A/N: My 'plot bunny' (I have heard, many a time, about the existence of such creatures. Apparently they make one wish to write, and motivate one to continue writing when one is tired and really, really lazy, and feels somewhat forgotten.) is trying to hop away. I am attempting to appease it with a vast supply of carrots and peppermint (the peppermint is for me) but it refuses to be restrained. If you see a small white rabbit hopping about with a copy of OotP in one paw and a notebook in the other, please return it to me. I believe its name is Mortimer.

"Bella!" exclaimed Ron, sounding thoroughly aghast. "I—I don't believe you—You're going to the Yule Ball with somebody from Durmstrang?"

Exchanging an eye roll with Hermione—this was the first of several times in the remaining days before Christmas that Bellacine and he were going over this, Ron ceaselessly astounded by the fact that she was going with somebody from Durmstrang. He didn't like it at all, just as he didn't like the fact that Hermione refused to tell him a thing about Krum.

"Yeah, I am," she retorted. "It's Vasily, Ron, get over it. Vasily—you know, the one that used to sit at our table? Believe me, it's not one of those pureblood idiots, I've known him for ages—"

"They're all purebloods!" he said vehemently. "It's like an entire school full of Slytherins and you're going with one. I mean—not that it's the pureblood thing itself that matters, you are and I'm sort of one, but...that's all the school is! Exclusively pureblood! Like Slytherin! That's what it is, isn't it?"

She stared coldly at him for a few moments, and he seemed to regret saying this.

"Okay, not all of them...," he mumbled.

Bellacine nodded slowly, with a slightly-too-wide smile plastered across her face, as if he was thick. "Good, Ron. Much better. Now—"

"But he's still from Durmstrang!" he interrupted. "He's from a school competing against Hogwarts, which is competing against Harry. You can't go with somebody from Durmstrang, it's not right...." Bellacine fixed him with a glare and he trailed off. Strange as it seemed, none of the four of them had yet descended to the point of fighting at all. Ron's temper was certainly much quicker than usual, true; he kept pestering her about Vasily and Hermione to tell him who her date was, but he was reluctant to pursue anything, possibly in the spirit of Christmas. She could hope, anyway.

It probably didn't help in the slightest that he hadn't even asked the girl he was going with, Padma Patil, much less ever talked to her. The same night Vasily had asked her in the library, Harry had asked Parvati Patil in the middle of the common room out of sheer desperation, and she'd agreed to set up her twin sister with Ron.

Harry was exactly the opposite—in fact, Harry had been quite cool about the whole thing. Of course, he didn't know any more about Hermione and Krum than Ron did, but Bellacine and Ginny had promised, after all. Mostly, he seemed a combination of embarrassed and scared out of his wits. And though he denied it adamantly, even under Hermione's in-depth interrogation, she knew he had done absolutely no work whatsoever on the mysterious golden egg for the second task.

Fred and George (who was going with the Lizzie girl who seemed to be the carefully planted decoy in so many of their pranks, as she was quite talented at smiling innocently) were very pleased with themselves the morning after they had sent her to the library. In return for their favour—convincing Vasily to ask her to the Yule Ball, which sounded better every day—she aided and abetted their side in the snowball fight Christmas afternoon, much to the chagrin of Harry and the others.

At five o'clock, Hermione popped up from behind a carefully constructed snow bank that was crumbling slowly under a steady barrage of missiles from Lee Jordan, her hands raised. Lee flicked his wand idly and the last of the snowballs veered off course.

"I'm going in now," she announced, practically yelling over the din of shrieks and threats around them. "Bella? Ginny?

"Sure," shouted Ginny, ducking under Ron's arm as he attempted to stuff a handful of snow into her hat. "RON, STOP IT! Bella, come in before they get you too!" Bellacine shrugged and tried to finish off Harry's destruction whilst running in the opposite direction.

"What, you need three hours?" Ron demanded. "Who're you going with that it takes that long to—Hermione? Hey, come back, you're on my team!"

Hermione stomped away through the high drifts of snow decorating the grounds, and Bellacine and Ginny followed, despite the continued shouts of their former comrades. Inside the castle, they shook snow off their shoes, and Hermione led them briskly to Gryffindor Tower.

"I know Ron's just doesn't get it sometimes, but what are you doing that takes this long?" inquired Ginny.

