Sofia shifted and stretched a little on her seat, a licorice wand hanging from her mouth as she did so. Their conversations had shifted over time, eventually moving from Quidditch to their families. Sofia was the only one with same sex parents, and also the only one who was an child. Lina was the oldest of five, while Talia the oldest of three and Jakub the youngest of four, but the only one going to Durmstrang currently, as his next closest sibling had graduated the year previous.
The next topic had been a brief burst of forgetfulness from Jakub, who'd asked them if they had any idea what they wanted to be when they grew up. That had gotten him a confused look from Sofia, a disgruntled one from Lina, and a rather amused one from Talia.
Said looks had quickly prompted a hasty round of apologies from the boy, a round that was broken up by the translation charms breaking down for a few minutes, much to everyone's resigned annoyance. They'd all grown up in Wizarding towns or castles, and were used to a more...stable setup than what was present on the train. Yes, Lina and Sofia spoke fluent German, but Jakub only had some basic knowledge in the language and Talia even less. Sofia and Talia both spoke Italian, but Lina and Jakub didn't at all. They did all know at least some French, as the Fisher Kingdom's power and reach had made it the closest thing Wizarding Europe had to a universal language, but still, they were all rather relieved when the charms kicked back in after fifteen minutes of stumbling through their French.
Conversation had transitioned then into classes. Sofia learned that she was the most excited of the bunch for classes. Not that any of her new friends weren't excited at all though. Talia thought Transfiguration and Charms sounded very interesting, Lina was most interested in Potions, and Jakub rather thought he'd like Defense Against the Dark Arts. Though after some conversation Talia admitted she could get behind Sofia's interest in History of Magic.
The other girl liked the subject, but was a bit worn out on it, as it was a key responsibility of the Empresses of the Anniad Empire to keep the history of their people and forebears. Lina and Jakub weren't budging on viewing it as the most boring subject though.
Lina didn't even see the point. The Monarch of Nibelungenland was advised by two councils. One was made up specially trained Lords to advise on different matters, while the other was the portraits of past Kings and Queens, dating all the way back to Siegfried himself. If history was to understand the past and avoid its mistakes, then Lina readily told them she didn't get why everyone else hadn't just followed their example and made sure there were intelligent, well crafted and well preserved portraits from the past on hand.
For his part Jakub wasn't really sure he even wanted to go into politics, so History was mostly just a dull thing he grudgingly accepted he needed some basic training in.
Sofia supposed she could understand their overall opinions, even if she couldn't quite wrap her head around viewing History as boring. Maybe it was just because she wasn't allowed to do more than know the theory of magic and a few basic spells (and those only after she'd turned eleven), but she hadn't found History any less interesting than her lessons on magic.
After that debate though, conversation had swung around in a less serious discussion, sparked by Talia's frustration that you couldn't do anything with the Chocolate Frog cards. She understood that the cards were too cheaply produced to talk (she wasn't sure she wanted them to talk even) but still, the fact that there wasn't anything one could do with the cards frustrated her. Sofia blinked as the girl went on about the possibilities one could make with a card game focused around the most famous and powerful witches and wizards of history, instead of just...putting them somewhere to look at.
Lina, who was a rather avid collector of the cards, was mildly offended, but Sofia would have been lying if she felt strongly enough to care either way, and from the looks of things Jakub felt more or less the same way.
Sooner than Sofia thought was reasonable there was a knock on the door, and Amelia poked her head in with a smile and a shallow bow. "Pardon me Princesses, Mister Dabrowski." She said, nodding. "We've made landfall and will be arriving at Durmstrang Station in about an hour and a half or so." Sofia blinked, then looked out the window and saw that stretching out behind them was indeed the sea. She hadn't even noticed they'd crossed. "So you might want to get changed into your robes. We've got an empty pair of compartments if you want more privacy." Amelia bowed again and left.
All three girls turned to Jakub, who blushed and nodded. "I know, I know, I wasn't going to stay." He said, standing up and pulling his trunk down. He removed his robes and left, heading off. A moment later Lina stood up as well. "This compartment's big, but perhaps not big enough for three of us to be getting into our robes at the same time." She said with a shrug. "I'll get dressed in one of the other compartments." Sofia and Talia nodded, and when she left promptly closed the door and pulled down the shades on the door and the window. Obviously they were going too fast to be seen from outside, but it was the principle of the thing.
