The Truth About Rudolph

"Are you all right, boy?" Christine's mother asked Rudolph. "What's the matter with your nose?"

"Oh, it's nothing. I'm just a little bit ill," Rudolph said, unable to think of a better explanation.

"Yes, be careful, Madam. I think it might be the plague. Good bye and merry Christmas!"

Octavian said all this very quickly and disappeared among the trees, taking a shortcut to his home.

"Nonsense!" the woman said, and her daughter frowned a little. To Rudolph's relief, they didn't seem to find Octavian's joke very funny.

"If you're going towards the village, walk with us," Christine's mother said in a kind voice, and Rudolph accepted. He wasn't able to think of an explanation for wanting to stay in the forest that would be acceptable for Muggles; besides, he didn't feel like flying anymore.

His broomstick was still lying there in the snow. He would ask his parents to summon it for him once he returned home.

***

Rudolph walked along the snow-covered path with Christine and her mother; somehow he had ended up walking side by side with Christine, although not close to her. She kept to the very left edge of the path and Rudolph kept to the right, keeping his hand over his red, glowing nose. Some of the light was still leaking out between his fingers.

Christine was glancing at him from time to time. He knew that for certain because he was stealing glances at her as well, and a couple of times their eyes met. Her face was clearly visible in the moonlight reflected from the snow. There was pity in her eyes, but at the same time she seemed to be trying very hard not to laugh, and dimples were forming in her cheeks.

Rudolph didn't mind her laughing that much. The pity he thought he saw was harder to bear, although a small part of his mind admitted it felt rather nice.

He wished was allowed to explain everything to her. If she were a witch, she would understand that Octavian and he were fighting with hexes all the time, just to test each other's strength. He would be able to explain that he had been hit by an unfamiliar hex, and that was why his nose was red, but he was going to find a counter-curse as soon as he got home. Most of all, he wished that he could explain to her that Octavian only picked fights with him because he was jealous of his flying.

If he could only invite her to watch a Quidditch match, Rudolph thought, she would think differently of him. If she could see him fly, Christine would forget all about seeing him with an embarrassing red nose; she would respect him. He wondered whether there were any exceptions to the code of secrecy.

But of course there had to be exceptions, he thought. Some wizards and witches married Muggles and introduced them to their world, telling them all about wands and broomsticks and Quidditch...

Rudolph snapped out of his thoughts. Why was he thinking about marriage? What a horrible, horrible thing to think about! He moved even farther away from the girl, stepping into the deep snow beside the path and kicking it angrily.

That just made everything even worse. His foot hit something underneath the snow, a stone or a piece of wood; he shouted, "Ouch!" and lifted his foot, grabbing it with both hands and leaving his red nose uncovered.

"Are you all right?" Christine asked with genuine concern but -- perhaps against her will -- her eyes were fixed onto Rudolph's nose.

"I'm all right. Stop looking at my nose!" Rudolph said in an irritated voice and covered it with his hand again.

"I'm sorry," the girl said and looked away from him. They kept on walking in silence for a while. Rudolph was looking at the snow beneath his feet, feeling bad about the way he had spoken to Christine. He gathered his courage for a while and finally spoke:

"I didn't mean that. You can look at my nose if you want to."

He had moved the hand away from his face and was blinking in the red light shining from his nose. Christine looked at him, her face reflecting some of the reddish glow.

"It's all right, I don't need to," she said with a smile, and dimples formed on her cheeks again.

They walked in silence again, but they didn't keep to the edges of the path anymore.

Christine turned to Rudolph a few times as if she wanted to say something, but seemed to decide against it every time. Finally she said:

"You know, this is not the first time a saw a red nose today."

This was completely unexpected. At first Rudolph didn't know how to respond; then he asked her:

"What do you mean? You saw someone else today who had a red nose?"

Christine was silent for a while, and then she said:

"I can't tell you. It's really strange. You won't believe me."

Rudolph tried to convince her to tell him anyway, but to no avail. If he could only tell her that he was a wizard and that strange things didn't surprise him that much!

He didn't tell her, of course. They reached the edge of the forest very soon; after wishing him a good night and a merry Christmas, Christine and her mother turned towards their house, which was at the very edge of the forest.

Rudolph stopped and looked at the village ahead of him, with the windows glowing with warm, orange light. He felt reluctant to return home with the red nose and ask his parents to lift the hex. He felt humiliated enough already. Perhaps he could sneak past them, go into the study and search all the books for a counter-curse. Yes, that was what he was going to do.

Just when he was about to start towards his home, he heard a noise from the edge of the forest to his right: the sound of hooves, softened by the snow but still audible, the jingling of harness bells and a high-pitched voice shouting something. The sounds were rapidly becoming louder and louder; Rudolph took a few steps backwards to get out of the way. Hidden among the trees, he saw five reindeer galloping alongside the edge of the forest. They were very fast and it was dark, so he would have barely have been able to see them had they not stopped very near to the place where he was standing. Only when the reindeer stopped did Rudolph see that each one of them was pulling a sleigh full of packages, and that a child was standing in each sleigh. At least he thought they were children at first, but when he came closer, carefully covering his glowing nose, he realised he was wrong.

The small creatures looked just like house-elves, but they were wearing bright red clothes that looked like uniforms. It looked as if they had stopped because the parcels in one of the sleighs were in danger of falling off; the elves quickly gathered around the sleigh and started to rearrange them.

Rudolph stepped even closer to them and heard one of them saying:

"Quick! We must be at the Ice Palace in three hours!"

One of the elves pulled a long, narrow parcel and put it down on the snow very close to Rudolph. It was wrapped in paper, but the shape was unmistakable: it was a broomstick. Rudolph bent down to look at it. There was a piece of parchment attached to the parcel with writing in golden ink:

Nimbus 1722

Rudolph's heart started beating faster. He had never seen a real Nimbus 1722, and now he was standing so close to one! But it only lasted for a moment -- the elves put it onto the sleigh again, together with the other packages. They fastened the packages with ropes, returned to their sleighs, cracked their whips and took off. The reindeer galloped northwards along the edge of the forest, forming little clouds of snow under their hooves.