Chapter Forty-Five

Igor

Reluctant Return

He didn't know why he was returning to the country where his life had gone terribly wrong. If it had been his decision, he never would have come back. Only the school governors had the power to force him to return by dangling his coveted position in front of him. There really was nothing for him to do but to attend the Triwizard Tournament. Durmstrang must be given the opportunity to prove themselves the best once again. Too many years had passed since they had a Champion.

Igor Karkaroff's stomach twisted in knots the closer they got to Hogwarts. Knowing that his students had the navigation and rowing of the ship well under control, he slipped into his private stateroom to be alone. Part of him feared that he would be sick and none of his impressionable students needed to see that. They should remain afraid of him and what he was capable of.

Years earlier he fled from Great Britain with no intention of ever returning. Once he was removed from the irons in the Ministry courtroom and he was released, he left without looking back. He had made too many enemies to remain. An opportunity to become the Potions Master at Durmstrang seemed like just what he needed to start his new life. He worked hard to rise to the influential position of Headmaster. It was one of the few things he had done in his life that he was actually proud of. Too much of his life was spent indulged in actions he would later come to regret.

When the ship finally broke the surface of the Black Lake, he had calmed himself down to the point that he knew he would be able to project the persona he'd been perfecting for many years. He was a wizard that exuded confidence and even a hint of danger. It kept people from getting too close to him. Close relationships were better left in his past. He crossed the grounds with his students to greet Albus Dumbledore. Hogwarts' Headmaster was not a man he particularly cared for. Even forgetting the fact that they fought on opposite sides of the war years earlier, there was something about the silver haired wizard that always bothered him immensely. Igor hated the way the elder wizard stared at him as if he knew something about him that he didn't.

The first evening in the castle was dismal and uncomfortable to say the least. Knowing that he would be stuck within those grounds for months did nothing to improve his mood. The narrowed glances that Severus Snape shot in his direction certainly did not help. Once the feast was complete and the students sent on their way towards their respective beds, Dumbledore requested that he and the massive Frenchwoman join him in his office for a private discussion amongst the Heads of the schools. There were plenty of details about the tournament still left to discuss. Every second that passed in the man's presence was miserable. No wonder his niece used to avoid him at every opportunity.

"Igor is probably embarrassed to admit this," Dumbledore said with an irritating chuckle. "But I actually met him under some very uncomfortable circumstances."

His protests were not enough to override Madame Maxime's tittering request that Dumbledore share the details.

"He was quite young and somehow managed to convince my niece to sneak out of the castle to meet him down in the village. A student approached me to tell me what happened. He feared for her safety. I rushed to the village and found my niece alone with Igor in his room at The Three Broomsticks."

"Oh my!" Olympe laughed.

"Yes, quite scandalous. Igor answered the door half-dressed in a fit of anger."

The combined laughter of the other two Heads made Igor lose his temper. He did not care for one of his favorite memories of Hogsmeade to be reduced to idle gossip. It took several minutes before they were able to continue with their ridiculous meeting.

Uncomfortable weeks passed quickly. Before he was even aware, he was preparing to attend the dreaded Yule Ball. If he had his wish, he would stay in his private stateroom on the ship with a bottle of fire whiskey and drink until either the bottle was empty or he was too drunk to stay awake. Between the disturbing darkening of the Mark on his arm, Snape's refusal to speak to him alone, and the general melancholy that always struck him that time of year, Igor would've been content to not put on his finest dress robes and put on a false show of joy for his students' behalf.

His prized pupil had assured him that he was able to find an adequate dance partner to open the ball up with. Igor wasn't too concerned to be perfectly honest. A handsome boy like Viktor with all of his fame as a Seeker should have no problem finding a bevy of beautiful witches eager to attend the ball on his arm. As far as worrying about his Champion embarrassing his school with his lack of dancing skills, Igor knew that was unnecessary. His students all came from families that would insist their children be prepared for the most formal of occasions with extensive dancing and etiquette lessons as children. All he really had to worry about was whether or not Pavel Poliakoff could keep from staining his dress robes with whatever the Hogwarts elves were serving for dinner.

He lined up with the other staff members to await the entrance of the Champions with their dates. Already he was ready for the evening to be over. As the music began and the doors to the Great Hall opened, he stifled a yawn. It would not do to appear to be bored for such a momentous event. Truthfully, his eyes felt heavy. He would call it a night as soon as it was politely possible.

Krum brought his date in with a great deal of pride shining on his otherwise stoic face. She was unremarkable from the distance. If he had seen her around the castle before that moment, he was unaware. Igor turned his attention to the other Durmstrang students awaiting the beginning of the ball to ensure they were behaving in a manner that brought honor to their Institute. His eyes narrowed slightly when he saw Poliakoff with his date, some blonde in a purple gown. The boy was bound to do something embarrassing before the evening was over.

