(ack, sorry for my delay with this one!)
Arcturus didn't particularly appreciate the comparison of his prized Celeritas broomstick to a muggle bicycle. If a mudblood at school had made such a remark, it would have led to swift, magical retaliation. Will Byers, however, didn't know any better, and he clearly wasn't trying to rile the young wizard up or deliberately offend him. The dark look that clouded his features, therefore, was only momentary, and then he just shrugged. 'Muggles devised other means of transportation because they don't have magical ones,' he explained. Although tact wasn't ordinarily his strong point, he refrained from launching into further elaboration on how much better the magical options were. Will already knew it, he surmised, and he didn't want to be unkind.
Instead, he sipped again at his drink, and listened. His own understanding of American sports, and of muggle sports in general, was confused as best, and he saw most of them as either unnecessarily violent, pointless, or utterly bizarre. It didn't help that the same boys he disparaged at school found great amusement in convincing Arcturus of 'sporting facts' that were anything but, such as the purpose of hockey sticks being to hit the other players, and cricket only being played at night because that was when the bats came out. The ways of muggles were so unknown to him that practically anything he had been told seemed plausible, and Preya had changed that in some ways, but not others.
He nodded quite gravely as Will voiced his own confusion with the sports. Yes, they were confusing, very unlike his beloved Quidditch. 'My favourite team in the league is Puddlemere United,' he said eagerly, once the question had been asked. 'I went to see them play once, when I was younger. Their Chasers did some very impressive formation flying. Not everyone loves Quidditch, though,' he continued. 'Some people don't care for sports at all. My friend Carrow is good at flying, but he says Quidditch training is too much of a bother, because there are practices so often he wouldn't have enough time for other things.' Monty Carrow had been Arcturus' best friend for many years, and so this strange quirk of his was quite readily accepted.
Taking that little smile of Will's as encouragement, Arcturus reached down for his brown leather briefcase. As it didn't contain anything dangerous or secret, only his comic-book ideas, it wasn't magically locked, and so he undid the clasps and withdrew a small sheaf of papers, which he set down in front of him. 'Look, I sketched him!' he said, leaning over the table towards Will. He retrieved one page from the bundle and held it out. On the page was a simple sketch of a young, smiling man riding a broomstick. He had short dark hair, light brown skin, and long navy-blue robes. The remarkable thing about the sketch wasn't the quality of Arcturus' drawing, though. It was that the little figure quite literally flew across the page, one hand outstretched, robe billowing out behind him. Upon reaching the edge, he made a neat spinning turn and flew back the other way.
'I haven't come up with a name for him yet,' said Arcturus, 'but he doesn't get into fights. He's a Puddlemere player, an honourable one. People underestimate him because they think all he cares about is sport, but he's very creative with practical magic. The ancient wizard knows all about magical theory, but he's the one who adapts old spells to solve problems.' Arcturus grinned. He'd spent quite a while dreaming up character ideas, and was hoping Will would be impressed.
'I can show you some of the others, too,' he offered. 'Or-' he glanced quickly towards the sketchbook, '-you could show me what you brought, if you like.'