So, that thing where I said I would write BEGA was clearly a lie because actually this is the climax of season one, episode 42, except with wands ...
Kai walked into Balkov's office without knocking. It wasn't even his office, it was a rarely used classroom that he'd been allowed to make his own.
He squinted into the dark room. The only light came from a lamp on Balkov's desk. The man sat with his back to Kai. It all created an atmosphere of brooding menace that in a different mood Kai would have been delighted to mock.
"What?" he asked instead. It was a demand, and an angry, frustrated one at that.
For weeks now Balkov had been following him around after and in between lessons, asking him stupid questions and trying to get him to join his stupid duelling club. It didn't matter how many times Kai told him that he wasn't interested, he still kept on popping up. His stock reply was usually, "Hm, well, maybe one day, Master Kai."
For some reason being called Master Kai bothered him. Probably it was just the weird strangeness of an old man, a teacher, referring to him in the same way as the house elves at home. Or the fact that he exclusively called him by his first name, while most of the teachers exclusively called their pupils by their surnames.
Usually even this amount of provocation wouldn't have drawn a reaction from him, but he was so tired lately that he didn't have as tight a hold on his reactions as usual. He hadn't been sleeping properly for a while. He didn't know why, and nothing was helping much. Everyone in his dormitory just made it worse too: if he woke up at one o'clock and couldn't (wouldn't) get back to sleep, he usually tried to do what he did at home: get up and do something for a bit in the hope that his body would somehow reset itself.
The problem with that was that as soon as he left the room he could guarantee that at least one of them would stagger out , bleary eyed, and asking "What's wrong?" all sanctimonious and sappy, as if literally anything they could say or do would make his brain let him sleep. Or if they didn't wake up when he left, they would wake up if he came back in, and again with the stupid questions. He'd told Tyson in particular to fuck off so many times that he had no idea why the boy kept doing it. Sometimes he stayed in the common room until breakfast to avoid them, hunched uncomfortably in a chair and hoping for sleep.
So when he had received the message to say that Balkov wanted to see him in his office that evening after dinner, he had marched off fuming. Mixed up in the anger at the man's refusal to take no for an answer was a strange sense of anticipatory relief. Maybe after this stupid meeting he would finally see the back of Balkov. He hadn't realised how much the man's constant dogging at his footsteps had been bothering him until he imagined it stopping. It was a wonderful thought. He almost didn't care what was about to happen, as long as Balkov fucked off after it.
He asked again: "What?", almost shouting it into the room.
"Excuse me, Kai?" Balkov's voice was soft. Amused. Kai wasn't fooled. He didn't trust this man as far as he could throw him. Nonetheless, without really being aware of what he was doing until he'd done it, he stepped further into the dark room and closed the door behind him.
"What do you want?"
Balkov turned to face him. Steepled his fingers. The smile on his face was gentle and friendly. "Just to have a chat."
Kai scoffed. "About what? Your fucking duelling club?" He threw the swearword in there deliberately. Baiting him.
Balkov inclined his head. "In a way." He gestured for Kai to sit in the chair on the other side of the desk. Kai took a few steps forwards automatically, following the social norm, but recovered himself and leant against the cold stone wall instead.
"Well?" He folded his arms and glared at Balkov. "Get to the fucking point, then."
Balkov shook his head slowly, still smiling. "Such rudeness, child."
Before Kai knew it he was halfway across the floor with his wand out and his fists clenched. "I'm not a child!"
"Of course not. You're quite unlike the rest of your year. Advanced, for a second year." The quiet agreement bemused him. He stared even harder at the man. "Are you ready to sit down so that we can talk like adults?"
Kai hesitated. He had no idea what he was feeling right now but all of it was bad. Still, for reasons he couldn't explain he did sit down in the offered chair.
Balkov spoke for several minutes; the same sorts of mindless pleasantries he had cornered Kai with after lessons for weeks on end. Discussing the perks of joining his club.
"Would you get to the point already?" Kai snapped at last. "I'm not going to join your fucking duelling club! You're just upset that Julia is the only second year who's joined!"
"It's more than just a duelling club, Kai." Balkov made eye contact with him and held it for much longer than Kai was comfortable with. Kai stared back in stubborn silence. He was still clutching his wand in his lap. He must have fidgeted with it or something, because Balkov's gaze suddenly switched to it. "I know from asking around the staffroom, Kai, that you are interested in wands. In the duelling club I teach the students about wandlore. It's old magic, wandlore. Maybe the oldest. There are lots of legends about wands."
