Author's Note: It's my assumption that you have read the books if you're interested in HP fanfics, so I hope it wasn't too difficult to understand the character references I made in this chapter. If you haven't read the series, though, I hope I was able to make it clear enough for you :)

Really challenging chapter but this was fun!

Chapter 3: The Trial of Viktor Krum

Viktor is confronted by Cedric, and it does not end well.

Viktor felt a throbbing pain in his left side, like a pulsing bead that was sending small waves underneath his skin. At times it felt like an intense vibration and he had to catch his breath to try and reel the pain in, only for it to suddenly subside into a more steady and rhythmic pulse that he can tolerate better. His eyes were closed and he thought maybe he was just dreaming the pain, that he was still asleep in his bed in the quarters of the Durmstrang ship.

Through his eyelids, there were flashes of light, and he saw vague outlines and shadows that stirred then disappeared. There was a smell of burning wood in the air and his face was grimy with ash and dirt.

He realized then that he was holding someone's hand. It was cold and soft, but the grip was firm against his own.

It was a woman's.

She was shivering, her palms clammy with sweat. In his mind's eye, he saw her: brunette hair, pale face, slender neck. "Let us go! Please-"

He could not see, but he was sure there was another with them, too. A man, standing a few feet from them. Stern. Resolute. Yet frantic. The air was heavy with fear, urgency, pleading-and danger. He knew he had to leave. So he clung to the woman and gripped her hand tightly. "I don't want this anymore!"

He descended into darkness, but the woman was not with him.

He felt soft sheets on top of him. A dull, steady pain was in his side, but it was less intense than he remembered. It was cold, and his head felt extremely heavy. He tried to open his eyes, but there was a heaviness in his left eye that forced it shut. He managed to open the right one and, from under eyelids heavy with sleep, gazed around at his surroundings.

A huge window spanned the wall opposite him, by his feet. Snow was gently falling against its wide panes. Through the glass murky with grime, he saw dark, cloudy skies. He could not tell if it was dawn or dusk.

A fire was crackling brightly from above his head. Light and shadow danced and writhed on the opposite wall, presenting a hypnotic display that almost brought him back to sleep. The warmth of the fire. The softness of the blanket against my stomach...my stomach?

It slowly dawned on him how naked he was underneath the sheets. Except for his underwear, he had no shirt nor pants. He opened his eye once more and strained to get a better understanding of where he is. The place looked familiar, but he could not be sure under the limited light of the fire. Blinking away the last tendrils of sleep, he slowly sat up, his body feeling sore and stiff from long hours of reclining. A chill crawled across his naked body, and he snuggled the blankets closer to him.

The woman in his dreams swam back in his mind. Who is she? The fear he had felt lingered with him, a fright he had never felt before. What does it mean?

He swung his legs and felt the cold, dusty floor against his bare feet. Clutching the couch, he stood up, steadying himself on legs that felt like lead. Where am I?

Opposite him, descending by a small set of stairs, was a study. Shelves filled with books stood against its walls, in their midst a wide oak desk. Behind him was a winding staircase that led to the second storey above. There was a balcony on the second landing, and from where Viktor stood he could partially see the rooms upstairs. Every fixture was covered with a fine layer of dust, but aside from that the house was in great order.

The sheets trailed behind him like a cloak as he stepped into the study. Screwed to the stone wall in between the book shelves were empty braziers, their candles unlit. Below were narrow windows deeply set in the thick stone. Rondels of opalescent glass adorned the panes: shades of deep green, turquoise, brown, and aquamarine interspaced with milky white. They bathed the room with slivers of iridescent light.

He pulled a thick, yellowed tome from one of the shelves and set it down with a thud on the desk. Dust rose in a rush, swaying in the air as it caught the fading (or waking?) sunlight. It would have been a mesmerizing scene had it not made Viktor bend over with a bout of coughing. The book's label read, in straight block letters, Horticulture For All Ages. He flicked it open with a finger between the crinkling pages. A hand-drawn illustration of a gardening set-up was scrawled across the sheets. He read through some of the words written underneath, his brow creasing in confusion at the unfamiliar terms. Zinc. Nitrogen. Iron-That, I know. He grabbed another book. Gun Ownership.

