Hearth and Home [Open]

[head-heldhigh.livejournal.com]

The world had ended. Worlds, plural, had ended, and there was a war on, a war to save all of existence. It was a war Harry'd been recruited for, apparently, just when he'd finished fighting the last one.

It was quite a bit to take in, and Harry Potter wasn't exactly taking it well. It certainly helped that some of the people he knew were awake and had been saved by the talking ship, but he would have felt much better if all the people he cared about were, so he was sure they'd even been saved.

Still, in the end, there was another war to fight. Another one. He was "Chosen" twice over. How could someone have such rotten luck? How could he lose parents, be raised by people like the Dursleys, be a marked man, spend all that time fighting, and then lose his whole world? A world was not the sort of thing you lost, in general. It wasn't as if you could go out for the day, have a hole in your pocket and have the world fall out. A world was an awfully large thing to lose.

The only thing that had offset the despair shock he was currently going through was the fact that Harry Potter had found a magic room on the ship. First day there, no map and he'd found it--how was that for luck? It was clearly some sort of Room of Requirement--all you had to do was walk outside, think very hard about what you wanted on the inside, and there it was, just like that. Unlike the Room of Requirement at Hogwarts, it got around the limitations on magic that existed back home for Harry and even did food.

This remarkable room could even duplicate other places perfectly. This was how Harry found himself in the Gryffindor Common Room, eating chocolate frogs, and playing wizard's chess against the board itself. The opposing pieces were floundering without a player to call the shots, and because of it, it wasn't really fun at all.

Then again, he wasn't sure if he was even allowed to have fun.

Ever again.

After all, Harry though, shouldn't he be grieving? For all the people lost? It was difficult, though, to wrap his head around the numbers, around a loss of that magnitude, and part of him didn't even want to try. As a result, he spent his day holed away in the past, pretending Ron and Hermione would come bounding in through the entrance to the Common Room any minute, and trying his best to quell that tiny voice in the back of his head that told him that what he was doing wasn't healthy at all.

Chess, anyone?

Comments

[livestoannoy]

Why the hell was it that there was always, always, someone using the sensoriums? Come on, was it too much to ask that a guy be able to go and recreate Star Trek without having someone else already be in there?

...What? His world has been destroyed and he was stuck on the middle of a giant spaceship with tentacles and had be 'chosen' to fight another goddamn war. He totally deserved to be able to go and recreate Star Trek if he wanted to.

But the sensoriums weren't up as the set of Star Trek. And the guy sitting in the middle of it definitely wasn't James T Kirk.

"You know, normally chess requires two people," he said, raising an eyebrow. The chess pieces turned around at his interruption, and instantly began yammering at him with complaints about the guy's playing and pleas for him to come join the game. Marco stepped back, staring.

"Dude, that is insane" he said, his eyes wide. "Why on earth would you want chess pieces that can argue with you?"

[head-heldhigh.livejournal.com]

"It's Wizard's chess. They're supposed to heckle the other player. Since there isn't one, they're taking the mickey out of me." After one particular barb at his lack of skill made by the opposing castle, he hissed at the pieces, "Shut it, already."

[livestoannoy]

Marco raised that eyebrow again. Okay, so with all the other crazy stuff on this ship, wizards weren't that unusual. But still. Having some random british dude casually declaring he was playing 'wizard chess' was still weird.

"I repeat: that is insane," he said walking over to stand by the board, staring down. The chess pieces stared back. Man, this was weird. "You do realise that playing chess with yourself is seriously lame, right?"

[head-heldhigh.livejournal.com]

"No. I thought it was cool," Harry said dryly, though he sounded more amused than harsh in his sarcasm.

"Sitting around playing chess by yourself is what all the really cool kids do where I'm from."

[livestoannoy]

"Hate to break it to you man, but all the cool kids are American. Your cool kids weren't cool enough to be one of us," Marco said, smirking. But as he talked, he was scanning the board. The guy was winning, but he wasn't in a very good position. Marco would hazard a guess that he was only doing so well because the animated chess pieces sucked at chess.

