Light.

Jupiter was high in the sky, shining strong against the backdrop of inky sky. Lifting his head from the gold-trimmed telescope, Elijah squinted in vain to see the planet for himself. His vision was certainly better at night, a side-effect of his Animagus form, but he understandably struggled to see the planet. He instead lowered his eye back to the telescope and focused once more on the planet. His attention was soon diverted to the constellations, though. That, of course, did not last long and Elijah pulled away from the telescope. He lifted his eyes up to clouds that obscured the moon from view. He narrowed them for a few moments before exhaling and turning on the spot and sweeping his eyes around the tower. He rubbed his palms together and brought them to his lips, blowing the warmth into them that they lacked. He knew he wouldn’t last much longer out in the cold but instead of doing the intelligent thing and retreating to the dungeons, Elijah climbed higher.

With his wand in hand, Elijah lit the lanterns that lined the staircase. The candle wicks burst into life, the flames atop them stretching its light across every surface it could. Once Elijah reached the top of the tower, he wrapped his robes tighter around him and moved gingerly towards the balcony where he reached out and grasped the chilled metal. He pulled himself forward and dragged his eyes across the scenery below. The castle was slumbering and the environment it was placed in seemed to be doing the same. He could see the Thestrals over the top of the Herbology Greenhouses, bucking and playing to their hearts content, unaware of the pair of dark eyes watching them. Still, he meant no harm to them and slowly lowered himself to the floor, his hands still wrapped around the bars.

After a few moments of thought, Elijah reached for his bag and took his sketchbook from one of the compartments. He took a pencil from behind his ear, having put it there earlier in the day, and pressed it to the page. Then from there, the scene before him began to materialise on the page. It was a slow, tentative process, his mind admittedly elsewhere, but it didn’t lack the attention to detail. Nothing he did lacked that.

The page upon which he was drawing was coarse from disuse. The graphite left a trail of silver behind, some of it smudging under the periodic press of his hand against the page. Elijah’s lips rolled against each other unconsciously, reddening with the lick of his tongue against them. His brows furrowed with concentration as he scribbled the detail onto the hind legs of the Thestrals. It wasn’t often that he drew the Thestrals now, compared with when he used to always walk the forest floor in search of them, to illustrate their beauty. Now, high above them, he could draw their lithe bodies cast in the moonlight that snuck from the grasp of the clouds. A small smile lifted his lips upwards and with an exhale, he blew away the excess graphite that had broken off of the tip of the pencil when he’d pressed particularly hard into the page. Elijah licked his lips once more and swallowed before putting the pencil down and reaching for the eraser in the front pocket of his bag.

It was just as the eraser slipped into his grasp that he heard a voice. Elijah twisted around, his fingers curling around the eraser and tugging it to his chest as he scanned the area in search of the source of the voice. He soon found it, though. Slipping from the shadows, the youngest Malfoy came into view. Elijah’s eyes widened a little as he drank in her appearance. She was certainly beautiful, that he couldn’t deny. It struck him every time he saw her. He had never really expressed that to her though, for he assumed she was aware of it. She was a Malfoy, after all said and done. It was for that reason that Elijah hadn’t really ‘gone’ for her, so to speak. He wrinkled his nose at the term but he couldn’t think of any way of describing it. She was too precious for that, he figured. Still, that didn’t mean he couldn’t tease her.

“Miss Malfoy,” a smirk spread onto Elijah’s face but he dropped his eyes to the notebook again in order to rub out his error. Elijah redrew the line and lifted his gaze once more to Aleksandra who was lingering by one of the telescopes. He raised an eyebrow at her words and tapped the stand of the telescope with the end of his pencil. “It’s too expensive to be discarded that easily.”

Elijah returned to drawing and glanced up when she took a seat beside him. The smirk once again tugged at his lips but he continued on, feeling her gaze on his hand and the page. He brought his thumb across the sheet and smudged a line according with what needed to be seen. He would turn it into a painting later, he promised himself. Later, though. Upon hearing her sigh, Elijah looked up again, his eyes reaching her face and delighting in everything from the shape of her eyes, to the firm line of her jaw, to the straightness of her nose.

“You’re unhappy?” He guessed, putting the pencil down momentarily. “Understandable, really. You must be frozen. Here.” Elijah shrugged off his robes and though he shuddered, he knew he could suffer it if it meant she was warm. He was a gentlemen at heart, after all. Elijah draped the robes around her shoulders and smiled gently before sitting back again. “There,” he breathed. “Now you can smile.”

Frivolous with money though Elijah was, he did balk at the idea of nothing being too expensive to be rid of. True enough, it was something his father subscribed to but it was not something Elijah wholeheartedly agreed with. He didn’t believe everything and everyone had a price, and once you were done with either or both, you could discard them. Elijah found life and objects that little bit more precious, naive though perhaps he was. His eyes remained on the telescope long after the young woman had left its side and taken a seat beside him. Elijah shook his head and lowered his gaze back to the sketch pad, his mind whirling as he wondered whether the sketch was as easily thrown away. Granted it had not been priced but he wondered, if it were to get a hefty amount, would the amount be disregarded when the owner finally decided whether or not he or she wished to retain it? It was an unsettling thought, really.

“What is the price of a human life then?” He inquired softly, his Bulgarian accent rumbling hot in his throat. Elijah raised a challenging eyebrow and smirked a little before shaking his head again. “Forgive me. You don’t have to answer that,” he murmured and returned his attention back to the sketch.

The girl had mind, Elijah was quickly discovering. He realised he really hadn’t paid much mind to Aleksandra when he’d first come to Hogwarts. She’d been a child then. In retrospect, she still was but she’d grown into the Malfoy looks and certainly become quite the young woman - though at that thought, Elijah felt a lot older than his years. He chuckled, despite his self, and shook his head before lifting his gaze to rest on the dark-haired young Slytherin before him. He pushed the sheet of paper he was drawing on, along the binder rings and smoothed it back, promising to go back to it later. Then, with a fresh sheet, he began to draw the thoughtful creature before him, making slow, almost cautious lines; worried, for once, that he could not do her visage justice. He was confident to the point of arrogance about his abilities at times but at times like this, he was humbled and began with careful lines, the heart shape of her face.

“Attachment is not something we should deny ourselves though,” Elijah responded, glancing up at Aleksandra to be sure he’d captured her as intended. “Attachment, desire, love...it’s what makes us human. To disregard them takes a lot more than a risk. Adrenaline floods through our veins when we do so, yes, but if we distance ourselves from what we consider to have worth then not only does that become worthless but we ourselves, lose our worth. It’s not about risks. It’s about being realistic. We put roots down for a reason. Attachment isn’t designed to be easy to throw away.”

Elijah smiled slightly at her words. “You were cold.” He answered simply. “I did not mean to cause you offense. Forgive me.” Elijah dropped his eyes back to the page and nodded after a moment or two. “Since I was a child. My tutor found I was better suited to art than anything else. I was insulted at the time but I was a pompous, egotistical child. Still am, to a degree. Still, it’s done me some good over the years for an array of reasons. Probably the only thing I can do right.” Elijah chuckled despite himself and shrugged his shoulders. “What about you? Any passions? Surely your family encourages such skills?”

(OOC: Sorry this took so long. Hah. I've been doing it in parts. It's here now though! ;D)