Nose to the Wind // tomarry

Chapter 6: Living on Your Breath

In September, Will started primary. He was absolutely ecstatic to walk to school with Harry and not be forced to wave goodbye at the gate, and Harry couldn't help but grin at his enthusiasm. Will sent him sporadic notes throughout the day, but it was nowhere near as often as he'd been doing at the end of Harry's last year. It was also all in Atlantean script, which Harry was mildly pleased with, but figured the true test would be him continuing to do so, even while being taught the Latin letters.

At the end of the day, Will met him at the gate, just in front of the gaggle of waiting parents, and they fell in together with the neighbourhood kids that Harry usually walked home with; Lily and Chris had walked them to school that morning, but Will had been adamant that he could walk home without her, like a big boy, and since Harry already knew the route just fine, she'd agreed.

"Harry?" Will asked later that afternoon, while Lily was otherwise distracted.

Harry glanced up from his illusioned Atlantean book curiously.

"Can you teach me more words during the day?"

Harry considered that, turning his gaze back down to his book, but not actually seeing it. He'd taught Will the sort of words he thought were the easiest, so far: yes, no, thank you, please, variations on hello and goodbye. An idea occurred to him and he slipped his talking notebook out from under the cover of his book. 'Write me a word you want to learn, and I'll tell you the Atlantean word for it,' he wrote, not letting the book speak it out loud, since he knew Lily was close enough that she might hear. 'We can use the holidays for declensions and sentence structure, if you've got a good enough vocabulary. Okay?'

Will made a face at the mention of figuring out how to actually speak or write the language properly, but nodded all the same. He glanced up to watch as Lily walked down the stairs with a basket of laundry and turned the corner to go into the laundry room. "Can you teach me to speak it?" he asked once Lily was again out of sight.

Harry raised both eyebrows at that. 'What brought this on?' he wrote, because Will had only previously seemed interested in writing Atlantean.

Will ducked his head and pressed his fingers together. "One of the girls in my class speaks another language. It seems cool."

Harry nodded in understanding. 'At night,' he offered, 'I can teach you how to pronounce the words.' He pinned his brother with a stern look, then wrote, 'It won't be quick to learn, as you're discovering. You have to work at it. And it's not the same language as the girl in your class.'

"I know," Will whispered. "But I–" He slumped slightly, before looking up at Harry with a sort of broken-hearted hopeful expression. "You always know everything. I want to know everything too."

'Not everything,' Harry insisted, then reached up to poke Will's nose, earning him a scowl.

"Close enough," Will complained, turning away.

Harry pulled out his message paper and wrote, 'Give me time, Will, and I'll teach you all I know.'

It was almost an hour before Will wrote back, 'I know.'

-0-

The weekend following Will's sixth birthday, Chris made his toys float.

"Oh dear," Lily murmured as Will let out an excited shout and ran over to try and teach his brother how to make the lights he so favoured.

"At least it's not summoning things?" James offered somewhat helplessly.

"Small mercies."

Harry grinned at his parents' complaints as he walked over to see if he needed to 'help' at all in teaching Chris to make lights.