(1939-01-09) Chess Pieces and Control
Details for Chess Pieces and Control
Summary: Genevieve and Silas enjoy a rare moment alone in the Slytherin Common Room, and talk ranges from the recent attacks, to chess and Transfigurations, to drawing.
Date: January 09, 1929
Location: Slytherin Common Room
Related:
Characters
SilasGenevieve

The Slytherin commons room is a low-ceilinged, dungeon-like affair illuminated during the day by a multitude of greenish lamps and a roaring fire which also works to partially ward of the perpetual chill of the dungeons. The common room is filled with low-backed, black and dark green leather sofas and armchairs accented with buttons that create dimples deep in the upholstery. For the decorative carvings of the dark wood cupboards, the columns, the mantelpiece, and other architectural details of the room run strongly towards snakes and skulls motif. All these details combine to create a quite grand atmosphere with a touch of spooky and cold.
Day or night the enchanted windows are filled with an eerie green glow from the water on the other side. Occasionally the Giant Squid and other residents of the Black Lake will swim by the portals. Over all the common room has a sunken ship feel, though is oddly enough also gives a strange cozy sense as well.


Evening again, and with school back in full swing, Silas has been busy, although he hasn't missed a meal, and he's always made certain to have a seat ready should someone be available to join him. Dinner, however, was somewhat aborted today, of all things, as he chose to withdraw when noticed and approached by a few of the first-years he normally tutored. So instead of finishing his meal there, he had retreated to the common room, a plate filled with a number of fruits there, as well as a slice of cake, randomly, sat next to him on the end-peice next to the couch he sat on.
A book is in his hand, open near the end, and yet another perched on his knee, magic quill writing feverishly with each mutter. A look to the second, and he shakes his head, the quill scratching out the last sentence it had written.

Well, Jenny hadn't left dinner when Sy had, despite spending all the other meals with him. She'd eaten her fill, because her fill was considerably more than Sy could ever fit on a single plate. So she bounded into the common room not long after she'd finished. Her steps light and easy, her lips pursed with a slight furrow of her brows.
"You know, I understand that your bothered, but you gotta quit being all, dramatic about things and sulking. First year children weren't responsible for what went down, Sy. They're just…children. Children who are just as lost and afraid as the pure-bloods beside them and when you withdraw in judgment, what do you think that says to them? We teach people not to judge and then we show them that we can't live by our own ideals." Heavy conversation, as she flops down beside him and reaches to break a corner off the cake to nibble on.
"We have to be a part of the future we want and if you still dont want anything to do with them, fine. But stop sulking, okay? It leaves me lonely."

Silas looks at Jenny with a smile as she comes in, acknowledging her statement as she makes it, although he seems to be in decent spirits for someone in a sulk. Even one of his. However, in response, he closes the book in his hand, and grins, "I thought I officially announced my sulk complete as of last night. Those two…"
He looks toward the door for a moment, before grabbing a bit of pear off the plate, "have approached me every single day since we got back. I've tried to assure them that there is no ill will on my part, but they keep hashing and rehashing it… and I've just had my fill of playing empathetic ear lately. I don't mean to leave you alone… honest. I just knew if they came to apologize to me one more time for something neither they or I were connected to, I might not have been kind."

"Then…you're not kind, but you know, sometimes that's what's necessary. You can't be nice to everyone all the time. You just, have to be. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad but if you try to be the same thing all the time, then you're just going to become something that you hate because you're forced into a mold that's hard to break out of and that, my love, is how we end up like our parents. Or…well, yours." And after that? She kissed his cheek, or well, the corner of his lips.
"Don't let a bunch of first years decide whether or not you get to stay in a room? D'you really wanna give up that kinda control, babe?"

