The Philosophy of Loneliness
Disclaimer: All HP characters and world not mine.. My chars are mine, but I doubt anyone cares.
Warnings: Slash, AU, OC.
Chapter 2
Harry sat in the library, cherishing the warm light inside after a lesson with Hagrid out in the snow. Hermione and Ron, having apparently taken Edelsteinn's reeducation very seriously, were explaining about the school, each in turn and so confusingly that even Harry couldn't set anything straight. Edelsteinn kept a very straight and concentrated face, but his frequent glances towards the grandfather clock were a sure giveaway. The day had gone by without any happenings. In the morning, Edelsteinn found his school uniform lying on the chest at the foot of his bed. He looked so ridiculously white in the black robe that Hermione, upon seeing him down in the common room, was sure he'd fallen ill during the night and tried convincing him to go to the infirmary. Edelsteinn coyly explained that he was fine, thank you, and that black always made him look like death himself. Breakfast was spent talking about Quidditch, only this time it was a beginner's conversation, as Harry was looking for new players, and Ron apparently got the pedagogical bug from too much time with Hermione.
When the clock showed five, Edelsteinn started squirming in his seat. "How do I get to the dining hall from here?" he asked over a sudden.
"Why? Dinner isn't till three hours from now," Ron mused.
"Ola's lessons are over now, we set to meet there."
"Well, why don't we call him over here and get to know each other?" Hermione suggested.
Edelsteinn blushed. "We wanted some time alone, really... But I am sure he would love to get to know you all!" He added hurriedly. "He said he will be there on Sunday, for broom lessons."
"You take a left from the library, walk down the corridor and turn right at the fourth intersection. You should know the way from there," Harry said, since he saw the boy was practically running away. Edelsteinn nodded thankfully, gathered his things clumsily, and bolted out.
"He's too nice a kid to be so dependent on a Slytherin," Ron said once Edelsteinn was out the door. "I hope he doesn't get in trouble."
Harry shrugged. "We'll just have to get to know Olafur on the weekend. He seemed quite likable to me."
"It also seemed like he was Malfoy's new project," Ron said darkly. "Did you see how they were talking? Like good old chums!"
"Ron, can you imagine how frightening and strange it is for a foreigner to just land in this place in the middle of the school year, separated from his only friend?" Hermione, the voice of reason. "And in Slytherin, of all Houses!"
Ron twisted his face. "I wouldn't end up talking to Malfoy if he were the last person on earth, even if I had to talk to no one but myself for the rest of my life."
"Maybe it's all for the best?" Harry suggested with an exaggeratedly bright expression. "Maybe Olafur will have a good effect even on Malfoy. I mean, look how he raised this first son of an old noble family - he's all shy and humble!" Everyone burst out laughing, Harry - mainly at the image of the two-meter tall Olafur sticking a baby's dummy into Malfoy's hands.
"You have to separate them here, otherwise there can be a double meaning, and you don't want a spell with a double meaning." Ola elegantly squiggled a line between a pair of runes Draco had drawn. Next to Ola's free-flowing, easy rune-formations, Draco found his own very pedantic-looking and jumpy. Like my runes have a broomstick up their arse, he thought to himself disapprovingly. But Ola never said anything of that sort. He wasn't the kind of person to judge others by their handwriting or choice of clothes. He just said things like, 'If you make this one any sharper it would look like an Au, and then... double meaning', and smile. At first that all-accepting demeanour left Draco confused, but he was surprised to find that such an attitude was amazingly easy getting used to.
"Rune magic is like poetry," Ola went on inspirationally, lyrically waving a long-fingered hand in the air. It was always hard to tell humour from serious facts when Ola was involved. He slid into his exaggerated gesticulations without any logical pattern. " - Every word, every syllable counts. That's why I always say no one can abuse it, because a person who does ill cannot make such poetry."
"Was it never used for black magic?" Draco perked up at the prospect of a familiar and loved topic.
"That calls for a different approach. I don't know much about it. It's been practically eradicated where I lived. As far as I understand, it uses an older set of runes, they call it the First Set. They are very ancient, fewer in number, and their power coarser, less exact. It's spoken in a different meter and the signs are drawn with the hands in the air, not on the ground like I showed you."
