Chapter 14

Words and Words

Friends.

If you think about the word, it's not so hard to find a definition for it. But knowing who your friends are, that is a little harder. Do you call a classmate a friend? Is a colleague your friend? And who is your best friend then? Can you have only one? Or a few? Why are they best and others aren't?

Or maybe, best friends are real friends. But what makes that your other friends? Fake friends?

This one thing the raven knew: Draco Malfoy was not his friend. How did he know it? Well, partly because friends should be equals. Clearly, Draco did not think they were equal. Not in age, intelligence, status, height… But most importantly: this felt very different to Harry than when he was with Hermione or Ron.

Harry felt comfortable with his two school friends. They laughed, joked, quarrelled and helped each other out. But with Malfoy it was always a struggle, a fight underneath the surface. And rejection and snide comments were pretty much the only jokes made. For a while, Harry really hadn't understood how in the world he had ended up there with the 'snaky bastard'.

Until they'd come back to the one topic they'd been able to have a normal conversation about.

"Did you finish your essay?" Harry ventured, sitting down on the carpet in Draco's room. (He wasn't allowed to sit on the bed, or anywhere at the same height.)

"I'd told you to do it for me, remember?" Draco accused.

"I said I wouldn't do it." Harry inflated his chest, but then gave up. It wasn't even visible. Dudley's sweater hung around his body like a potato sack.

"Probably better anyway." Draco shrugged. "You would've botched it."

Harry's eyes flashed, his tongue moved, and the same sounds from before rolled off it. Syllables arranged themselves in a different order and words were formed. They were instantly stored in his head.

Draco looked up. He'd been playing with a toy sword, swirling it around in his hands. His eyes looked only mildly interested, but behind them, he was fiercely scrutinizing his younger schoolmate. He knew three languages, and he'd always been proud of the power it gave him. But no one had ever used his own weapon against him.

Moreover, Draco could not learn the language Harry was speaking. The only way he could, was if he was being taught by Harry himself.

For Draco Malfoy, it was a truly disturbing and fascinating fact. And he had to admit, he'd never been able to invent a language. He was being beaten by a seven-year old!

If it had only been a few words of jumbled English, Draco would not have been impressed. Every kid invented a few weird words from time to time. But he knew, without having been told, without having heard more than a few words, he knew this was different. Because the dark-haired boy's eyes were so expressive and flaming wild when he uttered the sounds, and that made him understand, almost feel the meaning as it reached his ears. It was more complicated than a child's secret language. It had new phonetics; it had a structure, grammar… It was a real, entirely new language; born instantaneously from the mind of someone who wasn't even born yet when he was already attending kindergarten.

Harry himself didn't know what he was doing. Most children, even many adults wouldn't understand how impressive this feat was. Ron would wave it off and complain the language didn't have any swear words. Hermione would actually be impressed, but she'd wonder what use it could possibly be.

No, not many would understand. But Draco did. Draco could.

"Say that again?" Grey-eyes demanded sharply, but not accusingly. He wanted to test it, to be sure that the same sentence, with the same feeling and meaning behind it would sound exactly the same.

Harry said it again, diverting his eyes. The words he'd never spoken or even thought of before had welled up in his anger at being belittled. The wave had gone quickly, and it didn't make sense to say it again.

"What did you say?" Draco couldn't help himself, no matter how proud he was. He had to ask, to make sure it fit what he thought the sentence meant. "I mean, in English?"

It was surprisingly difficult for Harry to answer that. He had not thought something in English and then translated every word. He had immediately expressed his emotions. He wasn't sure what the best match would be in English.

He pondered it for a moment. "It means: I … feel" Harry instinctively used his hands to try and explain more clearly "that you are too … hard, or rather strong. But it's a stronger word than that, and it combines the two. More like… over-bearing, authoritative."

"Urgh, you sound like Granger." Draco complained loudly. It was typical of the Granger girl to show off her vocabulary skills when Draco encountered Harry's group at school.

Suddenly, grey-eyes wondered if Harry had spoken his strange language in front of his own friends. He wasn't sure why, but he didn't like that idea.

"You asked me to tell you!" Harry fired back, hurt that he'd honestly told him his feelings, opened his own expression form to him, and Draco had replied with an insult to himself and his friends.

"I didn't ask you to speak like an old woman."

Old woman? Harry thought. That didn't even make sense. Mrs. Figg was an old woman. Harry didn't think he sounded like her. Old women didn't use words like that. His parents had taught him how to learn words from books. It didn't have anything to do with old women. It was even too ridiculous to respond to.

