Chapter 42

"Dreadful as ever, Poliakoff," drawled the Potions Professor examining with distaste Andrei's potion. "I don't know how they do things in Durmstrang, but I assure you here you would have never been allowed near a cauldron beyond fifth year."

Andrei looked ready to faint, thought Viktor with a mixture of resentment and pity. His schoolmate had already been deathly afraid of the man before they had learned that he was a follower of the British Dark Lord, now he seemed about to piss himself every time he saw him. The Potions Professor seemed to sense this and to enjoy terrorizing him even more.

Viktor wondered how Andrei would react if he knew that Karkaroff was a Death Eater too.

He also wondered whether this Death Eater picked on Andrei more than on any other Bulgarian because Karkaroff —who despised all Poliakoffs because of their social status— had encouraged him to. Although the man's anger was sort of understandable, since Andrei had barely scraped an Acceptable in his OWL, and this teacher only admitted students with Outstanding grades on his advanced classes. Everyone knew that he would kick most Bulgarians —and even some Hogwarts students— out if it were up to him.

The Potions Professor walked by Viktor's station next, but he didn't pay much attention to his potion. Probably because he had already assessed his work from a distance, watching every single thing he did the entire class. Viktor had felt watched even when the man's back had been turned.

Now those cold black eyes were boring into his instead of examining the potion. Eyes full of dark threats.

Viktor felt certain that this man was a Legilimens, and also that he knew countless ways to kill someone without even resorting to poison. And yet, Viktor didn't feel half as afraid of him as he felt of Karkaroff. Even though this man was clearly much more dangerous. Why was that? Maybe because Albus Dumbledore seemed to trust him? Or because Viktor had seen the concern in those eyes last night when they had rested on an unconscious Potter? True, once the kid had opened his eyes the concern had instantly turned to fury and even hate, but Viktor found extremely hard to believe that that man could want Potter dead.

"I see you disapprove of my treatment of Mr. Poliakoff, Mr. Krum," said the Professor in a dangerous tone. "Anything to say?"

Viktor held his eyes for a moment before shaking his head.

"Not my business, sir."

"Precisely," said the man, and Viktor knew he wasn't talking about Andrei at all. As if he had needed to be threatened to know that it was best to keep his mouth shut about Karkaroff. Viktor had known for ages that his Headmaster was not someone to cross.

What worried him was that this Death Eater might tell his fellow Death Eater that Viktor knew, and that Karkaroff might feel inclined to pronounce some threats of his own.

The Potions Professor turned to sweep with his eyes the Bulgarian side of the class.

"Most of you shouldn't even be inside this classroom, the very least you could do is to make a decent effort." He turned to the Hogwarts side of the class, sneering at those few students who, if Viktor remembered right, were Gryffindors. "Not that achieving the required OWL grade is any guarantee, apparently. Only three students in this class would have any hope of passing a NEWT, the rest of you are just wasting my time and therefore will waste twice as much of your free time rewriting last week's essay in addition to writing a thorough report on why your potions today were an embarrassing disgrace. Class dismissed."

His classmates began complaining as soon as they were out the door (speaking in Bulgarian, just in case), but Viktor didn't join in even though he was one of the ones who had to rewrite his essay. Truth be told, he thought that the Potions Professor was right. Of course he was cruel and subjected everyone to insane standards, but it was true that Potions was a very serious subject and that most of them were not taking it seriously enough.

It was a bit unfair, though, since it wasn't their fault that Durmstrang standards were different and so they hadn't reached seventh year with a strong enough foundation as to survive classes with this ruthless teacher. No doubt if they had had him since first year now they wouldn't be having such a hard time. Although it looked like most of the Hogwarts students also had difficulty not falling behind...

Champions were exempted from final exams, but that wasn't much of a comfort, thought Viktor bitterly. At least not for a champion who was in his seventh year. He would have to sit his NEWTs eventually, it wasn't like he intended to live his whole life playing Quidditch and nothing else. Of course it was hard to worry too much about that when he knew he might not survive the year, but the Potions Professor always managed to make him worry at least in some degree.

His next class wasn't any less nerve-wracking. Why did he have to have those two teachers precisely today? The Transfiguration Professor also seemed to watch him closely the entire class. Hers wasn't a threatening look, but Viktor felt as if he were on trial. It really was absurd to fear to disappoint a teacher who wasn't really his teacher. And as if he didn't have enough to worry about she also lectured them all harshly and gave them a lot of homework.

How in Asparuh's name would he manage to prepare for the second task —and the third one, if he survived that long— without neglecting his subjects?

Not being able to bear anymore the anxiety, he skipped lunch and went instead straight to the library to look for some book on Merpeople. Potter had sounded almost completely certain, but of course Viktor needed confirmation. If the egg sound could be Mermish, then some book would say something about it and about the risks of listening to it.

