A/N: One person needs a bit more of an introduction. So yes. Meet Jack. (This might possibly the strangest chapter yet, but I hope you enjoy it anyway!)
Chapter Twenty
War.
Jack had always enjoyed the game. He flipped over the card and tossed it onto the table.
Ace to queen.
He swept the cards away and placed it in a neat pile next to his elbow. He and Harry looked at each other for a moment, then flipped another card.
War was simple. It was straightforward.
Its outcome was predictable and the objective clear.
Jack watched as Harry collected the cards and tucked them into the back of his stack.
Jack sipped his water and leaned his cheek on his hand.
There was no uncertainty in the game, in what he was supposed to do. It was he against Harry. He was to win the battles, and eventually he'd win the war.
Ten to three.
There was no debate, no gray area. If he had the higher card, he'd win. Even if they tied at first, eventually someone would win.
Perhaps, Jack thought idly, that's why he didn't like chess. There were too many variables, and it was hard to figure out what you were trying to do. Sometimes you'd have to willingly give up a piece, and that seemed to defeat the purpose of the game.
Eight to six.
"So how're you liking it here?"
There he went again. Trying to be friendly, as though they could be best friends. Jack shrugged and pretended to straighten his part of the deck.
Harry tossed his card out on the table.
"It's nearly been two weeks."
"Yeah," Jack said, trying to keep his voice even and civil, but not friendly.
Another battle he had to win.
"Hermione says things have been going well."
"Hmm." He traced his finger along the tabletop, flicking his card to the center of the table. He heard Harry sigh.
King to two.
He was winning. He ran his finger along the ridges of his card.
"Look, mate," he said quietly, "I don't know why… what exactly it is you have against us. I'd rather you just say it."
Us.
He and Hermione.
Wasn't it always, when he was talking? Jack quietly sipped his water.
"What makes you think I have something against you?"
A battle in the open was always harder to win. Playing chess against Dusty had taught him that much.
"I think you know."
Jack shrugged again.
"What if I don't?"
Five to three.
"Why does it matter?"
"Because," Harry said after a pause, as Jack collected the cards, "it's just making things harder."
If he could be vague, so could Jack.
"Things?"
The patterns on the back of the cards were blue and didn't move. Most likely Muggle cards.
"Look," Harry's voice was gently impatient, "this doesn't have to be as hard as you're making it."
He traced his finger along the patterns. Was that a man?
"I'm not making things harder."
He wasn't. Things were already as hard as they could be.
Harry's pile was shrinking.
Good. He was winning.
"Jack, what are you afraid of?"
Ace to ace.
A war was coming.
"I'm not afraid of anything. I-I don't care."
He wished the others were here. But they had gone out to the park again, with Hermione.
One card, then a second.
"Really."
Neutral. Calm.
A third card.
"Yes, really!"
And the fourth, exposed. The battle on its back.
And he lost.
Four to three.
A small victory, but it hurt enough.
Harry collected his cards.
"I won't tell."
Now he was asking for peace.
"I…" Jack looked up. Harry's eyes met his, calmly, evenly.
Something a warrior should never do.
Because when you looked in an opponent's eyes, the things you were convinced didn't exist in that person ended up staring you in the face. Real kindness, for one, sincerity.
But Jack was never one to give up.
"You want to split us up."
Despite himself, the fingers clutching the deck faltered. The cards spilled from his grip in a colorful, fluttering mess.
"Split you up?"
The battle on his terms. But even that offer hurt.
"Yes."
He swept the cards back into his hands and lowered his gaze. Time to recollect himself.
The war hadn't ended.
"What do you mean?"
Jack paused, flipping over a card and gazing at it.
Another two.
He swallowed. He felt as though something was strangling him, and he swallowed again. Hard.
Because the hot liquid gathering in his eyes was a condition he hadn't planned on. Stormy weather interrupting his plans.
"Jack."
There was power in hearing your own name spoken, like a simple stunning spell meant to immobilize you, and not to kill. Just meant to gain control. But Jack couldn't give up control yet. He would fight to hold on to it. He looked up.
Harry sighed and leaned back in his chair, running a hand through his dark hair. He wet his lips and simply looked at him.
It was up to Jack to make the next move.
But this wasn't a game of War anymore. It was not a simple matter of building up through small victories.
This was a game of chess.
The objective was clear, but the path to victory was not. Jack was no longer in control because he no longer knew what to do. This was not trusting to luck, to his ability to go through a motion.
It was an active, tangled web of thoughts. Of one person's mind being cloaked from another, to sudden moves on the board.
"Hey," Harry said quietly, "Hermione and I-we don't want to split you kids up, okay? That's why we brought you here."
An offer of surrender always made Jack suspicious. Surely there was a catch, and it wasn't hard to find.
"But you brought us here to be adopted." He stared hard at the cards, which had become a blur of white, black, and red.
"If you want it." Harry conceded. "I don't know the specifics, but I reckon you can't be adopted unless you want to."
"But the others want it!"
