November 6, 1994
Vladimir Krum waited for his twin to pull himself together and take a step back before bothering to speak. "You did not see us and we did not see you," he stated strongly, a hint of his accent drifting into his proclamation. His English had always been leagues ahead of his brother's, something Viktor stubbornly attributed to Vladimir's origins and something Vladimir teasingly attributed to his greater intelligence.
Vladimir watched, completely unimpressed, as Thomas fumbled to pull his own wand out and point it at him. The female witch did the same to Thomas's right, Hermione was her name if Vladimir remembered correctly, and the gangly boy to Thomas's left went to copy his companions when he pulled his gaze away from Wilhelm to look at Vladimir clearly.
"Blimey! You're Vladimir Krum!" he exclaimed in shock. Vladimir fought back the impulse to roll his eyes.
"I am aware," he replied instead. His quip was met with an easygoing snort of amusement from Wilhelm and a sigh of exasperation from Hermione. Vladimir almost smiled, he remembered that Hermione found hero-worship almost as trite as he did.
"Look, Krum," Thomas started, obviously trying to get control of the situation, "you're not exactly in a position to be making demands here. You're the ones sneaking around in our school." He said this as if it was some stroke of brilliance and undoubtedly gave him the upper hand. Vladimir was more than happy to strike him down.
"At a time when you are not to be out of your dorm," he replied easily, watching the Hogwarts students wince.
"How would you know when we're not supposed to be out of our dorm?" Thomas questioned snidely. "We have every right to be here."
"Not according to page 107 of Hogwarts: A History which outlines the schools past and currant curfews," Amalie drawled, wand still trained on Hermione who looked a little… jealous.
"You've read Hogwarts: A History?" she asked incredulously. The boy who was gawking at Vladimir seemed to snap out of his stupor.
"Read it? It sounds like she bloody memorized the damn thing," he all but barked.
"She memorizes everything," Vladimir said dismissively, ready to steer the conversation back on track. "The point is that you will get into just as much trouble as us for being out at night, so you will tell no one and we will tell no one."
Thomas Potter didn't seem to respond well to being told what to do. "I don't think so. How about you tell us what you're doing in the castle and we'll consider letting you go."
"How do you plan to enforce that?" Wilhelm asked, humor clear in his voice.
"We've got you at wand point," Thomas said strongly, choosing to ignore the fact that the three Durmstrang students were posed to curse him and his friends as well.
"Actually, you had us at wand point," Vladimir corrected, before twitching his wrist at the same time as Wilhelm and Amalie. Three nonverbal Disarmament Charms sent three Ollivander wands soaring through the air and down the hall behind the Grey Trio. The Hogwarts students blanched for a moment before taking a step back. Wilhelm waved his wand and the three misplaced ones flew into left hand, effectively giving him leverage over the Gryffindors.
"What should we do with them?" Amalie asked in Russian, seemingly pleased to see the wave of confusion pass over her opposition. "Memory Charms?"
"We probably won't need one for the tall kid, he seemed pretty impressed by you, Vladimir. Just tell him not to say anything and I'll bet he'll keep his mouth shut. Maybe you should tell him to do your laundry while he's at," Wilhelm suggested, still smirking like he found this entire encounter absolutely hilarious. He probably did.
Vladimir was about to respond when the tattoo of footsteps from the recently exited dungeons made themselves known. The Durmstrang students exchanged heated glances before walking right past the Hogwarts students, much to their surprise, before turning the corner and blending into the shadows with three simultaneous Disillusionment Charms.
"What the bloody hell was that about? What about our wands?" the taller ginger asked loudly, apparently oblivious to the incoming footsteps. Vladimir rolled his eyes and continued to listen in with his friends.
"We should go after them! They can't keep our wands; I'm the bloody
Boy- Who-Lived!" Thomas growled. Vladimir heard an odd huffing sound that he assumed came from Hermione. It seemed she didn't like hero-worship when it meant worshiping yourself, either.
For a moment, Vladimir was almost painfully reminded of why he was glad Grigor rescued him. He'd been feeling sort of… guilty since his brisk talk with James Potter. The man seemed so devastated by the loss of his son, it certainly didn't seem like he was the media hound that the English press adored. But with Thomas's statement, all the reasons he was better off a Krum came running back. Thomas was arrogant, self-important, thought of himself as a powerful hero, and he wasn't particularly skilled or well-trained considering how easy it was to disarm him.
Vladimir felt his hand drift up to his forehead where he once had a lightning shaped scar; until he was eight and his mother finally found a cosmetic potion powerful enough to make it invisible. A symbol of good fortune, his father had said when explaining the night he was adopted. But Vladimir understood what Thomas apparently didn't. Good fortune wasn't the same as talent, skill, or success. Those things had to be earned through relentless hard work and drive. Vladimir imagined that if he were left with his birth family, he would have ended up exactly like Thomas, and that was unacceptable. 'The bloody Boy-Who-Lived' indeed.
The footsteps got louder, but the Hogwarts students still didn't seem to hear them. Instead, they were discussing ways to get their wands back from the Durmstrang students, who were still waiting behind the wall, listening, while the other three remained oblivious. Thomas and Ron were trying to go charging after the foreigners but Hermione insisted they come up with a plan first, or at least figure out what they were going to say once they caught up. Their planning session was cut short by a voice nearly choked with black fury.
"What do you think your doing out at this hour?" Severus Snape growled. Vladimir looked at his companions, both of whom looked right back. Wilhelm seemed a little surprised, probably not expecting the man to have recovered so quickly from his nightmares. Amalie, hearing the anger practically shaking in the voice, looked darkly amused.