Hermione pulled her knit hat off, and as she did, the static made her hair frizz up to the point of being ridiculously puffy. "I want to fix this," she said, holding up a section of hair. "I'm sick of looking like I've been electrocuted. I want it flat for tonight, and I have no idea how long it'll take to get it properly straight."

"Sleekeazy's," said Ginny at once.

"Excuse me?"

"Hair stuff," the girl explained. "My friend Moira's got loads, she'll probably loan you some. She's the one with the blonde hair that's practically in ringlets—it is when she doesn't use Sleekeazy's, at least. It makes your hair stay however you want it to."

"Like a flatiron?" Hermione asked. They exchanged blank looks.

"I've no idea, really," Bellacine said dubiously. "But if you'd rather it was straighter and not frizzy, like...."

"Tonight, that's all I want," she said with a laugh. "Hey, maybe Ron won't recognise me...I mean, imagine when he finds out...Viktor Krum...." She shuddered.

An hour and a half later, Hermione emerged from the third-year girls' room of the dormitories, with her hair as straight as Parvati's. The hair potion also made her usually mid-brown hair lighter, with a slight shine. Anxiously, she asked, "How do I look?"

"Oh, very nice," said Ginny, not without a hint of pride at the success of her suggestion. "Going to get ready now? I'll see you there, I suppose." She slipped back inside her own room--Bellacine had forgotten she was going with Neville. Neville, of all people, honestly. But better Ginny than Hermione--or her.

"Wait," Bellacine ordered as Hermione reached out to open the door to their own room. "Lavender and Parvati," she added by means of explanation. If Hermione's date was such a secret, then the less chance either of the other two girls overheard a thing, the better. "Are we meeting them in the entrance hall or are we going down to the ship? Vasily didn't say."

"Viktor said the ship."

"Okay, then--be ready to leave at seven-thirty so nobody sees us." They nodded together, stiffly, as if preparing to enter a war zone, and walked into the room.

The air was slightly too thick with the smell of something vaguely chemical and probably Muggle; it sent Hermione into a violent coughing fit and Parvati, who had just put on very bright pink robes that could have illuminated most of Hogwarts, sent them a patronising glance. Then she blinked once, twice, as if she couldn't believe her eyes.

"Oh my god!" she shrieked. "Your hair--wow--it's...it's so straight!" Her jaw had literally dropped; she ran over to them. "I love your hair, Hermione, it looks great! You should do that every day!"

"It takes too long," Hermione mumbled, but Parvati paid her no mind, continuing to gush. After carefully re-adjusting her pale violet robes once more before the full-length mirror now propped up across from her bed, Lavender joined them. The threshold was becoming quite claustrophobic--she suddenly thought it lucky they had one of the smallest years at Hogwarts.

"Ooh, Hermione, I love your hair!" she squealed. "Isn't it amazing what just a little work can do? You've just got to do it like that again!" Hermione and Bellacine exchanged an exasperated shake of the head. "Where've you two been, anyway? You need to get your dress robes on, it's almost seven, and if you need to put on make-up or do your hair--Bellacine, what're you doing with yours?"

Shrugging, she started to undo the plait she'd made and stuffed under her cap during the snowball war. "Leave it down, I guess." Possibly because all Bellacine wanted to do was get out of this room where the stench of perfume was thick and the stench of extreme madness even more prevalent. She saw the two girls share a startled glance. "Oh no you don't. I like my hair the way it is right now, and it shall remain the way it is without any intervention on the part of anyone at any time, anywhere.:

"Oh, leave her alone, Lavender," Hermione ordered, and prised them both out of the cramped doorway and to their beds, at the far side of the room. Behind them, one of the girls made an insulted little sniffling noise, and uncaringly, Bellacine pulled back the drapes around her bed. As they all had done--so maybe Parvati and Lavender had some sense of logic after all, but it was a strange, twisted logic--that morning, she'd hung her robes on the curtain railing to get the wrinkles out.

They were made of a silky material that reflected slightly in the torchlight that eternally decorated the castle in winter. In bright, direct light her robes appeared a few shades darker than the Durmstrang uniform of blood-red, a deep crimson, but in dimness they neared black. Money helped. Bellacine would not be wearing any centuries-old moulding-lace-edged robes this evening. Being rich helped, though she would never, ever so much as broach the subject around Ron. Being a Black helped, much as it was also a detriment. And she decided she looked the part, her long black hair--her Black hair, because it was her father's and grandmother's, and Bellatrix's and Sirius's hair too--loose and swept back, falling down her bkac, her robes speaking of--something; they spoke of ancient and deep and powerful. So Lavender and Parvati, and sometimes the others, hated her for it--what did she care? They couldn't say they were pureblood.

