Gobstones Blues | Open

Elias clutched his leather gobstones pouch against his chest as he climbed the narrow stone steps. Each footfall echoed in the cramped stairwell. His wrist still throbbed where he'd landed on it funny, after one of Eamon's friends had tripped him yesterday. Right after Defense too, when he was already feeling rubbish.

He shifted the pouch to his other hand. Needed somewhere quiet. Away from classrooms where books dropped on his head. Away from corridors where he got lost every day. Away from bologna sandwiches at every bloody meal.

The stairs seemed to go on forever, but finally ended at a heavy wooden door. He pushed it open and stepped inside.

Stone walls curved around him. Iron rings stuck out of the mortar - rusty old things. There was a trapdoor in the floor too, all scratched up around the edges. Cold air drifted down from somewhere above.

Whatever this place was, it would do. Actually quite roomy. Big enough for friends to sit around. If he ever made any friends.

He settled cross-legged on the stone floor and opened his gobstones pouch. These weren't just any gobstones - they were his complete set of genuine lapis lazuli. Dark blue stones with silver bits running through them. Dad had gotten them specially made for his tenth birthday.

He began laying out the fifteen spheres. Eamon had taught him to play during the holidays. Hours in the shop's back room, showing him the proper grip. His first attempts went wide, leaving wet streaks on the walls. But Eamon had been patient until finally Elias managed a perfect strike. They'd both been drenched in gobstone spray and their clothes had been completely ruined.

Now Eamon barely looked at him in the corridors.

He arranged the stones in the starting formation. His wrist twinged as he reached for one that had rolled too far. Bloody thing still hurt. What if it was properly broken? He'd have to go to the nurse, and she'd ask questions about how it happened, and then there'd be trouble for the Gryffindor, and then they'd all really have it in for him.

Up here, with just his gobstones, he could almost pretend he was back home. No professors shouting. No older students laughing when he got lost.

"Right then," he picked up one sphere, testing his grip carefully. "Let's see how badly I mess this up."

She might have gotten lost.

Even now, after weeks, she still struggled to find her way through the castle, its endless amounts of hallways and staircases confusing and often misleading. The headmistress had said there were some things broken or not working properly and Maevie assumed that was at least part of the reason for her getting lost all the time.

She had been in the library and then suddenly, when she had realized she'd taken a wrong turn back towards the common room and had then retraced her steps, she had found a wall where there hadn't been one before.

And then it had spiralled from there.

Now she found herself facing a narrow staircase, fairly sure this couldn't be the way but it looked much too intriguing to just ignore. Darkly foreboding, not necessarily because it looked any different than the rest of what she'd seen so far. It was more of a feeling, one that prickled down her back.

Curious, Maevie ascended the stairs and quickly felt herself grow colder.

But as she made it to the top and into a room that was barren and sort of ominous, she realized she wasn't alone.

"Elias!", she exclaimed brightly and made her way over to where he sat on the floor. "What are you doing here? Did you get lost too? I was trying to get back to my common room but things kept changing and now I'm here instead." Without invitation, she dropped her bag and knelt beside the boy, eyes to the strange spheres he was aligning. "What are those?"

Elias looked up, startled by the voice echoing off the stone walls. His hands instinctively moved to cover the gobstones, but then he saw it was Maevie. The girl from Care of Magical Creatures. The one who'd shared her toffees.

"Oh. Hi." He straightened up a bit, his wrist giving another twinge. "Yeah, I got turned around too. This castle's mad."

She knelt right down beside him without asking, which was... nice, actually. Most people wouldn't bother. He glanced at the gobstones spread between them, then back at her curious face.

"These are gobstones." He picked up one of the lapis lazuli spheres, turning it so the silver veins caught what little light filtered down from above. "Like marbles, sort of. But magical."

How could he explain what made gobstones brilliant? The satisfaction of a perfect shot, the weight of an unplayed gobstone in your palm? Even getting drenched was part of the fun - it showed you were really playing.

"You try to knock the other person's stones out of the circle. But when they get hit..." He made a face. "They spray you with this awful-smelling liquid. Tastes horrible too, if you're unlucky enough to get it in your mouth."