"That is a horrible use for a wand, by the way," Draco put in, still shocked. Ola shrugged. He rarely used his wand, as he himself admitted; he said he hated Latin because it was the Church's language and it had destroyed his people's heritage. Ola's "heritage" was very important to him. He knew large poems from the Poetic Edda by heart and most of his metaphors and allusions had something to do with Norse literature. Whenever he was thinking of something he would play with a big silver pendant of Thor's Hammer that usually hung under his shirt; said it made him feel comfortable.
The door to the dormitory was suddenly jerked open and a bass voice hollered, "Draco, we're going to practice, are you coming?"
"Team practice is Tuesday, bugger off," Draco barked in response, without so much as turning back. Goyle muttered something equally impolite and slammed the door shut. Draco could hear his heavy steps scurrying off down the hall.
"Aren't you the captain of that team?" Ola asked curiously.
"I set our practice for Tuesday," Draco insisted. "I have other things on my mind, like homework."
"And things that have nothing to do with homework," Ola remarked, nodding an eyebrow in the direction of the rune-covered scroll in front of them.
"Hey, how about I teach you to play Quidditch?" Draco brightened up by the thought of getting to spend more time with this intelligent form of life, the only one in Slytherin, he realized over the last few days. When Ola was not running off somewhere to meet with his precious Gryffindor, Draco tried spending as much time with him as possible. Somehow, Ola wriggled his way under all the facades, sarcastic remarks, arrogance and racism that defined Draco Malfoy to the world, and even to himself. After much analysis, Draco decided that it was because Olafur just didn't care. This worldly nonsense was so far beneath him, that he didn't even see it. He just saw people as they were. And Draco had not felt this human with anyone in many, many years. It felt so natural, so normal, so realistic, to talk to a person without playing a role written in advance, to have a conversation without striving for power and dominance. Like suddenly he was allowed a freedom of action within himself that the circumstances of his life hadn't allowed him up until then. It occurred to him that his very being had deteriorated into some stereotypical, shallow existence, living on the verge of Potter's perception of him. As far as he remembered, this dilapidation began shortly before his first big social role in life began, around age ten or eleven – first year in Hogwarts. The roles were being picked up already on the train. Harry Potter had been the star of it all, and Weasly just happened to sit with him and be right for the part, and so, around the sun of Potter, a constellation started forming. There was Longbottom for comic relief and clumsy jokes, Granger for the nerdy touch, cast as Voice of Reason. Then the bad guys had to be collected, and they were. Everything fell into place so easily, so quickly, that before anyone even noticed (and Draco doubted many people aside from himself noticed this at all) - they had an active, productive solar system, complete with asteroids threatening to destroy the world, distant constellations and galaxies and whatnot. Every school has one. But we don't have to remain slaves to it for all eternity, do we? Let children's games effect the outcome of our lives? Draco shook his head to himself. This was as good a time as any other to grow the hell up. Olafur was a blessed relief. Olafur loved listening to Draco, could drown in any kind of story like a child. Olafur had a world of useful information in his mysterious head, and was more than willing to share it. Olafur could even be handsome, if you looked at him from the right angle. Preferably from somewhere closer to his eye-level than the ground usually allowed. Draco grew into a tall young man, but Ola's head nonetheless floated above him, offering a view on his badly shaved chin and his long, thin nose, usually tipped red in the cold of the dungeons.
"Draco, you listening?"
"Wha-? Yes!" Draco concentrated on the page in front of him, where his own hand had scribed something horribly, horribly wrong. "How didn't I notice this?" He hurriedly waved his wand over the page and made the shameful mistake disappear. Ola immediately bent down a little and produced a new formation with a swift, free hand. The rune equivalent of Draco's spell. He then theatrically removed himself from over the scroll and allowed Draco some time to examine it. He did everything theatrically. "I don't think I can twist my tongue around that..." Draco muttered, after trying to pronounce the sounds in his head. "How on earth do you speak this stuff?"
"Well, it makes more sense when you understand what you are saying. I can start teaching you with this," Ola smiled almost evilly, got up from the couch they were sharing and covered the distance to his bed in the other side of the room with about two steps. From the bottom of his scarcely filled chest he produced a book; old, worn, grey and very fat. Pieces of its fabric binding were garlanding down like a wright's shrouds, and it was probably as boring as its appearance promised it to be. When he presented it close enough for Draco to read, he saw that it said in worn out Gothic script, "A Course in the Structure of Runic Icelandic".