The Hogwarts library might be hard to navigate, but at this point Viktor had already found the section on magical creatures and half-breeds so he didn't have to look for too long. He shook his head in self-annoyance when he remembered that until today he had purposely avoided all books and chapters on Merpeople precisely because he couldn't think of a less likely creature to make such horrible sound.

Most books didn't describe well the wailing at all, though. The first two he consulted just talked about their beautiful singing voices, which put humans in a sort of trance and therefore were often deadly. Another book mentioned the acoustic differences between Mermish underwater and out of the water, but it only described the latter as "harsh, raspy sounds" extremely hard to imitate with human vocal cords.

At last, Viktor found a book that mentioned some famous mermaids in history singing out of the water as a defence strategy when they were captured. Apparently it made everyone drop their weapons or whatever they were holding to cover their ears, a reaction that Viktor had seen plenty of times in the ship when he opened the egg around people.

"Anything useful?" asked a familiar voice behind him.

Viktor turned around, and saw Potter standing there with a thick book under his arm.

"Yes," he answered. "I think you were right about the mermaids."

Potter nodded.

"You were right about there being mermaids here," he said, opening the book he was carrying over a table. "There's even some sort of map of the bottom of the lake pointing out where they live." He snorted. "I didn't even know that mermaids were real."

"You heard the singing, then?" asked Viktor avidly.

"Yeah... but I don't remember what it said, I only noticed how beautiful it sounded..." Potter's eyes got lost in some memory, and for a moment he looked almost as peaceful as he had been when Viktor had found him under the lake's surface. After a moment he sighed and his eyes focused again on Viktor. "I think the clue is in the song, but I'm afraid to listen to it alone."

Viktor nodded. He still couldn't believe that someone was saying something helpful to him.

"It is described as dangerous," he confirmed. After a brief hesitation, he added, "We could listen to it together."

Potter looked at him in the eye for a long moment, as if measuring him. He finally nodded.

"Yeah, that would be good." An anxious expression suddenly took over his face. "You don't happen to know what happened to my broom, do you?"

"I hid it somewhere," said Viktor with a shrug. "Just in case."

Potter smiled in relief, the expression making him look much younger. Sometimes Viktor forgot just how young he was. If one only paid attention to the eyes he usually seemed much older, probably because of all the anger and misery. And of course it was hard to think as young of someone who had killed a dragon.

At this moment, however, he looked like just a kid.

"You didn't put your name in the Goblet willingly, did you?" blurted out Viktor. He had to ask, although he was convinced of the answer.

The smile immediately vanished from Potter's face.

"No," he said bitterly. "Someone is trying to kill me, as usual. Probably Voldemort."

Viktor frowned. As usual? And did that mean that the British Dark Lord was already back? The article had said that the Potions Professor was plotting to return him to power (which had surprized Viktor, since he had thought the dark wizard dead), but nothing else in the newspapers had suggested that was a real possibility.

Perhaps Viktor should have taken more seriously the apparition of the so-called Dark Mark in the sky after the World Cup. He was beginning to realize that he had come to a very dark place, and that there was a lot more going on than just a medieval Tournament.

They met at midnight in the place Potter had suggested, which was an abandoned hut at the edge of the forest. To Viktor's shock, his fellow champion materialized right beside him after removing an Invisibility Cloak. The kid was full of surprizes.

Potter looked with sadness at the hut, briefly explaining that that's where a friend of his used to live, and then led the way towards a distant shore of the lake. Flying would have been much faster, but after last night neither of them trusted Potter's Chaser skills so they had left their brooms behind the hut.

Once they had found a secluded enough spot, they took off some of their clothes and cast warming charms on themselves. Still, they remained staring at the water without moving for what felt like five minutes, not really wanting to walk in.

"The books said that they rarely swim to shore," said Potter at his side, sounding equally nervous. "They probably won't even hear the eggs from the bottom."

Viktor nodded and, after both taking a deep breath, they walked forward into the lake, stopping when they considered it was deep enough to submerge comfortably. Luckily it took only a few minutes for Potter to get the hang of the submerging-without-panicking-nor-breathing-up-the-nose thing. Not that knowing how to do that was of any help. As soon as they began taking turns to submerge with their eggs it became clear that they would have been just as screwed submerging inside a bathtub if they didn't have someone to pull them out. How had the Goblet of Fire expected for any champion to figure out the clue without help? Would at least a teacher have been able to keep them from drowning if they had tried this in front of one of them?

The singing was so beautiful that it made one wish to stay forever underwater just listening to it, and to move as little as possible as to not disturb the sound. Viktor decided immediately that this was the way he wanted to die, and by the look on Potter's face he was thinking the same thing. Of course they somewhat recovered their right minds once they were pulled out, remembering that they didn't want to die just yet, but on some level at least Viktor kept feeling that maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing to fail in the second task. It definitely would be a better way to go than being burned alive by a dragon.

They discovered quickly that, just as Potter had thought, the song was some sort of riddle, and after several immersions they managed to put together all the verses. Both eggs contained the same song, although they probably referred to different things for each of them.