He flicked a hand forward, moving a bishop. He wasn't threatening any pieces - not yet - but a few moves later, he would be. Right now, he needed to move the bishop to get a better position.

[grimbiker]

It had taken some time to find Harry. He'd waited until he was sure he could see his godson without falling to pieces. And of course he'd had to make himself slightly more presentable. No beard, his hair was still long but combed now. And then the he realized that he had no idea where Harry would be. How big was this ship?

But there were a lot of times when being an Animagus came in handy. He wouldn't be able to tell where Harry had gone but Padfoot could. And that was how a monster of a black dog came trotting into the sensorium, holding a wand and a mirror between his teeth. At the sight of Harry he carefully deposited both items on the ground and wagged his tail.

[head-heldhigh.livejournal.com]

"I s'pose if you're from earlier you don't know what your nickname was in our letters," Harry said, smiling a small smile at Sirius, as he got up and scritched him on the head. "It was Snuffles--and before you say anything, you thought it up, not me."

It always felt odd to deal with Sirius in his animagus form knowing he was a person, and yet...it didn't. The doggy personality suited him perfectly at times and it made showing affection easier and free-er, less awkward.

[grimbiker]

Ahhh, ear scritches. It really had been a long time since he'd had that. Nice to know they still felt just as good, even if he would never admit it. He could happily stay as Padfoot for hours, lapping up the affection Harry gave him but they needed to talk. He moved away from Harry so he could change back into a human.

"Well there's no accounting for bad taste, even if it's my own." He smiled.

He looked so much like James. He had wondered if perhaps he was imagining things, still adjusting to the transition out of Azkaban, but that wasn't the case at all. It was like James was staring back at him through Lily's eyes.

"Harry... I wish I could remember our letters. I- I'm sorry I don't. I'm sorry about many things." He hated how unsure he sounded. He knew what he wanted to tell Harry but he had no idea how to say it.

[head-heldhigh.livejournal.com]

Harry was quiet for a moment and then went to take his seat by the chessboard again.

"You've had less years in Azkaban, right?"

You're alive, thought Harry.

"I think you not remembering me is a small price to pay for that. And we have a second chance now, don't we?"

[grimbiker]

"Months." Sirius said, taking the seat opposite Harry. "And yes, we do but- it's a price I would have paid." He knew what Azkaban was like. The thought of returning there filled him with terror but if it meant things would be easier for Harry he would go back in a heartbeat.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Holy cow. This room is..." Howard looks around at the common room, at the relative opulence, and searches for the right word. It doesn't come. "...swanky."

And here was going to recreate an In-N-Out and maybe an arcade for some quality relaxation. This is much better. He's never been in a room like this.

Which doesn't explain why the teenager sitting at the chess board in this room looks so damn somber. Howard guesses it might be the whole 'end of your universe' thing. That tends to bum people out pretty bad, although god knows he hasn't shed any tears over the destruction of his ridiculous crapsack hometown.

Howard's about to ask if the other kid's feeling okay when one of the bishops on the chessboard makes a fist-shaking gesture at him. The sheer shock of 'talking board game' eliminates Howard's previous concern about Harry's mood and replaces it with a new question.

"Um. If you lose the game, you don't get shot by Van Pelt, do you?"

[head-heldhigh.livejournal.com]

Yes, it was the requisite "my universe is gone" period of maudlin moping that Harry was going through. There was even that extra sting of being the "Chosen One" and totally bombing at that world-saving thing.

"Who?" he asked.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Does your world not have movies either? Man, you luddites are killing me." It's a new word he's picked up! He read it in an actual book. He's kind of proud of himself.

"So is this place your house?" he asks, still marveling at it.

[head-heldhigh.livejournal.com]

"It does, I just haven't seen all that many," Harry said with a slight laugh at Howard's incredulity. "And this isn't my house--well, it is my house, but not my house."

That would take some explaining.

"Er, at my school, we're sorted into Houses. Four of them. This is my house's Common Room."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Oh, so this is like a boarding school. Like what that Cedric guy was talking about." Howard's still not convinced that not all boarding schools charge outrageous tuition, although thus far Cedric's made him reconsider his 'boarding schools are breeding grounds for sociopaths and psychos' assumption.

