The first thing Harry noticed when he awoke was that he was, well, awake. Alive.
He didn't feel too strange, either. He wasn't in pain at all, and he seemed to be sleeping on a bed. Cautiously, he opened his eyes fully and saw a white, strangely wrinkled-looking ceiling above him. He wasn't in his cot in Petri's closet; that was for certain. In fact, he did not recognise the room he was in at all, if it really was a room.
Besides being wrinkly, the ceiling also sloped downward at an increasingly great angle until it seemed to meld into the wall, and all of it was curved, as if he were inside a large dome.
Presently, a flap in the wall that he had not noticed opened up, and the unmistakable form of Petri entered. Harry scrambled to find his glasses, saw them on a dresser table beside the bed, and shoved them onto his face. His wand, alas, was not in as easy reach, being nowhere in sight.
Seeing as he wasn't dead, Harry supposed Petri had changed his mind about killing him. Harry was not sure what he thought about what had happened. Firstly, it was not clear whether he ought to feel betrayed. Having always known that Petri was not to be trusted and that he was entirely self-serving and, in a word, evil, Harry did not think that there had been anything to betray. All the same, perhaps some insidious sense of understanding, or at least a habit of day-to-day trust, had built itself between them, and the snapping of that tenuous thread left him feeling small and very alone.
Indeed then, perhaps Harry did feel betrayed. Looking at Petri didn't rouse any of that feeling, however, and elicited rather a vague but insistent nervousness. The pervasive loneliness didn't go away.
"You're awake," Petri said. Harry was surprised, because the man wasn't usually one for stating the obvious. He also hadn't spoken to Harry in English in a while. With a sudden burst of insight into his character, Harry realised that Petri must be feeling very awkward at the moment.
Harry nodded, electing to stay silent. He wasn't sure what would happen if he opened his mouth now; whether there would be an outpour of questions or accusations, and whether either of those things would lead to a good result.
"How are you feeling?" Petri asked, in exactly the wrong tone for those words. It probably wasn't a phrase he needed to use often.
After some consideration, Harry finally answered, simply, "Fine."
This response seemed to irritate Petri, but Harry could also tell that he was trying his best to make nice. Deciding that it couldn't hurt to make it easier, seeing as technically, he was still fully at Petri's mercy, Harry decided to provide a different topic.
"Where are we?" he asked.
This course of action seemed to be the right one, for Petri's funny expression relaxed slightly. "We're camping in a tent."
This tent was awfully house-like, Harry thought, but all the same the sloped canvas ceiling and the flap doors now made more sense. Probably it was enchanted all over with expansion charms and space-folding charms.
"I see," he said, a little lamely. He tried to think of something else to say.
Petri seemed to get tired of their charade at last and got to the point: "Look, I want to apologise for," he paused, and for a moment, looked like he wanted to employ a euphemism, but then thought better of it, "for trying to kill you off. I was being too hasty. I wasn't thinking things through. I let my anger get the better of me."
Harry had to admit privately that he was a little impressed. It had to have taken a lot out of Petri to own up to his mistake. Then again, he had tried to murder his erstwhile apprentice for no good reason. The least he could do was apologise.
"It's fine," Harry said, even though it wasn't fine, because he really had no other option but to forgive Petri. He wouldn't forget it, though. It would be a mistake to let his guard down, for what little his guard was worth around a fully-trained dark wizard.
"It won't happen again," Petri said.
Indeed, Harry certainly hoped not.
"But if you're to continue to stay with me, which you must, unless you want into fall into Lucius Malfoy's hands, there is planning to do," Petri continued.
For a moment, Harry wondered whether it might just be better to go with Lucius Malfoy after all. Then he remembered that Lucius Malfoy was, at one point at least, a servant of the Dark Lord, whose defeat was associated with baby Harry. Also, Lucius Malfoy was slimy. There was no telling his motive. If there was any negative thing that Petri was not, it was slimy. On the contrary he just tended to be very straightforwardly evil.
