A Genius' Guide To Freeloading

Few days passed, food supplies ran low, and moral ran lower.

Living in a card transfiguration was better than using alchemy to live in a card - better yet, maybe actually living in an actual house would be better than whatever shit-hole Aristide was stuck with, but no, he always had to have a leg up higher when it came to tricky situations so here he was living in a magical fucking shed, eating cold and soggy canned soup and beans and cursing his genius mind.

Except the shed back at the manor was actually a bit more than five times bigger than the one he currently resided in.

Except he was not a genius: a genius does not live in a fucking card.

From manor to quite possibly horse manure - if fate truly existed then what had Aristide done in his past life to deserve this.

The high life! He danced and drank and fell in love and fell out of love and it was beautiful and he was surrounded by the beautiful and now...

"Now I sit and ponder and stink and would really love a glass of champagne right now thank-you-very-much so if there is a God out there and he - or she - is listening then PLEASE GIVE ME SOME FUCKING CHAMPAGNE!"

A murder of crows emerged from a nearby tree gratingly cawing like there were no other residents in the depressingly optimistic greenery.

Aristide lobbed a nearby stick their way.

He was fine, he was totally fine, all he wanted some peace and quiet and a nice warm fire nearby to curl up to because England really should tel a little sun in. What was the point of Global Warming if it was still cold in March.

"Hey, what the fuck!" A scrawny boy rubbed the crown of his scalp and glared at the only other human being in the wilderness. In his other hand was a familiar muddy object. "Yours?"

The blond glanced at the stick then at the raised eyebrows, "Nope, never seen it in my life, what is it?" He rolled his eyes and held his hand out. Harry too rolled his eyes and threw a greasy paper bag at the blond head rather than the pale (and dirty) outstretched palm like an idiot. Harry sure as well better have had bad aim or he had another thing coming at him. "You got a tissue? Like hell I would touch that with my bare hands," called Aristide as he pinched the bag between his fingers by the folded tip.

Red converse shoes sank within the sludgy floor with silly squelching sounds. He laid a plaid picnic blanket down and plopped his own self down, crossed legs and leaning on his elbows. "What are you doing shouting like a twat in a place where absolutely nobody would hear you?"

Unfolding the bag, blue fingers touched the warm bagel, cradling the heat radiating off. There was something so ethereal in eating something warm while your whole body is frozen. The trail from mouth through oesophagus into the stomach being lit up by a tea light candle... A sacred path to savour and to enjoy.

Aristide did have pyro cards but She always said he was a bit of a pyromaniac and he quite frankly did not want to take part in any arsonist activities any time soon. He would save them just in case.

"You heard me," Aristide spoke between bites.

"Whatever, I mean, I could scream at the top of my lungs and ten quid says absolutely nobody will hear me," Harry said. "At all," he added at the raise of a pale eyebrow.

Shifting so he was leaning on his arms, Aristide moved just enough so he could see the glint in Harry's brown eyes. "A mere ten pounds?" Aristide challenged, "You do not sound very sure of yourself."

"Oh yeah? Fine, let's up it to, hmmm, I dunno..." pondered Harry as he heaved himself upwards, cracking his knees and throwing his arms outwards. He took the time to slowly spin a whole three-hundred and sixty degrees before the right corner of his lips lifted. " Let's say thirty?" He held his arm out to Aristide who smirked in reply.

Grabbing the other's arm, he allowed himself to be hauled upright, "Alright then, you have a deal. Go on and wow me, Harry."

The middle of the clearing shone a pale light down onto Harry after he jogged into the middle and pounded onto his chest twice. He threw that hand up as if he was Zeus calling lighting down and inhaled with the lungs of an opera singer, "HELLO! ANYBODY OUT THERE? YOO HOO! C'MOUT C'MOUT WHEREVER YOU-AH!" 

It was almost hyperbolic how Harry leapt five-fucking-feet into the air with the absolute grace of a spider monkey doped on heroin - oddly sprawled but still landing on two feet.

Doubling over, blond hair covered his eyes as Aristide cackled like the Wicked Witch of the West, "Oh my God, you should have seen your face!" He wheezed, arms clutching his stomach and knees already collapsing on himself. "As- as if someone were to... ohhh my god, give me one second," the hysterical boy breathed, tree bark scraping his palm into a harsh red.

"Okay, okay, I get it. I looked like I saw a ghost, it was hilarious; I shat myself, it was hilarious. Well, jokes on you I got myself thirty quid," said Harry smugly, palm outstretched.

At this Aristide's laughter abated. "What do you mean? No you do not."

"What are you on about? Nobody heard me." Harry chided, his arm indicating to the crickets chirping.

"No," started Aristide, stepping forward, "you said nobody would hear you and last time I checked I of all people am not a nobody." Hands on his hips, he bit his lips to prevent his smirk widening even further; if Harry never prayed to God before now would be the first time before he beat the shit out of that posh cunt.

---

"You don't go home," Harry observed on the frayed picnic blanket. Scanning, the boy's head tilted an inch as he took in the moist ends of the once-perfect black suit set and the dull blond locks clumping unappealingly.

Aristide had actually debated washing up in the river but fate had other plans when he watched a deer shit in it. When did deers even live in the country? He vehemently refused to even dip a toe in wildlife sewage waters or even go a step within the area.

"You keep going away from home," countered Aristide, rubbing the grease of the last blessed bagel onto the thin tissue.

"I come here to unwind; it doesn't hurt to live out here than to live in the crappy slums," said Harry scornfully.

"...Slums?" murmured Aristide.

He had heard of them, obviously he had with all the romance reading material in the academy between a fellow aristocrat and a pauper but it was not like he had ever actually been to the Slums: ever since England divided the land into factions rather than the usual cities and counties quality of living had diminished severely, hence sending the prim and proper children to boarding schools in the far countryside to prevent 'tarnishing'. 

Since the factions were so strict Aristide had never truly seen the cities of the working class. He imagined a more tech savvy Victorian Era but without smokey streets and as much disease.

Surely it was not that bad.

"Yeah, had to get a proper place to live so they don't start thinking I'm a runaway from some other area." Harry shrugged, eyes drifting to a cockroach climbing up the roots of the tree.

Aristide sighed, hand gently stroking the outside of his left sleeve.

Your mind is infinite, if it be a blade then sharpen, if it be a shield then harden, only then will it be formidable.

Harry was not yet formidable though his body was a vessel to a power that flickers wilder than a flame. Over the past few days it was impossible to miss - exhilarating to watch the particles vibrate around him like the blurred heat of a desert. It was almost audible the closer he sat - the fain buzz of a bee when his heart pumped faster and his blood rushed warmer.

If only his mind was a blade ready to sharpen or a shield ready to protect himself. Instead his mind was a book displayed as a classic in a library. If only Harry had the luck to be born to a prominent family and trained.

Maybe fate brought Aristide to Harry; was it his mission to protect or train his mind - his magic - to place a lock onto the book and make his power the key?

"Hey Harry," began Aristide. 

He paused. He truly should think more about this, it was not like Harry would never come back.

Maybe fate was not real and destiny was just an old fairytale to trick little kids into yearning the system of life.

"Yeah?"

Aristide looked up at Harry.

"Aristide?"

Maybe destiny is real.

"Take me with you," Aristide rushed, eyes wide and trained solely on Harry's.