"I'm not looking forward to winter." Talia murmured, pulling out and staring at the thick robes that every Durmstrang student wore. Sofia winced. She'd spent the last few years living in the peaks of the Alps, in mountains that were snowy the year round. The royal castle was built into the side of a mountain, not inside of it, and so snow had been a near constant presence in her life. In contrast, she knew the Anniad capital was on an island just off the coast in the Ionian Sea, and that while the other girl had likely spent some time in the colder parts of the Empire on state visits and the like, it wouldn't be anything like living in the Norscan Union.
Well, technically they weren't living in the Norscan Union. Durmstrang had been built before the Statute of Secrecy, much like Hogwarts and Beauxbatons, and as such when the Wizarding nations still went to war with each other. As such, a patch of land, stretching out some twenty kilometers with Durmstrang at the center and including the village and farms nearby, had been designated a semi-sovereign territory. This didn't amount to much, but it did mean that the professors of Durmstrang could remain safely neutral in the event the Norscan Union (or the various Scandinavian kingdoms who'd ruled the region before the forming of the Union) went to war.
Regardless of the legal status of the school grounds though, it was going to be cold. And Sofia felt a sudden surge of sympathy for her classmates as she pulled on her own robes. Well, at least they'd be inside more often than not.
One Hour And Thirty Minutes Later
Sofia noticed as they pulled into the station, which, after failing to note pulling into Poland-Lithuania or crossing the sea, was a bit of a relief to her. Her mom would probably tease her relentlessly if she ever knew how much Sofia had allowed herself to be distracted during this train ride. Either that or be very worried and stern. It was hard to guess with her mom sometimes. There was a knock on the door, then a bowing Amelia appeared.
"We've arrived Princesses, Mr. Dabrowski." She said, a bit more serious than she had been previously. "You and the other students in this car will be taken off first, followed by the nobles. We'll be taking you up to the carriages that lead from the station to Durmstrang itself. Please be sure to move quickly and carefully, and don't dawdle. There are wards around the station and village, but they're not as strong as the ones on the castle grounds, so for your safety we need to be quick." The four first years nodded, though Jakub looked a little wide eyed. His father wasn't newly elected, but he was still adjusting to this level of security. Amelia flashed them all a smile. "No need to worry, there's been no hint of any threats. But better safe than sorry and all that." There was another round of nods, and the four stood up.
They let the older students pass them by, fielding an array of curious looks, friendly smiles, and raised eyebrows as Amelia led them out. There weren't more than a dozen altogether. There were eleven nations that sent students to Durmstrang. Four of who's only royalty in attendance this year were part of Sofia's compartment (herself included), and one of whom, the Norscan Princess, had taken the Norscan Union's train to Durmstrang (it hardly made sense to have them take the same train as everyone else after all). That left six nations with royalty or the children of heads of state in attendance, and less students in the royal car overall.
As the last of the older students walked by (a rather tall, pale older girl with high cheekbones) Fritz stopped at the edge of the door to their compartment, staff slightly ahead of him. Sofia was surprised to see that he still had his dark glasses on, despite it being night outside. Maybe they were magic? "Alright Princesses, Mr. Dabrowski, out you get." He said with a bow. "Time is important here, if for no other reason than that nobody can get off until you do." He said this with a kind, if stern, smile, and they quickly hurried out, nodding and murmuring apologies to him as they left. Well, aside from Lina, who led the way rather silently.
They made their way from the station (a rather massive, indoor thing, designed as it was to accommodate both trains of the Durmstrang Express at their greatest size, while still allowing other trains from across the country to stop in to facilitate trade and travel to Durmstrang Village) to a group of waiting carriages. As they walked, Sofia noted several witches and wizards in the same dark red robes as Amelia and Fritz, looking in every direction. She'd have missed a couple of them were it not for her mom's lessons, and she got the feeling she'd missed at least a few regardless of those lessons. She idly wondered how many members of the Varangian Guard there actually were at Durmstrang as she climbed into a carriage with the other first years. The carriage was on the small size. Not much bigger than their compartment, at least on the inside.
The carriages began to move without any visible means of being drawn, and Sofia glanced out the window to see a second, larger group of students being led out of the train by another pair of the Varangian Guard. The noble kids she guessed.
The ride up to the castle itself was smooth and uneventful. As they rode however, they went along a path that curved sharply to the right, allowing all four first years in the carriage to see Durmstrang itself. Someone gasped. Sofia wasn't sure who. It might have been her.