Harry felt that he himself was also a straightforward person, and did not deal too well with sliminess. Even if he would be reluctant to admit it aloud, the likes of Malfoy would probably confound him with too many tricks and lies. And that was assuming Malfoy wanted him for a political reason of some kind, and not just to kill him.
"You'll have to trust me for now," said Petri, and Harry returned his attention to the man. He felt a sudden flash of anger now, a heated knot in his stomach.
"Trust you? How am I supposed to trust you after, after that?" he demanded, unable to see straight for a moment. Then he remembered that he still had no means of self-defence, and that even if he was apologising, Petri was still in power. The knot of anger turned into one of worry, and then threatened to bubble into anger again at his helplessness.
Fortunately, Petri seemed to have expected some kind of outburst, and had perhaps even been worried before at the lack of one. "As you say, there can be no trust between us anymore. Therefore I am prepared to offer an Unbreakable Vow. It is vital that we can work together comfortably."
Harry frowned, failing to see how his cooperation was necessary. "Why? And how can a vow be unbreakable?"
"The penalty for breaking it is death, that's how. The situation now is that I am a fugitive, and you still need to be taught up to a reasonable journeyman level. I cannot teach you if you are always paranoid," Petri explained.
"You want to keep teaching me?" Harry demanded, a little bit bewildered.
"There are few practitioners of the craft, and I must eventually pass it on," Petri said. It was then that Harry realised that he was talking about the "other," and not just enchantment.
Still, it occurred to him that something was strange. "How did you qualify me before, if I wasn't qualified?" he wanted to know. "Did I actually get qualified?"
"Yes and no," Petri answered. "Like most paper contracts, the apprenticeship contract is mostly enforced legally, not magically. The only thing magical about it is the teaching oath and the no undue harm clause, both of which are weak because they are unspecific. To be officially qualified you must pass an exam by an authority. It used to be a guild; now it is a standard by the International Confederation of Wizards. I could declare you ready at any time, as you saw. After all, I did not expect you to sue me afterwards."
That effectively meant that Petri could have broken the contract at any time, if he had wished. "That seems unfair" Harry pointed out, "and unsafe."
Petri shrugged elegantly. "This same contract has been around for several hundred years. It tends to serve the majority fine. At least it isn't an entirely muggle piece of parchment."
Harry had to give him that. One couldn't rely on magic for everything, he supposed.
"So does that mean I'm still your apprentice?" Harry asked.
"If you like. We are not exactly able to use legal means right now, so it must be informal," Petri replied.
"We can't go back to your workshop, then?" Harry continued, trying to get a better grasp of what was going on. Petri had said something about being a fugitive. Aurors must have come then, like he had predicted. Harry assumed that that was the reason why they were now staying in a tent.
Petri nodded. "I've saved almost all my materials anyway. Rosenkol helped much. There was still enough evidence left over that they most certainly could give me the Kiss, however."
"The Kiss, like a dementor's kiss?" Harry repeated with some horror.
"Yes; capital punishment," Petri confirmed dismissively.
Harry frowned. "I thought you could control them."
Petri snorted. "Nobody can control dementors. You can use force, or reason with them, but no reason in the world will stop them from eating something helpless that they were told to eat."
Harry supposed that was fair, even if it was horrible.
"Anyway, let us do the vow. It's a ritual of three magical persons: the promisor, the recipient, and the bonder. Rosenkol will serve as our bonder. We clasp hands, you state the terms, and I agree to them. Simple enough," Petri said.
As he was gesticulating, Harry noticed for the first time that Petri's arm, the one that wasn't his wand arm, was wrapped in a cloth bandage. This was strange, since Harry knew that there was a simple charm for healing most surface wounds. Fixing the damage from flying into a wall could not have given Petri any trouble. Deciding that now would be an inappropriate time to inquire, he resolved to ask later when an opportunity came up.
