to go get their king, so did that mean everyone could move? Hey! he was fine with that.

Sander looked all around him and when no one was looking in his direction, stuck one foot forward, snuck across another square before quickly dropping to the ground and looking all innocent again as he resumed fiddling with his shoe laces.

Marigold was slightly confused, but she was on a team with that Ravenclaw, that one, the smart one. Moses or something like that, she couldn't be concerned with names right then. So she took the place of a pawn and resolved to not move much during the game. Well, she wouldn't get many points if she didn't move. Eh, she could move.

Buuuuut in a few minutes. BEAM.

Sander looked diagonally to the left of him and realized that there should be a black pawn standing in the square diagonally above him. Was someone from the Gryffindor/Slytherin side representing this spot? Was he supposed to capture whoever it was? Sander turned to look at Mo and asked.

"Do I claim this spot? There isn't anyone standing here? Can I just stand there anyway?" Sander turned to look at the Ravenclaw Quidditch Captain.

How was that fair? Did standing in the Queen spot and assuming the role of queen automatically mean she could tell Lex what to be? What if she changed positions half way through because pawn life wasn't working for her anymore? You know what she felt like right now? A sitting duck, one Alice was happily hiding behind.

OH WAIT HOLD ON! "Kicking? I can do that. Diagonal you say?" Alexa's eyes immediately began scanning the board for anyone who might have been in her line of fire. No smashing pieces but kicking was allowed. Neat. "And why would I go backward anyway? The people I wanna kick are that way." Obviously. She wasn't about to go kicking any of her teammates. That would be considered bad form by most.

And how come Mo got to yell? She had loads of things she wanted to say loudly too but you didn't see her raising her voice. It was something about them cheating? Were they?? Lex twisted so she was facing Alice again but the girl didn't seem bothered. Maybe Mo was lying then.

Despite Alice's brief instructions, the Gryffindor was still lost.

Not really knowing what an advantageous move would be she simply took another square forward and waited for something to happen.

Ian watched with some concern the happenings with Bart. While the two couldn't be considered friends, Ian spoke up. Sir, I'm sure that she's quite capable, would you mind terribly if I also assisted? I think two of us together might be able to manage him well if he were perhaps to fall. It also helped that Ian wasn't exactly the world's best wizard chess player, or for that matter he wasn't very good at muggle chess.

The more Bart spoke, the more Braith felt it was urgent to get him checked out as soon as possible. No, he was not the expert where things like this were concerned, but even he could see something was seriously wrong. He wasn't sure what the slurred words meant and he simply furrowed his brow and pursed his lips a bit as the boy seemed to question him. But he also seemed to be compliant and Braith helped to steady the young Gryffindor as he tried to get out of his seat.

He gave Bart a tight smile and small nod as he seemed to be expressing his thanks, though McCormack took a few minutes to make sure the boy was able to gain some sort of balance as he headed towards Miss Channing-Sands. He then turned towards another voice as it addressed him. "I think that would be a fine idea, Mr. Tinker," he nodded at the young Hufflepuff. Normally he might think students were trying to get out of class, but this was indeed concerning and he had already said he'd let them out early, so he didn't think this was the case. "If either of you have problems on the way, one can stay with Mr. Maroon and the other can come back to find me, alright?" Yes, that was actually a good idea. It wasn't too far to the Hospital Wing, but best to have all bases covered. Noting that the boy had enough assistance and was on his way out of the classroom and to getting help, he thought it might be a good idea to see what his class was up to.

He really hoped it wasn't a worst case scenario. He made a mental note to visit the boy after class, but for now he turned blue eyes back to the students and their attempt at wizarding chess. Hmm, it looked slightly more uneven than he had been expecting. It certainly was fine if they were going out of turn, but the black team looked to be just sort of milling around while they figured things out. It would be rather surprising to him if any of these kids didn't at least know the basics as he was muggleborn and very well-versed in the game. Maybe it was a regional thing though.

Perhaps he should have went over rules or moves or something, but Bart's condition had him very distracted, still did. It wasn't that big of a deal anyway, he just wanted them to have fun with a little game and even if they weren't playing it completely correctly, it wasn't that big of a deal. He simply hung back for a moment with arms crossed, watching, taking note of the helpful strategic Ravenclaw, then gave a nod to the older, questioning Hufflepuff. "That's fine, Mr. Strand. You can move there." A few more minutes of play time then he'd cut them loose if they wanted.


OOC - You guys are doing great! Keep going - take turns out of order, move where you want, attempt to capture someone, whatever - it's all cool! Just have fun with it. I'll be closing this thread in about 15 hours.