"How would it sound in French and Russian?" Harry asked. He was much more curious about that.

Draco very much wanted to say 'what do you care?', but… it was clear the younger one was fascinated by his knowledge of foreign languages. Green-eyes couldn't hide his wonder as grey-eyes did. And well, Draco liked it. Of course he liked the attention.

Exaggerating on showing how reluctant he was about it, and how he thought it was much too simple for him to even waste his time on it, he resolved to give Harry what he wanted.

"In French you could say: 'je trouve que tu es trop autoritaire' or 'je pense que tu es trop dominant'." As Draco translated and repeated the words Harry had said about him, he was forced to see how the younger one thought of him. It was strange. Almost as if he were admitting it. He didn't like that. "In Russian" he went on, "technically it would be: 'ya dumayu chto ti shlishkom komandyushii', though I'd rather go with 'ya dumayu chto ti slishkom nagli'."

Draco reeled at the idea that Harry had called him dominant. He'd known it before, he'd felt the rebellious intentions from Harry's expressive language. What he'd thought he'd understood fit the translation. And still he didn't like someone calling him that. And Harry had gotten him to call himself that, kind of.

Harry reeled because of the sound. French had a funny accent, and it sounded a little stuck-up, but it felt less alien than Russian. The Russian phrase Draco had given had been something else entirely. Harry had no clue how he had to even pronounce it. How would his lips and tongue move? He wondered, he was fascinated, but he didn't dare try. He imprinted all of it in his mind, like he did with his own language, and decided he would try it when he was alone again; for Draco would certainly laugh if he heard him stumble over the many, many consonants.

"Do you have books in Russian?" Harry asked eagerly, wanting to dig further into it. He cracked his skull trying to remember that author from the book his father had been reading. The very last book James had held in his hands. Tolstoy! "Like Tolstoy?" The raven added.

"Of course." Draco drawled, as if it was only natural that every ten-year old should have Russian classics, in Russian, in his room. He got up and threw his closet open. Some clothes and toys tumbled out, but he didn't bother picking them up. After some rummaging, he came back out of the deep abyss and threw something at the boy sitting on the carpet by the window.

This time, unlike at Christmas, Harry caught the book. He was starting to think this was how Draco generally treated the precious writings. It was how he treated many things, including his friends.

Oh.

Oh Oh Ooh! This was something entirely else! Where the French book had had a hidden meaning, in this one, everything seemed hidden. The symbols were completely unfamiliar; page after page, after page of undecipherable secrecy, and extreme beauty to the eye. More than ever before, the raven had the feeling that he could absorb the words, the meaning, the feelings, that imaginary world right through the paper.

His fingers touched the ink, and his lips moved automatically, even though he wasn't able to read anything.

Когда, возвращаясь со скачек, Анна объявила ему о своих отношениях к Вронскому и тотчас же вслед за этим, закрыв лицо руками, заплакала, Алексей Александрович, несмотря на вызванную в нем злобу к ней, почувствовал в то же время прилив того душевного расстройства, которое на него всегда производили слезы. Зная это и зная, что выражение в эту минуту его чувств было бы несоответственно положению, он старался удержать в себе всякое проявление жизни и потому не шевелился и не смотрел на нее. От этого-то и происходило то странное выражение мертвенности на его лице, которое так поразило Анну.

Когда они подъехали к дому, он высадил ее из кареты и, сделав усилие над собой, с привычною учтивостью простился с ней и произнес те слова, которые ни к чему не обязывали его; он сказал, что завтра сообщит ей свое решение.

The raven could simply not stop staring. He scrutinized every letter. Some looked just the same as the Roman alphabet, and some looked the same, but in reverse. He wasn't sure if they stood for the same sounds though. It felt like they were taunting him, by looking familiar, but still being out of reach.

Something caught his attention after a long analysis. In the first sentence of the first paragraph was a word that triggered his memory and his sense of language: 'Анна'. He remembered… one of Tolstoy's famous titles… Anna… Anna Karenina. They hadn't gotten to it in class, but Harry had skimmed through their textbook and looked up the authors he was interested in. Of course, he'd looked for the one his father had been fond of, the one he'd proposed him to read.

Harry flipped the book closed to look at the cover. There, the same name followed by something he was certain was the surname: Анна Каренина. And underneath: Лев Толстой. Now he knew what the cover said, he had a few symbols he could read. It was a start.