Instead, Harry asked, "What terms are we doing again?"
Petri looked a little amused. "That I will not attempt to kill or maim you, perhaps. You can call it permanent harm. And that I will teach you my art as a master should his apprentice, and be responsible for you. Just like before. Is that enough for you?"
"That's a bit vague, and you said things like that were weak, before," Harry pointed out, still rather confused by how the vow worked. Did it work like the oath Petri used to take for his customers, where only the letter of the law needed to be followed? From what he had seen of things, magic didn't seem very good at enforcement.
"It doesn't matter," Petri said rather dismissively. "The Unbreakable Vow goes around usual limitations by using the bonder's magic. So the bonder's honest interpretation is all that matters."
"Rosenkol?" Harry muttered a little sceptically. "He hates me," he pointed out. "And he loves you."
Petri laughed. "Well you must take that into account then, when you speak."
Harry thought it was pointless to go through a vow if Petri expected to be able to evade it somehow. And he couldn't even tell if Petri was being truthful about how the vow worked. For all Harry knew, it might not even be real. Then again, everything Petri had ever told him about magic seemed to be true enough. Perhaps it was force of habit from being a teacher. One could hope.
"Let's make it a point that you won't try to find a loophole in the vow," Harry suggested. Assuming Petri had told the truth, not even Rosenkol could misinterpret that, right? And it was probably better than nothing.
"As you wish," Petri said equitably. Harry supposed that he probably did intend to keep his word, at least presently. But it was important to make sure that that did not change in the future, which was the whole point of the vow, anyway, he supposed.
"Are we doing it in English? Does he even speak English?" Harry remembered to ask.
"Yes, of course he does," Petri confirmed.
He summoned Rosenkol then, and instructed the strange house elf about the circumstances, in rapid German that Harry only caught the half of. Rosenkol nodded to show his understanding, and then shot Harry a somewhat surly look, as if blaming him for the necessity of such an action. Harry tried to look indifferent instead of annoyed. He still had no idea why the stupid house elf seemed to dislike him so much.
Then Petri gave Rosenkol his wand.
Harry thought he remembered reading somewhere that magical creatures were banned from using wands. Then again, even if that was the case, Petri was hardly the most law-abiding of fellows.
With the way the house elf went about wielding the wand, he had clearly used one before and probably knew much more about it than Harry did.
Petri knelt down and held out his right arm, and Harry copied him. They clasped hands, Petri's withered, long-fingered grip surprisingly warm and strong.
"Uh, what exactly do I do," a somewhat flustered Harry asked. Now that they were actually performing the vow, he realised that Petri had not really gone into sufficient detail.
"Ask me if I agree to the terms. 'Will you, Joachim Petri, do a certain thing?' I answer that I will, and you continue, 'And will you do the next thing?' and so on," Petri explained very nicely this time. Harry nodded, thankful also that he had mentioned his first name; by now Harry had nearly forgotten it, having never heard it used.
"Ready?" Rosenkol inquired in his slow, reedy voice. Both parties nodded. The elf set the tip of the wand to rest against their clasped hands and looked expectantly at Harry.
Taking a moment to think through what he was about to say, Harry began: "Will you, Joachim Petri, refrain from harming me permanently?"
"I will," said Joachim Petri solemnly.
A bright band of red light flared from the wand, like a tongue of fire and wound itself about their arms. Harry flinched slightly but continued, "And will you continue to teach me as a master should teach an apprentice?"
"I will," said Joachim Petri again. A second thread of light shot out and entwined itself with the first.
"And will you follow this vow honestly as you think I mean it, without using any loopholes?" That was the best Harry could do at short notice, for extra safeguard. Hopefully whatever complicated magic made this vow work would account for the rest.
"I will," said Joachim Petri for the last time, a glimmer of amusement appearing in his eye. A last red thread came to bind them together, and then the entire thing seemed to sink inside them, disappearing.
