The Durmstrang Circle

Since i took this text mostly from Victor Krum's diary, using only a few additional pensieve memories, and english is not Krum's native language, the "Durmstrang Circle" includes a lot of grammatical and vocabulary mistakes.

All Copyrights of the world of "Harry Potter" are in the hand of whoever bought it. To make things clear: That isn't me.
No high expectations, no disappointment. Have fun!


Chapter 1: Hermione's unromantic seduction

Hermione was sitting in the library again, staring at a book without reading it. Outside of Hogwarts' beautiful gothic windows a december storm brought more rain and darkness over Scotland, clouding her mood like the sky.
Usually nothing was as relaxing for her as a good book, but today, just about everything was wrong.

First of all, the book she read was not a good one. Surely, the content itself was great, the masterwork of an undoubtedly brilliant man, who spent more than a century researching one of the most enigmatic and complex topics of magic - without ever wasting time on teaching it. Therefore it was certainly not the cleverest idea to make it the school book about magical theory for first class children. Now she was in her fourth year and still didn't get what the man tried to tell her, even though every year another part become clear for her. Lets say one thing about Hermione J. Granger, she's persistent. Her main problem was that for every question solved, she got another two about what she actually just found out. Idly she watched a picture of Ron which was used to mark the page she had tried to read the fifth time already today without understanding anything.

Which lead to the second problem. The picture was a constant reminder of what became known as "the accident" to a wizarding world which loved to give everything a mysterious touch. Ron Weasley, selfless hero he was, died a glorious death on the battlefield. He sacrificed himself for the greater good in a truly epic game of chess. While all beaten chess pieces reconstructed themselves, probably for being played by the next person, Ron never recovered. Tragic, but true. Well, analyzing how the game went from her memory, Hermione now was very glad Ron had been lucky enough in the first place to bring them to the other side. She would always remember him, she promised herself, certainly not for his chess-skills, but for being one of the two friends she made. And vice versa: Since Harry and she were his only friends, she felt it was their responsibility.
Anyway, the most upsetting fact for Hermione was that nobody seemed to be found guilty of his death.
The Ministry of Magic of course tried to get Dumbledore to retire after the death of one of his students, but legally their hands were tied. Obviously it was enough in the wizarding world to be warned that a horrible death awaits the one who enters a certain corridor to clear the one laying deathly traps at a school from all accusations...
Especially if the story for the public and even his parents was that their son stupidly played in a prohibited part of the castle which was still under construction, causing a wall to collapse on him. Hermione shuddered when she remembered the voice of the Headmaster in her own head, reminding her to keep quiet on the real events.
There were enough other witnesses to prove Ron had been warned like any other student. Case closed.

And finally, the Triwizard Tournament seemed to be the only thing on Harry's mind, and if all other tasks would be as hard as his fight with the Hungarian Horntail, Hermione couldn't even criticize him for it. Still, the Yule ball came closer, and still nobody had invited her. Since she was underage, she couldn't go herself.


What was supposed to be her pretending the repetition of the fundamental laws of magic was disturbed by a certain Viktor Krum. Loosing a swarm of giggling fan-girls as soon as he stepped into the library and braving himself, he began to execute his masterplan to invite the girl he laid eyes on to the Yule ball. Since she seemed not to care much about flying, for all the emotion brought by it, he had to try a different approach. The last two times they met they didn't exchange a word in the sense of communication at all, just the usual unnecessary politeness only used by teenagers. Even now his first question was if the seat was taken, as if there were no other places in a library at friday evening, and her answer was that this seat, what a miracle, was really as empty as it looked like.

Usually Hermione had nothing against the quiet, studious Durmstrang student who came often to the Hogwarts library to learn from all the knowledge it could offer. But today Hermione noticed that the first thing Viktor did was hanging his heavy, wet fur coat over his chair,and started raised eyebrow before quietly whispering:
"You wonder why i wear a fur-coat even inside this castle? Funny thing is, most of Durmstrang students are used to better weather. For example we have far more sunny hours per year in Bulgaria then Hogwarts can ever hope to have, so for us this school uniforms are a blessing. Also, as you surely know, we don't heat our school for not magical purposes." Viktor winked. "Probably because of global warming."

Hermione giggled in a girlish way she didn't even knew she could and let go of the book she had pretended to read. Happy about the distraction, she watched Viktor expectantly. Realizing she was warming up, he continued:
"Really, if you take into account that its possible to freeze to death at normal temperature of 68° Fahrenheit..."
Hermione interrupted him: "Mr. Krum, i am deeply sorry to have to interrupt you, but i feel obliged to tell you that just because we are speaking english doesn't mean we measure things in Fahrenheit. Regardless of the actual climate zone Durmstrang is situated in, don't you think 20° Celsius is to warm for freezing?"
Now he had her attention, the ice was broken. Over discussing death, but Viktor didn't care much.
"Please, simply call me Viktor. Well, in our classes we learned several ways a person could die, and hypothermia is one of them. Most problematic isn't the surrounding temperature, but your own. But enough of spoiling the mood.
You know, you should really visit us once for lunch in winter, when every student tries to make very, very slowly a potion containing as much tasty meat and vegetables as possible."
Hermione, trying not to outright laugh about his obvious irony, exclaimed: "Come on, if that is true, i will call my firstborn child Hugo! The official statement is just that you only light fires for magic, right? So what kind of central heating do you use in winter in northern Scandinavia?"

