[Author's Note:] Written for the Tribal Council round of the Survivor's competition in the Harry Potter Fanfiction Challenges forum.
Prompt: Write about what going to school at Durmstrang may have been like.
Only warning is for some foul language.
Hope you all enjoy :) [/end Author's Note]
September 3rd
I've never had any of my other plans fail so spectacularly (and I've had quite a few failed plans, as you like to remind me of on a regular basis). This one, I never even saw coming. I was sure that my idea was foolproof.
Mother was livid when my N.E.W.T. results came. I knew she'd be, but I thought I could take any punishment she'd throw my way.
How was I supposed to know that she'd transfer me to bloody fucking Durmstrang to redo my final year?
It's bloody freezing up here, I tell you. I'm already wearing my winter fur-lined robes and I still feel like icicles are forming on my skin. I've been told it doesn't usually snow here until October, but I've bet my roommate that we'll see some before the month is up. To make matters worse, we can't light fires. These people are loonies! I sleep in my fur coat, for crying out loud.
I don't know how I'll survive this place. I thought we'd get to spend our last year together, but now I spend every waking moment wishing I hadn't blundered up my exams on purpose.
Yours.
September 11th
It's snowed.
I suppose I should tell you that while the castle isn't near as impressive or grandiose as Hogwarts, the school grounds are something else. I've never seen so much expanse of nature all at once. Everything is here—forests, meadows, mountains, and the two lakes which line the school's boundaries look like oceans in comparison to Hogwarts's lake. The rivers are a good three hours from the school—that's how expansive the grounds are. My dorm mates showed me yesterday.
I've been warned not to give out too much information. Headmaster Karkaroff sometimes goes on a rampage and randomly intercepts students' letters to make sure no school secrets are revealed. In any case, it couldn't do much harm to tell you a bit about my first two weeks here.
First off, there are no Houses here, and the dorms give way directly to a massive common room shared by all of us. I suppose that, with the lack of fires, we're supposed to fill all of the rooms to their maximum capacity in order to heat it with our body warmth. I know you'll roll your eyes at this, but I miss the Slytherin camaraderie. You may think that we were all just looking out for our own skins—and okay, maybe we were—but I had friends there. There's something about having something in common to share, even if it is as simple as a House color and points, that brings people together, wouldn't you say?
I've yet to find out what brings Durmstrang students together. It doesn't help that everyone here speaks different languages. There must be every Eastern and Northern European language represented here. Maybe that's what brings people together? Nationality? All of the classes are taught in English, but I've yet to be approached by a fellow English student.
My dorm mates are welcoming enough, but they've all got their own circle of friends—Germans, Bulgarians and Swedes.
My fingers are freezing, so I'll send this now. I'll write you another letter soon. I know I haven't told you much, but if you'd like the gist, this is it: it's a cold, lonely place, so far.
Yours.
October 1st
I didn't mean to alarm you in my last letter. I suppose that it was the homesickness in me wielding the quill. I'm sorry that I haven't replied sooner. The classes started off nice and slow, but by mid-September I was drowning in homework.
You wouldn't believe the kind of subjects that they teach here—things Dumbledore pretends he wants to 'protect' us from. What a poor, deluded old fool. The Dark Arts class here is beyond anything I could have imagined—learning how to cast these kinds of spells will benefit us more than any dumb theory on defending against them.
I know that you're probably pissed at me for writing this, but when's the last time you had a decent Defense Against the Dark Arts class at Hogwarts? Last we had was that Pixie-loving phony, and I'll take learning about the Unforgivable Curses over that narcissist arsehole any day. Who have you got as a professor this year?
The truth of the matter is that Dumbledore is lax. He runs that school with his bleeding heart instead of with a rational mind of what's best, in the long run, for the students.
Anyway, it'll surprise you to learn that the Dark Arts class is not my favorite. It may surprise you even more that the most popular class among all of the students is Potions. You won't be surprised when you find out why: it's the only time any of us feel truly warm, I think.
Last week, a first year student was so desperate to feel warm that he actually put his hands against his cauldron to get closer to the heat. Third-degree burns. I've heard that the Healer put gauze and bandages on the wounds but didn't heal them. Poor kid's probably going to be in agony every time he writes anything for the next few months.
Quidditch tryouts are tomorrow. New school, new start, right? I think I'll try out as a Beater.
Yours.
October 15th
Yeah, I have been ignoring your bloody incessant questions about bloody fucking Krum. You know, it'd be nice if you opened just one of your letters asking about how I was doing, instead of if I've spotted or talked to the main character of your wet dreams yet. Which I shouldn't have to remind you should be me, you fucking prat.
I made Beater, thanks for not asking.
You may think that the Healer's methods were barbaric, but I'm starting to understand the teaching methods in this place. We're taught to learn from our mistakes, and to grow stronger from them. I'm starting to realize, too, how coddled we were at Hogwarts. We're not taught to become men or Wizards, there. We're handheld into becoming grown up babies.
There's no room for mistakes in the regiment installed here. There's even roll call before breakfast begins. Punishment for missing any roll call can vary from shoveling the school steps (there are about 100 of those) without magic to scrubbing the hallways with a toothbrush. No one is exempt from roll call, either, not even your hero, Krum. Bloody Potter and his toadies wouldn't survive a day here.
I'm learning the ropes, and I'm making friends. I've been let in on the secret to staying relatively warm throughout the day: constant exercise. My dorm mates get up even before breakfast to jog around the grounds, and I've taken to joining them. We have Quidditch practice every evening—there's more than enough room here for every team to practice at the same time, though only one team can use the actual pitch at once. It's only been a month, but I already think that I'm more in shape than I've ever been.
