It took him almost three months at Hogwarts to actually start talking to Harry Potter, and even then it was just because Harry was carrying too many books.
Cael learned that much, as he came out of Charms class into the corridor at precisely the same moment Harry was coming out of Transfiguration on the other side: that there hadn’t, as he had suspected there would be, been any kind of avoidance of Harry Potter, nor any attempt at starting a conversation.
It seemed that they, despite having shared the same dorm, having eaten meals next to each other, despite having played five rounds of Exploding Snap together, still hadn’t managed to find themselves in the situation in which two boys their age normally find themselves within a week or so.
Cael thought that both of them had been waiting for slightly different reasons.
Harry, simply because Harry knew that interesting boys at Hogwarts sometimes tried to kill him, and Cael himself, because he didn’t want to force himself upon a friendship that had already formed its patterns over the last two years.
That opening finally came in the form of Transfiguration textbooks.
Harry had at least four of them.
McGonagall had told him, when they came out of class, to return them to the library, and Harry had said *yes, professor* in such a voice that it was quite clear he had had a difficult day.
The stack of books he was holding was quite top-heavy.
As Cael came along he saw the book sitting at the very top of that stack making a cautious gesture of consideration, and, without thinking too much about it, reached out with his hand and pressed it back into place with a single finger.
“Thanks,” Harry responded, “they got you on cleanup duty?” “McGonagall tells me that I’ve been keeping them for a fortnight,” said Cael.
“I have, but I don’t really see why she had to mention that.” “Library, right?” “Library.” “I’ll walk with you.” They started moving.
Cael hadn’t intended on going to the library, as a matter of fact, and had wanted to head for the kitchens in search of some bread, but decided that the library could become a new point of destination.
His movements matched Harry’s.
The other boy, after a few steps in silence, looked at him cautiously and asked, “How’s Charms.” “Reversed Levicorpus.” “That’s sixth-year.” “I know.
Flitwick just wanted to see what would happen if I tried.” “Alright,” said Harry thoughtfully, “and what happened.” “Well, it pinned my quill flat to the floor, through the desk into the floor, in fact.” Harry burst out laughing.
Cael found it satisfying that it was a laugh clearly caused by surprise and that showed clearly how the boy hadn’t expected such entertainment during the day.
“Flitwick had to pry it off with a chisel.” “He had three of those, in fact.
Apparently, Flitwick has a whole toolkit in his bottom desk drawer.
He seemed proud of that.” “Of course he does.
Of course also he does.” At the point they arrived at a staircase leading up to the library landing.
The staircase, however, having come to a pause after it was burdened with their combined weight, decided to lead them to a different floor.
The staircase moved upwards.
Cael, who’d been forced to resign from the moving staircases within a week of his coming, simply followed it, deciding to accept or circumvent them in each particular case.
“Cael,” Harry said, after the staircase stopped moving, “Yeah?” “Can I ask you about your magic?” “Yes, you can.” “What do you do when something goes wrong?” “Define wrong.” “When it does the opposite of what you wanted.” “That’s the usual scenario for me.
That isn’t going wrong.
That’s working normally.” Harry, who had apparently been paying close attention to Cael as they walked, frowned thoughtfully.
“I see.
Alright, so what’s going wrong, then?” “Well, if something doesn’t invert the process of casting the spell cleanly, if the calibration is wrong and messes everything up, so I can’t predict what it’ll do.
Then it goes wrong.
And what I do is…
I note what happens, figure out why that happened, and change the variable.” “That’s it.” “That’s it.” “You don’t…
panic.” “Certainly I should.
Haven’t figured myself out in that respect yet.
I think that it works this way — I panic over anything that happened the week before on Tuesdays.” “So that’s your method for getting to know yourself.” “I’m working on it.” The library was warm.
They returned the books.
Madam Pince, seated at her desk, stared daggers at Harry with the precise expression of *two weeks late*, but the boy shrugged them off and apologized politely and *very well, I understand, Madam Pince* in his special manner.
She let him go.
They left the library.
“You’ve got Quidditch training in twenty minutes,” said Cael.
“How do you know?” “You’ve got that look.
You keep glancing out the window and tracking the sun.” “All right, all right,” said Harry, shaking his head amusedly, “walk me down to the pitch?” “Sure.” They walked.
The talk gradually shifted from random subjects towards Quidditch.
Then, Cael realized with surprise, the topic actually became a conversation the other boy was interested in.
It wasn’t strategical, of course, it was about brooms, differences between Cleansweeps and Nimbuses, failure of the Twigger to enter the market, small pleasures of tail-knot engineering of a broomstick.
Cael listened attentively, although he didn’t have any personal opinions regarding brooms himself.
However, being familiar with car and bicycle talks in his old life, Cael was able to treat brooms just like any vehicles and to ask necessary questions.
At the pitch entrance, Harry suddenly stopped.
“Cael.” “Yeah?” “This talk we had…
Thanks for walking me down here.” “It’s nothing.” “No, actually.
You just talked to me normally, about my magic, I mean.
People usually either ask some basic questions and then run off, or just become sort of *worshipful*.
You aren’t doing either.” “Yes.” Harry looked at him thoughtfully.
“That’s a strange quality in you.” “You’re a normal person.” “Yeah.” Harry paused looking at him in the way Hermione had done earlier, that was the expression showing that Cael was one of those who would be in the same room with them for the foreseeable future.
“See you at dinner.” “See you.” Harry entered the pitch.
Cael stood watching the silhouette of the dark figure running onto the field and joining its easy flow.
The boy turned and walked back to the castle.
Back at the dormitory he put down on the new page of the notebook that he’d been keeping, under the heading “people I plan to talk to again”, three names: *Granger, H.
Longbottom, N.
Potter, H.* Originally he had planned to write “will speak again” after Hermione’s name, but he decided that “plan to” was probably a better choice, especially in regards to Harry Potter.
He went to dinner.
The plan was working.
You can find 40 pre-release chapters over on the site that must not be named, for only $3!