When Cassandra entered the common area of the fifth year dormitory after dinner, there were roughly forty-five boys and girls assembled, all still in their travel cloaks. She saw Fate, Loathing and Pestilence at once, sharing a loveseat in the very center of the room.
"Everyone," said the Head Prefect who had intercepted her in the Great Hall and pointlessly tasked herself with guiding Cassandra to the very same dormitory she'd been settled in since the day before. "I'd like you to meet the newest student of Durmstrang Institute. This is Cassandra Lestrange. She's joining us from Hogwarts and will be attending classes with you. I trust you'll show her a proper welcome and acquaint her with the way things are done here at Durmstrang."
At the same time, forty-five pairs of eyes turned to size her up. Cassandra stood there, head high and shoulders completely relaxed, letting her new schoolmates take her in. She was no longer the shame-filled eleven-year-old who had hoped for nothing more than to blend in and not be noticed by her fellow Slytherins; hadn't been for a long time. Go on, she challenged them, find me lacking.
The beautiful brunette Viktor named Fidele Rosier (was she Fate, Loathing, or Pestilence?) cocked her head to one side, evaluating her. Cassandra stifled a fake yawn, making the girl smile. There was a second's pause before the brunette turned away and held the Prefect with an icy gaze. "I'm sure we'll all soon be aware of her rightful place. It's a most disgraceful thing when a witch tries to rise above their station; isn't that right, Oberpräfekt Half-blood?" she said, giving the last two words a nasty emphasis. The room broke into giggles.
Loathing, thy name is Fidele Rosier.
"Of course, Präfekt Rosier," said the Head Prefect. She spinned on her heel to leave, two pink spots blooming on her cheeks. "You have half an hour before lights out."
The olive-skinned witch on Rosier's right, whose dark curls were currently being artfully braided by the third mysterious girl, the one with the white-bonde hair, smiled kindly at Cassandra, as if her friend hadn't just flattened her superior with the dead-eye efficiency of someone who terrorized others for a living. "We knew you'd be arriving today," she said in a soft, lilting voice.
"Well, Gal knew. We just trusted her," Rosier said. Her tone had lost all its previous hostility, and she was smiling at the olive-skinned girl with the fondness one would usually reserve to a younger sister. "Why don't the four of us take this to our room? We don't want the vultures to overhear us."
Cassandra looked around. In fact, most of the students in their vicinity had been stretching their necks, trying to catch bits and pieces of their conversation. "How do you know we're in the same room?"
The blonde, who'd stayed silent until then, laughed. "Oh, Fi made sure."
Rosier led them to their shared dorm room, with Cassandra bringing up the rear—she wasn't about to give her back to any of these girls. The fingers of her wand hand were drumming lightly against her thigh; curiosity, anticipation, and a healthy dose of wariness were roiling in her gut.
"It's really not a good idea to fuck with me," she warned casually.
Rosier smiled, sitting down on the bed across from Cassandra's. "I know." She took her boots off, one and then the other, tossing them haphazardly on the floor. Her cloak went next. Cassandra took her own cloak off, magically folding and packing it in her trunk, but her boots stayed on. It was never a good idea to be barefoot during a fight.
"We should introduce ourselves," said the blonde, who'd chosen the bed by Cassandra's side. "I'm Tove Skau. Feel free to call me by my first name, I'm not much for formalities. This is Galena Tiresias." She motioned to the olive-skinned beauty, who'd taken the bed in front of hers.
Cassandra held back a visible reaction at that name, which sparked immediate recognition. If the Blacks were an ancient Wizarding family, the Tiresias were positively antediluvian. Their line had been producing legendary Seers for over three thousand years.
"In case you're wondering, she is one of those Tiresias," said Rosier, sparing her from having to ask the boorish question.
That's Fate, then.
"Please, call me Galena. My gift is how I knew you'd be joining us. We've been missing a fourth, and the fates sent you to us."
"But Gali, aren't we good enough for you?" asked Tove, dramatically falling on her back with a soft thud against the mattress.
