Disclaimer: All HP characters and world not mine.. My chars are mine, but I doubt anyone cares.

Warnings: Slash, AU, OC.

XXXX

After Harry and Ron left back to the tower, Edelsteinn lead Olafur to a clearing he'd found in the woods. He pulled his wand out of his belt and drew some runes on the snow. They lit up and disappeared, clearing a pleasant grassy spot for them, and Ola quickly slumped down, leaning on a mossy stump. Edelsteinn lay his head on Ola's legs and looked up at him as the Slytherin made silly faces using strands of his long hair. Edelsteinn tried talking about something serious, but when Ola was not in the mood for it, it was utterly impossible to get through to him. He kept changing subjects, distracting Edelsteinn with strange remarks and generally clowning around.

"I think a year is too long to live like this, I need you near. I can't sleep, and when I do, I get nightmares. Everything reminds of them. I am scared all the time. Haven't you noticed I am not being my usual self?" Edelsteinn's serious look attempted to bore through Ola's imitation of Dumbledore. "Ola?" He frowned, yanking his hair away from his friend's chin. "What's wrong with you?"

Ola shrugged and dropped his hands down. They landed limp in his lap, next to Edelsteinn's head, and absently started tracing the lines of the blond's left ear. "I'm not in the mood. Hey, listen, how about we sneak down to Hogsmead - "

"No!" Edelsteinn barked. He shoved the hands off him and scrambled up to a sitting position, glaring at Olafur furiously. "We are not going anywhere till you explain yourself!"

"I don't have anything to explain," Ola shrugged again, looking back at his friend with a daringly calm face. Only Olafur could make calmness look like war, Edelsteinn thought to himself angrily. And Edelsteinn could not let himself be angry with his commanding servant; Ola was too chaotic, too unpredictable, to endanger their relationship by setting him off. Of course, he knew that Ola would never leave him and never stop loving him, that would be ridiculous, after a lifetime together. But if he made Ola feel too trapped, the bastard could just ignore him for weeks, or treat him like any other uninteresting human being surrounding him. It always bothered Edelsteinn about Olafur that he was so unattached. It was one of his most prominent characteristics, and it often forced Edelsteinn to be jealous of stupid meaningless things that happened to catch his strange love's imagination. He could be jealous of a book, or a place, a house that seemed interesting, an idea, a poem, even Muggles! Anything that kept Olafur away from him. It reached ridiculous levels at times; he could be pushed aside for the sake of a tree, a sunset that Olafur just had to watch alone, stones, paintings, clothes and chores, tasks and horses that the servant preferred over human company.

"I think I'll go," Ola said suddenly in a sleepy, bored tone. He stretched a little, to stress his disinterest, and stood up.

"Wait! What -? Where are you going?" Edelsteinn stumbled onto his feet clumsily on his hands and knees. "Ola! Come back here, please..." He sighed and remained standing there, wiping his palms on his pants.

"I don't feel like listening to what you're jealous of this time, Edel," Olafur said, not even looking back. He finally disappeared from view behind a cluster of trees, strolling lazily with his hands lost in the pockets of his black sheepskin coat. Edelsteinn felt like making something explode, like running over to that ungrateful bastard and beat him up with his bare hands, feel the bones and the skin getting smashes by his fists... But he retained his anger. He hugged himself, as if to keep his hands from doing harm, and started making his way back.

XXXXX

Ola was amusing himself with Edelsteinn's magnificent hair while the blond was ranting about not seeing him enough. His mind wandered easily; to plan his next Runes lesson with Draco, to write his Arithmancy essay, and contemplate the colours of the sun on the snow. Then Edelsteinn started demanding his attention. If there was one thing Ola hated - it was demanding behvaiour, and Edelsteinn knew that perfectly well. This time was no different, and the moment that spoiled brattish tone started using the imperative, Olafur's thoughts turned to the quiet Slytherin dungeons and Draco's uncomplicated company. That was when he left.

Now, going down the stairs to the Slytherin common room, he started feeling bad about what he'd done. He knew how hard it had been for his little master, he had had to wake him up from violent nightmares many times, then watch the beloved pale face crumpled up in agony, trying to cry from tear ducts that no longer existed, trying to cast out his pain, and remaining crippled and unable to.

