𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐂𝐊𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐄
chapter one; Pawn Play
" Game on, Potter. "

  IT WAS A real damn tragedy that Salem Gerard turned out to be a witch. Her mother, clueless as ever, named the child after Winston Salem, a town across the lake in the Colonies where she'd met Salem's father, but now that the red-haired baby had blossomed into a full-grown witch, it was a bit of a sick joke. With the connotation of 'Salem' being 'Witch Trials', the redhead had long ago adopted the nickname 'Sal' and moved on with her life.

  In the short summary of Salem's life, few things were important. The four or so things that would be in bold if her life was a book and the blurb of three sentences summed up 17 years. She was presumed to be a Muggleborn, sorted into Gryffindor without knowing what it meant, wore the same filthy leather jacket every day of her angsty teenage life, and had decided love was for suckers.

  (She would blame it on the absent father, but Salem would never admit she had daddy issues).

  And she loved chess.

  Not in a nerdy way, Salem Gerard was far from a book worm, she enjoyed the strategy of it all. She loved it so much, her very own worn-in muggle chess set had become a staple of the Gryffindor common room. Somedays, it bothered Salem that kids would fuck with the game, knowing well it wasn't theirs, but other times she found it interesting to watch the way others played.

  Especially when Sirius Black shouted at the pawn for five minutes, before Dorcas Meadowes explained it wasn't wizard's chess.

  Regardless of her emotions when seeing people use it, she left it there. Through every break of every year, the set remained on the very same wooden table positioned behind the red velvet sofa.

  But recently, Salem had noticed pieces would be moved. Like some idiot was screwing around, bored past curfew, they pushed only the white pieces around and didn't bother to reset it.

  So, yeah, maybe staking out who was trashing her chessboard was a strange thing to do, but Salem was doing it regardless. Her roommate and best friend, Dottie, had scoped out the common room before Salem took her place between a bookshelf and a wall, the corner was barely big enough for the teen to squeeze into but it cast a shadow that perfectly concealed her.

  And she waited.

  Salem swore her ribs were going to crack, and her legs may or may not have fallen off-- she couldn't feel them so naturally, she was unsure if they were still there.

  This all went away the second footsteps creaked down the boys' dormitory stairs.

  The girl, admittedly, was expecting some first-year kid who though messing up the common room was a prank that would hold a candle to the Marauders and somehow she'd scare them out of touching the game ever again. She was certainly not expecting a bed-headed James Potter, who was wearing maroon and gold pajama bottoms like he was still 11, to drag his feet and sink into the plush chair.

  She watched the boy fidget with his hair for a while, one lock stood up like the horn of a unicorn by the time he sat up fully. James had removed his glasses, wiped his face, and replaced them. Stared at the dying fire for a moment. He shifted his gaze to the neatly lined up chess pieces, and after a moment, scooting a pawn forward with his index finger.

  Salem, briefly, wondered if he was buzzed. By alcohol or more medicinal methods, he didn't seem in a good state of mind.

  But then James Potter ruffled his hair (not losing the horn) and moved another pawn. He'd take long breaks between moving each piece, sometimes moving them back to their spots before re-trying.

  And by the time he was done, and Salem thought she'd fall asleep standing up, the board had been reverted to normal. Aside from a pawn sticking two squares out.

  James let out a loud sigh, moving to the fire. He crouched in front of it, staring into the flames briefly, before standing up and making his way back to his dorm.

  After Salem was sure the coast was clear, and James wouldn't find out she'd un-intentionally stalked him for two hours, she wiggled free from her bookshelf prison. She wasn't sure how to feel about the discovery, that it was James and he was missing a screw in his head, but she did know one thing;

  She really didn't want him to keep messing up her board.

  It was a drag when all Salem wanted to do was play chess, to have to re-set it up, and it'd wind up looking like a shitty version of what she normally did because of the rush.

  And she also wondered why James chose to play with no opponent, he had three solid friends and the rest of Gryffindor house falling at his feet, and yet he was subjecting himself to being alone.

  So Salem walked herself towards the table, and plucked a black colored pawn up, setting it back down two squares forward. But this didn't seem like enough, because she'd seen how idiotic James could be, so the girl found a leftover Potions essay, ripped the corner off, and pulled a pen from her back pocket.

  (Salem thought quills were, perhaps, the stupidest idea Hogwarts could've come up with).

  She debated what to write before decided on a cliche. Not too cliche, Salem didn't want to make herself vomit, but it seemed just cheesy enough to entice a 17-year-old boy to reciprocate the action of playing chess.

  Salem smiled at her neat handwriting, tucking it just beneath the side of the chessboard that housed the white pieces.

  Maybe this would decrease her frustration, especially when considering the fact that Salem had long run out of willing opponents in the game of chess. As long as James didn't know he was playing against her, for more reasons than her skill set, the anger would dissipate and she'd be able to work on her strategy.

  It was safe to say, Salem Gerard severely underestimated the side effects of being involved in any way with the Marauders, and more specifically, James Potter.

( AUTHOR'S NOTE. )
I've been wanting to write a
James fic forEVER and honestly,
I listened to Conan Gray's "Checkmate"
and it's like literally not about chess
but that's where I got the title and
the plot just followed! On an 
unrelated note, I'm going
to the midnight screening of
Far From Home tonight and I 
CAN'T WAIT