Charlie picked up one of the chess pieces and kept turning it over in his fingers.
So wizard chess pieces could be specialized?
He leaned back in his chair and held the piece up toward the ceiling. The blue highlight was still there; it didn't disappear just because the piece had left the board.
Looks like specializing one piece is separate from the whole set.
The moment that thought crossed his mind, Charlie immediately dropped the idea of specializing wizard chess. Specializing a simple first-year spell already cost a full five points of Wish Dust. Specializing a single chess piece would probably cost quite a bit too, and even if he did it, it might not be very useful since it would only be one lone piece. Now, if he had enough Wish Dust to specialize an entire set, that might be worth trying.
Just then, a high-pitched, squeaky little voice rang out. "Don't send me over there! Can't you see his queen? Send him instead—he doesn't matter if he dies."
Charlie sat up straight. It was one of the pieces on Harry's side. A knight was openly rebelling, clearly refusing to follow the path Harry had planned for it.
"What do you mean I don't matter if I die?" a pawn raised its sword angrily at the knight.
"Oh, for Merlin's sake, that move is completely stupid. You won't gain anything by going there," the knight complained again.
Charlie glanced at Harry. The poor kid looked extremely embarrassed.
"Can you all just do what I tell you?!" Harry raised his voice at the pieces in frustration.
The chessmen were startled into silence. The knight reluctantly jumped forward two squares, still muttering, "So stupid… so stupid…"
Harry looked helplessly at Charlie. "Why are your pieces so obedient? They didn't even argue when you moved them."
His eyes drifted to the chess piece Charlie was still idly spinning in his fingers.
Charlie looked down and saw that the piece in his hand—despite its lack of detailed facial features—clearly had an expression that said "I'm mad but I don't dare say anything."
"Who knows?" Charlie replied, gently placing the piece down next to the knight Harry had just moved.
With a loud bang, Harry's knight was instantly knocked off the board.
"Tyrant! You tyrant!!!" the knight yelled.
The scene would have been pretty awkward for Harry—if not for the fact that both Charlie and Ron suddenly burst out laughing.
"Go ahead and laugh," Ron said, seeing Charlie's twitching mouth.
The two of them cracked up together.
After that, Charlie took only five minutes to completely crush Harry. He then played two more games against Ron.
Ron was actually pretty good. Their matches were intense and close. An hour later Charlie made one careless move and lost. It was time to head back to the Ravenclaw common room.
"I should get going," Charlie said, pushing himself up from the chair.
"Alright, see you," Harry nodded. "Want to hang out again tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow? We'll see. During the day I might practice some spells or work on homework."
He still hadn't touched any of the long holiday assignments. After midnight on the twenty-first he was going to observe the blood moon, so he'd probably try to catch up on sleep in the afternoon to make sure he had enough energy at night.
Between homework and catching up on sleep, he wasn't sure he'd have time to play.
"Okay," Harry said. "See you later."
"See you." Charlie gave a casual wave and headed down the stone corridor.
He had only taken a few steps out of the Gryffindor common room when hurried footsteps suddenly came from behind.
"Charlie, wait!" Harry came running after him, looking anxious.
"What's up?" Charlie turned around.
"I just remembered something I wanted to ask you. Maybe you'll know the answer."
"Go ahead."
"Do you know who Nicolas Flamel is?" Harry asked. This had just occurred to him—Hermione had told them to find out who Nicolas Flamel was during the Christmas break.
But Harry and Ron hadn't been to the library once since break started, so of course they hadn't found anything.
Since Charlie was right here, it was the perfect chance to ask.
Under Harry's expectant gaze, Charlie nodded. "Of course. The French alchemist. Who doesn't know him?"
"An alchemist?" Harry's whole body jolted. "Really?"
That's right—Charlie was taking Alchemy class. They'd hit the jackpot!
Harry spread his hands in shock and confusion. "But why couldn't we find anything about him?"
"You guys?"
Harry paused, then nodded. "Yeah." He glanced left and right, then whispered, "Hagrid said the thing the three-headed dog Fluffy is guarding belongs to something Dumbledore and Nicolas Flamel are working on together.
For days after that, me, Hermione, and Ron kept trying to find out who Nicolas Flamel is. We looked through every book we could, but we never found anything."
He muttered, "It's weird. We even looked up all the famous modern alchemists…"
"He's not a modern figure," Charlie said. "He's over six hundred years old. He's the only known maker of the Philosopher's Stone, and the only person who has ever fully mastered and deciphered The Book of Abraham.
The Philosopher's Stone grants immortality, so he's still alive today.
Also, I'm guessing when you were looking him up, you skipped right past Dumbledore's name.
You probably thought you already knew enough about Dumbledore and didn't need to check his biography. But if you had, you would've seen that Dumbledore and Nicolas Flamel have been close friends for many years and have worked on research together."
Harry opened his mouth but didn't know what to say. Charlie had guessed exactly right. They'd been searching specifically for the name "Nicolas Flamel," so why would they bother reading through Dumbledore's life story?
"If that's all, I'll head out," Charlie said, turning away with a wave.
"Wait!" Harry called out again, but this time he sounded more relaxed. "Aren't you curious, Charlie? About the three-headed dog? The Philosopher's Stone? Any of it?"
Charlie turned back and gave Harry a strange look. "Of course I'm curious, but I don't want to die for no reason. Dumbledore warned us, remember? Even Snape couldn't handle that dog."
With that, Charlie didn't give Harry a chance to reply. He turned around again. "I'm off. Good night."
"Good night," Harry replied, sounding a little disappointed.
So this is the difference between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw? he thought to himself.
As Charlie walked down the stairs, he opened his system panel for the first time and carefully examined which objects in the castle could be specialized.
Paintings? Some frames had a blue highlight, others were blue-white or pure white. The floating candles had nothing. Some small reliefs had blue highlights, while larger sculptures were mostly blue-white, white, or had no color at all.
So the things I can specialize are marked in blue. Blue-white and white mean I don't have enough Wish Dust yet?
Blue = I have enough points.
Blue-white = I'm a little short.
White = Might as well look but don't bother.
No highlight probably means one of two things: either the item is worthless (like a random pebble) and doesn't cost anything, or Charlie's current resources aren't even high enough to consider it.
Kind of like how you can see luxury cars through a dealership window, but you've never seen a private jet up close.
"Oh, a poor lonely little brat?" a voice suddenly spoke right above Charlie's head, interrupting his thoughts.
Charlie looked up. It was a small silver figure—the size of a child, wearing a jester's hat, with mischievous eyes that screamed trouble.
"Peeves?" Charlie raised his hand in greeting. "Merry Christmas."