"I found it while waiting for Edelsteinn in the library." Olafur washed the book with a warm, loving smile, cradling it in his long branchy limbs. "You want to go over the first chapter?"
Olafur looked so adorably excited about it that Draco couldn't refuse, even in face of the boredom he knew would ensue. Draco was not strong at languages, he'd had enough headaches studying French with a half-corpse ruler-wielding professor who could barely hear him, and solved any misunderstanding with a beating. Olafur disapproved of that disinterest in linguistics, himself speaking English, German and French aside from his native Icelandic, and currently dealing with Russian. When discussing his native tongue he often reverted into strange linguistic terms like "deponent verbs" and "cleft sentences", at which Draco pulled "The Confused Face", an agreed sign of misunderstanding among them. Ola's Confused Face was a clownish look of astonishment, with one eyebrow raised all the way to his hairline and the second practically climbing into the eye pit, while the whole face somehow dug back into his neck, making him look more retarded than confused. Draco's was a little more subtle, as he was less inclined towards openly announcing his sense of humour, and involved a light frown, a delicate twist to the mouth, and a slightly martyred expression. After the surfacing of such a face, the other youth had to go into a more detailed explanation of what he'd just said. It proved extremely useful in every single one of their conversations.
After half a chapter Draco had had enough. Ola's teaching skills exceeded old Professor Luchois', but you could only take this much information about cases in one day. ("Dative is Dative, but sometimes it's Instrumental and sometimes it's just due to a preposition, so it has a different meaning..."). Draco decided that the subject had to be changed.
"So, Ola, how about Quidditch?"
Ola turned back to him from the book, dark blue eyes watery and tired from the torturous Gothic script. "O, yeah, that. Edelsteinn is going to get broom lessons from Potter and his friends, and they invited me to come along. Maybe you should come, you can throw in your own tips."
Draco's face darkened. "Don't worry, you're in the hands of the best," he said poisonously.
"You don't like each other much, do you?" Ola asked.
"I have nothing to like him for." Draco threw himself back into the soft stuffed couch. "He hates me, thinks I am the embodiment of underage evil. And we are on opposing sides, my family being Death Eaters and such."
Ola frowned at that. Draco hadn't seen him expressing a political opinion before. He had taken it for granted that Ola was on "their" side, being from an ancient pureblood family, serving an ancient pureblood family. "Do you... agree with your family's views?" Ola asked cautiously.
"I am the only heir of an old and proud heritage," he pronounced flatly, and felt a rush of irritation at his own words.
Ola also realized this. "No, but seriously..."
"I don't have much choice, really, do I?" Draco blurted out lamely. "I never asked for all this, I simply take responsibility for my own duties to my family. There's nothing more important than family, that's how I was raised." He shrugged his shoulders. "And what I personally like or dislike has nothing to do with it."
Ola raised an eyebrow, only it wasn't the Confused Face. It was serious. "Let me tell you about Death Eaters, Draco, and what they do to their own families. Maybe that would help you form your opinion. I'm sure you've been wondering what these signs by my eyes are."
Draco nodded, he had indeed. He would have had to be nose to nose with the youth just to make the signs out, they were so small, and then he would have to understand the spell.
"These runes are for permanent transfiguration. The eyes you see right now are the eyes I'd been born with, but it is not the way they look right now." Ola's hand started climbing up towards his left eye, but stopped dead in the air as a look of confusion and embarrassment fleeted through his face. He made up his mind quickly, caught Draco's glance sternly, and touched a finger to the tattoo. A short whispered spell flew out of his lips, and the illusion dispersed. Draco choked on his next breath.
"Close your mouth, Malfoy," Ola muttered sternly, lowering his horrifying eyes. When Draco tried to comply, all he could do was open and close it again soundlessly. "This - is what Edelsteinn's father, the man who did this, called the "Naked Eye". Professor Baldursson was a famed researcher in the field of potions, expert in domination and mind alteration substances. I'll cut a very long and dramatic story as short as I can. I would rather not remember this, but since you seem to have such a hard time deciding, I'll sacrifice some peace of mind for your sake. About three years ago, Baldursson got entangled in an ugly business involving the Death Eaters. They were fascinated with his life's work – an absolute mind domination potion, with an irreversible effect. It was supposed to turn its victims into mindless slaves, serving anyone in their vicinity in command of the imperative form."
