CHAPTER ONE: THE END OF BOREDOM
When Hogwarts came into view, the first day back on his 2nd year, the boy hadn't really had anything interesting planned.
His mind was dull, bored, like it often tended to be. Now, this wasn't because he had nothing to think about - he had plenty, really - but he couldn't speak to most of the students around him because they just wouldn't understand.
They wouldn't understand the perfect way to brew Veritaserum, or how to charm the lake so you could walk on it's surface, or the politics of the muggle world. No. The students wouldn't understand, he'd decided, and adults are too boring. Too, set in their ways.
He brushed a strand of smooth, black hair behind his ear and sighed. Icarus tended to try and keep to himself, preferring his own company. He'd learnt fast how to avoid unwanted attention (his experiences in his first year with females had not left him with entirely happy memories) and there were many people that would try and cause trouble simply because of the colors on his robes.
The green and silver, he'd thought, actually was quite a nice arrangement. He simply just didn't like the people - the children - in his house. They were crude, cruel, and unintelligent. He oftentimes found himself wishing he was in another house - Ravenclaw, preferably - but, he supposed, the sorting hat was the ruler of that decision.
He looked at his hands, smooth and pale, like pearl, and wondered if anything truly interesting would happen this year.
. . .
His wish was granted.
The long train ride had resulted in possibly the most sore arse he could ever hope to have (those seats weren't that comfortable) and an insatiable appetite. But once they arrived, as they do each and every year, he still had to wait, like everyone else, for the sorting ceremony. The ceiling was sparkling with stars and the great hall was warm, its golden candles floating above their heads.
He watched as the first years came shuffling through the large oak doors and the hall fell silent. A small smile settled on his face. He remembered how he'd felt that time last year.
Professor McGonagall swept past the staff table in her black robes, a four-legged stool and the sorting hat in her hands. Setting it down, she stepped back, and the hall waited, hushed, to hear what the ragged thing had to say. Of course - it sang.
He didn't listen to much of it, only snippets caught his attention as he thought of the consequences of one of his experiments that summer - putting flies in a soothing potion had only helped to make rashes worse, not better.
"Or perhaps in Slytherin
You'll make your real friends,
Those cunning folk use any means
To achieve their ends."
He chuckled. They certainly did use any means. Didn't mean you could trust them to be your friends. Then again, you couldn't really trust anyone, anyway. He clapped a little, to keep in character, once the song was over and desperately wished for the whole ceremony to be over with.
As Professor McGonagall stepped forward to call the names, he began to play with his fork. "Abbott, Hannah!...Bulstrode, Millicent!...Finch-Fletchley, Justin!...Malfoy..." it went on, and the longer the list grew, the more his appetite did also.
"Potter, Harry!" he almost dropped the spoon he was spinning around in his fingers as his electric blue eyes shot up to the feeble stool with the skinny boy sat upon it, his face covered by the giant hat. Icarus wasn't one to pay close attention to gossip or even involve himself in it, but even he was curious about him. Whispers echoed throughout the hall. "GRYFFINDOR!" the hat roared, and the small spout of attention he had payed to him vanished in an unnoticeable flicker. He was, in the smallest of ways, a little disappointed.
Harry Potter would probably become to same as everyone else - his mind twisted to the mass population, the common hatred for those in green and silver. Now that Potter had been called and the clamor had died down, the last four names were sorted and Icarus waited yet again for the end of another speech.
He hated speeches. Luckily for him, and everyone else, he supposed, it was quite short. And the moment it was over, he delved into the food in front of him.
. . .
Lying in his four-poster bed that night, he allowed his mind to wander. He had a strange ability, even among witches and wizards, to be able to detach from his body and trespass boundaries that they had never before imagined. There was one time, when he did so, he'd accidentally found himself floating in the clouds over Serbia next to a quite beautiful silver dragon.
Of course, that was when he was younger, and he had less command over it. Today, he'd decided to wander around the castle. It was always nice after everyone had retired to their dorms - no crowds, no noise, just him, silence and the ghosts floating morosely through the stone walls.
After a while, he tired, and decided to come back to his body. He stood over it for a little while, watching the open glassy eyes and its shallow breaths and wandered how much longer he would have to wait for interesting company.
. . .
On Friday, after Herbology with the Ravenclaws, his last class of the day, he made a sudden decision to go and visit Hagrid. Hagrid wasn't too fond of Slytherins, but he made an exception for him, after he had caught him hiding from some rather ugly looking girls in his pumpkin patch the year before.
Of course, it was quite a lengthy explanation afterwards - he'd had to reassure Hagrid multiple times that he wasn't doing anything to the pumpkins, and that he rather enjoyed gardening himself. The boy had developed quite an affection for the half-giant (because there was no way you could be that big and not be half-giant) but it had taken a little longer for the same to be said of Hagrid. Arriving at the little hut, he could hear Hagrid talking to someone, he hesitated but the sudden barking emerging from the interior and the scratching at the door allowed him no time to retreat back to the castle.
The door opened and the familiar round face smiled down at him as he tried to keep Fang in the hut.
"Hullo Hagrid," said Icarus, smiling "If you're busy, I can go back.."
"No, no. No' busy - yer might wanna say hi, maybe. Come in, come in." he grunted as he made space for the boy to squeeze through and the door closed behind him. On the mattress in the corner sat Harry Potter and a tallish ginger boy with a billion freckles and quite a pointy nose. Not my type, he thought.
"Hullo" he said to them, trying - and failing - to keep Fang from slobbering all over his robes. Hagrid was in the process of making some more tea when he introduced them all to each other.
"Harry, Ron, this is Icarus. Icarus - Harry, Ron."
"Nice to meet you." They said to each other.
He noticed the ginger boy - Ron, sorry - kept glancing at his robes. They talked a little bit, Icarus mainly listening and the others speaking.
"How's yer brother Charlie?" Hagrid had asked Ron, and as the boy was replying, Harry interrupted, looking at a little cutting of Daily Prophet newspaper
"Hagrid! that Gringotts break-in happened on my birthday! It might've been happening while we were there!"
Icarus paused, his teeth aching from the bite he had just taken from his rock cake, eyes flickering between the boy and the huge mass of man. Hagrid was terrible at secrets. After another offering of rock cakes and tea, Harry and Ron departed, leaving just Hagrid and himself.
"Yer won't say anythin will yer?"
"No, Hagrid. Don't worry. Could I have some of that toffee pudding you made the other day? If you still have it, course, don't wanna bother you."
The giant face glowed with a smile as he got up and started chattering about what he was preparing for the Halloween feast, still around two months away.