A heavy feeling that Harry had not even noticed before lifted suddenly, and it felt easier to breathe. Although it had occurred to Harry before the little ritual that it could be a lie and all for show, the atmosphere during the process and now afterwards helped marginally in convincing him of its authenticity. It remained to be seen how effective it actually was.
Petri let go of his hand and stood, dusting himself off. Rosenkol returned his wand, which he slid up his robe sleeve with a deft flick of the wrist. The house elf slunk out of the room, wearing his usual pinched expression.
"We should discuss safety, then. Right now we are in an unplottable part of a forest somewhere. A wizard who does not want to be found is very difficult to find – every government knows this, and they would not be looking for me, except that you are with me, and Lucius Malfoy no doubt has government friends. Therefore we must get rid of you," Petri said.
There it was again, this whole highly uncomfortable discourse about Harry and his removal from existence. Only the fact that Petri had literally just made that Unbreakable Vow, and that he could have easily killed Harry while he had been passed out, was keeping him from going on some kind of emotional rampage or perhaps trying to escape.
"There's a charm called the fidelius charm," Petri began, quite unexpectedly, "It allows a secret to be kept completely hidden from discovery. Only the secret keeper can divulge the information contained in the secret. I'm sure you can see that it is either the strongest or weakest protection possible, as it is based on trust."
Harry nodded, though he really didn't see yet why Petri was bringing up this charm. Was he planning on making their location secret instead of unplottable? As far as Harry knew, making a place unplottable amounted to making it very hard to find except by accident or rote searching, since it made it impossible for anybody to communicate the location to anybody else in more than extremely general terms. That seemed more than enough to protect a campsite.
Petri continued, "I want to put your identity under the fidelius. Unfortunately, it requires trust, something we do not have enough of. It would be the best choice, if we could somehow do it."
"If I have to trust you," Harry pointed out, "then I can't."
Entirely unsurprised, Petri corrected, "Not me. I must cast the spell, and the caster cannot keep the secret. It would need to be Rosenkol."
"Are you serious?" Harry said, without much energy behind this query. He wouldn't say that it would be impossible for him to ever trust Rosenkol, the way trust between him and Petri was out of the question, but at the same time Harry and Rosenkol had a far worse relationship of mutual contempt, whereas he and Petri could be civil. Well, except when Petri had somehow decided to try to kill him.
"I believe you and Rosenkol can work out your differences. We will wait a month, and then if it does not work I will have other measures prepared," Petri declared.
A month hardly seemed like enough time to get to know the surly little cretin enough that Harry could trust him. Well, actually, perhaps it was. It depended on what was meant by "trust." At any rate, Harry did not say any of this aloud and instead asked, "What other measures?"
"A faked death would be best," replied Petri, pausing and frowning. "For that I will need to brew a polyjuice potion, in order to make an authentic body. But it can take up to a month, like I said, and I am no potions master. It is also riskier."
Harry certainly did not pretend to know the mechanics of making an "authentic" corpse, and decided that it was probably gruesome or terrible in some way or other. The fidelius charm, as difficult as its requirement was, sounded at least mostly benign.
"I'll try with Rosenkol," he said, "if he tries too."
"You two had better start now," Petri suggested. "Madness, that I tolerated this ridiculous rivalry for so long."
Rivalry was an odd word to use, Harry thought, but he said nothing.
At this point, the door flap opened a crack and Rosenkol poked his head inside, revealing that he had probably been eavesdropping on their conversation this whole time. Not that it was technically eavesdropping, since Harry supposed nobody had ever stipulated that the house elf couldn't listen in, but it still seemed somehow rude.
"He's a muggle," Rosenkol complained in German, not even looking at Harry as he spoke. Petri sighed.
"That's exactly what you said to me when you first saw me," he retorted. Rosenkol had the grace to look sheepish.
"Master Joachim has shown Rosenkol he was wrong. Master Joachim is strong," he muttered.