With these thoughts he entered the common room, just to discover his brand new friend screaming at one of his big idiot buddies, he didn't quite catch their names and didn't awfully care.

"Leave me the bloody hell alone! Can't you see I'm fucking busy, you retard!" Draco stood over his favourite armchair, holding a book and a notebook in his left hand, and a wand in his outstretched right. Ola had never heard the polished Slytherin speak in such a sleazy accent before, and it sounded almost amusing. Ola silkily slid towards him, placing his hands down on the shorter boy's tense shoulders and pulling him back towards himself.

"Draco, do we really need to get so worked up?" he whispered in a sing-song near the blond's ear.

Draco visibly relaxed and leaned back towards Ola, but the Icelander could see the frown on the handsome profile.

"No. I overreacted." Draco coldly looked back at Crabbe/Goyle. "Didn't mean to, no harm done."

"Yeah, whatever, Malfoy," Crabbe or Goyle snorted, looking at the close pair quite disgustedly. "I see you prefer being with that faggot anyway. Have fun taking it up - "

"That's it! I'm going to fucking kill him!" Draco tore out of Olafur's grasp and before the other boy could do anything, cast his spell. A flash of light erupted from the edge of his wand and crashed into the big, fat chest of its target, engulfing the body in electric pulses. Crabbe, now Ola was quite sure that that was his insignificant name, emitted a horrible scream, twisting and shuddering in the flashing light for what seemed like a very long and noisy time, until the darkness set back into the Slytherin dungeon. Then he fell down and remained there, moaning and whimpering. His body was still raked by additional shocks now and then, so the few other students present did not even dare come to his aid. Draco's hand remained in the air, shaking with rage. Ola found the nasty little smirk on the flushed noble features quite charming. There was an almost mischivous spark in Draco's pale grey eyes that he had never previously had the pleasure of seeing.

"Well, isn't that swell..." Ola murmured, leaning over Draco's left shoulder to get a closer look at the twitching student on the floor.

"Thank you," Draco finally dropped his hand down and started straightening his robes. "I'm rather fond of that spell. My father taught me."

"How much detention are you looking at?" Ola peered back at his friend curiously.

"Depends on Snape's mood. And points off the house, too..." Draco tucked his wand back into his robes and sat down. He tried not to look at his fellow Slytherins slowly approaching Crabbe and lifting him off the floor with combined levitation spells. Ola, on the other hand, was watching them with unabashed, tactless curiosity. "At least they're still scared of me now," Draco said with a sigh.

"Yeah, and now they are a hundred percent sure that I am a faggot," Ola added with a short laugh. "Whatever that means." He sat down on a similar armchair at Draco's left, and was trying to pull his worn-out suede coat off from under him.

Draco's expression blushed, though his complexion remained marble white. "I'm sorry... I should have controlled myself."

"Ah, cow shit," Ola waved his free hand in cancellation, and continued the movement to shake the coat off. "I couldn't care less what they think."

"You mean "bullshit,". And they'll make your life miserable." The aggressive energy now drained from Draco's body and he felt empty and tired and sad. He looked at Olafur's battle with his coat with humorous dolour. "Probably mine, too, once this demonstration gets old in their little minds."

"We can arrange another one. For educational purposes. That's always positive." Ola could be as encouraging as a comedy act on a funeral. Draco could already see the nasty remarks in the locker rooms before and after Quidditch, the rude jokes, the stupid notes in class, sometimes even a Howler at dinner or some other nasty trick. But when he looked back at Olafur's performance with his coat, the fear of all that subsided. Being outcast with someone like that would not be that bad, he reasoned with himself. Ola was probably an expert at that kind of lifestyle.

"You came back earlier than I thought," Draco changed the subject. He decided that it was pointless to worry about things before they happened, and distraction was his course of action now.

"Yeah, I got bored," Ola said simply. Then Edelsteinn's sad voice returned to him, and his face darkened. "Do we have lessons with Gryffindor tomorrow?"

"Potions, first thing in the morning," Draco smiled. "My favourite lesson. I just hope Snape won't ruin it for me because of this whole incident."

"When do you think he'll find out about this?"

"Oh, right about now, I should think..."

Before any of them could say anything further, the door was ripped open and an enraged Snape galloped in, his big nose all crunched up with anger and his hair ruffled, generally looking like an attacking alleycat.