The room felt less empty with her there. Less like he was hiding.

He glanced around at the curved stone walls, shadows pooling in the corners. Something dripped steadily somewhere he couldn't see. Cracks spider-webbed across the floor, and actual spider webs stretched between some of the stones. Creepy place, really. But roomy. Big enough for a proper gobstones circle. Maybe even enough space for a whole club, if anyone actually wanted to join one.

"I've got another set somewhere." He rummaged through his pouch, wincing as his sore wrist protested the movement, and pulled out a smaller cloth bag. Ordinary glass ones, nothing special, but they'd do for teaching. "Want to try? Fair warning though - you'll probably end up soaked. And stinking."

He almost smiled. "That's sort of the point."

Vinnie climbed the narrow stone steps, his footsteps startlingly loud in the cold, dark tower. He had taken to exploring the castle in the evenings, after his last class got out at 5 and before the dinner feast began. It was the dark parts of Hogwarts that intrigued him most. The Forbidden Forest, the dungeons, the castle at night. The ever-present feeling of danger in those places added to the thrill, and the dark tower was no exception.

He had anticipated something menacing at the top, besides rusty iron rings and a worn trapdoor. The tower felt like it should have some dramatic conclusion. A dangerous creature, perhaps, or a cursed item on a pedestal. Instead, Vinnie found just about the last thing he’d expected. Two students knelt on the ground with gobstones between them, as if the foreboding former-prison were the most natural setting in the world.

…you’ll probably end up soaked. And stinking. That’s sort of the point. Vinnie grinned when he caught the tail-end of the Ravenclaw boy’s sentence.

“Elias and Maevie, right?” Vinnie asked, coming over to stand next to where they were sat on the ground. Neither of them were in his House. Still, he’d paid attention to the other first years in his classes, and knew most of them by name if nothing else. “I’m Vinnie,” he told them. “Mind if I join you?”

He plopped down on the ground so that the three of them formed a small circle. Then he swung his bookbag off his shoulder, rummaging around. It took him a moment to locate his gobstones set, which was buried deep under a mess of books, candy, and loose sheets of parchment. “My set is a little mismatched,” he warned. “But I’ve played a few times before.”

Most of those times had been with Henry, the two of them covered in stinking spray and giggling like mad by the end. Henry had lost interest in gobstones a couple years before, around the time he’d started to lose interest in magic altogether. Their older sister Ada had played with them a fair few times too, taking it as seriously as though it were a professional game.

Vinnie’s set was something of a hodgepodge. His family had shoved together two different sets after losing enough pieces from both, meaning half the pieces were translucent single-color marbles, while the rest were swirled and opaque. There were one or two gobstones in the mix that sometimes flashed red when Vinnie threw them. He could never figure out a pattern for when they flashed, nor tell by looking which gobstones it was.

“I can play the winner,” Vinnie offered. “Or we can try three-person gobstones if you like.”

Her gaze attached to the sphere Elias held up, curiosity spiking with his explanation.

Gobstones. Like magical marbles. It was enough to get her hooked. She had plenty of marbles herself, back home though. She had always loved the way every single one looked different from the next, streaks of colour trapped in glass. She loved just looking at them, in the sunlight, and enjoying how pretty they were.

The magical part made her eyes widen though, looking at Elias with surprise. "They spray stinking liquid?! But why would you want to get covered in that?", she laughed. Well, she supposed is was more about seeing the other, the opponent, get covered with it. The glee when a hit was successful and your friend was now dowsed and smelly. And maybe the anticipatory thrill of getting sprayed as well. In the end, she supposed, no one would get away unharmed from a game like that.

Elias protruded a second set from somewhere and Maevie caught the wince as he rummaged about. It made her brow crinkle slightly, head tilted for a short moment but before she could ask, Elias offered for her to try and she nodded eagerly. "I bet you'll stink more than me though!", she challenged with a wide grin.