Galena laughed a tinkling-bell laugh. "Of course you are, but I told you what the dreams said. She'll bring wholeness to us, and with it a new balance. You're going to be very important to each and every one of us, Cassandra," she said, and even though Cassandra wanted to rebuke that statement—her previous interaction with a true Seer had brought her nothing but toil and torment, and she wasn't eager to hear any more predictions about her future—the hopeful look in Galena's brown eyes stopped her.
"And I'm Fidele. Fidele Rosier," said the leader of the trio. There was an unexpected air of apprehension about her just then, which went a long way in setting Cassandra at ease. Circe, they did have the same eyes. The only other person in her family who had those heavy-lidded dark eyes was her mother.
A conversation between her and the Dark Lord suddenly occurred to her. She had said yes to his request to talk to her through the diary, back when she'd still known him as a young and handsome Tom Riddle, and he'd used the opportunity to take her on a facsimile of a restaurant date.
"So you are a Black as well. On your mother's side, I assume. You do bear a resemblance to Walburga Black, but the eyes… might as well have been plucked from Druella Rosier's face. I had wondered. Who did Druella marry, Cygnus or Alphard?"
"Cygnus."
She scrutinized Fidele, who, to her credit, waited patiently for her response. Every Pureblood was taught to memorize their family tree backwards and forwards, and Cassandra was no different. She went over it again, but still couldn't account for a witch named Fidele anywhere in it. "My grandmother was a Rosier, and she had two brothers. Elroy Rosier had one son, who's sharing a cellblock with my parents in Azkaban, and only one grandson, Felix, whom I've met. Armand Rosier had two daughters who died in infancy and one son, Evan, who died childless in the last year of the war. All other living Rosiers have been imprisoned in Nurmengard since the forties. And yet, we're obviously related. So what is it that I don't know?"
"My father didn't die childless," said Fidele, her eyes flickering with a deep-seated anger. "My mother simply refused to leave France while Britain was still at war, and after he was killed, she decided it would be best to abscond with me rather than let me grow up around my family."
"So you're Evan's daughter?"
"Yes," she said, her chin jutting out proudly.
Cassandra quickly did the math. "That makes us second cousins."
"I haven't…" Fidele looked away, fiddling with a bracelet Cassandra hadn't noticed before. "My mother's family is useless, so I'm barely around them. I haven't met anyone else. And you… Our parents are the same. My father fought rather than be taken quietly by the Ministry, and they murdered him for it. And yours never gave up. They searched for the Dark Lord and they fought in his name when everyone else was cowering and lying through their teeth. Gal said… Gal said you'd understand. That we'd be friends—family. So I've been waiting to meet you."
Cassandra exhaled, bringing her hand to her throat. She had been as hungry for family as Fidele once, before she'd been utterly disappointed by most of them. Would it be so bad to give these girls a chance? What did she have to lose? Durmstrang was her chance at a clean slate, a place where she could build a new life. There was no reason why she had to build it alone. "I do. I do understand."
"So you'll be our fourth?" Galena asked.
"Sure," she replied. "Why not?"
Cassandra was awoken by the cursed bugle tune again the next morning.
"Put on your exercise suit. We have ten minutes to get to the front lawn," said Fidele, already tying her hair up in a ponytail.
"What? I thought we exercised in the afternoon," said Cassandra, pushing her hair back away from her face.
"That's Kampfmagie."
"And what's this?"
"Sadism." Tove answered. She and Fidele were almost halfway out the door by the time Cassandra had managed to lace her shoes. "Come on, chop-chop!"
"Isn't she coming?" Cassandra asked, jerking her thumb toward Galena, who was slowly rising out of bed, looking dazed.
"No," Fidele answered, taking her by the arm and forcibly pulling her out of the room. "Her family got her a special dispensation."
Cassandra snorted. "Karkaroff passes those around like candy, huh?" They descended the stairs two steps at a time, joining a crowd of students who were just as hurried as them.
"Only if you're one of his pets, which Fidele and Galena are," said Tove.
Cassandra frowned. Considering how strongly Fidele seemed to feel about her father, she was surprised her cousin would want anything to do with Karkaroff.
"To be fair," Tove continued, "Gal is an Oneiromancer, so the first thing she has to do every morning is record and try to interpret the meaning of her dreams. We, on the other hand, get to run in the cold."