"Mister Malfoy! Follow me!" he roared, narrowing his small obsidian eyes. The left one was quite noticeably twitching. Draco threw a nervous glance in Olafur's way and slowly stood up. He looked at Snape carefully, as though expecting the unexpected from the infuriated professor. The moment he was on his feet and his things left on the armchair, Snape turned round on his heel and strode back the way he came. Draco followed him through the dungeons to what he knew would be Snape's office. The Head of House's boots scattered loud echoes behind them to roll through the intricate corridors, arches, statues and columns.

When they reached the office and the door snapped itself shut behind his back, Draco noticed that Snape's demeanour had calmed down. The potion master looked at him with something bordering on kind worry.

"What are you doing, Draco?" he asked.

"I don't understand what you mean."

"Doing that to another Slytherin? To your best friend?"

Draco frowned. It was almost an insult for him to have Crabbe signed off as a best friend. There was nothing best about him and little friendship was involved. "He annoyed me," Draco said with a sealed expression.

"And all that friendliness with Sigurdsson! A servant, for Merlin's sake!" Snape's lips twisted with disgust. "What would your father say?" Draco hadn't even a chance to answer. "I am telling you, Draco, as your elder, as someone with more experience than you, stay away from that creature. He is sicker than he lets on, he's dangerous and unstable." Draco raised an eyebrow. He'd never noticed any dangerous or unstable patterns in Ola's behaviour. "You are oblivious to the circumstances of his arrival at Hogwarts. And I am sure there's much more that he keeps secret from us all, even from the authorities. They are wild wizards, his family; all of them are in Iceland. They live in a backwards society, stuck thousands of years behind us in matters of culture and education. To be honest, I was extremely unhappy when he was sorted to Slytherin. There is no house in Hogwarts for creatures like him. There's no place for such atrocities on the face of the Earth. Bladursson's sick creations..."

On the inside, Draco was shuddering with rage. How could anyone speak like that about a noble, intelligent, highly educated and good person, just on the grounds of his nationality and decent? And yes, he did realize the extreme irony of this, but he could not deny the anger Snape's words aroused in him. On the outside, however, he was still as a statue; if there was one thing he was good at, it was keeping a straight face.

"You haven't seen that... that... what's under his little runic mask -" Snape went on fuming.

"Yes, I did," Draco cut him off suddenly. "And I know all about what brought him here, he told me. In detail. Sir, I will take your advice into account, but if you don't mind, reprimand me and let me return to my studies."

"I want to see results, Draco, not just be 'taken into account'," Snape said sharply. "That will be ten points off the house, and I am ashamed I have to do this. You get detention for two weeks cleaning the Potions class after lessons. Good night."

Draco nodded, accepting the punishment. It could have been worse, really.

When he was back in the common room, there was no one there anymore. Most Slytherins were already in bed. Draco felt a crushing loneliness pressing on his empty stomach. He want to see Ola waiting for him there, but no dark head stuck out from behind a couch and no big feet hung in the air from over a hand rest. Draco dragged his steps up the stairwell to the seventh year dormitory. He walked over to his bed in the far end of the huge, dark room, glumly noticing green light in the closed curtains of Ola's fourposter. Draco's own bed was by the wall, and was considered the most prestigious one there for the little window far up by the high ceiling. Draco had the house-elves keep it shiny and clean, making sure that at least some daylight was coming in over his territory. He plopped down onto the soft mattress, reaching for his simple cotton pajamas, which, against popular beliefs, were not black and not made of silk. He dressed up, scratched his right eyebrow tiredly, and was going to throw himself back into the soft sheets, when the warm light coming through Ola's curtains attracted his attention again. The weary loneliness returned to flutter in the recesses of his stomach and chest. As if being shamefully sent away by Potter that very morning was not enough, he was going to get shunned by all the people who used to admire and fear him, and the only teacher in the school who remotely liked him was practically commanding him to stop associating with the only person he shamelessly liked in the whole history of his life. Draco went on scratching the back of his head, ruffling his hair. He always felt itchy when he was tired.