Come seek us where our voices sound,

We cannot sing above the ground,

And while you're searching ponder this;

We've taken what you'll sorely miss,

An hour long you'll have to look,

And to recover what we took,

But past an hour, the prospect's black,

Too late, it's gone, it won't come back.

"What do you think it means?" asked Potter after a while. They were now sitting at the shore. "Clearly we will have to go to find the mermaids, and we will have one hour to recover something, but what...?"

"Hostages," whispered Viktor, feeling really cold even though they had already cast drying charms on themselves in addition to the warming charms.

He saw his same horror slowly appearing in Potter's face.

"Hostages? You mean... people?"

Viktor nodded.

"I think so. My History teacher told us once about a diplomatic crisis caused by the death of a hostage taken for a Triwizard Tournament."

They subsided into silence once more. Viktor was feeling afraid in a way he had not felt yet since he had been chosen champion. And he definitely was beginning to regret his decision to enter the Tournament. How had he been so stupid as to think that only he could get hurt? How had he forgotten that hostage's anecdote?

We've taken what you'll sorely miss.

Would it be his mother? His father? He couldn't imagine missing anyone more than his parents, even if sometimes they drove him crazy.

But his father had written to him only last week, and Viktor had the egg since November, so they hadn't been taken yet. Could he perhaps write to them to warn them? Would it do any good?

"Krum..." said Potter, sounding just as desperate as he felt. Viktor turned to look at him, and saw entreaty in his eyes. "I don't care about winning, so far I have just been trying to survive this thing. And right now I honestly only care about saving my hostage." He took a deep breath. "Do you think we could maybe... help each other a bit more? I swear that I won't get in your way if we reach the third task alive, I'll help you win if I can, I just..."

"I do not care about winning either, Potter," cut him off Viktor.

Potter frowned in confusion.

"You don't? But... you entered your name willingly... right?"

"Yes. But I was never interested in winning," said Viktor, feeling uncomfortable. He had never explained his reasons to anyone, not even to his parents. "I have enough fame and money already, I do not need more."

"Why did you enter, then?"

"Because someone had to. And I figured I would have a better chance of survival than the rest of my Durmstrang schoolmates."

Potter was staring at him with mouth open. Viktor knew that he must sound insane, and maybe he was. But it had felt the right thing to do at the time. He had not felt interest at all in the Tournament when it had been announced last September, thinking that it would be a really dumb way to die for no good reason. But then he had noticed that those Durmstrang candidates who would have had a decent chance of survival seemed to be thinking the same thing than he, and that those who intended to apply were all overconfident idiots.

Of course, Karkaroff had put a lot of pressure on him to participate, and he had liked the idea of spending an entire year at Hogwarts, but that had not been why Viktor had agreed. It had just felt like something he had to do.

He had always been a suicidal kind of person, that's probably why he was such a good Seeker.

Potter seemed at a loss for words. Viktor didn't say anything for several minutes, although there wasn't really much to consider. On some level he had already made his decision last night, the instant he had realized that they could help each other. After all, to keep kids like Potter from dying had been his very reason to enter the Tournament, and now it seemed like he might have the means to do something about it. No one else could help Potter.

It was a fact, too, that having an ally would increase Viktor's chances of survival as well. Potter might be young and unqualified, but at the very least he was capable of casting the Killing Curse, and he was obviously powerful. It would also be helpful to have someone to practice duelling and stuff with, and to research more effectively. If nothing else, someone to talk to freely about the Tournament.

And then there was the girl. She would want Viktor to help her friend if he could. He had seen the worry and the frustration in her eyes, how much she wished to help and how much it hurt her not being able to.

Viktor froze in mid-thought.

What if she was Potter's hostage? She was the kid's best friend, so it wasn't entirely impossible. Of course one would expect a hostage to be some member of the champion's family, but Viktor wasn't sure Potter had any family at all. He had said that he had been raised by Muggles, so for all Viktor knew he might have grown up in a Muggle orphanage. Perhaps his closest friends were the most important people to him.

If Viktor had not had several other reasons to help Potter, this one probably would have been enough. If there was a possibility that Hermione would be a hostage at the bottom of the lake, Viktor would do everything he could to make sure Potter rescued her.

"I accept your proposal, Potter," he said finally in a solemn tone, extending a hand to him. "Allies?"

Potter's hand was trembling slightly when he took Viktor's.

"Allies," he said just as solemnly.

They remained in silence for a long time after that. Viktor suddenly felt a lot less alone. He had not realized just how lonely it was to be a champion. He was also filled with a strong sense of rightness.

"We should tell Cedric and Fleur," said Potter after a while.

Viktor raised an eyebrow at him.

"They won't agree to an alliance," he warned him. "They want to win."

The boy shook his head.

"That doesn't matter. They need to know about the mermaids, if they don't already. This is not just about us, not anymore."

Viktor nodded. No, this wasn't just about them. There would be innocent hostages at the bottom of the lake. People who had not volunteered their names for a stupid competition.