when winter days are dark and drear | conrad

christmas day, 2003 | jasmund, rügen

In previous years Elsa might have been more surreptitious about taking some dessert for her and Conrad to privately enjoy, but after finding out her entire family had been harbouring a secret from her since she was born she was feeling a lot braver. So brave, in fact, that she decided to take the entire trifle bowl from the center of the sweet-laden kitchen table. She got to the back door before she heard someone enter the room, and turned, expecting to see Olaf gawping at her in that way he always did—

Oma was standing at the other doorway--that led to the rest of the house--and their eyes met. Elsa stood, one arm cradling the large bowl and the other hand on the doorhandle, two spoons tucked into her coat pocket. Oma’s expression flickered before she continued towards the table to collect a red-and-gold tray of Pfeffernüsse, Lebkuchen, and Zimtsterne, and retreated--without a word--back through the door from whence she had came. Elsa took that to mean Oma was still crippled with guilt over her part in all of this--as she should be--and opened the back door to go and find Conrad and Käsekuchen.

It was snowing lightly, with a thin dusting over the forest floor -- the canopy overhead taking the brunt of the weather. They usually made use of this particular spot in the summer, when the rest of the Sturm cousins were playing a Quidditch game that Conrad and Elsa were always picked as the last reserves for, but even though it was cold, she thought she’d rather get frostbite than be in a room with her family, all shooting pitiful glances in her direction. The poor Half-Muggel.

Once the news had finally reached him, Elsa’s father had made the trip all the way to Chatoeil to see her -- something he had never done before and she pointed out as much when she met with him. Elisabeth had always attributed Karl’s distance as a father to his work--he had to be away, that was just the nature of a fisherman--but since finding out the truth she realised he just didn’t want to see her. He’d explained, or tried to, the full story, and though Elsa wanted to believe him, she wasn’t sure if she did. He hadn’t come to Rügen this year.

Conrad was sitting, with his dog, in the den they’d built several summers before. Elsa approached carefully, recognising his body language all too well. She cleared her throat to announce her presence and held the trifle aloft triumphantly. “Dessert?”


@Conrad Sturm

Conrad and his parents had spent Christmas with the Krügers for three years -- last year he’d tried to argue that the other Sturms would think something was up, but his parents had accused him of self-importance and then threatened not to let him attend Christmas at all, so he’d dropped it. Of course, as soon as he saw Conrad, Olaf said, “Look who it is -- we thought you were being rehabilitated --” and Conrad, in his rush to retaliate, forgot that their fathers were both standing five feet away. Neither he nor Olaf made any effort to sound actually sorry, but they shook hands for appearances' sake and retreated to opposite sides of the house like kicked dogs. When he saw his mother again -- he didn’t want to push his luck with his father -- he said, “I told you so,” but she was drinking with some of the other Sturms-by-marriage and didn’t want to be bothered.

This all put Conrad in a towering bad mood; he bore about ten minutes’ worth of playing reconciliatory cards with Olaf, who was also in a towering bad mood, before he made an excuse -- his dog needed to go out -- and left. He had only one winter cloak -- his Durmstrang one -- and it was huge and hoary and made him feel like a hulking beast. His dog hated it too, and she was grumpy with him anyway, as she hadn’t actually needed to go out, so for a while she bounded around the clearing and ignored him as he sat brooding in his and Elsa’s den. Christmas was a rip-off.

Eventually Käsekuchen seemed to forgive him enough to come sit with her head in his lap; he slouched and rubbed her ears, and she yawned at him. It didn’t make Christmas any less of a rip-off, but it almost made him feel better.

It was a while before Conrad heard somebody else coming out, but he didn’t care yet if he got yelled at, so he didn’t turn around until he recognised Elsa’s voice. He’d expected to see her holding up a couple of cookies, but no -- she’d brought the entire trifle. “Oh my God,” he said -- his parents were already in a mood, albeit one he’d put them in. “If Oma comes out here, I’m not pretending this was my idea too.” He slid himself and his dog over anyway, to let Elsa sit down, and sighed, just to get the point across that he was in a mood, too. “What do you want?”