I'm not someone to drown in self pity, am I? He asked himself, absently pushing hair off his cheekbone and finishing it off with a generous scratch. Full of resolve, he pushed himself off the bed and set his determined bare feet, albeit hopping gracelessly on the cold floor where there was no carpet, towards the only other waking member of Slytherin. When he was finally before the glowing destination, he suddenly realized that he did not exactly know how to approach a bed. After some deliberation, he raised his left hand with some finality and gently rapped on the post nearest to him.

"Come i-i-in!" rose Olafur's sing-song voice. Draco stifled a laugh with a low snicker and stuck his head in between the heavy green drapery. Olafur answered his curious glance with his own polite blinking. He was leaning his back on the headboard; more exactly, on a mountain of pillows, like some spoiled princess from a kiddie fairytale, his legs stretched far out in front of him and a book in his lap. Draco had to make that same stifled snicker at the sight.

"Where the hell did you get all those pillows?" he breathed out.

"Well, I figured our old electrified friend didn't need his," Olafur shrugged. "And some first year was being annoying to me, so I took his. Let the little brat try sleeping without them, wake up with a sore back." He smiled. "That Crabbe, they took him to the infirmary, you know. So, how much did you get?"

"Two weeks detention, and ten points off the house..." Draco shrugged. "What you reading?"

Ola raised the fat volume from his lap for Draco to see. "Don't just stand there, clamber in. You'll wake everyone up." He caught Draco's thin wrist and pulled him into his little 'tent'. When Draco managed to settle down without having any part of himself on Ola's legs, he finally let himself comment on the title of the book.

"Hogwarts: A History!" He said that in a much creakier voice than he'd intended.

"Shh! Be quiet or everyone will think we're having wild scholarly sex in here," Ola laughed. Draco did not find that possibility amusing, so he hurriedly drew his wand and cast a silencing spell around the bed.

"What are you," he proceeded in a whisper,"Hermione Granger?"

"Who's that?" Ola started playing with the volume, running his finger over the thicket of pages.

"That brainy Mudblood girl from Gryffindor," Draco explained. "One of Potter's friends."

"Oh! The curly one with the strange name!" Ola nodded sagely. "She should stop learning the books by heart, makes her look bad. Oh, and don't use that word."

Draco was taken aback with surprise. "What word?" he mumbled dumbly, even though he knew perfectly well which word the Icelander meant.

"You know which word. And I think you are better than really believing that pureblood chicken shit."

"Bullshit," Draco corrected automatically. "Sorry. It's been instilled in me, you know how they brainwash you. It's a habit."

"Do you really think so, though? You don't seem to think that I am a lowly servant, and that's been instilled in you, as well."

Draco remembered his own righteous rage back in Snape's office. "No, it seems. Not at all... Snape was warning me about you."

"That I am unstable and insane?" Ola snickered all-knowingly. "Snape is a base man whose life is lead by petty jealousy and greed."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Draco was unimpressed. Snape might have been nasty and grumpy by nature, but Draco still liked the bitter professor and appreciated the special treatment he got from him.

"Lord Baldursson was a better Potion Master than him and he is jealous. They had their advanced potion studies together with some really important old wizard, and they hated each other. Did you notice how he looks at me during Potions?"

"Well, he's like that with everyone..." Draco shrugged.

"When they fail. I do it all too well. He doesn't look like that when you do something too well."

"He said you are sicker than you let on. What exactly do they know about you?"

"Aren't we all sicker than we let on?" Ola muttered bitterly. "They know everything they have to know. I'm not exactly fond of reminiscing. I may seem cold and unemotional, but I am human, after all, it hurts me to remember this. Edelsteinn can cry over it every night, he may suffer from nightmares, but it doesn't mean I feel any less than he does if I don't. He is just more extroverted. Hell, Malfoy, I'm a coward, why the hell do you think I am sitting here with you in the dungeons? I've been reading about this whole house thing. I see where that hat put me. It kept talking about all kinds of traits I allegedly have, trying to decide between every house except for Hufflepuff, for Merlin's sake! But I'm too scared to even face what's going on in my head. I'm not even brave enough to let go of my pride and egocentricity to love Edelsteinn the way he loves me... You know, I left him practically crying today. And I didn't care at all."

Draco was staring at his bare feet on the fine green covers. He didn't know if Ola intended for all this criticism to reflect on him, but he felt it did. And he noticed that his own view on his house was not as glamourous anymore, either. He was sure that there were some good things about being a Slytherin, but for the life of him couldn't name even one. Being cunning and powerful and elegant and pure of decent... It could only sound good on some puffy banal vampire, couldn't it?