"Harry isn't a muggle. He's uneducated. You can teach him," Petri told the house elf. He turned to Harry, "Rosenkol is right, of course. It's about time you learned to cast spells."
At this, Harry could not help but feel a sudden burst of excitement. "You mean I'm old enough, finally?"
"You told me you were born at the end of July, right? Yesterday or the day before must have been your birthday," Petri informed him, "And that is good enough." Harry blinked at this.
"How long was I asleep?" he asked, glancing back at the rumpled bed as if it would give him any hints. He didn't feel stiff or hungry, but that could easily be attributed to magic.
"About a week," was the reply. "You dangerously overextended an enchantment."
Overextending an enchantment, Harry had learned before, happened when an enchantment that was sustained by a wizard somehow started drawing an increasingly great flow of magic, causing heavy physical and mental strain that could be deadly. The classic example, from which the name had probably originated, was casting any extension charm on something that already had the undetectable extension charm on it, which could have drastic consequences, first overextension and then an explosive blast.
Except Harry didn't think he was in possession of any enchanted items that could react that way, or that he had done anything of the sort.
Or had he? He recalled the golden dome that had sprung up to shield him from Petri's attacks. It must have been accidental magic, perhaps amplified by the wand in his hand, but he still didn't see how that counted as an enchantment.
"How?" Harry finally asked.
Petri shook his head. "There was a complex protective enchantment on you. I've never seen anything like it before. It burned me badly; certainly strong dark magic."
He held up his bandaged left hand, which Harry had forgotten about. Harry supposed that magical injuries must be much more difficult to heal.
"I had an enchantment on me? Why?" Harry wondered aloud. "Is it still there?"
"I don't know why. And no; it broke, unfortunately, after it drew too much power. Otherwise you might have died," Petri replied.
Harry nodded, and then noticed that "unfortunately" had been put in the same statement as "otherwise you might have died," and frowned. He still couldn't tell whether Petri would rather see him dead or alive. It was maddening.
"Don't worry about it. And here is your wand." Petri reached into his robe pocket and produced the familiar stick of willow and dragon heartstring. Willow was apparently a very good wood for charms. Petri's wand was also made of willow, though Harry didn't know what the core was.
Harry took his own wand and felt a familiar sense of acceptance, not quite warm but comforting nonetheless.
"The mug—mudblood wants to learn?" Rosenkol piped up, still not looking at Harry.
Harry wanted to point out that he wasn't a mudblood either, but decided that it would not be worth the effort to argue, and furthermore that it would be entirely the wrong approach to dealing with the cranky old house elf.
"Yes, I do," he said. Rosenkol finally deigned to look at him. There was a very dull, unenthused look in his big black eyes.
They stared uncomfortably at each other for a few moments before Rosenkol finally spoke to him, for once. "First charm, lighting charm. You can do it, can't you? If you are not a muggle or a squib."
Suddenly, Harry wasn't feeling exactly as confident as before, seeing as the derisive Rosenkol and also his real teacher, Petri, were watching him closely. He recalled that the incantation was lumos, felt less sure than he wanted to be that he recalled correctly, and tried to steel himself.
It was just a lighting charm, right? The simplest charm in the book. It didn't even have a wand movement. Even a near-squib could do it, and Harry wasn't a squib.
"Lumos," he said clearly, not sure what to expect, though he had his eyes trained on the tip of his wand. A weak glow appeared, and then extinguished itself. Harry felt his heart sink along with it.
"Tch," Rosenkol said, which showed exactly what he thought of the attempt.
Petri was much more charitable, and more forthcoming with help: "Decent. You need to focus on the result you want and stress the first syllable more."
Steeling himself, Harry tried again. "Lumos," he pronounced with more determination this time, trying his best to expect a beam of light to sprout from his wand.
It worked, sort of. He saw it, had to look away, noticed it wavering a little and tried to keep his resolve. The beam steadied.