"HURRY ALONG, YOU LAZY BUMS! DO YOU THINK I HAVE ALL MORNING?"
Cassandra glared hatefully at the man shouting at them. He was tall, wiry and bald, with beady eyes and a large hooked nose that made him look like an overgrown bird of prey. Who screams when their voice is already being magically amplified? Prick.
"I WANT TWO LAPS AROUND TYR LAKE, AND WHOEVER TAKES LONGER THAN THIRTY MINUTES TO CROSS THE GATEHOUSE ON THEIR WAY BACK, WILL BE SPENDING THE NIGHT IN THE IRON CELLS!"
"Is an Oneiromancer what you call someone who has prophetic dreams?" Cassandra asked, taking off on a jog. "What?" she said defensively, off Fidele's look. "I don't take Divination."
"Do we do this every day?" she said incredulously one lap in. Ivanovich had made her run often enough during their training sessions that she wasn't a miserable wreck, unlike the trail of first years that seemed to be dragging each other along the lakeshore, but the sky was still dark and the weather was so cold, it felt like the sweat was freezing on her skin.
"Some days he makes us run backwards," Tove panted, a single braid of blonde hair whipping back and forth as she ran.
Exactly twenty-eight minutes later, Cassandra was throwing herself on her bed, kicking her cold and damp clothes off her body. "I'm not doing that ever again."
"I'm sorry to tell you this, but you're doing it tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that."
She threw her pillow at Tove to shut her up.
"You'll feel better after breakfast," said Galena sympathetically.
Fidele nudged her foot, which was dangling off the side of the bed. "Get up, we have to get ready. The other girls know better than to let us wait in line for the showers, but I don't know how long you take to do your hair. Is everyone at Hogwarts this lazy, or is it a Lestrange family trait?"
"I'll show you a Lestrange family trait," Cassandra muttered darkly.
"Gali, what's the color for today?" Tove asked.
"Yellow."
Cassandra lifted her head, giving the girls an inquisitive look.
Fidele was the one who answered. "We do this thing every day, where Gal will feel out which color is more auspicious, and all of us will wear something in that color."
"It's silly," said Galena, blushing. "You don't have to."
"I mean, it is a little silly, but I'll do it. Is gold close enough, or does it have to be yellow-yellow?"
"I have a yellow ribbon you can borrow," said Tove, digging through her trunk.
It took the four of them a ridiculously long time to get ready. Cassandra had never bonded with the Slytherin girls she'd shared a dormitory with back at Hogwarts, or had any close friendships with other witches, so it was a foreign, albeit not unwelcome experience, to have Fidele, Galena and Tove move around her like small tornadoes as she applied her moisturizing solution and did her hair.
Klaus flew into the room at some point between Tove criticizing Cassandra's choice in undergarments as being too plain—"Fine, I'll look at your blasted catalogue!"—and Fidele angrily stomping her feet when she realized she'd forgotten her favorite Nettle Hair Pomade at home. Cassandra's new friends ooh-d and aah-d over the familiar, which pleased it immensely.
At breakfast, the four witches examined their new course schedules over their plates.
"Today's not bad," said Fidele, who was running her finger down the Thursday column of her schedule. "Double Dark Arts in the morning, damn it, we have Herbology this afternoon… Kampfmagie, and that's it."
"You don't like Herbology?" Cassandra asked.
"Do I look like a gardener?"
"If you want to be any good at Potions, you need to be at least serviceable at Herbology."
"Oh, she's not any good at Potions either," Tove laughed.
"Get back to me when you score above the 30th percentile in Dark Arts, Tovey-dovey." Fidele blew an air kiss at her friend, who pretended to scratch her nose to discreetly give her the middle finger. "They're both terrible at it," she said, looking at Cassandra. "I have the best scores in our year for both Dark Arts and Kampfmagie."
"I've only ever taken Defense Against the Dark Arts, but I bet I'll beat your Kampfmagie scores this year," Cassandra said nonchalantly as she added more berries to her semolina porridge.
"Oh, you bet, do you, cousin?" said Fidele, her eyes narrowing.
"I do. As a matter of fact, I'm willing to put money on it. 50 Galleons says you'll end in second place this year," said Cassandra, pointing her spoon at Fidele.
