After having spent longer than he'd have liked to trying to convince the hyper snowman that no, his name wasn't Sven – "Harry, just Harry", he'd repeated several times – that no, he didn't have a reindeer following him around and that no, he didn't think there was anyone else but the two of them on this mountain, Harry thanked the sky (and cursed the Dursleys) for his non-violent nature: else, he might have decapitated the annoying snowman already (not that it'd be very useful, according to what he'd seen).
However, despite the onslaught of questions he'd bombarded the poor boy with, Olaf still seemed to have more inquiries.
"But how did you get up this mountain then, if there's no one else, hmmm?" he questioned as though imitating some sort of comical frozen detective. "You're much too tiny to climb up a mountain by yourself," the snowman added decisively.
Harry was tempted to let the accidentally disparaging comment slide by force of habit until he realized that he no longer needed to fear the consequences of defending himself and speaking his mind.
"I am not tiny!" he argued firmly as he drew himself to his full height (not that it was that impressive, but it did give him a wicked sense of power).
"Are too~" was the infuriating response from the snowman, delivered in an annoying singsong tone of voice.
"Am not!"
"Are too~"
"Am not!"
"Are too~"
"Am not! And you're tinier than me anyways, so you shouldn't mock my size like that."
Such was the final answer from the boy as he decisively crossed his arms over his chest and stomped off further around the mountain in order to stave off any further argument. No way was he going to lose an arguing battle against a snowman, regardless of the fact that said snowman seemed to be a sentient being. He had his pride, dammit.
"But it's not the same because I'm a snowman!" Olaf replied as though it explained everything (and maybe, for him, it did).
"And…?" Harry asked leadingly, unable to see the point that the other was trying to make.
He immediately experienced the unsettling feeling of being gawked at by a living snowman as if he was some sort of strange exotic creature (which, he discovered, wasn't that great of a feeling).
"You mean you don't know?" Olaf gasped eyes wide in shock and hands over his (probably) non-existent heart.
"Know what?" was the mildly irritated answer from the young boy, who didn't like the fact that he found himself in a perpetual state of confusion when interacting with the chipper snowman.
Said snowman had shortened the distance between the two of them and was currently beckoning Harry's face closer to his. All the while, Olaf had been throwing furtive glance around himself, as thought he feared being overheard by something – not necessarily someone anymore, because who knew what else could exist besides a strange talking snowman?
Curiosity killed the cat, Harry uselessly chided himself as he brought his face closer to his interlocutor's cautiously. A caution that turned out to be unnecessary, because the snowman started speaking in what he probably thought to be a whisper.
"Maybe you haven't realized, but…"
There, Olaf threw another few cautious glances around, as though he was about to reveal a secret of national importance. This prompted Harry to lean even further down, eager to not miss a word of what would be said.
"I'm a snowman," was the unexpected reply delivered with a finger on the lips as a sign to stay mum about the subject.
Harry deflated abruptly, all his previous excitement gone. That wasn't the secret of national importance he'd been expecting… "So?" the boy stated rather drily, unable to hide the disappointment he felt.
He once again had the dubious pleasure of being gawked at by Olaf, but along with the gaping mouth, this time. "I am made of snow…" was the very slow reply. "The mountain is made of snow," Olaf kept explaining as though talking to a particularly dimwitted child. "Snow is cold…" he continued as he waved his arms around for emphasis and leant further, as though waiting for Harry to make some sort of connection.
Tired of standing still – and not wanting to sit down, because that would mean freezing his arse off in the snow – Harry began to pace in order to find a suitably intelligent connection. Right at the moment when he felt that he'd have to disappoint Olaf, because he couldn't seem to find one, it suddenly hit him.
"Since I am so… tiny," he began, cringing at the last word – he was NOT tiny dammit, the rest of the world was just too tall! – "it means that I would have trouble walking long distances in the snow without freezing or dying, right?" he assumed, hoping that he'd said the right answer.
"And we have a winner!" Olaf exclaimed as he grabbed a bunch of snow and threw it in the air in a manner oddly reminiscent of a lottery animator with confetti.
Fidgeting slightly under the praise, Harry confirmed the proverb "attack is the best defense" instead of acknowledging the compliment.
"And I wasn't alone anyways," the boy huffed as he kept on walking, arms crossed over his chest. "I came here with… people," he ended lamely, unwilling to acknowledge the Dursleys as relatives.
"Oooh," Olaf responded, letting that strange mouth of his form a perfect circle. He quickly shut it back closed and quickened his pace in order to shorten the distance between the both of them, because Harry walked pretty fast for someone his size. "Is it like a field trip then? Or an adventure?" he asked excitedly, seemingly forgetting the matter of the people Harry came with, to the boy's relief.
Harry turned his head at those questions, and almost tripped when he saw that Olaf's eyes seemed to have gained stars when he wasn't looking. "I guess you could say that," the young boy acknowledged hesitantly. After all, it definitely had a nicer ring to it than just 'being abandoned on a bloody mountain by bloody pigs who deserve bloody Hell for that action and many others'.
Olaf let out a wordless excited exclamation at that, squealing happily and skipping around.
"I went on an adventure too once," he explained happily. "With friends…"
The smile turned wistful at the end and, to Harry, the normally chipper snowman seemed more subdued, as though lost in bittersweet memories. The boy found himself oddly bothered by the unusually somber expression on Olaf's snowy face and resolved to replace it with a happier one.
"I've never had any friends," he admitted softly before cringing internally. Way to go Potter, he scolded himself. For sure, that's how you lift the spirits of a living snowman.
Oddly enough, it seemed to reach the expected effect. Indeed, the snowman's somber expression was gone, replaced instead by a comically horrified one.
"No… friends? Like… ever?" Olaf asked very slowly as though the idea was unimaginable to him.
At Harry's tiny nod of confirmation, the snowman stopped gaping and instead adopted a wistfully pensive expression. The boy silently remarked once again that such an expression didn't belong in Olaf's face, as though the chipper snowman was meant to always be happy.
As though answering his silent wish, Olaf let out a brilliant smile, almost dazzling Harry with its brightness.
"Don't worry; it's been a long time since I've had friends too!" the snowman said in that chipper tone of his, bouncing forward to walk next to the boy. "But it's okay, because I've got you now!"
"Really?" Harry asked doubtfully. After all, who wouldn't want to be friends with a nice chipper snowman such as Olaf? Except for the fact that he was a snowman, of course. But even the fact that he was made of snow didn't deter Harry from accepting his friendship, especially since it was the first time anyone even wanted to spend time with him. "And how long have you been here," he asked curiously, wondering how old his new friend was.
"Dunno… Since the not-evil ice queen died, I think…"
Harry stopped walking. What?
*Peeks cautiously* Erm, sorry for the delay?
I swear on my non-existent magic that I meant to update this yesterday, really, but I didn't have time to transcribe my notes unto the computer yesterday. Sorry. And I didn't even reveal why Olaf is on that mountain either :'(
But at least the chapter's longer this time; I even had to cut it off or else I wouldn't have been able to put it up today.
And did you see that? Last time I looked, I had 11 followers, 3 favourites and 4 reviews. And now? Now we're at 34 followers, 19 favourites and 12 reviews! And almost 1400 views! Do you realize how happy that makes me feel! I'd like to thank every single one of you personally here, but it'd take forever so I'll settle for sending you each a thank you message.
You're all awesome! Believe it ^.^
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See you next Saturday!