Draco shuddered at the prospect of that power. And the coldness of heart it demanded to employ... Like any other form of absolute power, if he thought about it.
"He became obsessed right about when the Death Eaters came over and offered him unlimited funding for the early completion of the experiments. He didn't care what they were going to do with it, but the family's funds were running low, and all he wanted was to find out if he could get it done. When they came back a couple of years later and Baldursson had too little progress to show for their huge investment, they started pressing on him. Then he disappeared for a week – they took him somewhere to see the Dark Lord himself. When he came back - he was completely insane. I knew him well, he was like a second father to me, he had me as an apprentice in his lab since I was thirteen. He taught me everything I know about the world. As you can imagine, he got the Dark Mark, so Voldemort could torment him day and night about the potion. When he ran out of livestock and animals for his experiments, he started using the household members. Professor Larson, our old language teacher, ran off just in time, lucky man. As you have guessed by now, no matter the alterations done to the potion, most of its effect was this," Ola pointed at his eyes. "It was to be dropped in the eyes, to get absorbed into the brain and then slowly, gently burn away at the right parts of it to get the wanted result – obedience, along with some basic intelligence. But all it did was burn away the eyelids and skin around the eye, and turn your irises this horrifying glowing blue. And it doesn't just look scary. After a while – it drives you mad. You can't sleep, you can't rest, and you see things..." Olafur shuddered. "He started experimenting on my family first, since we were the servants, after all. My parents, my brothers and sister, were all kept locked like animals in the basement for examination of long-term effects. That's what he said to me when I begged him to let them die in peace. Then he took his own wife. He held us all like that for weeks. Edelsteinn and I locked in the pantry, and the rest suffering from advanced psychosis in the basement. He wanted to take Edel and me last. At first I let myself hope that he still had a bit of humanity left in him and he just wanted to spare his two favourite people. I was younger then, naïve. Actually, he was just waiting for results of previous experiments to try a newer and improved version on us."
By now Draco found it harder and harder to keep looking at Ola. His horror stricken face was numbly directed at the floor, but in the corner of his vision, Ola's eyes still glowed that unnatural, dreadful blue, sans pupils, sans expression, sans eyelids. Just a pair of white orbs with red veins twining through them.
"When he came to take us we were lucky. He only managed to pour a little bit before the ones locked in the basement, in utter dementia, broke out, tore him to pieces, and burned down the house, themselves included. We ran away. That's it." Ola shut his lips on that final sentence with the hope to never speak again. Draco finally dared turn back to him when he noticed Ola's hand rise back to his face to hide his atrocious eyes under the runes. "No, you don't have to say anything, Draco. Little can be said about such a story, I know. But keep this in mind when you make your decision."
Draco nodded mutely.
"Now, I think I will go to sleep. I have to get up early tomorrow to meet with the Gryffindors." Draco saw him get up, and heard him walk back to his bed, heard the ruffle of fabric as he put his pajama pants on, and the mattress squealing under his weight. He kept his eyes on the fire in the fireplace. "Hope you don't have nightmares," Olafur added before turning off the light at his bedside.
Draco awoke from the heavy door creaking open. Last night's resolve shot into his head immediately and he bolted up straight in his bed. "Wait!" he called. Ola's head peered into the room from behind the door.
"Aye?"
"I'm coming with you!" Draco said, already jumping out of bed and into his trousers. He then remembered to take his pajama pants off, and restarted the procedure. Ola strolled back in, hands in pockets as always, staring at his big winter boots slowly landing and rising from the stone floor. Draco had scarcely ever dressed up so fast. He grabbed his broomstick from its case under his bed on his way out, and threw the scarf around his neck already in the corridor. He didn't even get to comb his hair.
"Looks better like that, anyway," Ola remarked offhandedly, keeping his leisurely stroll in a very leisurely pace. Draco, on the other hand, was all but bouncing in his nervousness. He kept raking his free hand through his hair to try making it look somewhat tidier, rearranging his robes and his scarf, trying to decided whether to keep his hands in his pockets or crossed on his chest, but for the life of him couldn't keep them just dangling by his sides; he felt like a moron.
