Breaking things.

[Rue Undersee]

Rue's newly dyed hair ruffled as she tidied up her desk and picked up her wand. She smiled contently as she placed her work on the Professor's desk, certain she had done well, and turned around to leave. School was looking better now, and Rue seemed a different person now she had returned. She was bigger, and had confidence in herself. Two girls in her year had already taken an interest in her. They obviously didn't remember who she was. Rue stopped in her tracks and spun around to make sure she hadn't left anything. Her bag flung around with her and knocked a glass jar off the shelf. It smashed into a million tiny shards. Rue gasped, running her hand through her hair and edging around the glass pile. Why d'ya have to be so clumsy? Rue thought angrily, and took out her wand. Opening her mouth, Rue realized something very important. She didn't know many spells and there was no way she could just work it out.

Rue groaned, falling onto a chair and burying her head in her hands. And she had thought the day was going well. Good things never lasted. It was her life summed up. She stood up, determined not to let this get her down, and made her way to the door. She'd just have to find someone who did know the spell and tell them what had happened. Her heart pounded, her face looking red and flustered. As she reached the door, she crashed into someone. 'Oh god, I'm really sorry I wasn't looking where I was going,' Rue blurted apologetically, looking the boy up and down. Then her expression changed. 'Hi', Rue beamed, gazing up at him. She wasn't going to be shy any more. She wouldn't get anywhere like that.

 

[Zdravko Olaf]

Zdravko was late for his lesson. Very late. He had found himself spending a good part of the hour slapping the portraits as he tried to find any new secret passages that he had not yet mapped out. He had wound up the portrait of an old man reading a book. The days at Durmstrang were growing uneventful for Zdravko, and he found himself quickly growing bored with it all. It was only ten minutes before the lesson had ended, that Zdravko remembered where he was supposed to be, and had began speeding through every corridor in the hope of finding the room in time. He never remembered where he was supposed to be- he got far too distracted.

Finally, he found the place. Zdravko made to dive through the door, but as he did so, he collided with someone else. A small, female student. She began apologising to him. It was a moment before Zdravko convinced himself to stop wobbling all over the place and focussed on the girl he had almost killed with his gangly limbs. His face stretched into a very strange, but friendly, smile. "Hi," he echoed back. For a moment, he just stood there, looking at her. Zdravko had never really noticed girls until the previous year. Yes, he had once had a long-distance girlfriend, but that had just been a laugh, a test-run. Not that I need a girlfriend, he quickly assured himself, tearing his eyes from the girl and glancing over her head at several shining pieces of something on the floor. "Ooh," Zdravko said, finally breaking the somewhat awkward silence, "are we breaking things?" He eagerly slid past the girl and into the room to closer inspect the bits of broken something.

 

[Rue Undersee]

Rue blushed as the boy spoke, glancing in the direction of the shattered glass. She gave a tiny shrug, 'It was an accident, d'ya think you could help me? I don't know any spells...' Rue trailed off, looking at her feet and blushing. She held her hands in front of her and shyed away. She didn't enjoy meeting new people, ever. It was always so awkward. And Rue felt like kicking herself every time she went back to being shy, when really she wanted to speak to this boy. She cleared her throat a little, her eyes tearing up. She rubbed at them furiously. There was no need to be embarassed, it was just a broken jar. And obviously she wouldn't know many spells, she had just come back to school.

Reasurring herself this, Rue bravely glanced in the boy's direction. He seemed to be inspecting the glass. Rue giggled, brushing her hair behind her ears and stretching her arms downwards. 'I turned around and my bag knocked it off the shelf!' She pulled a face, looking back at the shards. 'I hope it was nothing important, I've never really been in trouble before,' Rue smiled at herself. In fact, the only time she had been in trouble was when she had snapped somebody's wand by accident, simply by holding it. She looked up at the boy, studying his face, how he was acting. She stared a little too long, making sure she would remember exactly how he looked. Then she remembered something. 'What's your name?' She asked quietly, making sure to look at him when she spoke. It was something her Mother had taught her to do, yet she rarely did it. But the boy did not feel like a threat to Rue, instead, a possible friend.

 

[Zdravko Olaf]

Zdravko took out his own wand, tapping it against the broken shards. He muttered something and the pieces began to fly back together. "This is probably one of the spells I am best at," he assured the girl as the object mended, revealing itself to be a glass, "the other spell I'm quite good at," Zdravko began, placing the jar back on the shelf and casting a glance in the direction of a lonely glass chess piece, "is this." He aimed his wand casually towards the chess piece, giving it a short, sharp flick. The chess piece- a queen, exploded into many tiny pieces, scattered over the floor. Zdravko turned to the girl and smiled, finally answering her question, "Zdravko Olaf, though you may know me better as 'that-Olaf-boy-who-keeps-blowing-things-up'. Do you have a name?"

Zdravko perched on one of the desks, grinning like an idiot. He was enjoying showing off to this girl. How she felt about it, he didn't know. His eyes were practically flooded with interest and excitement. Maybe he could make a new friend? Maybe he could find someone who would join him in his reign of destruction. Well, it wasn't so much a 'reign', not when he kept getting stopped by the professors and given detention. Still, he was, in his own way, a decent student, generally completing work on time and showing first years around the school. Zdravko was not a wholly unpleasant young wizard, just a bit of a pain in the backside.