"50 Galleons, and whoever ends second has to streak across the front lawn after the end-of-term feast."
"I'll take that bet. I hope you enjoy freezing your nipples off."
"You're definitely related," Galena laughed. She propped her chin on her hand, peering over at Cassandra's schedule. "Are you taking any electives with us?"
"I've got Arithmancy, Runology, and Care of Magical Creatures, how about you?"
"Divination and Wizarding Customs. I wanted to take Runology, but Professor Lasses scares me."
"I've also got Arithmancy," said Tove, "Wizarding Customs and Divination—we all ride on Gali's coattails on that one."
"Divination, Wizarding Customs and Runology for me," said Fidele.
There was a sudden rustling noise above them, and a hundred owls came soaring through the open windows carrying the morning mail. Instinctively, Cassandra looked up. A large tawny owl she immediately recognized soared down to her and deposited a letter into her lap. A great grey owl delivered a parcel full of sweets and cakes to Galena from her parents, and Fidele received a copy of some French newspaper.
"Hey, Mystic," Cassandra said, reaching for a piece of bacon to feed to her friend's pet. "How's Adrian?"
The owl hooted.
"Good. I'll send him something tonight after I read this, okay?"
The owl hooted again, taking flight.
"Who's Adrian? Boyfriend?" Tove asked, waggling her pale eyebrows.
Cassandra grinned at the ridiculous gesture. "Best friend. There's an ex-boyfriend, but I won't be getting any letters from him."
"Bad break-up?"
"You could say that."
"Well, there are plenty of guys here, although not that many that I would endorse. You and Krum seemed chummy, but I don't think he's very happy with you anymore," Tove said, pointing with her chin to something behind Cassandra.
She turned her head to see Viktor, who unsurprisingly, was glaring cursed daggers at her.
"Yeah, he doesn't like you guys much."
Fidele rolled her eyes. "He hates us."
"Why?"
"Because we're not standing in line for permission to lick the sweat off his ass."
The girls laughed, even Cassandra, a little.
"He doesn't seem like the type."
"What type?" Fidele asked, arching one perfect eyebrow.
"The type that wants to be catered to."
"That's funny, because that's all everyone ever does for him. Everyone you talk to in this school, it's Krum this, Krum that, blah blah blah."
"I don't know what bad blood there is between you, so I'm not trying to take sides. He's definitely wound tight and kind of a judgmental prat, but he was nice to me, so I was nice back."
"He won't be anymore, now that you're one of us," Tove warned her. Cassandra shrugged; she didn't really care.
A fine misty drizzle was sprinkling the castle windows with drops of water as Cassandra, Fidele, Tove and Galena left the Great Hall for Dark Arts. They filed into the classroom ahead of the twenty or so people who had been waiting at the door, ignoring the huffy, irritable noises issuing from a reckless few in the crowd. They paired off without needing to discuss it—Fidele and Cassandra took the table at the very front and center of the room, and Galena and Tove sat right behind them.
"Good morning," said Professor Krauja warmly, closing the door behind him.
There was no need for a call to order; the moment the class had heard the door close, quiet had fallen and fidget had stopped. Professor Krauja's mere presence seemed to be enough to compel the class's attention.
"Before we begin today's lesson," said Professor Krauja, sitting at the edge of his desk and folding his arms. "I must remind you that next June you will be sitting an important examination, during which you will prove how much you have learned about the Dark Arts. I believe that every one of you is capable of scoring an Akzeptabel in your G.M.A., and I dearly hope you don't prove me wrong. My wife would love that."
Right. The Gewöhnliche Magische Ausbildung, the much-feared O.W.L. equivalent for students who attended magical schools in countries that fell under the jurisdiction of the Northwestern European Consortium of Ministries of Magic. Ivanovich had talked her ear off about it during the summer, insisting anything less than a perfect showing on her part would tarnish his reputation as an educator. She had done her best to tune these monologues out.
"After this year, unfortunately, many of you will cease studying with me," Professor Krauja went on. "Due to the dangerous nature of the material taught, I take only the most prepared students into my U.Z.T. classes. That means a grade of Übertrifft die Erwartungen or above."
He stared around at them all.