The days are already getting shorter—we have about 6 hours of daylight a day now, but we practice every night regardless of the weather, even. Two nights ago, we had a two-hour practice in a blizzard. Krum still managed to catch the Snitch three times.
I'd love to see Krum and Potter face off during a game. Might teach Potter some fucking humility for once.
Yours.
October 23rd
I do think that sometimes the end justifies the means, actually. You've always been so narrow-minded when topics that didn't revolve around Quidditch are brought up, you know? You live in your own fucking bubble, and you don't make any concessions concerning other points of view.
Just like how you always said that I played dirty during Quidditch. I'll have you know that rules are made to be broken, in this game. The point is to score, not to politely ask the opposing team's Chaser to please miss the ring. And I'll have you know that your hero Krum isn't all that you think him to be. He may change his act when he's playing with the pros, but here at school he knows how things really are. He's just as ruthless as the rest of us. He knows how to analyze the game play, that's for sure, and before our first game on Wednesday he prepped us on the weaknesses of every player on the opposing team, which he gathered from watching them practice.
You know, I'm starting to see where you're coming from in your admiration for this guy. Maybe I've had a few wet dreams of my own, since I've gotten to know him.
You wouldn't have believed the turnout for the Quidditch game, either. There are so many more students here than at Hogwarts, and they all turn out to see the game. We have to cast a light spell over the pitch, and if we venture out of the light, they can't see shit, but they don't care in the least. And they cheer for blood—they don't get all indignant about a little foul playing like at Hogwarts.
I sent a Bludger that crushed the Chaser's arm—I swear that I heard the bones in his arm crush, but his howl was lost in the crowd's cheering and stomping. They love doing that, stomping on the bleachers when something they love happens.
After the game, I swear that more than a hundred spectators actually came over to congratulate me on my shot.
At Hogwarts, I'd have been suspended from the bloody game.
Yours.
November 5th
You say this school is changing me, but I think this is who I've been all along.
I think you were the one trying to change me, make me into some docile, Muggle-loving sheep or something. Hell, I wasn't even a poof until you came along and warped my mind.
I'm learning a lot about who I am, and who I'm meant to become here. We have a class called 'Rightful Wizards' here that's a detailed history about how Muggles have slowly invaded our world, warped our customs, and deterred us away from our long-standing traditions.
You say Headmaster Karakoff is a blight upon this world and our school's reputation. I say that he's being distorted by the Muggle-lovers in the media, demonized because it's easy to persecute the minority voice.
It's so easy to point fingers at those already kicked to the ground. But you should hear the rumors that run these halls of your beloved, senile Headmaster and Gellert Grindelwald. Yeah, the same one who was expelled from this very school for his radical views. But I say that he was a visionary. He foresaw today's dilemma and formulated a solution long before our kind was ready to hear of it.
Well, we're ready now, aren't we?
- M.
November 26th
I caught a nasty cold this month and haven't had the energy to reply to your last letter. I haven't even had the energy to even think about you, since every thought of you brings with it a new wave of irritation and unbelievable frustration.
They keep us so bogged down in work here that these letters to you are the only moments I have to myself. I barely feel the cold anymore. It's like my body has adapted to permanent numbness, and now my frozen fingers hold a quill up without the burning ache from only two months ago. I've even decided to stay here over the holidays. We get two hours of daylight a day, four feet of fresh snow twice a week and it's still warmer than the place I should call home.
But these studies are refreshing; I can feel my mind being opened and challenged in a way it never was at Hogwarts. Back then, I was hated and sneered at for coming from a Pure-blood family and for being sorted into Slytherin. Here, I am looked up to by the younger students. A group of fourth year students approached me earlier this week for help in the Dark Arts. Can you imagine that—students asking me for tutoring?
Many of our classes require us to be in a constantly angry state. Anger is a powerful energy that, when channeled correctly, overpowers any spell, even those cast with the utmost concentration. That's something they'll never teach you at Hogwarts. And I've always been good at being angry.
I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss you, but I'd also be lying if I said I need you. You were there for me during a dark time in my life, and you were the first person to ever show me a shred of kindness. I think I kind of worshipped you for that, for a long time. But I'm learning to stand on my own now. I'm finding my own path, and I think it's diverged from yours.
I'll never forget you, and I think I'll never not care for you.
- M.
December 10th
You're a fucking piece of shit, you know that? Where do you get off saying I've been brainwashed?
I can think a thought that's different than yours and still have it be my thought and not some dogma force-fed to me.
And where the hell do you get off writing that I agree with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's methods? I don't believe I've ever once wrote that in my letters. Please quote me if I have. I'll remind you, once again, that my family did not side with Him during the war, and that I've never condoned his actions.
I just don't want bloody fucking Muggles poking around our business any longer.
There's more than one way to skin a kneazle (did I tell you we've actually tested this theory in Herbology class last month?) and we had a debate about this in 'Rightful Wizards' a few weeks back and I'll have you know that everyone was entitled to their own opinions. Some did advocate the butchering methods, but a greater majority of us agreed that expatriating them out of our world was a much cleaner and cost-efficient method.
This has always been my thought of mind. Don't get the deluded impression that because we were getting all cuddly that I became a loving spirit.
- M.
December 17th
Yeah, I have always been a hateful piece of shit. Have you always been a condescending arsehole?
- M.
December 24th
Go to hell, Oliver.
Oh wait, you're already there.
- Flint.