"We have Potions in the morning, you can talk to him then," Draco said simply. "Why do you think he loves you more?"

Olafur seemed to have trouble formulating it. He was not, however, fazed or embarrassed by such a question. Draco had already gotten used to being able to directly ask anything that crossed his mind. A very Gryffindor trait of Ola's was his straightforwardness. He was scratching his head with the end of his wand and looking up thoughtfully, as if the answer would be written on the canopy. "Have you ever felt the weight of an entire human being's world hanging on nothing else but your existence?"

Draco shook his head. That kind of attachment did not exist in his life, it was even funny to imagine anyone feeling that way towards him. And he would surely not return such a spineless person's emotions.

"And every time you have a bad mood and you say something rude, you can see that person's world collapsing... But every time you are nice and affectionate, you feel... sort of like God. Do you know about the Christian God?" Ola's wondering gaze returned to Draco. "I don't like Christians and their God. But I've studied the issue extensively; I'd read their writings, they are sometimes very beautiful. Sometimes they make me sick. Anyway, that is sort of how they describe the feeling of God inside of them or whatever... It sounds dirty, but that's how they call it. A divine calm, total acceptance, boundless love - just about everything the hungry human soul craves in its existence. Hence the allure. Well, when Edelsteinn is happy, he looks at me like Christians describe feeling God in them. Like there is nothing more he could possibly want in his life. Like it's perfect. And I wish I could feel that way about another human being, because if you think about it, it's truly a noble soul that can give itself away like that. But I always want more. I want to read more books and learn more spells and make more potions and meet more people and see other places - it never ends. What I can feel for him is so small and insignificant in comparison to what he can... It's wrong for him. Sometimes I wish he'd find someone else to take care of him. Now it's more realistic than ever - there actually are other people around."

Draco was beginning to feel optimistic, for some reason. Ola's relationship had seemed so perfect at first sight, but he was suddenly seeing an incredible amount of flaws. And a loneliness that could not be broken.

"He is like a prison. That's how I feel sometimes. Like I am locked in a prison of guilt, because I know he can't live without me." Ola's restless fingers stealthily appeared by Draco's hand leaning on the bed. A long, pale digit glided over a manicured fingernail and slipped off with a muffled little sound. "I've gotten used to it. Most of the time I don't even mind it. But sometimes, when he starts demanding... that annoying, childish, demanding tone..." Dark eyebrows knitted low over his eyes and his thin mouth twisted up in irritation. The muffled sound became a little louder. It hurt a bit. "It drives me crazy, Draco, I swear I can either slap him or get away. So I leave. And then he gets hurt. And his face gets all crumpled up like a little kid. I don't even know if he has anyone to cry to up there. Do you think he does?"

"They're sappy as all hell in Gryffindor," Draco assured him, gently putting his hand over Ola's fidgeting fingers to make him stop. The rhythmic sound stopped, but the jumpy digits were immediately wriggling under Draco's hand. He pressed down harder to make his point clear, but Ola was cunning, as his green tie implied, and he relaxed enough for Draco to stop pressing, then quickly slid away from under his hand. Draco looked up at him and realized that this was now a game. The ridiculously mischievous grin was the giveaway. Draco had to laugh. Sometimes Ola made him completely sure that he should have been a clown, not a wizard. "What are you doing?"

"Being playful in order to lighten the mood, isn't obvious?" Ola's grin widened proudly. "You know the one and only thing I ever heard about your family before I met you?" he asked suddenly.

"What?" Draco felt almost meek under the taller boy's shamelessly curious look.

"I overheard two witches in Reykjavík talking about attending a dinner party in the Malfoy Manor and one of them said that Mrs. Malfoy got insanely drunk and embarrassed herself in front of everyone."

Draco paled and shrank back furiously. "That can't be! My mother never gets drunk! She's a saint!"

Ola was confused for a moment. It seemed his little anecdote got the wrong reaction. "Umm..." he said. "You know, just gossiping hags," he tried lightening the situation, "half of what they say is lies and the other half isn't exactly true, either, you know how it is..."

"I'd kill that wench!" Draco seethed. "I'll tell my father never to invite Icelanders into our home again. Disgusting!"