"Hey, relax, Malfoy, you're starting to remind me of Edelsteinn," Ola smirked down to him.
They emerged into the snow-covered courtyard and discovered it was yet another glum, sunless morning. Olafur pulled his wool hat back down over his blushing ears. It was too small and kept climbing up.
"Where did you set to meet?" Draco asked jumpily.
"Out here," the Icelander shrugged his broad, thin shoulders. His dark blue eyes - Draco would never be able to look at them the same as before – scanned the bleak expanses of the lawns. The eyelids covering them to form his bored expression seemed real enough; so real that one could touch them. Draco wanted to ask for permission, but then Olafur's scattered gaze focused and his features transformed into a sincere, happy smile. "Eðelsteinn!" he called out, the name rolling off his tongue in Icelandic, making it sound like the happiest bunch of syllables in the world. Ola took his hands out of his pockets and practically ran towards his friend. Draco frowned. No one had ever run to him smiling that way. In fact, that very moment two whole people were advancing in his general direction with quite the opposite of that expression on their faces. Draco decided on the hands in pockets pose, and remained imbued into his spot in the snow, his head barely turning left to look at the scene of joyous reunion and friendly hand-shaking. The whole thing had gotten quite far from him by now. As if to magnify the repulsive, aggressive loneliness he was feeling, snow began to fall, dotting his field of vision white and fluffy and distancing him yet more. The air was still as a lake in a summer evening, warm and pregnant with the snow. Draco felt like he was watching an imaginary picture of pastoral happiness. Then Ola turned back to him and Draco had to smile a little, as he could see the raised eyebrow all the way from where he stood. As he walked closer he could also see the dark expressions on the two Gryffindors' faces (the third one being in utter bliss).
"What are you doing here, Malfoy?" Potter asked, his voice and entire demeanour spelling out his readiness to spring on the enemy. He was not quite hostile, but he was eager to become so.
"Ola invited me," Draco said simply, honestly. He forcefully removed the habitual haughtiness from his voice, and took care to keep his chin at regular hight, because old habits die hard, but if you are prepared – you can kill anything. And Draco was perfectly aware of what made him impossible to bear, after all, it was a fine art that he's perfected himself.
Potter seemed disarmed for a moment. Weasley also had a confused expression on his simpleton face, Draco thought, but quickly erased the word "simpleton", since he had decided to grow a sense of tact the previous night, and Draco always owned up to his promises. To himself. And maybe to other people, as well, from now on, he added as an afterthought.
"I hope it's alright with you," Olafur stepped in, smiling innocently. So convenient to be a foreigner sometimes, Draco smirked to himself. "So, how about those brooms, eh?" He pat Draco and Ron on the back and moved his smiling face from one to the other.
"Yeah, they're in the shed," Ron muttered distractedly, peering sideways at Draco. "Let's go."
Before they could start walking, Edelsteinn stepped up to Draco and offered his hand for a shake. He was absolutely charming, and beautiful as all the most beautiful things in the world. When Draco shook his slender hand he found it was pleasantly cool and the skin soft and silky like none he had ever felt in his life. His features seemed light and feathery in their simple perfection, the oval of his face most prominently made up of big, round grey eyes, a pair of laconic nostrils and a full, pale mouth, sweet as a rosebud. All that with a frame of pale yellowish hair flowing light as snow all the way to his waist made him look like some sort of disgustingly sweet Prince Charming, or, more exactly – Princess Charming. Girls probably drooled all over him; as did boys, secretly dreaming of a perfect world where this little miracle did not have a male organ in his pants.
"Ola told me much about you," Edelsteinn went on while Draco was deep in his venomous thoughts. "I'm so very glad to meet you." Draco also marked it against him that his light Icelandic accent, with the sharp rolling R's and deep, pronounced vowels, only added to his charm. He was not sure why this boy's so-called "perfection" vexed him so, but all he wanted was to get away from it somehow.
