Harry Krum was vomiting. His brother was holding his long hair from his brother's face, all the while stroking his back and whispering soothingly. And he wished he had never ever gotten his letter of acceptance to Durmstrang Institute. Or at least that he's had the brains to bring a package of good old muggle tablets against seasickness. The smooth rolling of a ship certainly did not agree with Harry's stomach. And to think he was about to spend many hours more on the ship…
Afterwards, he did not know how he ever survived the horrible trip. But when he many hours later got off the ship, leaning heavily on Viktor, he felt like falling to his knees and praising the earth. There was no time for such a thing though, seeing as a tall man, (at least 6'3") with copper coloured hair and a lean build stepped out of the mansion to address the newcomers.
"Welcome!" he said with a strange, melodic voice. "For those who haven't met me before, I'm Nataniel Aino, your deputy head master and martial arts professor. You older students will immediately depart to the First Hall. The new students please follow me."
He waited for the twenty or so first years to reach him, Harry among them, and then started leading them inside, his deeply blood red robe billowing behind him.
On the other side of the huge, iron cast doors, a huge hall opened up, a large staircase dominating the space before them. Lit up by a huge crystal crown with candles, it rendered the students breathless with its dazzling air in blue and green. But the deputy head master didn't stop there, but swiftly lead them into a smaller room, containing a gateway in stone. There he stopped and turned to look at the students.
Harry chose to remain in shadow as Nataniel Aino's gaze flew over the small kids gathered there. He had a feeling that something important would happen soon, and that he might not like it a bit. And as his professor's gaze settled on him, he almost sensed a small smile grazing his lips.
"Now," suddenly his voice was stern yet soft. "I want you to dress in your robes if you have not already done so. They are essential for the coming hour."
A sudden shuffling in the room erupted as almost everyone started to try and throw their robes over their cloths. Harry smiled slightly, he'd already dressed in his robes, Viktor having tipped him off that it might be practical. He had also braided his hair to keep it out of his face, a good thing as it had been very windy at the sea – most of his front hair had fallen out of the braid.
After about five minutes, most of the students had managed to get into their robes and was looking expectantly at professor Aino. He soon ordered them to line up properly and walk through the gateway one and one.
Harry ended up being the last one in the queue and so he had a first hand view of everything that happened. Each time someone walked through it, a silver shine seemed to encompass the person in question and then he or she disappeared not to be seen again. Harry briefly wondered how this was, but had no time to think much before he himself stepped through the portal.
When the light took him in, he felt a slightly warm soothing feeling envelope him before the world around him shimmered and changed, leaving him in a cold place. Judging from the lack of light, there was no windows or doors here.
Feeling slightly irritated, he enlarged his wand. He had long ago realized that wandless magic was more practical to do when his mind was calm, or the result could be a little unpredictable. And now, his mind was reeling from everything new that had happened. So he used his wand to focus both his magic and mind.
"Lumos!" he declared, feeling how his calm slowly returned.
A bright light blossomed from his wand, illuminating the room and revealing that four other persons were huddled inside the room, trying to fight the cold off. They looked extremely surprised as he lit up the room, and relief found its way to their faces.
"Hello," he said, using English, as he wasn't sure where they came from. "Do any of you know what we're doing here?"
Everyone shook their heads and inched closer to Harry and the light. He sighed. This wasn't exactly a good environment for mind games.
"Alright," he decided. "Let's introduce ourselves and then we'll try to find a way out."
Seemingly thankful that someone had taken charge of the situation, a boy next to him started to introduce himself, causing the others to do the same.
"Eirik Jansen, Norway."
"Mira Elomo, Finland."
"Line Fredriksen, Denmark."
"Asolou Yagudin, Russia."
Harry completed the introduction.
"Harry Krum, Sweden."
They looked at each other for a few seconds, and then turned as one to look at Harry. He sighed inwardly.
"Let's see what we can do about the cold," he decided, racking his extensive memory for the appropriate spell. "Does everyone have a wand?"
One after one, they pulled out their wands. Harry smiled at them.
"OK," he said. "The incantation is 'fervefacio delicate'. It's easier to do it if you don't grip your wand too hard. Do you think you can do it?"
Several of the students nodded, but Mira, a redheaded girl who was slightly chubby shook her head. Smiling patiently, Harry turned to her.
"Ok, what is it that's hard?" he gently asked.
She looked nervously at him, but seemed to relax slightly when he smiled.
"I didn't catch the incantation," she shyly said. "I have a reduced hearing bilaterally since I used to have Meniere's disease. Usually, I have a translator with me who signs to me of I don't catch something when I lip-read. But she obviously didn't come here as she's a squib."
Harry nodded but frowned inwardly. The wizard world usually didn't look kindly at magic gifted with chronic problems as it had cures for almost everything. Mira had probably been shunned because of it all her life, and he was surprised that she'd been accepted at Durmstrang at all. After all, the school had a terrible reputation with its peculiarities. But as it was some sort of private school, not connected to any of the ministries of magic, maybe it looked differently at these kinds of things.