"Professor!" Hermione exclaimed in shock, while the red head yelped and the blood in Thomas's face rushed away, leaving him a sickly grey complexion. "We were just…"
"I DON'T WANT TO HEAR YOUR EXCUSES, GRANGER! ONE HUNDRED POINTS FROM GRYFFINDOR! GET BACK TO YOUR DORMS!" Snape shouted like a man possessed. Vladimir peeked around the corner, just enough to see the three targets of Snape's ire sprint away in blind panic and the man himself heave an enraged breath, looking more disheveled than ever. His black curtain of hair was sticking out all over, his black robes were wrinkled severely, and his pale skin glistened with sweat. He obviously hadn't taken any time to clean up after his impromptu nap.
Still breathing like there wasn't enough oxygen on Earth to fulfill his needs, Snape swept away towards another staircase and away from Vladimir's little group. Once he was completely out of hearing range, Wilhelm let out a low, appreciative whistle.
"Damn, Amalie, remind me to stay on your good side, the guys a wreck."
"He's slipping," Amalie whispered, a hint of manic glee ghosting across her words. "He's cracking. His revenge will be hurried, sloppy, riddled with mistakes." She turned to face Vladimir and Wilhelm fully. "And once he's had his little temper tantrum, we can go after the basilisk."
Vladimir nodded his affirmation, and the three finished exiting the school without any interruptions. He had more to worry about than giant serpents. The Location Potion was ready, which meant Peter Pettigrew had run out of time.
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Dumbledore stared down at the letter in his hands with a sense of satisfaction. An investigation was set up for the possible connection between Harry Potter and Vladimir Krum. If it was found that Vladimir was in fact Harry, Dumbledore stood to gain much. He'd have a proper boy hero who could fight amongst the best of them, one who was already admired by the public for his talent and skill, as well as his famous brother. He would also have an opportunity to silence the opposition that was Grigor Krum permanently. After all, powerful wizarding children don't just appear in other countries. If Dumbledore could prove Grigor acquired his second son through illegal means, all of Krum's attempts to have him removed from the International Confederation of Wizards would be pointless.
Dumbledore put down the letter from Senior Undersecretary Dolores Umbridge, the one declaring an open investigation that the Minister was taking very seriously. He could always count on Fudge to take matters of reputation seriously, and a conspiracy involving foreign celebrities and old Pureblood families put a lot of reputations at risk, the Minister's included. The Headmaster picked up a copy of the missive Lupin had discovered, a declaration of the adoption of a British child to Iskra and Grigor Krum sent and signed by Sergei Litvin. It really was disgraceful how an unnamed child could slip through the cracks of government and common sense and end up in a different country with no proof that it's family was deceased.
Dumbledore was also extremely interested in the claim that the child was found in the Forest of Dean, of all places, being drowned. If Vladimir was Harry Potter and the attacker knew what had happened that Halloween night years ago, it only made sense that the attacker was a Death Eater or a sympathizer to the Dark Lord's cause. Dumbledore couldn't wait to get his hands on the Bulgarian documents of the adoption and the small, required investigation that had remained buried in old archives for over a decade.
Of course, the how and why wasn't nearly as important as the end result. Dolores Umbridge would be coming to Hogwarts early the next morning as an official witness to a magical paternity and maternity test that Vladimir hadn't been informed of yet. All for the best, really, knowing in advance would only stress the boy out and give him time to contact his parents, which was a complication Dumbledore had no intention of inviting. The Potter's would attend, of course. It would make a tearful discovery and reunion all the more dramatic if the shock of his identity was still fresh.
Dumbledore was contemplating the pros and cons of inviting Thomas as well, when the small chirping beep of the wards at his office door sounded, heard only by him. The Headmaster waved his hand and muttered a few words under his breath, simultaneously opening the door before his visitor could knock and transfiguring the letter and missive into knitting patterns.
"Ah, Severus, to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?" Dumbledore asked politely, assessing his potions professor with sharp blue eyes behind half-moon spectacles. The man looked awful, sweaty and disheveled in a way Dumbledore had never seen before.
"I'd like tomorrow off," he bit out as if words were struggling to get passed his teeth. "Lily can handle my classes for the day. She's more than capable."
"Unfortunately, my dear boy, Professor Potter will be otherwise occupied. I was actually going to inform you tomorrow morning that Remus Lupin will be covering her classes for the day. Lily is only teaching the younger years, I have no doubt he can handle it, and I always thought he'd make a good teacher." The twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes was completely lost on Snape, who turned red before giving a jerky nod and turning on his heel, storming away without another word or much of a fight, to Dumbledore's surprise.
Dumbledore let it go easily enough. He'd discover the source of Snape's strange behavior soon enough, and until then; he had more important matters to attend to. Like how to get one of Karkaroff's star students to choose his birth family and transfer to Hogwarts.
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Shaking things up by putting the note at the end. I'm not a huge fan of how this chapter turned out but here it is anyway, just in time for the new year! I wanted to mention how extremely I'm exaggerating the concept of an eidetic memory. In real life, they are far less potent and really only exist in kids who grow out of it. I figured Amalie and her great-grandfather could have a far more effective and long lasting magical version, a type of photographic recall that doesn't quite exist outside of fiction. Now, how about a preview? Next time on The Krum Legacy: Vladimir gets sassy, Umbridge gets involved, the Gryffindor Trio wants their wands back and Viktor starts rat hunting.