Another voice suddenly echoed through the dark room from where she had come from only minutes ago and Maevie looked up to find another boy walking over. "Hi Vinnie!", she greeted with a small wave of her hand before he sat down to make their duo a trio. "Yes, let's play all three! That'll be fun! What do you think, Elias?"

She looked at him questioningly, smiling encouragingly, hoping he'd agree. They couldn't have stumbled over each other in the most unusual space for nothing.

Elias looked up at Vinnie. He scrambled to his feet, his wrist giving another twinge as he pushed himself up from the cold stone floor.

"Oh. Right. I'm Elias, I'm—" He stopped, heat creeping up his neck. Of course Vinnie knew his name already. They'd been in classes together for weeks now.

"Three-person sounds brilliant," he said, focusing on the gobstones to avoid looking directly at either of them. "Jack Stone maybe?"

His pouch yielded a larger stone, twice the size of the others and made of plain grey granite. He placed it on the floor between them. "This is the jack. We draw a circle around it, then try to get our stones as close as possible..."

His bag produced yet more treasures from its depths with a piece of chalk emerging next. Elias got on his knees, ignoring the cold from the floor as he crawled around the jack stone and drew a circle. The chalk caught on a rough patch, making his line wobble off to the left. A quick application of his sleeve rubbed out the worst of the mistake, and he kept going with his tongue caught between his teeth.

The final circle wasn't perfect - one section bulged out where his hand had slipped - but it would do. He gestured around the perimeter. "If you sit there, Maevie, and Vinnie there..." He pointed to spots roughly equal distances apart around their wobbly boundary. "That should work for three players. I'll go first? Then Vinnie, then Maevie?"

His lips moved as he counted out his own stones. Five blue ones with their silver streaks should do to start out.

He crouched at the circle's edge, one of his blue stones heavy in his palm. His body was almost as wriggly as the circle, restless and bouncy. He lined up the jack stone, drew back his arm, and sent his first ever gobstone at Hogwarts rolling.

It sailed right past the target with enthusiasm behind it. The gobstone bounced once and erupted, sending a jet of the foul-smelling liquid straight back and into his face.

He sputtered, wiping the rotten-egg stench from his eyes, and burst out laughing.

“Jack Stone maybe?” Vinnie had never heard the official name for that variation, but the rules came back to him as Elias explained. He had played it with his siblings in the past, when there were three or four of them who wanted to play at a time. Vinnie moved into the spot indicated, settling outside the edge of the roughly-drawn chalk circle.

“I’ll go first? Then Vinnie, then Maevie?”

“Works for me!” Vinnie replied, rather enthusiastically. He rifled through his own set as he waited for Elias to throw, trying in vain to find five matching stones. In the end he found four - all of them swirled and opaque. They were a deep brown with red and orange streaking through, like mini planet models from Astronomy class. The fifth was translucent and pale green in color, but it would have to do.

Vinnie held his breath as he watched Elias’s blue and silver stone sail into the air - and well past its target. When it squirted him in the face with foul-smelling liquid, the boy sputtered and laughed.

Elias’s laughter was contagious, and soon Vinnie found himself grinning too. “I looked a bit like that after Potions yesterday,” he told Elias good-naturedly. His eyes had skipped over a minor step in the potion’s instructions, which turned out not to be so minor after all. The resulting mess had exploded into his face. “That class is brilliant, isn’t it? I think the professor’s a bit mad.”

Vinnie sat up onto his knees, holding one of the planet-looking gobstones between his thumb and forefinger. He brought his lower arm down a fraction, and then raised it again as he threw the stone underhanded. It sailed towards the jack stone, and landed almost right next to it. For a moment Vinnie was pleased, until his gobstone began to roll…and roll…and roll. It went nearly to the edge of the chalk circle before giving a wobble. Then it stopped at a small crack in the floor, just before reaching the line.

“Yes!” Vinnie cheered, pumping a fist in the air for having narrowly avoided Elias’s fate. His gobstone was about as far as could be from the jack while still being in the circle, but he was emboldened by it nonetheless. He turned towards Maevie. “Your turn,” he told her. It seemed likely she could do better than either of them, considering how poorly their first throws had gone.