"Same here," Draco answered politely, impatient to get on his broom and vent some of the strange anger and nerves assailing him. He followed the group last, watching the uncanny closeness between Olafur and Edelsteinn, how their hands almost brushed each other as they walked, how there was a bounce to the blond boy's step. A little behind them were the two star Gryffindors. Ron turned back from time to time, perhaps to make sure Draco was not preparing to throw a curse at them, or maybe just in hopes that he would go away. But Draco persisted, no matter how much these anger and bitter loneliness weighed on his heart.
The broom shed was in fact much closer than it seemed to Draco, and everyone was in possession of one in a matter of moments, Granger and the Weasley girl having lent theirs to the new students. Potter then proceeded his instruction. He mounted his broom for demonstration, the rest followed. Edelsteinn was obviously unaccustomed to this thin little stick as support, and Olafur just looked stupid, his height dwarfing the broom and making him look like an eagle perching on a twig. He turned to Draco and gave him a sheepish grin, which elicited a small, tight-lipped smile from the Slytherin. He slowly climbed on his broomstick and got in position to take off, his legs slightly bent at the knees.
"So you do like this," Potter was lamely explaining the same position as Draco was in, going up and down slowly to stress the point. "And then you just take off." And he shot off the ground in one fluid motion. Olafur, bending his knees and obviously feeling ridiculous, attempted to copy the Gryffindor, but the broom refused to obey him and he just ended up swaying up and down in hopes that something would happen.
"Potter left out the main part," Draco interfered politely, "you have to feel the broom obey you, will it to fly, see?" He let go of his broom and it just remained in the air under him. Ola let go of his broom trustingly, and it fell with a dull 'humph' on the snow. He fixed the inanimate object with a deadly glare and muttered something in Icelandic under his breath, pointing at it with a twiggy finger, and the broom obediently bounced into his awaiting hands. And stayed there.
"I guess that's also a way," Draco admitted, smirking lopsidedly. Edelsteinn was the only one of the Gryffindors willing to admit the humour of the situation, repeating his friend's actions with a budding smile. Using their strange little spell, the boys had no problems with the broomsticks as most beginners did; they were perfectly obedient. All they needed was to master the steering. They all discovered that Edelsteinn was a speed addict, but combined with his present skills, he just managed to bump into people. He collided with Potter so hard that both of them got knocked off and fell into the snow. Luckily, they were not very high up, for safety reasons.
"I'm so sorry! So sorry, Harry!" Edelsteinn crawled over to Potter's dark figure in the snow, who was lying prone on his back, laughing and laughing at the white sky. Draco looked down at them from the air with a sealed face.
"It's not that bad, is it?" He was startled out of his thoughts by Ola's soundless appearance at his side.
Draco shook his head slowly, still looking down at the panicky blond trying to help a dizzy, laughing Potter off the ground, brushing snow from his hair and cloak. Draco had a nauseating feeling that a snowball fight would ensue. He came to the final conclusion that Ola's boyfriend – and he had no doubt that that was Edelsteinn's true title – was a shameful joke, and the elegant, cool Ola deserved better. He peered at his fellow Slytherin from the corner of his eye. He was looking down as well, smiling that quiet, mystical smirk of his.
"You're doing quite well," Draco said suddenly, turning Olaf's attention back to himself. "Do you like flying?"
Olafur nodded and shrugged. "It's okay. I like Potions more." He let go of his broom to pull the hat back down irritably. "But I wouldn't mind playing your Quidditch, if you teach me how. I'm not used to just sitting all day, you know. I'm a working man, after all."
Draco had a good idea. That is, it would have been good had the people involved been his friends. He threw a hesitant glance back to the ground, where a snowball fight was already in full action, and just thought 'What the heck...'
"Hey!" he shouted down at them. "Let's have a match!" His voice sounded too loud and coarse, disappearing shortly in the stuffy, snowy air.
The blissful snow-throwing below stopped immediately. Potter's dark head turned its lighter part – his face – towards Draco, and he fancied that he could see the bewildered expression all the way up where he was. Draco smiled contentedly. He was throwing everyone off today.
"Olafur wants to know how to play Quidditch," Draco explained to the slow minded Gryffindors. A consultation began on the ground, and fast enough the Gryffindor pack was in the air next to them, Potter and Weasley debating where they would get more players and balls.
"We can play two on two - " Draco stepped in logically.
"Oh, be reasonable, Malfoy!" Weasley spat out. "There's no way in the world to play Quidditch two on two!"