She had, of course, seen a lot of castles. She'd grown up in one, and visited others with her parents, either for play dates with the noble children her age or for formal occasions. And she'd been shown pictures of others. But this wasn't anything like the castles of the Alpine Union, neither the ones built out of the side of a mountain nor the ones built inside the mountains. It was much bigger for one. The castles of the Alpine Union were built for a relatively small number of inhabitants. The royal or noble family, their guards, their steward, and the House Elves who worked for them. Maybe the families of said steward and some guards, depending on the proximity to a nearby settlement and the space around the castle.
In contrast, Durmstrang was clearly built to house the teenagers of eleven countries, as well as guards, staff, and House Elves. And where the castles of the Alpine Union were rather well, pointy, almost dainty, it was a squat, rounded thing. It's towers peaked in tapered domes, and its corners were round, like cylinders had been attached where the edges would have been. It was an almost stern looking building, and Sofia was reminded that before the Norscan Union had unified, when the region had been an array of bickering kingdoms and principalities, Durmstrang had had to fight for its neutrality. It had been built two centuries before the talks of unification had even begun, and been built with that conflict filled environment in mind.
It had been built by the Bulgarian witch Nerida Vulchanova, a witch as fierce and powerful as Vittoria or Albus Dumbledore, who'd purchased the land from the local king, then drawn a line and dared his son to cross it when the young man had attempted to claim the castle too strong of defensive position to leave alone. There had been times when the school wavered-Nerida had nearly died when one of her Professors, Harfang Munter, had attempted a coup to turn the school into a military, almost mercenary institution. She'd managed to come out on top, barely, and Durmstrang had continued its path to stand alongside Hogwarts and Beauxbatons.
Sofia had to fight to keep from verbalizing all of this. Staring at Durmstrang, seeing it present and in front of her, brought all her lessons, all her knowledge out. But everyone else was seeing it for the first time too, and she didn't want to kill the good mood and the awe everyone else was probably feeling. Talia had called her a nerd (while grinning fortunately) already, she didn't need that more.
So she swallowed the strong urge to start voicing everything she knew about the history of Durmstrang and just sat back and enjoyed the view with her new friends as the carriage wove its way through the cold night. They travelled through a dense forest, cutting off their view of the castle, but eventually emerged in front of a severe iron gate, connected to a stone wall that stretched in both directions for as far as the eye could see. The gate opened on its own, allowing them to enter, and the carriages rolled up the path to the front steps of the castle, each one pausing briefly to allow their passengers to get out before rolling down a path. Sofia wasn't sure how far ahead of the other students they were, practically speaking, so she wasn't sure if they were going to get more students or just going to wherever Durmstrang stored them when they weren't in use.
Sofia was the first to get out of their carriage when it stopped, followed closely by Jakub and then Lina, Talia taking up the rear. They headed up the steps, looking up at the large, reddish walls of the castle as they walked, each a little in awe at the school still. The doors were already open and waiting for them, the older royals leading the way.
"Ah, excuse me, First Years?" A voice called out. They turned to see a rather large woman, in both height and width, walking towards them. She had long, braided blonde hair and a kind face, and she was waving at them as she approached. "Lovely to meet you all. I am Professor Margit Nilsen, Deputy Headmistress here at Durmstrang." She said politely, giving a small bow. "I would like to welcome you to our school. Durmstrang is an old and storied institution, and we pride ourselves on giving the best education possible to our students. You will find our rules strict but fair, much like the coursework. Be careful, be courteous, and be studious, and you will do well here." As she spoke, Sofia noticed other children their age filing in behind them. First year nobles she imagined, being shepherded towards the Deputy Headmistress.
"Now, in the future you will be allowed some leeway to sit wherever you wish at meals. Students are grouped together into dorms, but these are organizational more than anything else, and we have no desire to turn them into factions or cliques. If you befriend those you share the dormitories with, that is fine. If you don't, that is also fine, so long as things do not escalate beyond small rivalries. However, at important feasts, like the welcoming feast you will be guided too shortly, we ask that you do sit with your dorm mates. It's simply a formality. As such, you will be led to the Great Hall for the feast, and we ask that you please sit at the directed table. Attempting to move elsewhere, against directions, will leave a poor mark on you and we'll be forced to assign detention accordingly." The woman nodded once, then stepped aside, revealing a large, dark skinned man and a surprisingly small, pale woman beside him, both in the dark red robes of the Varangian Guard.
"Welcome to Durmstrang." The man said, bowing with the woman. "I am Captain Hans, one of the officers of the Guard."
"I'm Andreea." The woman said cheerily. "It's lovely to see you all."
"Follow us please." Hans said with a nod, turning and marching off. The assembled first years followed, Sofia somewhat disoriented to realize that she was at the head of them all. She didn't think there was any meaning behind it, but it was still strange to realize.