Before the dinner began, Krum brought his date over to introduce her to his Headmaster. Igor resisted the urge to sigh. As if he wanted to waste a moment meeting a child!

"This is Herm… Hermy-ninny…"

"Hermione Granger," the girl said for herself.

At the sound of the voice and at the mention of the familiar name, Igor's full attention fell on the girl in the periwinkle dress robes. He could feel his eyes narrow as he examined the girl. She looked remarkably like the Hermione he had known years earlier. It couldn't possibly be a coincidence, could it? The same name, the same brown eyes he'd looked into a thousand times. Even her voice sounded the same. He knew he must have been making the girl feel ill at ease with his inspection but in that moment he could not be arsed to care.

Hermione Dumbledore had been one of his very best friends. He loved the woman even if their love wasn't the kind that poems and songs were written about. In his younger years he had been foolish enough to allow the remarkable woman to walk away from him because he was certain that in order for love to be real, it had to be passionate and all-consuming. How many times had he spent hours sitting companionably next to her on the same sofa or lying in the same bed absorbed in their own respective books? There had been an element of comfort around the witch that convinced him he could not possibly be in love with her. He assumed that real love meant being obsessed, never wanting to be out of their company. For years he convinced himself that Hermione was simply an excellent friend who he was fortunate enough to be intimate with on many, many memorable occasions.

It wasn't until she disappeared right before Christmas fourteen years earlier that he understood that perhaps his feelings for the witch had been deeper than he realized. Of course by then it was too late to do anything about it. She was gone. Likely murdered by the monster Fenrir Greyback. Igor would never forgive himself for keeping her secret for so many years. He was the first person, possibly the only person, to come right out and admit to him who the monster was that violated her the New Year's right before he earned his Mastery. She only admitted that something happened to her after he woke her from a horrible nightmare one of the many nights she slept at his flat. And it was only because he guessed that Greyback was the culprit that he ever figured it out.

If only he had refused to allow her to talk him into keeping her secret silent… If only he had told her cousins or her father or either of her horrible uncles what he knew… If only… If only… If only…

He shook his head slightly. There was nothing to be gained for dwelling on "what ifs". Years had passed since he could have possibly been any use to save that poor girl. For years he was certain that she had just been another victim of the war that he wished he had never been involved in. Seeing his best friend grieve for his cousin knowing that he could have done something did not get easier. And then the world seemed to implode around them as the months wore on.

But staring at the young witch in front of him made him wonder. Had Hermione survived? He couldn't imagine that she would fake her own death and just fade away without telling any of her loved ones where she went. Rod had fallen back into the bottle when he finally had to come to the conclusion that she would not be found. Rabastan got even more involved with his horrid sister-in-law's darkness as a means of his own personal punishment. Hermione's wizard, the younger Shacklebolt, had gone a bit mad in his righteous anger. Igor couldn't blame the poor man with his brother's broken body being discovered only days later.

And Dolohov had completely lost whatever tenuous hold he had on reality when Hermione went missing and the elder Shacklebolt was killed. Igor had been one of the Death Eaters sent by the Dark Lord in a fruitless attempt to calm the temperamental wizard down before he did something foolish. Of course he and the others had been too late to prevent Dolohov and others he had recruited from killing the Prewett twins in a brutal act of unnecessary violence.

Igor searched the young woman's face for any hint that she might have Dolohov's blood running through her veins. Clearly, if she was Hermione's child, there was nothing in her countenance that screamed "Shacklebolt". She'd admitted to him that after Shacklebolt threw her out of their house and declared they were over a few months before she disappeared, that she'd found herself once again in Dolohov's bed. Was this girl a product of that night he knew Hermione regretted?

"'Granger'? I'm not familiar with the name. Who are your parents?"

"My parents are Muggles. Dentists actually," she declared proudly.

While he did not have the first idea what a 'dentist' was, he felt certain that either the girl was mistaken about her true parentage or he was mistaken. There was simply no way that a powerful witch like Hermione would be content to live the rest of her life amongst Muggles.

"Not who I assumed you were after all."

He didn't mean to sneer at the girl. Later that night when he laid down in his bed to sleep he would replay that moment over and over again in his head. He had not been kind. No doubt the poor witch thought he was sneering at the fact that she was Muggle-Born. Truthfully, he didn't care all that much about blood purity. There were more important matters to worry about. His anger was with the girl having the nerve to walk around with his Hermione's name and looking so much like her. It was almost as if the universe were playing some cruel joke on the tired and lonely Headmaster.

His thoughts about the girl were quickly dismissed in favor of dwelling on what the changes in his Dark Mark could possibly mean. There were more pressing matters than Krum's date.