Malfoy rolled his eyes exaggeratedly (Olafur's company is starting to tell, he thought to himself). "Have you no imagination, Weasley?" He swooped down, grabbed a big pile of snow without even stopping and made a big snowball. He then returned to the group, very dramatically holding it up in one hand, like the house elves always held the trays when serving food, and transfigured it into a shiny, red Quaffle.
"Showoff," Ron snorted under his nose. Draco disregarded the remark.
"This is the Quaffle," he said, generously moving his creation in a wide arc for everyone to see. Olafur's uptight smile seemed to be fighting back laughter. "This is what you are supposed to get into your opponents' hoops. They have three hoops," he said, looking around thoughtfully for someplace to put them. He decided on a very small field and, pointing his wand, placed three illusionary hoops on a line of trees not far from them. He swooped down again to make the Bludgers and a little Snitch, and presented those as well. The Snitch's wings turned out crooked and looked more like a pair of hands, but he decided it would have to do. "Those are Bludgers. They are meant to hit you and knock you off the broom. This is a Snitch, it flies very fast and the Seeker has to catch it. That wins the game. Now, how about teams?"
When his user-friendly explanation was over, he was faced with two dark, unhappy Gryffindors. Draco had taken over their little escapade, and it was not to their liking.
"We can't play Quidditch two on two," Weasley insisted in a low, dangerous tone of voice.
Draco raised an eyebrow challengingly. "Oh, really?"
"You're not going to animate snowmen to act as extra players, are you, Malfoy?" Potter burst out exasperatedly. "You forgot to mention that every team is supposed to have seven players. Seven!"
"You don't have to be so hard on him," Edelsteinn intervened innocently. Potter's face froze in his annoyed expression, and he peered at the blond. "We can just throw the ball in the hoops," the Icelander finished with a sheepish shrug.
"That would be basketball on brooms!" Potter said.
"What's basketball?" a few voices muttered simultaneously.
"You all forget why we are here today," Olafur interjected patiently. "Throwing a silly ball into a silly hoop would be just as good practice flying a broom as anything. Am I wrong?"
There was silence. Weasley and Draco were still wearing their unfriendly faces, while Harry admitted to himself that the guy had a point.
"Why is he not a Ravenclaw, remind me?" Ron muttered dryly, not removing his suspicious glare from Malfoy.
"Because he's a pureblood who likes Potions?" Draco suggested jokingly. Olafur, once more, was the only one to appreciate the humour. This little play-date was only reminding Draco why he preferred keeping away from most people.
"And here I thought we could get through the period of an hour without hearing that word," Harry said sarcastically, folding his hands on his chest. That wiped the strange smile off Malfoy's face. The strange thing about it was that it did not look like most of his smiles – self contented and conceited. It looked like just any other smile on a joking teenager's face. At Harry's comment, Malfoy's expression darkened, then turned to stone. He simply shrugged and diverted his gaze towards the invisible horizon. Had he known better, Harry would have thought that the Slytherin was offended. His eyes were narrowed and the dark yellow eyelashes gathered closely around them, reminding of enraged rays of sunlight coming from behind grey storm clouds.
When Harry first saw the Slytherin upon coming out of the castle, he had to admit to himself that he experienced a short-lived hope that his little joke about Olafur's influence had come true, and the Slytherin House could include normal people, and even two at a time. Malfoy did not look his usual that day and that only added to the wild speculations in Harry's head. His fair hair was uncombed and un-slicked, and that already made an improvement – he looked much less of his usual sly bastard. But Harry's optimism, as always, had to be cast aside once more in the face of reality: Malfoy was obviously trying to be nice and friendly, but his version of those things was so twisted that all he managed to do with his little performance was piss everyone off.
"Well, I wouldn't want to ruin your nice time," Malfoy said over a sudden, whipping his head around to look at them all. "I have homework to do." And he shot away on his broom, practically flying into the castle doors. Harry followed him with his eyes, shocked, and realized that he was actually feeling bad for making the Slytherin leave. His conscience didn't care that it was Malfoy, it simply felt that being nasty to someone who was just trying to be nice was impolite. Harry cleared his throat uncomfortably and passed an embarrassed look around his friends.
"Well, then..." Ron smiled. "Now we can play!"