As they quietly slipped out of the common room, thankfully avoiding the kibitzers amongst them, Hermione told her, smiling, "You look evil."

"I try." She laughed.

They had foregone cloaks as it was a reasonably short walk to the Durmstrang ship (compared with a stroll up Mount Everest) and not terribly cold out-of-doors (compared to Mount Everest). The deck was deserted; after a moment's deliberation, Bellacine let herself and Hermione on board.

Vasily must have seen them there or known they were coming, for he was on deck shortly after they arrived. "Hey, Bella," he said, his breath leaving puffs of smoke on the cold air. "Oh--Krum will be here in a bit, once Karkaroff stops yelling at him and Vassikin."

"What for?" Hermione asked. "Moreover, who's Vassikin?"

"Moreover than that, where's Vassikin's date from?" said Bellacine. "Let me guess--certainly not Durmstrang, nor Slytherin, nor Ravenclaw. Not Gryffindor, we would've known. So either she's a Hufflepuff or from Beauxbatons, neither of which are good at all."

"Unfortunately, Beauxbatons," Vasily confirmed. "Got himself into it, I suppose. Vassikin is Sasha Vassikin--yes that is a boy's name--he's one of the four people in ninth year that came here and he's in charge of all the rest of us because Karkaroff doesn't want to deal with children. Anyway, the girl he asked to the Yule Ball is from Beauxbatons, and if you haven't noticed, that's probably the most liberal school on the continent. In Karkaroff's book, you see, liberal is very, very bad."

"And why Krum?"

Vasily looked embarrassed. Then he said, "Because you're Muggle-born."

By this time, everyone but Krum, Vassikin, and the headmaster himself were on deck; most of them nodded to Bellacine when they saw her, a faint blue peter of recognition, but nobody else acknowledged Hermione. Finally they arrived--Krum went straight to Hermione, who was looking much happier now--and Karkaroff announced, "To the castle, then."

It seemed Krum's strategy to escape his headmaster was to walk very quickly and reach the castle before anyone else, whilst Vassikin walked very slowly. Soon Krum and Hermione were leading the party, Vassikin bringing up the rear, and Vasily and Bellacine moved in the middle. He kept glancing at her as they climbed the small hill to Hogwarts castle proper.

"You look really nice," he murmured at last, as the doors into the brightly lit entrance hall were thrown open.

Inside was an explosion of many different colours, due to the varied dress robes instead of three colours of school uniform, into which the Durmstrang group slowly dissipated as Vassikin slipped away to a cluster of Beauxbatons girls, one of which withdrew, smiling at him; Professor McGonagall, looking slightly pained in a red tartan dress, dodged about collecting the champions. Bellacine couldn't tell whether Harry was in actual physical pain or just very, very mortified, being dragged along by Parvati like a reluctant dog, but it was easy enough to tell when he spotted Hermione and Krum, his jaw practically falling off his face.

Suddenly everyone seemed to be pushing forwards into the Great Hall with the urgency she associated with a riot, but Vasily did not move, carefully offering her hiselbow. He'd foregone the concept of a cloak as well; his dress robes were dark blue. She took his arm and allowed him to escort her in, all the while thinking things like, Well, it's got to be even more embarrassing for Harry.

The Great Hall had been entirely transformed in the time since lunch, the four House tables removed and replaced with a great deal of round eight-seaters; the walls appeared as though covered in silvery hoar-frost, and garlands of holly, ivy, and mistletoe criss-crossed the starry celing.

"Where d'you want to sit?" Bellacine and Vasily asked at the same moment. She laughed for lack of anything better to do, scanning the room.

Ron, sitting at table filled with Padma's Ravenclaw friends, looked more interested in pulling stray threads from the left cuff of his revolting marroon robes than conversing with his fate. She didn't see Ginny and Neville, but was quite disappointed to see Draco and Pansy Parkinson together, and Anton with Ekaterina Andropov, however heartening it was to see Crabbe, Goyle, and Nott all without girls by their sides.

Someone whistled, and she turned to see Fred waving them over to a half-empty table where he, Angelina, George, and Lizzie already sat. Trying to act as though this was something he did every day, completely natural, Vasily pulled out her chair before he sat. Moments later Lee Jordan and another Chaser from the Gryffindor Quidditch Team, Alicia Spinnet, arrived and took seats.