"But we have another year to go before a possible farewell," said Professor Krauja with an easy smile, "so whether you are intending to attempt U.Z.T. or not, I advise all of you to concentrate your efforts upon maintaining the high-pass level I expect from my G.M.A. students. Of course, any of you who feel the need for extra guidance or assistance are encouraged to seek me out during my office hours, which are from 6:45 to 8:15, Monday to Thursday evenings."
"Today you are going to start working on an assignment I conceptualized with the specific purpose of helping you prepare for the practical portion of the G.M.A. You'll be partnering with whoever you're sharing a table with." There were some excited murmurs among the class, as well as some grumbling. "Each pair is going to be assigned a Dark artefact. Some are mostly harmless, but were obviously created using Dark Magic, while others carry powerful curses that will maim you if you mishandle them." On Cassandra's left, Fidele sat up a little straighter, her expression one of the utmost attentiveness. "It's your job to figure out what your artefact can do, how it was created, and if possible, how to counter its magic. You will present me with your findings in next week's class."
"If you harm yourself in the process of studying your artefact, you fail; if you harm your partner, you fail. I don't want to fail any of you, so please don't hurt yourselves or each other. I'll be handing the items over to you now. Wear your dragon-hide gloves."
One seat behind Cassandra, Galena whispered dejectedly. "Metis and Athena, this is terrible. I am so failing this class."
"Misses Lestrange and Rosier," said Professor Krauja, beckoning them over to his desk. There was a large and weathered trunk behind it. Cassandra raised herself slightly on her feet and saw a number of objects inside it, a few of which she identified right away. Maybe Galena and Tove would get lucky and be assigned the Hand of Glory.
"May I choose, professor?" Fidele asked excitedly.
"I'm afraid not, Miss Rosier, but I promise you're getting something good." He picked up a silver knife no bigger than his own glove-clad hand and deposited it on the desk, between the two girls.
"May I?" Cassandra asked.
"By all means."
She let her naked hand hover over the silver knife for a few moments, waiting to see if she got anything from it, but the artefact seemed to have no more Dark enchantments than a piece of rock.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Fidele's alarmed posture. She winked at her cousin and put on her dragon-hide gloves to examine the knife more closely.
"What are you looking for?" Professor Krauja inquired.
"Runes," Cassandra said, but there were no engravings that she could see, on the hilt or the blade. Satisfied, she offered the knife hilt first to Fidele.
Professor Krauja looked pleased with her answer. "I talked to Professor Ivanovich earlier this morning. I was worried you wouldn't be able to keep up with the rest of the class, considering the subject isn't offered at Hogwarts, but he assured me you've received private instruction."
The corner of her mouth turned up in a small smile. "It's a very odd experience to not be dwarfed by my family's reputation, sir. My old teachers were afraid I knew too much about the Dark Arts."
"No such thing in this classroom, Miss Lestrange. I'll be looking forward to your and Miss Rosier's presentation."
"Do you mind if I start with the diagnostic spells?" Fidele asked once they were in their seats again. "I'm very good at them."
"Not at all."
"What was that thing you were doing with your hand, before you picked it up?"
The question sounded way too casual not to be bothering her.
"Did you grow up around a lot of Dark Magic?"
Fidele scoffed. "Are you kidding? I had to blow up every single window in the house and threaten to run away to England to convince my mother to let me study here. She's paranoid about me taking after my father's side of the family," she said, sounding like she wanted nothing more than to do exactly that. "The most dangerous piece of magic she'd let me around is a Fanged Frisbee."
"Well, a lot of Dark objects have a 'feel' about them—it's like a palpable vestige of the Dark Magic imbued in them. I was feeling for that."
A line appeared between Fidele's brows. "Krauja hasn't taught us to do that."
"I didn't learn it from a teacher," said Cassandra, lifting her shoulder in a half shrug. "I don't think it's something you can really teach in a classroom. Frequent contact with Dark Magic helps, since you get a good baseline for it, but it's mostly instinctual."
"I want to learn how to do that," Fidele said imperiously. Her tone left no doubt she expected Cassandra to teach her.
Cassandra let the silence stretch on a little longer than it was kind. She didn't really mind teaching Fidele, but she wouldn't be ordered around. "Sure," she said finally with a wry smile. "But I'll want something in return."