Jack completely lost control. He had given up the war, but he was going to make the most of the battle. He was going to throw himself into it, and not care what happened. For the others. For Dusty and Katy and Jackie and even Yasmine. He would not allow them to be split up-he knew what it felt like-
"Jack…"
"It's all your fault! They would have never considered it if it weren't for you! You and Hermione, you expect me to be grateful for splitting us up? We've been together forever, we'll always be together, I don't care what you do to us!"
Horrified, Jack realized he was sobbing for breath. Scrubbing his eyes with his sleeve, he sniffed heavily and glared at him.
"They're all I've got, all right? We're all we have. Just because you show up doesn't mean you're any better than what we have now!" He threw out a hand, sending his glass crashing to the floor. "You'll throw me out, just like-"
He choked, stopping short. He kicked at the shards of glass glistening on the floor, breathing heavily and licking tears off his lips.
"They won't leave me again. I won't let them." He crossed his arms and gazed at Harry through narrow, very wet eyes. "Just because you and Hermione won't want me doesn't mean they won't. I'm the worst of the lot and you know it; but just ask Katy, she wants us to stay together."
Harry was standing now, over the shards of glass. Jack had laid out his terms, and whether or not they were accepted, Jack didn't care to find out. He turned on his heel and ran.
He ran away because he wanted to, not because he was afraid. He pounded up the stairs, hearing the thud of his footsteps on the stairs only vaguely through the throb of his heartbeat, and the sound of his own ragged breathing. His every breath felt wet, and he flung open the door to his room. He darted around his bed and huddled on the floor, a quivering, sobbing wreck of a general who had lost a war.
Soon, the door creaked quietly open.
"Jack?"
He hid his face in his arms.
"Go away."
"Jack," Harry's voice said again, very softly, "c'mon, mate."
There was a sigh, and Jack heard the bed groan slightly as Harry sat on the edge of the bed.
"Go away. I don't want to talk to you."
"You don't have to listen. Just let me talk." When Jack didn't respond, Harry went on, "Look here, Jack. Hermione and I… well, we're not exactly married."
"Yasmine reckons you will be," Jack said in a rather muffled voice, into his arms. He didn't add that he had scoffed at the idea almost immediately, and that he and Yasmine hadn't spoken to each other for nearly two days straight afterwards.
Harry shifted, with a half-embarrassed chuckle.
"Does she, now." He slid off the bed to sit on the floor next to him. "Well, we're not. Not… yet."
"So you will be."
Harry chuckled again. Jack chanced a glance at him and saw him looking very red.
"Er… well. We haven't-planned on it. But we're not in any position to be thinking about adopting any of you."
"Yet," Jack muttered.
Harry hesitated.
"That's all to say, we'll do everything we can to make sure you're not split up. All right? The person who adopts one of you had better be willing to adopt all of you," he said, with such sincere finality, Jack felt slightly reassured, and he scrubbed his eyes.
Just then, a door downstairs opened, and the babble of familiar voices filled Jack's ears. Before Harry could say anything, Jack had jumped up and darted downstairs. As he hurried down the stairs, he saw a beaming Jackie waving a duck feather happily in the air, Yasmine and Katy talking loudly as usual, and Dusty looking thoughtful in between a laughing Adrian and a rather sheepish Ben. Everyone he had fought for in one noisy, messy, and happy crowd. And Hermione in the middle, holding hands with one and wiping mud off another, looking pleasantly flustered and flushed. His heart swelled so that it almost hurt.
"Now, everyone go to the backyard-I'll see if we can't get something to eat. Oh, hello, Jack-"
And before Hermione could finish, Jack rushed forward and hugged her round the waist. Hermione's arms went around him uncertainly.
"Jack?"
But Jack simply offered her a small smile and ran to catch up with Katy and Yasmine and Dusty as they headed out the kitchen door. As Harry walked down the staircase, she closed the door and looked at him curiously
He smiled.
"Now what's that look, Miss Granger?"
"I'm just wondering what transpired while I was away," she said, motioning for him to follow her into the kitchen and opening the freezer. Harry shrugged modestly.
"Oh, you know, we played a card game. Ate lunch. Talked a bit." As Hermione reached out to pull out a box of Popsicles, he brushed aside a curl of her hair. She looked at him, looking even rosier and-the word crossed his mind before he could stop it-rather pretty.
"Now what's that look, Mr. Potter?" she said, parroting his words playfully. He felt himself grin, turning rather red himself.
"You know," he said, as casually as he could with his stomach feeling as though someone had let a flock of butterflies loose in it, "Yasmine reckons we're going to be married."
She paused in the action of tearing the top open, looking away.
"Does she?"
"Yeah. Silly, really," he said hastily, "Just some of her imaginings, I suppose."
"Is it?" she said in a rather odd sort of voice. He stared at her, his heart suddenly pounding hard against his chest.
"Er… you don't mean…?"
"Oh, of course not," she said, so immediately that Harry felt his heart sink. "Really, I don't know where she gets these things half the time. She's probably been talking to Ginny too much or something."
"Yeah," Harry said under his breath, feeling oddly deflated as Hermione hurried out the door with the box of Popsicles, "or something."
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