Kai's blood ran cold. He watched Balkov warily.
"I assume that you are acquiring wand information for yourself, since I have noticed that you like to inspect others' wands."
His heart was beating in his ears like a frightened bird against glass. "So what?" He said through the lump in his throat. "Wands are …" He trailed off. Didn't quite know how to put that into words.
"They are quite the phenomenon," Balkov agreed. His smile went crooked at one edge; a smirk. "Do you always give these wands that you inspect back, Kai? Immediately?"
Well, there was no reasonable answer Kai could give to that so he stayed silent. That seemed like the right thing to do, or certainly a catalyst, because the fake little smile disappeared from Balkov's face and he leaned forwards right into Kai's admittedly large personal space. His gaze was intent on Kai's face.
"I think I might know why you take other people' wands, Kai. Your grandfather and I have been speaking."
Kai couldn't manage a response. He thought he might actually have forgotten how to breathe. Grandfather? Where had he come into this? How did Balkov know him? What did Balkov know?
"I think, and please do correct me if I am wildly off the mark, but I think that you are inspecting those wands for something in particular."
Breathing would be an excellent idea. Any time now. So would running the fuck out of here, but his head was reeling so badly from trying to figure out what was going on that he couldn't make his limbs move from the chair.
"You're looking for a specific wand, aren't you, Kai?"
Kai's brain function was best expressed by "… ! ..."
Balkov rocked back to a more normal seating position and steepled his hands again. He looked satisfied. "There's nothing wrong with that, Kai. It makes perfect sense for a strong b- a strong student like yourself with your powerful family background to want to seek out the best in everything."
That broke Kai's paralysis. If Balkov was going to make all this shit explicit he was at least going to get it right.
"That's not it." Now it was his turn to lean forwards. Both of his hands were squeezing his wand. "I'm not just looking for some generic "strongest wand" thing. Like, all wands can be strong. Some woods lean you more in certain directions than others, that's all."
He suddenly remembered with a heart-stopping jolt that Balkov's wand was yew (six inches, rigid, dragon heartstring). It sat in front of him, squat and thick and somehow ominous. He both wanted and really didn't want to know what curses that wand had cast in its time with Balkov.
"Yew, for example," he tried to keep his voice calm, "is really rare. It's supposed to be good at curses. Some rumours," he tried to put skepticism into his voice, "say that it can give its wielder the power of life and death."
"Rumours are often unfounded," Balkov said. He gave a little chuckle. "But you can stop devouring mine with your eyes if you want." He took his wand from a fancy holder on the desk and held it out to Kai.
Kai stared at it for a long disbelieving second before taking it. He held it and swished it once or twice. Dismissed it instantly, but held it for a second or two longer out of some weird pretense at politeness before handing it back. Mild affinity. Not really even worth registering.
"You know what you're looking for, then."
Kai shrugged. "I'll know it when I hold it." He was putting on the most emotionless face that he could muster. In reality, his skin was clammy, his heart was pounding and he was losing awareness of what was around him in a way that only usually happened when he woke suddenly at night.
"And why is that?"
From somewhere very far away, Kai heard his voice say, "Because I've held it before."
Balkov sat right back in his chair. He was grinning now, triumphantly. "Will you join me, Kai, if I let you hold it again?"
"What?"
Balkov opened a drawer in his desk. In a different universe where something else entirely was happening, Kai would have been rolling his eyes at the dramatic delivery, but somehow there was enough tension in this room to choke on and he didn't know why he suddenly trusted Balkov to be telling the truth but he did.
Out came the wand.
The fact that he couldn't immediately identify the wood was a good start. The fact that the he eventually worked out the wood was elder was better. Ancient legends and rumours aside, he'd never held an elder wand before. It was the rarest wand wood.
His hand closed around it.
Something inside him split open like rotten fruit and came blazing up through his chest, screaming a bloody warsong.
Yes.
Distantly, he felt a hand on his arm. "So you'll join me, then?"
Even more distantly he looked back at Balkov's eager face. What was an afterschool club, in comparison to this?
"I will destroy your fucking duelling club." He stroked the wand carefully with his free hand. He didn't quite seem able to let go of it.
Balkov laughed and laughed.
All opinions welcome!
xIlbx