Just then the champions, in pairs, filed in--Hermione was at the head of the line, Harry in back--to much applause, and they took seats at the high table, where the head teachers of each school and Ludo Bagman sat, although there was a noticeable lack of Mr Crouch.

Resuming their seats, George suddenly stared at the high table. Fred, whose back was to that end of the Great Hall, quickly said, "What's up?"

George snorted--derision or laughter, she couldn't tell which. "Guess who's here," he drawled, smirking.

"No clue, try me," his twin responded. Then he glanced over his shoulder. "Oh. Merlin. Weatherby."

"The very same," he breathed, and all four girls at the table looked up to the dais. It was indeed Percy Weasley who sat beside Mr Bagman, looking oddly natural in his infinite-ruler-of-known-universe position.

"Looks like your brother has a new job," noted Vasily. "So does the International Department have a new Head? Where's Crouch?"

"I don't know and I don't care. Let's talk about something else."

Alicia entertained them with a series of anecdotes about her older sister who worked for Gringotts in the same capacity as Bill Weasley. "I remember hearing about Julie," Fred said fondly. "How many times did Mum try to set Bill up with her? Fifty? A hundred?" Which led them into a long, pleasing diatribe on parents--Bellacine, the outsider, enjoyed watching this--and merged into the twins' continued struggles with Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, whcich kept them going through the remainder of the meal. Frim how often Vasily spoke up when Fred and George were eating, Bellacine could tell they'd been talking quite a bit recently--about more than just her and the library--and she could tell he seemed quite interested in the business they planned to open.

When she asked him about it a few minutes later, as Dumbledore had them all stand--with a wave of his wand the round tables flew to line the walls, except for the spot where a small stage was erected, onto which the Weird Sisters trooped; loud clapping--Vasily shifted uneasily.

"Look," he said, so quietly that she could hardly hear him, "you know how my mother works for the international department at the Ministry? If only because she's never home when you come to visit. Well, it's not like she needs to--it's like your family, there's enough family money for a case like this, when my--our, Anya's and my father died--that she wouldn't ever have to work. I mean, it's not going to last forever, but if she didn't want to--I think she works because she can't stand to stay at home in that house alone all the time, that it gives her too much time to...think."

The band was playing (a philosophy: if you can feel the music before you can hear it, it's rubbish), the champions dancing--either looking to be enjoying the night or unbearably awkward, depending--but Vasily stepped back from the irregular ring of people surrounding the floor until he was near a table against the wall. Bellacine followed him.

He went on, "When they sent Anton's father to Azkaban, it wasn't like that; I don't know why. I know this only because I overheard my mother and my great-uncle Gnedich talking. They don't have that much money anymore, not much at all, the Dolohovs." They were silent through a wild sforzando. "Let's not talk about this any longer, all right?"

"Who else knows?"

"Nobody. Not even Anya; it's not that obvious. They've hid it well. Come, dance with me." Vasily took her by the hand and pulled her out onto the dance floor; the band was still on the first (slow) song but half the attendees were out there.

"Would it ever kill you to ask me first?" she grumbled, not meaning it.

She thought she heard him say, "Possibly," but almost as soon as they were dancing, they had to jump out of the way of Hagrid and Madame Mazime (Even Hagrid's dancing with someone, she reflected. Now that's scary). Anton and Ekaterina Andropov danced a few yards away, Anton sneering at her over Ekaterina's shoulder as they rotated, but that didn't bother her nearly as much as the new circle pin on his collar, the one that hadn't been there the day before.

They sat down almost a half-hour later, at a table frequented by the Durmstrang people on the Slytherin side of the Great Hall; currently, it was vacant. But after a few minutes, Vassikin and a strawberry-blonde girl came to their table.

"Have you seen our wonderful headmaster anywhere?" he asked Vasily precautionarily. "God! You know if he sees me again tonight, in the temper he's in, he'll make the rest of my life a living hell."

"Haven't seen him in here since dinner," he answered. "So who's the girl?"

Vassikin and the Beaucbatons girl sat down. "This is Claire Aubin. Claire, this is Vasily Pyotorovich, who's two years below me, and his friend, or something, Bella Regulovna. She used to go to Durmstrang."

As Claire scooched her chair up, Bellacine took a look at her. She was pretty, but she was no half-veela. Probably a good thing.