They were led into the Great Hall, and a low murmur ran through the children as they looked up. Sofia was among them, though for different reasons. She was, of course, well accustomed to sky ceilings at this point, having made frequent trips to the mountain cities of the Alpine Union. But making a ceiling like that in such a relatively small, man made space took a fair amount of skill and effort, more than turning an entire mountain in fact. Mountains had some innate magic of their own, and you could better anchor the necessary charms and had more space for the runes. What she was looking at currently was not unlike a pristine, perfectly made miniature, impressive for the scale of detail and effort into something otherwise quite small.
Hans and Andreea led them to a table where the older royal and noble children were already gathered, talking amongst themselves as they waited for dinner. Lina moved forward a bit, and Sofia followed her as the other girl led them to a relatively empty portion of the table, where two older girls, one of them the last girl to get off the train before them, were engaged in conversation with a girl who looked to be a first year, who had rather fair skin and auburn hair pulled into two tight braids.
Said girl perked up as Lina sat down across from her. "Lina, hi! I'm happy to see you!" She said cheerfully. She looked around as Sofia, and Jakub sat on either side of Lina, while Talia sat down next to her. "Oh, you must be the other first year royals! Nice to meet you all!" Sofia blinked a bit at the girl's unrelenting cheer. "I'm Princess Maja of the Norscan Union, my father's the current High King. I've known Lina since we were small, cause the Norscan and Nibelungenland have good relations, and I'm excited to meet you all too!"
"Breathe short one." The tall girl from the train chuckled. She looked them over, then inclined her head. "It is nice to meet you all. I am Crown Princess Carmilla, from the Principality of Transylvania." Sofia blinked. She didn't know much of the Transylvanian dialect of Romanian (or much Romanian at all for that matter) but that didn't sound right.
"I swear to all possible gods I will get a time turner and kill whoever introduced your family to Muggle vampire novels." The other older girl grumbled before flashing the newly arrived first years a smile. "Welcome to Durmstrang, I'm Crown Princess Adelina, from the Kingdom of Romania."
"Lot of Crown Princesses." Jakub noted, raising an eyebrow.
"Well, the Crown Prince of the Central European Union is over there." Adelina said, nodding her head in the direction of a stocky, solidly built young man who was talking with a tall, round shouldered older boy who had a nose that left Sofia thinking of a bird of prey. "Alexandr Dvořák. He's the oldest of us heirs, his last year is next year."
"Wait...I thought the Central European Union was an elective monarchy, like the Norscan Union." Jakub said with a frown. "How can he be the Crown Prince?" There was a moment of silence as the pair of older girls stared at him. Sofia didn't, but only because she knew his backstory.
"Do you not read newspapers?" Carmilla asked curiously. Jakub flushed and ducked his head.
"I'm not even sure I want to go into politics, and my dad just got elected a couple years ago." He murmured. A flash of understanding went through the older girls' eyes.
"Ah, you'd be from Poland-Lithuania then." Adelina said with a nod. "Fair enough I guess."
"In answer to your question, normally yes. However, for...complicated reasons we outsiders aren't privy to, when his father died two years ago Alexandr was named King by the Crown Council. A regent rules the CEU until he finishes Durmstrang, and Alexandr's asked us to just call him the Crown Prince, since he's only King on paper, technically." Carmilla explained. "He's nice enough, so we give him what he wants."
"Ah. Fair I guess." Jakub said, nodding.
"And there are other princes." Adelina added. "Just this generation produced a lot of first born daughters for whatever reason. At least with the royal families."
Sofia looked around the Great Hall. The other students were starting to file in, taking their own seats at the various tables, first years being shepherded by the older students. At the opposite end of the room from the entrance were three tables on a tiered dais. Two were on the lower tier, while the middle table was on the high tier. All three were full of adults. The professors she assumed, though she wasn't sure about the purpose of the tiers.
So she asked. "Oh, so there's multiple professors per subject." Adelina explained readily, while Carmilla made a rude gesture at a glaring older boy who was sitting at the table behind Sofia. The Romanian Princess cuffed her Transylvanian cousin on the ear without looking and continued. "Too many students to effectively teach otherwise. So there's four professors for each subject. And the high table is where the Subject Heads sit, along with the Headmaster." Sofia blinked at the interplay between the two but nodded.
"Ah, thank you."
"Happy to explain." Adelina said with a smile and a nod in return. Suddenly the air grew quiet, and almost as one the students turned towards the professors as the man seated in the center of the high table stood up. He was tall and thin, with silver hair and a curled goatee.