Where am I?

A voice came from behind him. "You're awake."

He turned, surprised. Cedric. "Vhere are ve?"

"I was hoping you could tell me. You brought us here, remember?"

I brought us here? "I-I don't understand." His words came out in a slur, his voice thick from lack of use. How long was I asleep? The light threw shades of green and blue over Cedric, making him look like a kingly merman in his underwater realm. Yet even in the dimness, Viktor could see the dark circles underneath his eyes. He looked tired. But the same fieriness he had seen before in the graveyard still burnt in him.

"You have questions," said Viktor, remembering how Cedric had reacted in the graveyard. He grabbed the chair from behind the desk and slowly seated himself, trying to hide the pain throbbing in his side.

"We can deal with them later." Cedric waved a dismissive hand. "Right now, you need to rest." Cedric took a step forward across the threshold of the study to assist him back to the couch.

He raised a hand and Cedric stopped halfway to him. "I'd prefer ve deal vid them now." It came out more bluntly as he liked, yet he did not care. I almost died for this man, yet he accused me of being a criminal.

For a moment they stared at each other, him unrelenting and the other reluctant. With a sigh, Cedric sat down opposite him, gaze now steely and features a hardened mask. There was a brief pause again where all that could be heard was the faint crackling of the fireplace.

"What happened in the maze?" Cedric began.

"I told you, I don't know."

"You expect me to believe that? That you somehow accidentally just tortured me with the Cruciatus Curse and brought Harry and me to You-Know-Who himself?"

Viktor's breath caught in his throat. I tortured him? He strained to remember, but his head felt like it was filled with wet flour. "There vos a man...in the maze."

A man's face floated in front of him. Someone from Hogwarts...what was his name? "Moody. Mad-Eye Moody."

"Professor Moody?"

He nodded, then instantly regretted it. The twang of pain in his neck was so intense that he had to catch his breath. "I-I think I vos imperiused. I can vaguely recall vot I did but…" he shut his eye as if to clear it off the fogginess, to no avail. "I tortured you?"

Cedric eyed him testily, then gave a curt agreement.

"I vosn't aware. I...forgive me. I believe I vos imperiused. The spell must have broken ven ve got to the graveyard. The next thing I remember after the maze vos us standing on that hill."

The mask Cedric wore was gone, replaced by a creased brow deep in thought. "Professor Moody is a faculty member. Chosen by Dumbledore himself. He was an auror, even, from the Ministry of Magic. Why would he…?"

"I don't know. I can't answer for him nor the Ministry."

And just as suddenly Cedric's face was steel again. "You left Harry behind."

It almost choked him, being reminded of what they had to do to survive. I didn't wish for that to happen. But what choice did I have? "Did you think ve stood a chance to those Death Eaters? Ve barely got out, and even then ve escaped almost whole," he pointed at the bandaged stump of a hand Cedric had. Three fingers stood awkwardly angled among rolls and rolls of white cloth. Cedric made a move to hide it but stopped himself midway. "My plan vos to go to the village on the other side. To get help from anyone, or at least notify Dunvledore."

"Was that even a magical village?"

"A village whose graveyard is decorated by hippogriffs and phoenixes is meant to be a vizarding one. And ve left Harry behind. It's not just me who is in here."

Cedric shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Maybe I should let off a bit. He has every right to be suspicious of me, but still...

He sighed. "I vanted to save him, I swear. But you saw how many Death Eaters there ver. I took you vid me because I could save you. I could not just leave you behind."

"You saved me because I am your token of innocence," Cedric sharply replied. "It would be easier for you to redeem yourself with me in tow. Alive. And your account of the story would have been more believable."