"What did Karkaroff do to you and Krum?" she asked. "Because I saw Anton a bit ago, and unless Karkaroff's already picking the people to be in charge next year, and giving them their insignia, you have just lost everything."

"He did what?" Vasily snarled, sounding every bit as angry as the ninth-year boy. "He can't do that, it's been four months and he's not allowed to replace people after two months have gone by!"

"I know. Honestly, what the hell?"

Claire chimed in, "Sasha asked me and he's the one who has to put up with me all night. I'm pureblood too; is that not good enough now?" (Bellacine was surprised at how faint the girl's accent was; then again, they'd been at Hogwarts for a few months and Vasily's was fading too.)

She began to tune them out as they started a round of enthusiastic Karkaroff-bashing, throwing in "that's right" every few minutes. At Durmstrang it had been something of a recreational pasttime; now she had no new material to work with, and there had been better smart alecks than her in the first place. Funny how Vassikin seemed far less uptight than he once had been, even a few months ago; he'd once obeyed rules like breathing out of line would kill him. And here was the start of a new era, Anton Dolohov practically controlling the school--she was suddenly glad she'd gotten out when she did.

Vasily must have noticed she wasn't paying attention, for he whispered, "D'you want to go outside or something?"

She nodded; they got up, saying good-byes to Sasha and Claire, and went out through the entrance hall into a sort of garden-esque arrangement with hedges and stone benches and many long strands of fairy lights draped over things. It was snowing--barely, flurries, drizzling like light rain.

"You know," she said thoughtfully, "Russia isn't nearly as cold as everyone thinks."

"You're right, actually. I think the coldest it regularly gets around Durmstrang is twenty below. What made you think of that?"

"It's winter?" She looked quizically at him. "It's snowing?"

"True. Very true on both counts."

They walked--wandering about, really--meandering in the slight maze of the garden, talking. He kept drifiting closer to her, quite close, and then he was holding her the same way Sasha had held Claire when they arrived at the table, his arm loosely around her waist. The first time they passed a minor grotto--bench, rose bushes, recessed into the hedge--Bellacine noticed two shadowy figures half-hidden behind the shrybbery; they seemed to be joined at the lips, but the second was vacant, and so they sat.

It was silent for a long time except for the faint strains of music drifting from the castle, over the hedges; then collectively, Vasily breathed in deeply, exhaled quickly, took her hands in his.

His face was completely in shadow but she could tell he was looking her directly in the eye.

"You know"--he swallowed--"I--who's there?"

Suddenly, she heard a voice, close by, unpleasantly familiar, and the voice was saying, "I'm afraid I don't understand what it is you're getting so worked up over, Igor."

Vasily dropped her hand and jumped to his feet as Snape and Karkaroff rounded the corner, Karkaroff retorting angrily, "Have you not noticed it darken--Gnedich, what are you doing here?" he snapped.

"Sitting, sir." He looked down as if he was surprised to see ground beneath his feet. "Actually, sir, standing, but formerly sitting. Sir."

Snape snapped, "Then get inside, both of you, now," and swept past them, with Karkaroff trailing behind. Glancing at Vasily, she mouthed, Sir, yes, sir, and the Potions master half-turned to shout back at them, "Ten points from Gryffindor!" before continuing, "I still don't see what there is to fuss about, Igor...." Whatever it was he was fussing about, Karkaroff was clutching his left forearm, staring back at them--anxiously?

"Well then."

"Shall we go back inside, then." They did.

She was quite sure that Vasily had been about to kiss her when Snape and Karkaroff had arrived, and she didn't really mind---if that was the way he felt, fine by her, if he liked her enough to take a girl two years younger to the Yule Ball, if, if, if....This would never have happened at Durmstrang, with Anya around, and she'd hardly known him then. But....

Anya wasn't here, and she didn't need to know about this, and a rather guilty-feeling part of Bellacine was putting Anya in a ox labelled 'Old World' and leaving the box behind....

Four of them sat at the circular table: she, Vasily, Harry, and Ron. The latter two kept exchanging conspiratoral shrugs, and finally Ron blurted, "Can we trust him?"

"Who?" she asked. "Vasily? 'Course you can." It began to dawn on Bellacine just how serious her friends' expressions were, especially Ron, and this worried her. "What happened?"

"We were outside," said Ron somberly. "We heard Hagrid talking to Madame Maxime. He was telling her about his mum, and it turns out she's--she's a giantess. Hagrid is half-giant."