The rest of the period and the next were spent casting diagnostics spells, testing out curses and counter-curses, and writing down observations. Cassandra and Fidele were able to establish that the blade was made out of goblin-wrought silver by repeatedly and unsuccessfully trying to destroy it with increasingly creative spells, but not much beyond that. Tove and Galena were even less successful in uncovering the mysteries of their artefact.
Lunch was an unremarkable affair, and so were her afternoon classes. Herbology was taught by an unassuming wizard called Professor Grundel, who'd had them practice the Herbivicus Charm on the castle's spruce hedges until they were standing two hundred feet tall. Kampfmagie was exactly what she'd expected—more of the same training exercises Ivanovich had been having her do for years, this time around people who were slower and less skilled at them than she was; it had been hard to stay mentally engaged for the entirety of it.
The confrontation with Viktor came after dinner. He bumped her side, hard, while passing her by in the corridors. She had him by the back of his robes, her wand pointed at his throat before she'd even registered who he was.
"What in the bloody hell are you doing?" she asked, shoving him away from her once she realized who he was.
Viktor straightened up. His surly face twisted with contempt as he surveyed Cassandra. "My father told me what you are. Who you are." His eyes moved to the yellow satin ribbon holding half of her hair up. "I guess you are no better than them."
Anger exploded inside of her like a cannon. She pounced, grabbing him by the jaw and bringing their faces so close to each other's, she felt his breath on her skin. A dull pain on her wrist warned her Viktor had taken a hold of it. He was pressing down just enough to make her uncomfortable, but she didn't budge. "I don't know you, so your judgment is worth less than hippogriff shit to me. I don't know why you think you're so much better than those girls, considering you're no prince yourself, but if you ever touch me again," she pressed her nails harder into his skin, "I'll show you exactly what I am."
His eyes flashed with something dark. "You don't scare me."
Cassandra smiled humorlessly, stepping away from him and jerking her wrist out of his grasp. "Make sure you keep that anger inside of you; you're gonna need it on Sunday."
She seethed the whole way back to her dormitory, ignoring the whispers following her. How dare he put his hands on her. How dare he demand anything from her.
Fidele, Galena and Tove's heads looked up in synchrony when she slammed the door to their room behind her. Tove seemed to be sketching something, while Fidele and Galena were sitting around a gramophone, records piled on their laps.
"What happened? I thought you said you were going to talk to Professor Ivanovich," inquired Fidele.
"Was he an asshole to you? If so, trust me, I can relate. You have no idea what my father's like," said Tove, putting — was that a piece of charcoal? — down.
"Viktor Krum just accosted me in a hallway. I don't know what his damage is."
Fidele's eyes gleamed with malignant satisfaction. "I'll talk to Headmaster Karkaroff. Krum might be his favorite, but you're a Lestrange. He doesn't get to—"
"Enough about Karkaroff," Cassandra snapped, her patience frayed thin. "I don't know how you can be so blasé about what he's done, especially to your family."
Fidele shot a very confused look at her. "What are you talking about?"
Cassandra studied the other girl, reaching the only conclusion that made sense—Fidele didn't know.
"Circe," she sighed, rubbing her temples. "Do you have any alcohol stashed in here? I have something to show you that you're not gonna like."
*Oberpräfekt: German for Head Prefect.
**In Greek mythology, Tiresias was a blind Theban seer, famous for clairvoyance and for being transformed into a woman by the Goddess Hera for seven years. He was a participant in several well-known legends, including the Odyssey, and was said to have lived for seven generations.
***Akzeptabel: German for Acceptable.
****Gewöhnliche Magische Ausbildung (G.M.A.): German for Ordinary Magical Training.
*****The Northwestern European Consortium of Ministries of Magic's equivalent for the N.E.W.T. is the Umfassender Zauberertest (U.Z.T.), which translates to Comprehensive Wizarding Test. What can I say, Germans are just a lot more straightforward about naming things.
******Übertrifft die Erwartungen: German for Exceeds Expectations.
I'm really happy with the feedback I've been getting for this new part of Cassandra's story. Your reviews are really appreciated, and motivate me to keep writing! Love, b xx