He felt his eyebrow twitch in contempt. "I do not need a token nor redemption. And even if I did, I'm not stupid enough to make the mistake of bringing you, the sole witness, vid me. You know exactly vot happened. You even know more than me. Bringing you back vid me vid your knowledge of vot I did in the maze vould only weaken my account, as you put it, or demolish it completely."

"That's why you brought me here. To give you time to erase my memory."

He sniggered, croaky and harsh from long hours of sleep. "You are far too smart for your own good, Diggory. Unfortunately for you, I am not as clever as you think I am to think of such schemes."

"But you certainly are powerful enough. I saw what you did to those Deah Eaters."

His mind recalled the battle that ensued on the hill, how he simultaneously fought three Death Eaters to the death. He had enchanted a weeping stone angel to fight for him. It had swung the chains it was holding in a wide arc over its head, and in one fell sweep crushed the three under the heavy weight. The sound of their bones cracking was still sharp in his ears.

"Vould you rather have me sing them to sleep?" If I had not done what I did, I would not have saved you.

Cedric continued, "It's your word against the chance that I am right. So forgive me if I'm a bit suspicious of you." Cedric regarded him coolly. "You are accusing a professor of manipulating you; the same professor who has dedicated his life to fighting Death Eaters, the one who even taught us a proper defense against their dark arts. While you-" Cedric's anger was flaring now, and he took a deep breath to steady himself. "You have always been Karkaroff's favorite. That's plain for everyone to see. And it's also no secret that Igor Karkaroff was a Death Eater."

The comment took him off guard, but he dared not show it to Cedric. "Ve are not the company ve keep, Diggory."

"On the contrary, I tend to learn more about a person based on the friends he surrounds himself with."

"Karkaroff is not a friend. He is manipulative, yes. But he only attached himself to me because he is egoistical as he is insecure."

"And you? Why did you attach yourself to him?"

"I-" He found himself unable to answer. He has been under Karkaroff's wing for years, but not once did he thought of the answer to this question. Or did he know already, only that he was too scared to face it?

His reluctance seemed to be all that Cedric needed. "You will face your crimes as soon as we get back to Hogwarts."

His fists clenched tight under the desk, his jaw gritted hard. A sharp stab of pain burnt in his side, but he bit his tongue. "I escaped from them, Diggory. Isn't that proof enough that I am not a Death Eater?"

There was a brief pause as Cedric's eyes drifted to stare out the windows, unseeing. "Then they must be holding something against you."

"Vould you listen to yourself? How far vill you stretch the story you've made for yourself just to mistrust me? I told you, I vos imperiused by Moody!"

"You are implicating an auror from the Ministry itself!"

"Because it's the truth!" His fist slammed against the tabletop, the loud thud echoing in the silent cottage. The brusqueness made Cedric flinch, and he felt a sense of triumph over being able to break the grating composure of the other in accusing him. "I don't know vot hand the Ministry had in the Dark Lord's return. But won't you admit that the Tournament had been off this whole time? A boy got in, and out of all the underage students of your school, it vos Harry. Somebody tampered vid the Cup as vell and-" A dizziness took him, then. He lay his head in the palms of his hand as he willed the spinning to stop.

With a weaker voice than he would have liked, Viktor said, at length, "I put my own life on the line for you, Diggory. Why can't you believe me?"

The squeak of the chair skidding against the floor signaled that Cedric had left. He followed him with his eye as he disappeared into a doorway beside the fireplace. Reclining back on his seat, he noticed he was trembling. Why am I so angry? Opinions of him have always been divisive, he had learned over the years. Adoration and love abound in the Quidditch field and under the limelight, but without? 'Too Brooding and quiet.' He's no stranger to people being suspicious of him. And somehow he had appreciated that, even wanted it more. That way, people back off.

Then why was this affecting him so much?

"I am not a Death Eater," he grumbled under his breath.