He sighed and mentally thanked Severus for including magic sign language in his and Viktor's lessons.
"It's fervefacio delicate," he smoothly signed in the most common variation.
Mira looked slightly surprised but happy. She seemed to repeat the word to herself, and then nodded.
"I've got it," she proclaimed.
He grinned.
"Then let's try it everyone," he decided, signing along with speaking. "If it works, you should get warm pretty quickly."
Everyone started and Harry easily cast it on himself. And as he felt himself getting warmer, he looked at his companions. All of them seemed to have gotten it right and was smiling admiringly at him.
Harry was just going to say something, but was interrupted as the world turned fuzzy again. He felt a tingling sensation on his cheek and then the world cleared again, revealing that he was suddenly sitting next to his brother at a semicircle shaped table. His four companions sat on his right side, and next to Viktor on the left side, four strange people sat.
"Harry," Viktor grinned. "Congratulations! You're in my twin!"
Harry confusedly turned to look at Viktor. He didn't understand a bit of what Viktor was telling him. This caused his brother to smile even more broadly.
"And you have the mark too," he contentedly commented. "This is great! We're both in the same twin, and we're both leaders."
Harry glared at his brother.
"Peachy," he dryly said. "Now, could you please explain this to me?"
Viktor smirked and gestured for him to look around.
They were in a great hall shaped like a hemicycle. The walls of the rounded wall was lined with pillars looking like trees, and the straight wall held a huge painting of a beautiful moor with a forest and a lake. In the middle, there was a huge gateway with doors of rowan, hardened and formed by magic. The head table was one with the wall and had its own access doors. It ran on both sides of the gateway with the headmistress on the right side.
Along the rounded wall, fourteen tables in the form of semicircles were lined up with Harry's table roughly in the middle to the right. The free space in the middle was decorated with a geometrical shape in red limestone to contrast the black basalt around it. With a circle in the middle, it made the perfect stand for a speaker with natural light streaming down on the spot from a window in the ceiling. Glowing stones encased in the walls lit up the rest of the room.
"At each of the small tables sit two groups with connected names, twins, from two different years. Each year in a twin has its own leader, and together, they are considered a class," Viktor explained in English in order for everyone to understand, Harry signing for Mira's sake. "For example, my group are the Sun group, and yours are the Moon group. Now shush. The headmistress is going to speak."
Harry directed his gaze at the right side of the head table where a small, slender woman with greying hair clad in simple lavender robes was making her way to the circle in the middle of the floor and Harry briefly wondered what kind of shoes she wore to make her move so silently. And when she stepped into the middle of the circle, everyone was looking at her.
"Greetings and be warmly welcome to this year at the Durmstrang Institute of magic studies."
Her voice was calm and warm.
"I am Kira Zukal, your head mistress," she introduced herself. "I understand that you must have many questions, and if you still do not have the answers after this introduction to Durmstrang, I suggest you ask one of the ones with a snake tattoo on their cheek as they will be your leaders for your time here.
"Now to the other introductions. When I speak their name and class, the professor in question will rise so you will be able to recognize them. You will call them only by their given names. Silje Jahr, Charms."
A sun bleached blonde rose, tall and fit with a huge smile on her face. In Harry's opinion, she looked rather nice.
"Alexander Mikhailov, the Dark Arts."
Harry eagerly looked at the man who was going to teach them. He was slightly disappointed, the brown-haired, muscled man looked not even nearly as dangerous as Severus.
"Arvi Jaatti, Flying Instructor. Marko Kivinen, Herbology. Geir Valle, History of Magic."
Harry curiously looked at the tubby man who rose at his name. He had the same colours as he himself, but he didn't even ponder the possibility of being related to him, as they looked nothing alike in any other way.
"Sasha Arkhipov, Potions. Fillip Knutson, Transfiguration."
His transfigurations professor looked rather like a gorilla to Harry, and he couldn't help but remember two men who'd visited Severus one summer, Goyle and Crabbe.
"Jens Christiansen, Arithmancy. Jacob Madsen, Astronomy. Linus Bergquist, Care of Magical Creatures. Finn Vice, Divination. Cecilie Sorensen, Elemental Studies."
Harry jumped slightly at the class. He hadn't known it existed as Viktor had chosen to take Arithmancy, Care of Magical Creatures and Martial Arts as his secondary classes. Maybe he should take it?
"Nataniel Aino, Martial Arts and deputy head master."
Harry briefly looked at the professor he'd already met. He'd changed into the lavender robes all the professors wore, and now he could see that his hair was actually as long as Harry's and it hung freely to his waist. The eleven-year-old couldn't wait to have a class for him. But as headmistress Kira started to speak again, he turned his attention to her.
"The new leaders this year are Tim Anderson, Vibeke Lind, Nova Ragnirsdottir and Harry Krum," she announced. "Now, I'll leave the word to Nataniel, who will give you a brief summary of Durmstrang's history and its founder, Salazar Slytherin."