Silas grumps, albeit playfully, nodding. "You're right, of course. This was all much easier when I simply kept things simpler, and compartmentalized. But it was far lonlier, and less interesting. So I'll just have to adjust." He leans into the kiss when it's offered, eventually turning it into a full lean up against her, and offers another small bite of cake, "Forgive me?"
After a moment, a question comes to mind, something far more positive. "So, have you already formulated every aspect of Marcus' birthday bash for when it arrives, or was there any way I could help you with the preparations?"

"Simpler. Yes. I kinda miss things when they were simpler too. There wasn't any…well, any ick." Jenny wrinkled her nose and met his lean with a little shoulder-bump of affection and a smile. "You'll figure it out. That's the thing with coming out of your shell. Sometimes, even if it hurts more than there are words for, you have to learn to shove things down and out of sight, of the way so you can act. I guess it's kinda like feeling more and at the same time, turning things off?" Things like…emotions, actually. Jenny shrugged and took the nibble of cake.
And then she settled back more comfortably on the couch and tucked those long legs in beneath her. "Well, my first plan was to have it over the holidays and then there was all that…drama and I didn't just screw over my boyfriend, I screwed over my best friend. Marcus I have to make it up to and I will. But a group thing would just end up making him uncomfortable and increase the odds of us getting caught if something restricted happens so…" Jenny flashed a cheeky smile. "Don't ask. Don't tell."

The other book and the quill quickly join the first as Silas decides inwardly that homework can simply wait. Serious talk or otherwise, some things deserve more attention. Like shifting to get closer to Jenny. Very important, that. "So long as I have a few people I don't have to turn things off with, I think I'll manage to survive." The plate is shifted over, and placed on his lap instead for easier access.
When she suggests he wanted to come along, Silas smirks, "Oh, no. I wasn't asking that, dear. I figured this for Jenny and her best mate needing time alone. I was more asking if you needed help in any preparations. I didn't know it might have needed certain aspects to be classified, but I guess I shouldn't be shocked."
"And I'm certain he understands about the holiday. Did you… explain to him? He seems the understanding type to me."

So Jenny snuggled, since there wasn't anyone around to yell at them, with her left hand resting comfortably on Sy's thigh. For the most part, she left his plate alone. The little pooch on her belly suggesting that she really had gotten her fill at lunch. "You're good at surviving," the girl winked in his direction and then peered past him to see what'd been the book he'd been studying before she'd come along and interrupted it.
"Oh Marcus is completely understanding. He's a lot like me and yet, not. And he told me I could let it slide too, if I wanted, because he'd have other birthdays, but I can count on three fingers the number of people who are special to me and he's among them. So…even if he said I could, I can't, ya know?"

A nod goes with that, and a smile crosses his face at the touch, his own hand moving down to rest fingers atop hers, "I am, at that. And part of it is knowing who to lean on." When she looks at the book, she can see that it is Transfigurations. Why he took it as a NEWT despite how much he struggles in it is anyone's guess. Not a textbook, and more a practical theory text… anything to help him get past the next breakthrough.
On Marcus, he smiles, "He should know better than to deny you something once you've set your mind to it."

Jenny chuckled, flashing an easy smile in Sy's direction before her eyes drifted down to his book. "I hate that class," her nose wrinkled, "The changing things, I'm just fine with. It's the conjuring things that I'm terrible at and I hate all of those stupid papers they make us write on everything. I hate writing!" The girl bemoaned and huffed, this time reaching for the cake.
"He's learning." On Marcus. "As for the rest…I mean, I'm not real good with it but, if you want a little help then…I'll be more than glad to."

When Jenny describes her feelings on the class, Silas can't help but hide his head in her hair for a moment, actually snickering. "Go just the opposite for me. Conjuration makes total sense to me… but Transfigurations just seems to go against everything set in my mind." A deep breath, and then he continues, "I can't believe in all this time we didn't even think about helping…"
He grins, "You realize that's why I gave you that silly chess set, right? Because I finally beat that stupid exercise… wood to ebony and ivory, from third year. Was /so/ proud of it."