"Very good," Petri said, nodding. "This is a simple first projection spell. All projection spells have the same form as the lighting spell, a beam of light from your wand."
Harry nodded, remembering the basics of the theory he had read about before.
"And what are the other types of spells?" Petri asked him.
"Kinetic," Harry recalled, "and alteration and, er, creation."
"Good," Petri confirmed. "Charms of all types are commonly seen, but I hope you recall that a majority of charms are kinetic spells. Very few non-charms are kinetic, and this is an advantage of charms."
Harry nodded. He did remember learning about all this, now that Petri provided him with a refresher.
Now Petri turned to Rosenkol, and ordered, some exasperation colouring his tone, "Just teach him like that, yes? He will soon upgrade himself to his rightful half-blood status."
With that rather strange exhortation, Petri exited the room, the door flapping behind him.
Now that Harry was alone with Rosenkol, he felt the awkwardness of the room increase twofold. Rosenkol looked from the door to Harry and then back to the door, and then gave a funny sigh.
He snapped his fingers, and a huge, familiar tome appeared in his spindly hands. It was The Complete Compendium of Charms. This appeared to be the English copy.
"Wizardling can learn all of these," Rosenkol declared. He dropped the book on the floor and opened it to the first page. "Amplifying charm," he said, pointing, after some consideration.
To his credit, it wasn't just the first charm on the page. The first charm on the page was the absorption charm, and it was followed by the acceleration charm. He didn't know anything about either of them and they were probably far beyond his level, judging from the many drawings of flying brooms that dominated half the page.
Harry looked at the indicated entry under Rosenkol's pointed fingernail.
"Amplifying charm. Sonorus. Tap-durative. The amplifying charm amplifies all sound exiting a certain radius. Common uses: voice or music amplification. Countercharm: quieting charm," the entry's introduction read.
It didn't look very useful, but Harry supposed it also didn't look all that hard. He searched for something to cast it on; he certainly wasn't going to try a new spell on himself.
Deciding that the side table by the bed was a good choice, he tapped his wand over it and pronounced, "Sonorus." Then he hit his wand against it experimentally, to make a sound, and decided he couldn't tell the difference if it had got louder, so the spell had probably failed.
"Stupid human is pronouncing it wrong," Rosenkol said helpfully, without giving the correct pronunciation. Scowling, Harry looked back at the book and scanned the pronunciation guide again. Rosenkol had been right, but the elf could have been less smug about it.
He tried again, pronouncing it seemingly correctly that time, but still achieving no effect.
"I don't get it," he said, waiting for some further barb about stupidity. He wasn't disappointed.
"Idiot cannot imagine result correctly. You should try again until it works," Rosenkol told him, before taking a few steps back and then settling on the bed, lying down as if about to go to sleep.
Harry noticed that the elf usually talked about everything in third person, but occasionally switched to addressing Harry directly. Since the Rosenkol clearly had not got over his dislike, Harry deduced that second person address was probably the elven version of being extra rude.
From Rosenkol's dismissive remarks, Harry figured that he was now pronouncing the spell correctly, so he just needed to believe in it and visualise it for it to work.
That was easier said than done, however. He spent the next half hour tapping the wooden table and working himself into a rage, still unable to get any effect from the spell.
It was this scene of incessant tapping of the wand and chanting of "Sonorus!" that Petri walked in upon some time later. Rosenkol was curled up on the bed with his back turned, ears pressed to his skull and grumbling to himself, and Harry was practically bludgeoning the poor table with his stick of willow.
"Harry," Petri said dryly, and Harry stopped, suddenly noticing his own state of disarray and feeling a little shameful. "Rosenkol," Petri said in the same tone. The elf abruptly rolled off the bed and onto his feet, head down in contrition.
"Rosenkol begs Master Joachim for forgiveness," he said, though it hardly sounded like begging to Harry.
