They were standing on the edge of a huge chessboard, behind the
black chessmen, which were all taller than they were and carved from
what looked like black stone. Facing them, way across the chamber,
were the white pieces. Harry, Ron and Hermione shivered slightly ––
the towering white chessmen had no faces.
"Now what do we do?" Harry whispered.
"It's obvious, isn't it?" said Ron. "We've got to play our way across the room."
Behind the white pieces they could see
another door.
"How?" said Hermione nervously.
"I think,"
said Ron, "we're going to have to be chessmen."
He walked up to
a black knight and put his hand out to touch the knight's horse. At
once, the stone sprang to life. The horse pawed the ground and the
knight turned his helmeted head to look down at Ron.
"Do we ––
er –– have to join you to get across?"
The black knight
nodded.
(Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone)
There’s no entry for ‘play one’s way’ in dictionaries but ‘make one’s way.’ Does the highlighted part lend the latter idiom for saying this specific going forward?
Best Answer
Way here is used in the sense of “path”, literally, or method, figuratively; and VERB our way is a common idiom meaning to traverse that path by VERBing.
For instance, one of the most chilling moments in drama is Goneril’s line in King Lear, after she and her husband have put out Gloucester’s eyes:
Almost any word can serve as VERB; here are a few examples from Google:
Ron is saying "To get across the room we are going to have to play chess."