"Not even me?" Ola put in. "I can be fun at parties."

Draco peered at him, still angry. "Why the hell did you need to tell me that?"

"Because I think it's funny. Drunken parents are loads of fun." He shrugged apologetically. "When my dad would come home drunk from Reykjavík my mom always made these silly dramatic scenes. I used to just laugh my head off, and she'd just rant and rant about how I'll end up a useless drunk as well, and that northern men are all stupid bums and she should have married some Italian wizard that she'd been involved with when she was young. And I'd just laugh and laugh and laugh, because everyone knows that Italians are pansies."

Draco chuckled. Ola had a way of telling such things in an absent-minded, truthful tone that made all these awful stories sound humorous and light. Draco himself had witnessed very few dramatic scenes in his life. His family was not one to engage in such arguments. They weren't the Weaselys or something, after all. Everything was dealt with in dignity. His mother did not have to like living in an emotional fist, but she had gotten used to it, had obviously given her own sacrifices for the sake of a life that she preferred. If she didn't prefer it, why would she sacrifice for it? She was just that dedicated to her family, and she passed that feeling of duty on to him. He knew that she was not always happy about the way she lived her life, but she was willing to overlook herself, for his sake, and for some kind of general well-being that was more important than herself. She would do anything for his happiness. And he would not settle on doing any less for her, that was why her self sacrifice made him miserable and guilty. She always spent her birthdays alone in the pavilion with a bottle of fine wine and a big bunch of diaries. It drove him crazy. Sometimes, he felt her loneliness so distinctly, so sharply jabbing into him, that he could only lie in bed and cry, waiting for the morning. He smirked to himself. It was, in some melancholic way, funny. It was funny with a tear in the corner of the eye, funny with a sad smile.

"My mother writes diaries," he suddenly said, unfolding himself once more and leaning back on the bed. "Almost every night, before bed. They are all crazily enchanted, no one can read them. I tried once, when I was a kid and had a mood for pranks. It electrified me." He laughed. "My mom had such a laugh at me that day when she saw me crying and buzzing with electricity. And my hair was standing in all directions for like a week afterwards. And every time she saw that, she'd point and laugh, like a little girl. Just made sure my father never saw, because he doesn't appreciate that sort of humour. That, by the way, is why I wouldn't invite you over."

Ola was smiling like a well-fed baby. He could get absolutely high on sappy little stories of that kind. Draco, unfortunately, did not have overly many to tell. Aside from his mother's occasional jokes, the Malfoy household was kept strictly clean from light cheerfulness and displays of emotion. It's no surprise she keeps those diaries, Draco thought to himself, suddenly wondering what the hell she was doing with that man all those years, being snobby and posh when she could be so absolutely charming and lovely as she had been that day with the diary. Why was this worth her sacrifices and her loneliness? Sometimes when she forgot about being a rich aristocrat, she could just glow; like her hair was the sun itself, not just lit up by its rays. And when she smiled her naughty, girlish smile, with the teeth showing and the pale red lipstick stretching on the pretty shape of her lips, she was the most beautiful, beloved thing on the face of Draco's world. That was why he always tried making her as happy as possible on her birthdays, in a vain hope to keep her away from the pavilion. He felt like those lonely hours reading old diaries and drinking alone were the saddest thing in the universe. He did not give her fancy, expensive gifts, like he did to his father. He gave her carefully thought-out, hand made little things that would mean something special to her. And they did. She kept every one of this drawings, trinkets and creations in a special box, also charmed against intruders and unwelcome nosiness. And at that memory, Draco felt that painful stab of loneliness again; the heavy loneliness, saturated with urgency and responsibility, dwarfing him into unimportance in his own life.

Draco became aware of that muffled "humph" again. Ola was playing with his fingernail. "I wish my mother wasn't as lonely," Draco said suddenly, looking at the playful fingers.

"I know. It hurts the most." Ola nodded slowly, not looking up. "And you can't do anything about it." He pushed himself off his mountain of pillows and added his second hand to make an intricate rhythm.

"I keep trying to come up with a way, every year, on her birthday, to make her feel less lonely," Draco confessed. "But she always goes..."

"Where?"

"To the pavilion out in the forest. With a box full of old diaries and a bottle of wine. She comes back in the morning all sad. Her birthday is probably the most miserable day of the year."