Petri gave a long-suffering sigh. "You will stop this petulance at once. It doesn't put you in a favourable light. He cannot learn if he is not taught. And Harry, if it doesn't work, repeating the same thing will not help."
"What do I do, then?" Harry asked, out of ideas.
"Try a different spell," Petri suggested. "The amplifying charm is not the ideal first alteration spell, even though it is in principle not difficult. You would do better with the colour-changing charm, colovaria."
"I'll try that, then," Harry agreed, glad to having something new to attempt. He thought he could see how the effects of the colour-changing charm would be much easier to imagine than those of the amplifying charm.
"Colovaria," he incanted, imitating Petri's pronunciation as he tapped the side table again, this time imagining the whole thing in green.
To his delight, it worked on the first try, even if not quite to the extent he would have liked; a radius of the table's surface turned an uneven forest green, as well as some part of the sides, so it looked like someone had cracked a large green egg overhead and it had splattered inelegantly.
"Keep practicing until you can control the area and consistency," Petri advised. He took out his own wand and gave it a negligent flick. The whole square top of the table turned a solid dark blue, the wood grain no longer visible except with close scrutiny. Another flick of the wand, and the table looked like it had been expertly stained, the shade of blue varying with the light and dark patterns of the original wood. One last wave of his wand dispelled the charm.
"I don't need to actually tap the table then?" Harry asked, noticing that Petri had not made contact.
"The closer you are to the target, the easier the spell is, and a tap is usually recommended. You should begin with that," Petri explained. Harry nodded.
"Right. Thank you, sir," he said, glad for any advice. The experience of actually being able to do magic was unlike any other; there was something viscerally satisfying about achieving results from wand-waving.
"I will leave you to it, then. Try to get along this time," Petri told them, though Harry was vindicated to see that he seemed to be directing the latter statement more towards Rosenkol than Harry.
When Petri had once more departed, Rosenkol knelt down on the ground with a pensive expression on his face. It made him look marginally less wrinkled, and Harry left him to thinking while he tried to improve his colour-changing charm, encouraged by the way it actually seemed to respond to his desires.
Perhaps an hour later, when Harry was critically admiring his solidly bright pink side table and lamp, Rosenkol exited his stupor and moved to stand beside him.
"Wizardling works hard," the elf commented. Harry blinked at him before deciding that it must be a compliment.
"Thanks," he said somewhat awkwardly.
"Rosenkol will apologise to wizardling for thinking he is a muggle. Master Joachim is right, and Rosenkol is being petulant, and will stop," the elf said.
Harry didn't exactly know what petulant meant, but if it was indeed what the elf had been before, then he would be glad to see a change.
"Let's try to start over, then?" Harry said uncertainly. He held out his hand. Rosenkol looked at it for an uncomfortably long time before he reached out and took it in his own spindly one, giving it a surprisingly firm shake.
"Wizardling offers Rosenkol hand like an equal. Perhaps he is a good wizardling after all," remarked the elf. Harry wasn't quite sure what to make of it. Now that Rosenkol seemed to be acting weirdly nice, Harry didn't want to ruin anything by offending him.
"Well, actually, Rosenkol is actually definitely better than Harry. At magic, anyway," Harry tried, finding it a little bit absurd to talk in third person but worried that second person might be somehow rude.
He seemed to have done the right thing, because Rosenkol suddenly brightened up considerably.
"Wizardling Harry addresses Rosenkol as his superior!" he exclaimed in clear astonishment. That wasn't exactly what Harry had intended, but now would be a bad time to say anything to the contrary. The elf seemed very excited, indeed, and nothing like his usual bitter self.
"Rosenkol will teach him," said the elf, almost to himself. "Yes, Rosenkol will make him worthy of Master."
A/N: You thought this story was dead? Ha! You just underestimate how much of a piece of garbage someone can be without dying. Anyway thanks for reading and stuff. It's probably going to keep making less and less sense from here on out.