Elsa grinned smugly down at her cousin as he mentioned their (usually) fearsome grandmother. “Oma saw me and didn’t say anything, but if she changes her mind I’ll be sure to tell her you’re a wimp.” She walked over to Conrad’s side and shifted the trifle bowl under her arm to free up the other and hand him the tablespoons she had dropped into her pocket, then sat down on the log beside him.

She set the trifle on the leg nearest him for sharing, and held out her hand to take one of the spoons back. Elisabeth was tempted to ask him what was wrong first, but didn’t want to get sidetracked. She dug her spoon into the trifle--careful to go through all of the layers--and had a mouthful.

There was some sort of alcohol in this and she didn’t think it had been intended for the children, judging by how potent it was. She coughed away from Conrad before turning back to face him. “What are you doing after school? Like, really?” They had talked about this before, in a wouldn’t it be great sort of way--almost as if school was never going to end anyway--but now they were only months away from graduating, and even if she didn’t get an offer from a Quidditch team, Elsa had decided she needed to get away.

“I think I’m moving to England.” This, of course, was tantamount to blasphemy, but she hadn’t told her Oma or her father or any other Sturms (yet). It would be bad enough to leave Germany, it was sacreligious that she would choose England of all places.

If Oma knew what they were up to and just didn’t care, he was smart enough not to question it, but Conrad’s mouth pulled down at the edges anyway. “You’re a wimp,” he muttered, for lack of anything better to say. Really Oma was the wimp, letting Elsa steal the trifle at Christmas -- Conrad could never have gotten away with that. He thought Oma might be getting soft now that Elsa was so close to adulthood. Or now that Elsa knew the truth about her parents. His cousin sat next to him; he handed back one of the spoons she’d given him to hold.

Elsa ignored his surliness, which Conrad had sort of expected her to do; for a moment they dug wordlessly into the trifle. “Oh, that’s strong,” he muttered in complaint, but he had another bite anyway. Leave it to Elsa to pick the worst possible dessert to steal.

She didn’t let him enjoy their silence for long -- he huffed a sigh. His answer to this question, like, really, had changed a lot since she’d started asking it, and now he didn’t have an answer at all, and he only had six months left to come up with one. “Don’t know,” he said, giving his chin a surreptitious rub. “Run away somewhere far and get a job.” He had some of it figured out -- Käsekuchen was too big to Portkey, so he’d have to bribe one of his uncles to take him up to Sweden or Denmark and work it out from there. He had money -- probably not enough, but he could get more. It would be pretty rich of his parents to deny him a loan, but -- just in case they did -- he wasn’t going to ask first. He wasn’t stupid.

Conrad looked sharply over at Elsa -- “England?” he repeated. She had mentioned it before -- the British league could afford to hire dozens of players, or whatever -- but if she was asking him seriously, it meant she had decided this seriously, and he didn’t know how to feel about it. It was one thing to know for his whole life that Elsa would go further than him, but it was another to watch it happen. He would be eighteen in two days and all he’d decided so far was that he would start his adulthood with what was technically burglary.

He shook his head. “Well, that’s far. Have you picked a team yet?”

“Mm,” she hummed in agreement -- it was strong, and she grimaced as she dug in for another spoonful (she wasn’t about to waste her efforts, or push her luck and try to take something else).

“Yeah,” Elsa replied, somewhat mutedly, though the determined nod that accompanied her answer gave off a little more sense of conviction. Had she picked a team? She shot him a look, spoon in her mouth. He had to know by now that technically they picked her. “I’ve been writing to some,” she explained, trying to tread the line between humble (realistic) and confident (fantastical).

“A couple have written back,” she continued. “A Scottish team wanted me to go now, over Christmas, to try out. But I only got the owl the day before leaving school for the holidays.” She dug the heel of her boot into the hard ground, annoyed. Even if it had arrived in time, Oma wouldn’t have helped her. There was only so far her grandmother’s guilt went, and it wasn’t so far as that.