"I have a method for that kind of situation." Ola said and hummed a little tune under his breath, watching his drumming fingers. "I call it The Philosphy of Loneliness and Desperation. My basic assumption is that existence is lonely. It is the basic human condition. But when loneliness takes over your life, it starts controlling you and changing you - that's when it becomes a sickness. The Desperation. You're desperate to do anything at all, you erase yourself from your own life, just to end your loneliness. It's an illness, and man can't let himself get there. In a world like this, all you can have are small consolations and solaces to keep you going and warm your heart from time to time, keep you away from the Sickness. A forehead to kiss, a person to hug for no reason, a back to bury your face in or a neck to smell like home. And such little wonders must be appreciated, with love. It's the only currency that real consolations receive, you know. So every time I find a consolation, or a solace, or a saviour from the outside world - I appreciate it."

"How?"

"I told you - a kiss on the forehead. A hug. Or, if it's a book or a tree, just on whatever part suits you. I guess my problem is that I scatter my appreciation all over... Not much left for Edel. But I like this philosophy. I wish I could kiss it."

And before Draco knew it, there was warm breath on his hair and a human being pressed to his forehead, and the fingers were still on the covers next to his. And when he realized what was going on - actually, long before he realized - his heart started beating madly in his chest, so loud that he could hear it and feel it all over. And it was a long time before Ola even started moving away. He was frozen like that, with one hand on the bed and the other on Draco's shoulder. For a while it was just Ola leaning his face on Draco's head and breathing. Draco was sure that his eyes were closed, because his breaths were so relieved, so blissful. Draco's, on the other hand, were short and shallow, and his eyes were hammered open, fixed on the warm colours playing on the tall boy's neck, his strange smell just barely reaching his nose. Olafur smelled of leather and wool, and something warm and pleasant. Draco tried formulating what it was, that other, warm smell.

"You smell like fresh toast and butter," his coarse, low voice burst out of his mouth with a nervous grin. Laughter suddenly vibrated from Ola's neck, and his big Adam's apple bounced up and down before Draco's eyes. It looked like poor Adam had bitten more than he could chew, and it got stuck in his throat. For generations. Draco could feel the wide smile pressed into his forehead, and what he was sure to be a pair of front teeth.

"You smell... like shampoo," Ola smelled the path in his hair very loudly. "Disappointing."

"I am a well-bred aristocrat, don't expect me to smell like sweat and beer," Draco quipped.

"Blonds usually have more interesting smells, that's all," Ola explained sagely. He finally found it fitting to pull away from Draco and resume his previous position, playing with Draco's fingers. Now he had a new game, he'd lift a finger as high as he could, then let it slam back onto the bed. To a new rhythm, he started mumbling a cheerful song in Icelandic, waving his head to and fro as accompaniment. Draco liked the sound of the language. He also enjoyed Olafur's voice. His singing was a lot like his foggy, echoing laughter; it was quiet and vibrated from his chest outward, without any help from his vocal chords, it seemed. And it reminded Draco of how his mother sang to herself sometimes when she was brushing her long hair; quietly, blurrily, distracted in her meditation, singing just to feel the sound moving through the air. It felt so warm to remember all this, to suddenly feel all that love that he'd completely forgotten about in the self-centred business of his life. How could he possibly feel cold and lonely when he could feel such warm love for another human being? When he could find magic in one of the only none-magical things his mother ever did? He decided to write her a letter tomorrow, first thing when he got the time (during Divination, probably). And when he goes back home next weekend, he would hug her and kiss her. He could already imagine that long, blissful, speechless hug: she would be surprised at first, because she was not used to such behaviour from him, but she would quickly give in to his embrace and he would feel her smile against his cheek. And there would be no sadness in her eyes for that whole day, and he would feel the knife slide out of his heart. And if he saw her sad the next day, he'd hug her again. It really was, it truly was a solution!

"I like your philosophy," Draco whispered in key with Ola's song. "Can I express my appreciation?" Ola simply nodded, without even disrupting the melody; he was not a complicated person, or, at least, he tried not to be. He was not shy, either, and Draco wished he could be that way. He wished he could do more than just laconically place his mouth on the forehead posed before him.