She was going to stay calm. She would not lose control...only Hagrid, only half-giant, giants were mean and vicious and thought killing was entertainment....only a half-breed, only another one of them, apparently all the teachers in this godforsaken place were half-breeds; would it never end?

It was, in the end, Vasily who spoke first.

"Hagrid is that tall one--the one who looks half-giant, yes?"

"But what's it matter if his mother was a giantess?" Harry snapped furiously. They all stared at him. Finally Ron said, "Well...nobody who knows him will care, 'cos they'll know he's not dangerous. But...Harry, they're just vicious, giants. It's like Hagrid said, it's in their natures, they're like trolls...they just like killing, everyone knows that. But there aren't any left in Britain now," he added.

"What happened to them?

Bellacine took over. "Aurors, mostly...they were almost gone here, and the more they killed, the more the Aurors went for them. They've been wiped out here, but there's still quite a few left on the continent. Germany, mostly. Not sure why."

"I don't know who Maxime thinks she's kidding," said Harry, nodding to the Beauxbatons headmistress sitting alone at the judges' table. "If Hagrid's half-giant she definitely is. Big bones...the only thing that's got bigger bones than her is a dinosaur."

Spending quite a long time at this table, she soon tired of the gloomy atomsphere; with a gesture to Vasily she left, and he followed. Together they went to find drinks. As he pulled the cork out of a bottle of butterbeer he suddenly started to swear under his breath.

Thinking it was the bottle, Bellacine said, "Here, let me try."

"No--it's not that."

He spoke Russian. He had hardly used it for the two months he'd been at Hogwarts--all the delegates could speak English; it must have been a requirement to attend, so they wouldn't make fools of themselves. He had mostly spoken English, when he was with her or at the Gryffindor table, and a little German; if her own past experience counted for anything he had either completely blanked out or....

"I don't believe this," he hissed. "Werewolves--that was different! One night a month, maybe two occasionally, and there are potions! But giants--this is ridiculous, they're giants all the time, nobody can do a thing aout it, and it's so damn obvious--how did we never notice? How did the rest of the school never notice? Doesn't that tell you something, when one of your professors is about as large as a house?"

Resignation washed over her, unsettling and cold. "There's not much we can do," Bellacine pronounced. "I can't pull the same thing I did last year, making him quit--Hermione's too smart, she'll get suspicious. And I don't want to do that more than I have to."

Vasily shrugged angrily. "He still shouldn't be teaching here--"

"I know, Vasily! I know that--but can we just enjoy ourselves tonight and take care of the world tomorrow?"

Perhaps he groused, but soon enough they were dancing again, butterbeers discarded on a deserted table--perhaps this was the true purpose of tables, at which to leave behind things unneeded--and half an hour later, after one last crashing round of applause for the Weird Sisters, everyone was in the entrance hall exchanging good-byes.

"I'll go down to the ship with you," she offered.

"You don't--"

"Oh, relax," Bellacine chuckled, and they exited the hall.

It felt like a much shorter walk down to the Black Lake than it had earlier in the evening, when they had an entire evening ahead of them. The lake was half-frozen now, the fragments of ice upon it carpeted with fluffy white snow; they seemed to mimic the scattered clouds and, far beyond, stars in the inky sky, white sailing on black. Trees had become thin burnt crosses with flakes o trembling white ash falling from them.

The ship was upon them--clearly others had returned already; there were footprints across the deck. The wind picked up as Bellacine climbed the gangplank, the rigging creaked, the grounds soaked in a cold, distant sort of light.

"Well...," Vasily said quietly. "Thanks--I had a good time. Excluding everything with teachers, naturally."

"Naturally."

"Yes, naturally...good night, then."

Coldly, a voice above them said, "I don't see what's so good about it." Anton stood on the quarterdeck with his hands buried deep in the pockets of the long cloak he wore over his robes. "For you, at least, and Vassikin."

"Plenty good, I think," Vasily retorted brazenly.

Laughing, his cousin extracted something from his cloak pocket and flipped it down to them, like a coin. "See that." He nodded. "Professor Karkaroff gave me that this afternoon. My pin. Vassikin rules no longer." He laughed again.

They let it fall onto the deck, but Bellacine picked it up when Anton finished his speech. It was indeed the pin she'd seen on his robes earlier, the Durmstrang crest on a black circle, edged with a gold border, the thing they'd feared. Sasha Vassikin she had liked, had been decent for a ninth-year and not too cocky; Anton, with power, would probably bring the school to ruin.