"Huh," Jenny replies, head canting to the side so that she can have nuzzle into the boy when he presses into her hair. "Well, maybe you can help me sometime and I can help you. Only, that sometime isn't today," she was quick to add, offering a crooked grin.
"I didn't realize about the chess set though. I honestly just…I unno. I'm glad you were proud of it but don't you think it might mean more if you kept it then? Since…I mean, I'm not going to have a whole lot to do with it. I haven't the faintest clue how to play chess, Sy and even less interest in learning. But I am glad, don't get me wrong, that you thought to give me something you were proud of."

Silas counters the nuzzle with a sneak-kiss just behind the ear, before moving back into that general cuddle, looking back at the book with a shake of his head, "Yes. No more tonight. Frankly, I've had all I could. But I would be more than happy to help you with your conjurations. It's the one thing that's kept me afloat. And I would relish your own help. But not right now." He grins, taking the ignored play and setting it aside as well for now, "Too comfortable."
In regards to the set, he shrugs, "I didn't know then if you did or not. But I thought it something to go with the other two gifts. Something I made." He smiles, "I'm just glad you liked the drawings."

"Nope. Not tonight. I was thinking of yours and in general." Jenny replied, "I don't particularly like it to begin with," the girl grumped, reminding him even as that little kiss of his made her shiver. Squeezing his thigh, Jenny plucks up a sliver of orange and offers it out to Silas with amusement dancing in her eyes.
"I loved the drawings," Jenny murmurs, tilting her head in to nuzzle against Silas again. "And the chess set is nice too. Maybe, one day when it's raining and I've broken something that can't be fixed over night and there's nothing fun around to do, you can teach me." Grin.

Silas nods, "I like the concept of Transfigurations… just not the practice. I honestly think I… think to much about it. Analyze too much and put too much logic into it. Which is ironic, then, since I'm analyzing that."
A look around the room, just to check for Ria, for the most part, and her anti-canoodling ways, and Silas not-entirely-casually slips one arm behind Jenny to let her in even closer. "That will be quite the effort to arrange. It might actually be a near monolithic task. But… it's something to aim for, then," he teases.

"Probably. Do you know how much I think about things?" From the way that Jenny is grinning, that's probably something of a trick question. But she shoulder-bumps him anyway and snuggles in beside him. "Anyway, don't…think about it. Just, I think of it as like clouds. You know how you look for shapes in the clouds? I look for new shapes in the thing and then just…sort of see them and there they are." It seemed so simple, at least in her head.
The sensation of his arm around her though, brought more warmth to her smile and once again, the girl leaned in to kiss his cheek. "Or I could just watch you draw, which, is equally appealing and probably apt to make my brain hurt less." After all, all the pieces had rules and Jenny…Jenny didn't do so well with rules.

As Jenny snuggles in more, Silas also shares that warm smile with her. Smitten? Oh, we're well past that. Well, well past that. Utterly hopeless is probably a better descriptor here. He nods at her description of understanding Transfigurations, and actually screws up his face a bit, "I've read something similar to that before." The bait about how much she thinks? Not just dodged… utterly avoided.
"One of these days, I'm going to draw you from more than just memory, I think. Actually have you pose for me… so I can get every nuance." Is how he counters it, "But… yes. You are always welcome to watch me draw. And to ask me to draw for you."

"You…want me to pose for you? Like, doing what? I've never posed for anything before and uh, I'm not taking my clothes off." Just, something to cover and get out of the way up front. Safety and all. What if he lost it? The thought was…not the kind of thought she wanted, truth be told.
But the snuggles were nice as was his warmth and Jenny was content to simply bask in his company, letting talk of actual school work pass to the wayside.

Although he still manages to redden a bit at the suggestion, or perhaps the thoughts that follow it, Silas does chuckle, "I wasn't suggesting something that far, dear. That…" he looks away for a moment and hums distractedly, before shaking his head, "Sorry. Mental image. Regardless, it's an idle thought, nothing more."

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License