Suddenly he imagined he could feel the glares of all their roommates boring through the thick curtains, seeing him like that, gently kissing Ola's forehead, his eyebrows, innocent and childlike, arching over his closed eyes. He shuddered and jerked away quickly.

"You'd like to kiss me lower, wouldn't you?" He was pulled out of his reverie by Ola's voice, and the brow that was just recently under his lips creased upwards. Draco didn't know how to answer that question, especially since it caught him off guard. He wasn't exactly sure, to be honest. The first reaction that crossed his mind was an enthusiastic, "Yes!", because Ola's being a guy did not bother him, did not embarrass him - there was just a person there, driving away his Sickness; a very beautiful, close, consoling person. But Ola had a loved-one already. And it was not Draco's business that Edelsteinn was all wrong for him, that he did not deserve someone as noble and rare. Edelsteinn had just been there first, and he probably did love Ola more than Draco would ever be able to love anyone, according to Ola's own description. And what would be for him the mere fulfillment of an impulse, could well ruin a lifetime's love.

"But Edelsteinn..." he started weakly, but Olafur's face was already closing in, his eyes in shadows, and Draco could not make himself relax. He was stiff as a corpse against Ola's flexible warm mouth. His eyes stared blindly forward, but all he could see was streams in autumn forests, and blinding sunlight when you're happy, that makes your eyes teary and your smile wide and silly. It felt like something exploded in his head and he was bare and vulnerable and alone. There was that warm smell of home, and hot lips moving over his very softly, just barely touching. Ola was having fun, nothing more; Draco could see it. His eyes were closed and he had a sort of dreamy smile plastered on his satisfied face as he dived in and out of his kiss with a strange, childish rhythm. Draco cooperated weakly; he just couldn't close his eyes, couldn't drown in this. He wanted Ola to open his eyes as well, to see their colour up close. He wanted to see the soul that he had grown to adore over the last week. (Had it really be just a week?) And at his own leisurely pace, Ola did open his eyes, just a little. They were tilted sideways, along with his whole head, but Draco immediately relaxed and felt his limbs melting under the gaze in the lazily blinking slits. They were blue as ice during a snowstorm, as the sea in the winter - a dark and intricate colour. As Draco studied their shapes and curves, he noticed only in the corner of his vision the hand climbing towards his face. It covered his view, landed softly on his eyelids, and caressed them shut.

XXXXX

Draco lay in his bed and tried to sleep. He had to force himself away from Olafur's fourposter, especially since the socially dense boy was carelessly inviting him to stay the night and talk some more. Draco shook his head to himself, for Ola's apathy, for his own wild wish to stay. It was wrong, what they'd done. It was wrong to Edelsteinn and wrong to Draco himself. The only person not losing from it was Ola, and it figured, since he scarcely cared about such earthly nonsense. His "appreciation" was far from being the love that most people feel. It was a selfish emotion from its very definition.

Draco threw himself on his side and hugged his second pillow, resting his cheek on it. He tried to avoid comparing kissing Olafur to kissing any of the many random girls he'd kissed in his life; it kept jabbing into his consciousness the embarrassing fact that he'd just been throughly snogged by a boy. And worse yet, he was the one being bashful and sheepish - in short - a girl. Draco was not used to lose control like that, let alone be controlled by someone else. Someone he'd known for a week. Someone he would probably not be able to resist in the future. Someone who was male, and, to top it all off, already had a boyfriend.

Draco was also confused about feeling bad. He wondered why that pathetic, jumpy excuse for an aristocrat, Edelsteinn, triggered such a feeling of personal responsibility and guilt in him. If he wanted to be sensible about this, Edelsteinn did not deserve so much as Ola's pinky, while Draco and Ola could make a glorious couple -

What the hell am I thinking! Draco was ready to hit himself on the head from the shock, but all he did was slump a sleepy limb onto his temple and scratch.

Instead, he started planning what he would write in his letter to his mother the next day.

'Dear mother,

I'd like to be able to call you "mum"...'

Draco snickered to himself in the darkness.

'I'd like to make jokes, and laugh at them. And maybe you could call me a useless bum and lecture to me, and say that I'd end up a drunk just like my father. That would be funny, don't you think? I know, all this sounds like I've lost my mind, and this is sort of a private joke, but I will tell you, so you can understand. I miss funny things. Remember that time I tried snooping in your diaries...'