"Welcome, all of you, to another year at Durmstrang Institute. I am Headmaster Igor Karkaroff." He inclined his head towards them all. "I will not waste your time and keep you from your food. Simply know that we are happy to have you here, and we hope that you will make Durmstrang proud." He grinned, but it was a rather slimy thing. Sofia didn't know if she liked him very much. "Now, let the feast begin!"
Sofia looked back at the others, and was surprised to notice every one of the older students had their forks in hand. The moment the food appeared on the table they struck, like predatory birds scooping fish from the water. Alexandr had a roll in his mouth so quickly Sofia didn't even see him move, and the boy he'd been talking to was gulping pumpkin juice like he hoped to get drunk. She also noticed that both boys were shooting unhappy looks at the high table, though subtly.
"Uhm…" Talia said, as taken aback by this as Sofia was. Sofia glanced over, and saw that the Headmaster's smile had grown rather fixed.
"Karkaroff is a…" Adelina began.
"Kiss ass." Carmilla supplied.
"I was going to say old fashioned man." Adelina countered. "Regardless, he believes that we here at this table should be allowed to eat before anyone else. As such the House Elves are given express orders to serve us first, and not serve the other students until we've begun to eat, at feasts. Since he won't back down on it, we've gotten into the habit of starting fast, so everyone else can get their food as quick as they can." Indeed, Sofia noticed the older students were being much more slow and careful about their food now.
"The man thinks he's favoring us. Doesn't seem to think about what happens afterward." Carmilla explained as she put some salad on her plate. "We've got classes with everybody else, and we all walk the same corridors. No need to antagonize people needlessly. There's some who are upset enough we exist as it is." Sofia nodded in understanding as she pulled some beef onto her own plate.
"Good to know." She certainly didn't want to upset anybody.
Two Hours Later
Sofia and her friends followed Carmilla and Adelina, who were in turn following Hans and Fritz, to the dormitory. Dinner had been good. Food was always good at home of course, but there was more variety at the feast, which Sofia had appreciated. It was interesting, getting to try other food from around Eastern Europe. Some things she'd tried hadn't been to her taste, but others had.
The Headmaster's speech after the feast was done had been fairly straightforward, reminding the students of some rules regarding corridor etiquette, staying out of the forest, and that only third years and older could go to Durmstrang Village. After that he bowed and left, and the Varangian Guard had collected them from their table
They came to a stop outside a large painting of a dragon, which looked at them with curiosity. "The password is regality." Fritz said, voice a little dry. The dragon dipped its head to them and the painting slid to the side, revealing a walkway. The two Guardsmen led them into the dormitory itself, and Sofia finally got a look at their common room. It was a cozy place, though also rather fancy. Everything looked to be of the highest possible quality, though it also looked comfortable, something Sofia knew didn't always come with expensive things. There were several fireplaces, as well as a few windows, all with armchairs around them. Hans clapped his hands once.
"Alright, well, I hope you all enjoyed the feast. For the first years this is your dormitory, perhaps the one place you can spend your time without one of us hovering directly over you." There was a round of chuckles from the older students at that, and Hans gave them a smile. "Bedrooms are individual, but bathrooms are communal. The showers and baths are, of course, separate and private, but they're not attached to your bedrooms, and we can't wave our wands to change that I'm afraid." There was a round of nods, and Hans nodded. "Then good night, and we'll see you in the morning."
"Come on girls, this way." Carmilla said, gesturing as she headed for one of the two spiral staircases, Alexandr leading the boys in a different direction. "Your rooms are already waiting for you, your trunks are all there, pets too if you don't have an owl." She said as they walked up. She gestured down a hallway that Sofia was fairly certain was larger than the tower they were in was wide. "Your room will have your name on the door, no worries. Later on, as you get older, you can customize it like the rest of your room, but for now just get some sleep. Classes start up tomorrow."
There was a round of nods and sleepy murmurs from the first year girls, while the older ones slipped past to find their rooms, then the group entirely dissolved, heading off. Sofia yawned as she walked down the hallway, eventually finding her room. She double checked the plaque on the door, not wanting to get it wrong, then nodded and entered, locking the door behind her. She kicked off her shoes, peeling her robe off and letting it lie on the floor as she walked. Normally she was neater than this, but she also wasn't usually this tired. She clumsily changed into her pajamas, set her glasses on the bedside table, and was asleep five seconds after she pulled the comforter and sheets over her.