All the while, grey-eyes was watching prudently. It very much looked like his schoolmate was excited, fascinated, and was even starting to make sense of the symbols. But that couldn't be! Draco had always had the advantage, even over his own parents, to be able to read and speak Russian. He didn't want anyone else to take that away from him; and certainly not the little brat who had already wormed his way into Miss Snape's class, his personal teacher.

Jealousy was bubbling up in Draco's stomach. He had never really felt anything like it. He had never had anything to be jealous about. But it simply wasn't fair that Harry was challenging his superior position! Why could he simply look at his book for a while and already start learning Russian on his own, completely forgetting the one he had admired just a few moments before.

No. The answer was simple, Draco told himself. Harry was simply looking at the symbols. He could not have a clue which book it was. Draco hadn't actually said it was Tolstoy, so he might not even be aware of the author. How could Harry even know Tolstoy? He hadn't been taught personally by Miss Snape.

Draco's hope was quickly shattered by Harry's next question.

"This is Anna Karenina, isn't it?" Harry looked up innocently, unaware of any negative feelings towards him. He'd been too absorbed in the book.

He looks ridiculous with those round glasses! Draco thought meanly to himself before he huffed "Of course." And snatched the book away again, giving Harry a paper cut.

The raven winced and quickly put his finger in his mouth.

"Don't lick your fingers. It's dirty." Draco said condescendingly.

"What do you care, it's not your mouth." Harry retorted, sounding strange because he was still sucking on his index finger.

"It's my dirt."

Here we go again. Harry rolled his eyes. "And that's something to be proud of?"

Draco did not have anything to say to that. He felt himself flush a little with all the emotions he was feeling, plus the embarrassment of Harry's quick retort. He didn't want to show any of it, so he left his room with an excuse of going to drink. He was actually thirsty.

The raven was suddenly alone in someone else's room. He missed the book in his hands, the one Draco had taken away. He looked around, but strangely he couldn't find it. What had the blonde done with it? Had he taken it with him to the kitchen?

The raven frowned. He wanted to look more at the book. He'd managed to guess the pronunciation of a few characters, and he felt like he was about to set on a treasure hunt, deciphering the hidden code that would lead him to it. The treasure wasn't money though; the real treasure was the story. Harry wondered; who was this Anna Karenina? Why did Tolstoy think the character so important that he would use her name as title for his work? One name, with pages and pages behind it. What if Harry could find a way to read it?

Something much like an explosion took place in Harry's mind. A delicious feeling of excitement flowed through him. He was imagining himself able to read the entire book, able to speak like Draco had. Draco was so lucky!

With no book to keep him busy, the raven looked around for another source of entertainment while he was alone in the room. He knew Draco would be less than pleased if he touched anything, and worse if he moved anything. He simply looked. His eyes fell on the objects that had fallen out of the somewhat messy closet. They were very similar to what Dudley owned. Harry was kind of curious about those game consoles. He'd never played video games; and neither had Ron or Hermione.

It wasn't all the same as Dudley though. First, the clothes and costumes were much smaller. Second, there certainly weren't any books in Dudley's closet. Harry couldn't see if Draco had other books still in the closet, but there was one lying on the floor. It had fallen out too.

On closer inspection, the raven found it wasn't really a book. It was a notebook.

Curiosity flared up again. Harry glanced back to the door. He heard no sound on the stairs or in the hallway. Draco was still in the kitchen. The raven bent back over the notebook and tenderly picked it up from the floor. The cover was blank, so Harry opened it.

Green-eyes was taken aback. The first page was unusual. It was entirely crossed out. On each line there had been one word, and almost all had been scribbled over until they were no longer readable. Only four words remained: Slytherin, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw.

Harry frowned and squinted. He had never heard those words in his life. They didn't look French though, and they certainly weren't Russian. What were they?

He flipped the page. The second one had a big title: Hogwarts.

"Hey! What are you doing nosing around in my things!"

The raven started and dropped the notebook. It clattered to the floor with a matted sound.


Thank you's for the continuing support ^^

I will answer potterbuncker's questions her too:

Why Severa in stead of Severus?

Again, there is no real reason, other than the fact that in my primary school, there were basically only female teachers, it influenced my idea of primary school. And I thought 'why not?'. It's a fanfiction. As long as we respect the original work, we can try out new things, can't we?

Why is Lucius in Jail?

The reason is mentioned in chapter 8, the one about Narcissa. When on the phone with him she says "Why didn't you think of that before you murdered a woman."

Hope you all keep enjoying the story. I am looking forward to your ideas about this chapter :D