“But I’ve still got time,” she told Conrad, as much as she was telling herself. “And if I don’t get an offer by the summer, I think I’ll go anyway.” She turned to look at him now, reassured by his (marginally more serious than the last time she had asked) declaration that he would run away. “Do you want to come with me?”

Elsa really did know what she was doing, writing to teams and being written back. Conrad didn’t know what to say – he didn’t know any of the English teams well enough to comment, and he didn’t know enough about Quidditch either. He’d hardly even seen Elsa fly – the other Sturms never let her play Beater, if they let her play at all.

“I’m glad you had to come, though,” he said after a moment, feeling a little guilty for the selfishness of the sentiment. He just wouldn’t have wanted to sit out in the cold on his own, sulking and waiting for somebody to come after him. He glanced at Elsa as she spoke again, consoling herself, and pulled his spoon out of his mouth to say, “Yeah.”

I think I’ll go anyway – Conrad was about to ask if the Harriers or those French teams were really off the table already, when she turned to face him. He opened his mouth to say, yes, but instead asked, “Why?” At once he felt stupid for needing to know – he looked straight ahead at Käsekuchen digging in the snow, wagged his spoon restlessly with one hand.

He did want to go with her. He could read some English – he’d had that pen friend last year – and he didn’t want to stay in Sweden, and most of all, he didn’t really want to run away on his own. And if Elsa still liked him after what she’d found out this summer, if she’d forgiven him, he felt like he ought to take it seriously. Move to England. Why not? Once he’d made up his mind, it took him another moment to convince himself, still staring at his dog across the clearing. Finally he said, “Yeah. I want to go.”

Elsa glanced sidelong at Conrad, on the verge of glaring at him -- but she knew what he truly meant by the statement. She softened and nodded once. “Yeah,” she responded quietly. In a way she supposed she was glad too -- it would probably be the last Sturm Christmas she came to, and perhaps Oma knew that too.

His immediate response wasn’t exactly what she had expected--a ‘no’ over a ‘why’, maybe--but Elsa kept her eyes on him. She couldn’t really explain why. Conrad was her cousin and her friend, even if they had never called one another friends -- she’d come to realise you didn’t have to say it to feel it. And she had been mad at him in the summer, and every now and then she was still mad at him about it, but he’d obviously thought she was aware of it all and had been not mentioning things as a way of saving her the embarrassment, which was considerate in a way.

Elsa was still trying to work out how to explain why when Conrad spoke again. She smiled, first, then suppressed the expression and dug into the trifle again. “Good,” she said simply, shoving a spoonful of dessert into her mouth. Once swallowed she peered at him out of the corner of her eye, then looked at his dog. “Only if you bring Käsekuchen, though,” she said, smirking softly.

That was that settled. Kind of. They would have to figure out where to go if she didn’t get onto a team, in which case they didn’t really get a choice so much. She assumed they would go to one of the bigger cities at least at first, so they could get jobs and whatnot. “You could do your opera stuff,” she suggested, thinking aloud.

Good, said Elsa, as though he had passed a test. Something about it nettled him – he felt sort of like he’d just been ticked off a to-do list – but it wasn’t like he had any to-do list of his own, so he couldn’t rightly raise any objection.

“Obviously I would,” said Conrad – what did she think he was going to do, abandon his dog? He didn’t even like to leave her at home during the school year; when he was younger he’d asked after her in every letter he sent home, until second year when his father wrote him that if he gave as much thought to his schoolwork as he did to his dog, he wouldn’t need remedial lessons.

Elsa brought up his opera thing and Conrad shot her a wary glance, trying to decide she was making fun of him for it. “It won’t be as good as in Germany,” he said, but she was just trying to make this seem like it was about his future, too, so he had to try not to act ungrateful. Not because he needed her help – which he hadn’t asked for anyway – but because she had offered it to him. “That would be nice,” he admitted.

With that, he allowed himself to carefully get a little excited – “I have money set aside,” he said, anxious to look like he was going to be of any use – “I can leave as soon as we graduate.” He’d figured that out already; all he’d needed was the rest of the plan.