"So what's with the board game and why's it angry at you?"

[newyorkbynight.livejournal.com]

Elisa had been on the ship for over twenty four hours and, although it wouldn't have been accurate to say that she'd settled in, she had at least managed to wrap her head around the new world that she'd been thrown into.

She returned to the sensoriums while Goliath slept. (The fact that he slept in six hour cycles rather than following the familiar patterns of night and day was something else that she'd have to adjust to.) There was still a lot of the ship left to explore, but the room was so unusual - so impossible, on the surface - that she couldn't resist making two visits in relatively quick succession.

She stopped abruptly in the doorway when she realised that there was already someone inside.

"Sorry," she said, quickly, "I should have guessed this place would be popular."

A visit to the sensorium was the closest thing that they had to a trip home.

[head-heldhigh.livejournal.com]

"Oh no, s'alright," Harry was quick to reassure her. "I've been brooding, stuffing my face full of chocolate, and playing chess with myself. It's been sort of a trifecta of being miserable. Sometimes interruptions are a good thing."

Bright green eyes regarded the woman, and they looked very tired and perhaps a little older than they had any right to look. They'd looked like that before he'd woken up here but the end of the world hadn't helped matters any.

"D'you play? It's no good playing against the pieces 'cause I keep winning. It just doesn't feel right unless I'm being beaten soundly at it."

[newyorkbynight.livejournal.com]

"I'm a bit rusty, but I remember the basics," Elisa answered, taking his warm response as an invitation to step inside. Although he was younger than most of the people she'd seen on the ship, he looked wearier. He definitely needed to be distracted from whatever thoughts had led him to the sensoriums.

"My sister always won when we played at home," she added, "My brother and I would lose our patience because you can only move one piece at a time and real soldiers don't work like that."

They would never survive on their own. Just like police officers. Just like Stacy's crew.

[head-heldhigh.livejournal.com]

"They really don't, do they," he said and there was this odd tone in his voice like what she'd said had reminded him of something both happy and unhappy.

He set up the board.

"White or black?" he asked.

[newyorkbynight.livejournal.com]

"Not if they want to be able remember what they're fighting for."

It was that knowledge, as much as the allies that fought alongside them, that helped people to keep going when all hope seemed lost. It even helped them to be victorious against seemingly impossible odds.

"Black," she said, pulling over one of the many empty chairs in the room. She'd let him go first. "And I'm Elisa."

[kungfu-sexnun.livejournal.com]

"I didn't know this room was taken."

Nima had popped in looking for perhaps a nice view of the Eastern Air Temple as it used to be situated, or some other location she remembered from home that wasn't in the City for one reason or another, and had found a boy playing a strategy game by himself. A boy who looked like he had a bad case of the blues.

"Are you waiting for someone? That looks like a game for two."

[head-heldhigh.livejournal.com]

"I was trying to play the board."

"And he's rotten at it!" shouted a knight.

"Er, do you need the room for anything?"

[kungfu-sexnun.livejournal.com]

Nima smiles and shakes her head.

"I need to eat and sleep and breathe. I can do all those things in other places. But if you're not waiting for someone, could I play with you? I'd like to learn your game."

Maybe just his board game, too. He was nice-looking, but he was on the young side, for Nima's taste in men.

He had an air about him of a young man who has been aged by trial, though. There was no calling this young person a boy.

[head-heldhigh.livejournal.com]

"That'd be brilliant, actually," Harry said enthusiastically, setting up the board. "I've played with a few people already."

[kungfu-sexnun.livejournal.com]

"Oh good, so you're already making friends?"

He was new. Nima spent enough time at the Drunken Dragon to know who was new and who was not.

"I'm a barmaid at the ship's only inn. I know most of the old crew's faces," she says, by way of explanation, as she moves across the room and sits down.

The way she crosses the space between the open door and the seat across from Harry is curious, in that she floats at least half the way, and arrives accompanied by a strong breeze.

"What's this game called, by the way? And what's your name?"