 

[Rue Undersee]

Rue chuckled to herself as she watched Zdravko mess around. It wasn't often that anybody would take an interest in Rue, let alone talk to her. 'Rue Undersee,' she replied to his question. 'I've just come back to school so everything is quite new,' she smiled and let her hair fall over her cheeks and gently onto her shoulders. She hopped up onto the desk next to Zdravko, though kept her distance. She swung her legs back and forth, leaning back and putting her hands behind her to keep herself up. She looked at Zdravko. Was he showing off? Rue giggled bashfully. People didn't have to try and impress Rue, they just had to be themselves. She kept an open mind about people's personalities. Sure, she couldn't quite understand why somebody would want to be a bully, but she didn't mind how crazy they were, or how they looked, because it was uniqueness that counts. Rue herself felt she was rather unique, not necessarily in a good way, but hoped people could accept her for how she was.

She rubbed at the table with her finger where somebody had doodled something rude, and got her own quill out, and doodled hearts over the desk. This was a school of magic, if they wanted to get rid of it, she was sure they could somehow. She smiled at her creation. She enjoyed drawing, but never had the confidence to show anybody her sketches. Her sketchbook was well hidden under her pillow in the dormitory, and she was sure no other girls would go looking for it there, if they even knew it existed. Rue knew how to keep things hidden. Zdravko seemed like a nice guy, if a little crazy, but he made Rue laugh, which was important to her. Why have boring friends when you could have interesting, fun friends instead? Another thing Rue couldn't understand. 'So,' she started, shuffling on the table to face Zdravko a little more, 'What were you coming in here for? I take it you don't have x-ray vision or something.' Rue smiled uncertainly. Could wizards have x-ray vision? Surely not. But if he had told her he had, she may have believed it. 'Am I making you late for something?' Rue's face changed, her eyes anxious.

 

[Zdravko Olaf]

Rue, Zdravko mentally repeated, listening to the girl explaining how new things were to her. He didn't question why she had been away. Maybe, someday, he would ask her. For now, that was her personal business. Zdravko watched as Rue began to doodle on the desk. Hearts. Perhaps he should boast of his many detentions he had received? Would that impress her? Just then, Zdravko grabbed hold of his thoughts and gave them a good, hard stare. What did he care what she thought of him? What did he care if he bored her to tears? He didn't know her. Why should he be trying to impress her? But, deep down, Zdravko knew exactly why, and there was no denying it; he was a young, single wizard, and she was a young pretty witch. His elder brothers had all found themselves in his situation, many years before. Yakov was engaged, Dom was still pining after some girl, Gavrail was charming every witch he met, and Petar.. Nobody really knew what was going on in his life, and Zdravko could understand why he would not wish to make contact, what with their father being so controlling in his old age.

Zdravko raised an eyebrow, "no," he said, "I don't.. Well, I don't think so." He smiled before she managed to add one of the most hilarious questions Zdravko had ever heard. "Me? Late?" He through his head back and let out a loud 'hah'. He was late for a lot of things in his life. He was so late for his lesson, that he was now sat in the classroom with a girl who probably was in his class, breaking things and chatting her up. No! he scolded himself, not chatting her up.. You don't think of her in that way. You don't know her. You don't even know how to talk to her. Zdravko fell silent for a moment or two, internally battling over the concept. But he was, just, seventeen- an adult in the wizarding world. Why not start talking to girls? Why not start showing off what he knew? He looked up to her eyes. "You're quite pretty," he said boldly, "you have nice cheeks." Zdravko well and truly was the amateur at work.

 

[Rue Undersee]

Rue's shoulders relaxed. He wasn't going to be late for anything, and if he was, he wasn't letting on. It was a blatant lie, his eyes showed it, but she wasn't going to argue. It wasn't worth it. Suddenly Zdravko said something which quite literally made Rue gasp, and then beam in delight. I'm pretty? She wasn't entirely sure this was true, but he seemed to think so. 'Thank you', she replied bashfully, a smile which nothing could remove plastered over her face. He likes me, It started to settle in. He LIKES me! Rue's grin widened as she glanced at Zdravko. Resisting from feeling her cheeks, Rue kept her hands firmly on the table. 'And you're rather handsome', Rue's grin became a smirk as she decided what to say next, 'You have a nice nose', Rue looked away, trying to hold back the giggles. The truth was, he was rather handsome. Extremely, in fact, and it was hard for Rue not to stare, or start thinking of fantasies about them in the future, married and with children. Rue shook her head without realizing it. She was being pathetic. Of course he didn't like her, he was simply being polite. Her brother had told her she was pretty. So had her Mother. This was no different.

The grin had faded from Rue's face, but her eyes still shone in thought. She may not have believed he could like her, but there was still a tiny glimmer of hope that stopped her from sighing and walking away. The boy could have ignored her, or worse, bullied her. But he hadn't, which obviously meant something. Maybe they'd come to be good friends, and nothing more. The thought was less appealing, but it was better than nothing for sure. Rue felt no need to say anything else. She'd wait for his reaction. Suddenly, she realized that she wasn't holding back quite so much. She knew the spell he'd used to break the chess piece, and, aiming her wand carefully at a vase on the windowsil, which contained a small, dying rose, she muttered the spell under her breath and watched the vase splinter into millions of pieces. Then, she bought the rose to herself, and gave it to Zdravko proudly. She felt about 5 years old.