"First of all, i doubt Durmstrang is really in Scandinavia. Could be Kanada, Greenland or a complete magical place altogether. Since our students come from all eastern Europe, or better said all former Soviet Union, my guess would be that the school is located in northern russia. Anyway, maybe they shifted the whole place. Several times, probably, the paranoia of our headmasters is legendary. There is a reason for the castle to be unplottable, you know?"
And, smiling to have found someone so smart, he answered honestly:
"And we use water from hot sources in a complicated pipe system. Please don't tell anyone."
"Promised.", Hermione agreed, beaming brightly for guessing correctly.
"By the way, what was you reading there? Magical Theory, by Adalbert Waffling? Karkaroff himself privately admitted once he didn't understand him. Therefore he issued another book. I can lend you one exemplar of this Magizhen Teorija", he offered and passed her his school book.

"That's really kind of you.", Hermione gladly accepted. Looking at the cover, Магичен теория, she shook her head and gave it back, a bit disappointed. "Sorry, i can not even read the cyrillic alphabet, let alone understand which language is written with it."

"Well, maybe we can find you a translation." Viktor smirked, "Surely it has the disadvantage to be written by a less clever, or lets say less fanatical woman, but at least she didn't commit suicide because, to quote Waffling:
"I refuse to live in a world where Accio :anything: gives me whatever i summoned! Whether the magic reads thoughts or understands english, both concepts are too scary to live with! It all makes no sense, nothing makes sense at all!".
I fear since Magizhen Teorija has an introduction into the Dark Arts, it might be prohibited here anyway."

"I won't take anything from you which has something about Dark Arts in it. How can you even offer something as vile as that!", Hermione suddenly nearly yelled at him. She hadn't forgotten about Riddles Diary, and what it supposedly had done to poor Ginny Weasley. There were only a few people who didn't worry about the cheerfull Hufflepuff, who switched for her 3rd year to Beauxbaton, panicked declaring that "Hogwarts is not a school, but a deathtrap!". Impressive enough that she found the strength to come back here for watching the tournament, especially after what happened to her brother...

"Hey, are you ok?", a slightly confused Viktor interrupted her train of thoughts.
"Let me tell you about the Dark Arts, which seem to trouble you so immensely. There are no Good Arts, just Neutral and Dark ones. Most of Spells, Potions and Rituals we know are so-called "Neutral Arts", from raising plants like Mandrake roots, which have a fatal cry, over learning how to turn animals into something useful (Hermione flinched) or to set things on fire. Defense against the Dark Arts deals with things like immobilizing and disarming curses.
So what are the Dark Arts? Obviously not all what hurts is dark, even the simplest levitation charm can do that.
Dark Arts are all things which come with a moral prize, may it be the bit of extra power only achievable by the strength of a negative emotion like in the Unforgivables or something far worse. But even for them there are exceptions, cases when they can be used legally. The old argument is that not the wand is evil, nor the spell, but the wizard casting it. For example, what are Cutting curses? Fleur Delacour of Beauxbaton Academy would tell you that these belong into the kitchen. Bellatrix Lestrange might tell you they belong to the Dark Arts."
He didn't let an agitated Hermione interrupt him. "I know that this argument is not a strong one, actually.
Maybe you will agree on the other one i learned: The Dark Arts are always changing, adapting and treacherous. Maybe i shouldn't even tell you about that, it is not really a subject to be discussed with women.
By the way, thats the reason for Durmstrang to be an all boys school. Nobody would expose their teenage daughters to the temptation of Dark Arts, if they can also learn at Beauxbaton how to put on make-up, household-charms and to speak french." He didn't really know where the French men went, but for all he knew probably not all blonde, long-haired Beauxbaton students were girls.

"What?", Hermione exclaimed shocked. She couldn't believe this was happening to her, in the end of 20th century.

"You don't need to be so outraged about it, it's more a cultural thing. We are convinced that our girls are to precious to fight, and should protected as good as possible. That's why it is the man's task to study Dark Arts, how to use them to fight his enemies and protect his family.", Viktor hurriedly tried to explain.

"Precious? Especially the Muggleborn ones, right?", Hermione asked sarcastically, filing the possessive phrase "our girls" away for later questioning.

"Ah, of course you are curious about that. Even though we all oppose the one whose name you shouldn't carelessly speak, Durmstrang refuses to accept Muggleborn students. Hear me out, and you will understand why.
In Durmstrang the Dark Arts themselves are tought, not the defense against them. Every pureblood wizard and witch grew up being educated by their parents in such a magic environment that there is not much to be offered by the Dark Arts to him. He can do magic, after all, and there is no much advantage a Hand of Glory has over the Lumos-charm, you see? It's like that with nearly every dark spell, there is always an alternative.
And to not accept Muggleborns prevents our Aurors from hunting them down later. Another big problem is that the Dark Arts were never really researched, as far as i know. Most wizards are content with that, but don't you agree that half-bloods have a greater curiosity? We see magic as something as normal as you see planes, which are a miracle for us. We don't need to evolve, our political structure, our economy, that all is running perfectly since centuries.

Let me not tell you about the history of Durmstrang, for it is late already and the story of a school someone as horrible as Grindelwald could come from deserves more time. Maybe we can meet once more for it again.

Seeing her eyes on him he finally asked the sudden non sequitur:

"Would you attend me to the ball, Hermione?"

And captured by his salutary monologue in pure fascination, Hermione said "Yes, teacher!" without thinking twice.


Thus started the most unromantic relationship since Abraxas Malfoy married his son Lucius to Narcissa Black by a well-hidden article in the general terms and conditions of a contract with Cygnus Black III.

Hope you enjoyed reading it half as much as i did enjoy writing it!
Please let me know your opinion, it might stop me from writing badly.
I had troubles to find the right genre for this story, so: sorry.
If you really like me to not continue, point out why Ron had an important part and his untimely death in first year destroyed the timeline completely...