Vasily plucked it from her hands and wrenched it over the railing, out of sight--

"Accio!" shouted Anton with his wand held out, and it zoomed back into his outstretched hand like a Snitch. He began to pace the quarterdeck, five feet above them; she could only see his outline silhouetted by starlight, which suddenly seemed all too far away. Vasily began to climb the ladder to the quarterdeck.

"That, for example, you cannot do any longer," he said dangerously--or, rather, with such an unbelievably pleasant tone it constituted danger. "Vasily Pyotorovich, you need to watch your back--"

"You need to watch yours!" he snarled, and shoved him, hard--hard enbough that Anton stumbled a few feet--hard enough that when he stumbled, he stumbled one too many feet backwards, executed a near-perfect backflip over the railing, and fell. Seconds later they heard a splash.

"I am screwed," breathed Vasily, panting. "I am so screwed. Oh, but that felt good."

Silence for a few moments, but for wind and ship-noises and faint splashing, and they stood drowned in it. Of course he was screwed, so to speak, but he was right: it had been worth it, the closest thing anyone'd ever get to revenge. Then, suddenly, without explanation, Bellacine felt apprehensive of something; not knowing what, nor anything, she hastily said good-night and left. And she ignored the soaked figure making its way towards shore with fury in its eyes.

Dumbledore and Snape stood together in the entrance hall, speaking in hushed tones. Passing them by, she overheard a few words of Snape's--"Karkaroff intends to flee if--"

As Dumbledore had seen her, he had given her a benevolent smile, and seeing this, Snape halted midsentence and whirled about. He started towards her, an unmistakeable expression on his face--yet it could not be--but the headmaster quickly grasped his arm.

"Good night, sir," Bellacine said hurriedly, and made her way up to Gryffindor Tower. The last few people in the common room were slowly petering out, yawning and rubbing their eyes, most still in dress robes. Ron slouched in an armchair, sporting a marroon Weasley sweater that might have been a wee bit better than his dress robes--scowling at the fireplace.

She attempted to sneak past--if Ron counted for anything, the infamous redhead temper was hardly a myth, altthough she didn't think he was Irish--but he lunged from his chair as she slunk along the wall.

"Did you know about Hermione?" he roared accusingly. "Hermione and Krum?"

Bellacine nodded wordlessly. Ron explodded.

"She wouldn't tell me--I'm her friend and she wouldn't even tell me, but she tells you--Krum, honestly, the prat's competing against Harry--she's probably been helping him with that egg clue these past weeks, I bet, and it's only 'cos he's famous--thinks she...."

She slipped off, leaving him to continue his tirade to nothing but a now-deserted common room; the last trickle of people had cleared out when Ron began shouting. The other girls were already returned to their dormitory. Thankfully, it was only a short while till Parvati (striking the interesting medium between bemoaning Harry's lack of any social skills whatsoever and gushing about "No, not him--the cute one, with the green robes--of course the one from Beauxbatons, what'd I tell you?") and Lavender ("So I asked Seamus, who asked Dean, who asked Malcolm, who asked Emma, who said--") shut up and fell asleep. And then she and Hermione could have a proper conversation.

"Hermione?"

"Hmmm?"

"Ron's mad, isn't he?"

"Very. Bella, you know I wouldn't help Viktor with the Tournament? I still want Harry to win...."

"I know."

They were quiet for a long time, Bellacine reviewing the night's events. Something was strange, something was not quite right, and more than just the revelation about Hagrid....Where was Mr Crouch, after putting so much effort into the reinstatement of the Triwizard Tournament, and why was Percy here in his stead? Snape and Karkaroff in the gardens--had Snape not noticed it was darkening, but what was it? Karkaroff intended to flee if--what? Snape had an unmistakeable expression on his face, yet still she could not bring herself to admit it--fear.

"Hermione?"

No answer. She was asleep.

A/N: Temperatures for Durmstrang are taken from weather records from around Arkhangel'sk and are given in Centigrade (I like that word!) as one would expect from Vasily.

I'm still wondering if anyone is out there, or if I'm simply writing to an empty internet....Hello? Come in, Mission Control, come in.

I would like to add that Mortimer is quite fond of lurkers who decide to announce, and continue announcing, their presence. Hello lurky lurkers!