"Oh, right. Our arithmancy teacher went to Durmstrang," Harry remembered. Even at the farthest table at lunch, they hadn't really been able to talk openly, with so many interested wealthy people nearby. Instead, they'd learned a lot about each others' Earth-bound lives. It wasn't until they met up late in the evening that Viktor had been able to explain what school he went to.
"Is it somewhere hidden around Eastern Europe?" Hermione asked. Magistra Vector hadn't really told them much about the school. The three were clustered in a corner table in a very cool underground pub in Bratislava's city center. Only Viktor was old enough to get beer (and just barely eighteen at that), but the bar food was good and the ambience was neat. Harry had just been happy to find part of the city that didn't look like any other place on the planet. The city's shopping district was winding and a very interesting mix of old architecture and new construction.
"No, Svartalfheim. It is…" Viktor struggled to find the words in English then looked apologetically at Hermione before turning to Harry and firing off in Bulgarian, "It is in an old dark elf fortress, buried on the dark world." He understood Hermione's English well enough with only the more complex words needing translation, but was having trouble answering her questions with his limited vocabulary. Which was clearly frustrating to him, having to use Harry as an intermediary.
After Harry rephrased that in English, Hermione nodded, but asked, "So did the dark elves have a magical tradition? We've talked about Svartalfheim a bit in cosmology, but it's assumed it's a dead world after the war with the elves."
Again translated by Harry, Viktor explained, "No, we learn Earth and Vanir traditions of magic. But the dark world is in a spot where some things are easier to learn and practice. And some students there try to learn the strange technologies of the elves."
Hermione nodded at that, finishing her glass of Coke (diet, of course, because her dentist parents would throw a fit, or at least give her a hard look, if she drank sugary soda) and announced, "I have more questions. But I have to go to the loo first. Back in a minute."
"She really will have a lot more questions when she gets back," Harry warned the older boy.
"I don't mind," he said. After a moment he said, "And you're sure the two of you aren't together?"
"We tried dating earlier this year. Realized we weren't compatible." Harry briefly summed up the whole "let's date everyone" plan from the previous year and grinned, "So this year, I'm a free agent."
"Then there may be many girls from the other schools that would like a turn. Don't get bound too quickly," Viktor smiled.
"Wait. Other schools?" Harry was confused.
"You don't know about the tournament?" When it was clear Harry didn't, Viktor explained, "With the Grand Convergence coming up in a couple of years, there should be lesser convergences. Whenever enough realms converge, our schools compete in a tournament, since it is much easier to come and go. I understand Hogwarts is hosting it this time."
"Huh. Cool. So you'll be around. That's why you're asking about Hermione?"
Viktor shrugged, "Guilty. She seems nice. I would like to get to know her better while I'm on Vanaheim."
"I'll let you know if she's interested," Harry agreed with a shrug, since they hadn't gotten a bad vibe off of the older boy. And he wasn't so much older that it was completely weird that he might be into a nearly-15-year-old. Viktor probably had even more problems finding people on Earth that he could date without keeping a ton of secrets from than Harry did. "We're going to have a much harder time talking there, though. My translator doesn't work on Vanaheim."
"I vill vork on English," Viktor agreed, switching back from Bulgarian and showing off how much work he needed.
"Everyone okay over here?" Sirius strolled over to their table and checked in. He was "chaperoning" the three teens for the evening, which mostly meant letting them chat while he sat at the bar flirting. This late, however, the place had emptied out a lot so it was basically down to a bartender and a couple of other late-night patrons in another corner.
"Great," Harry told him. "You have any luck?"
He shrugged and admitted, "Not sure this is really a singles bar, but I got some sets of numbers… which I assume are a communication method?"
Both boys showed him their phones and nodded, and Harry said, "At least they didn't try to get you to add them on your social media account. The hotel has a phone you can use."
"Midgard technology," Sirius looked pleasantly baffled. "I'd like to try–"
What he'd like to do with Earth technology would remain unanswered, as he was interrupted by the door of the bar crashing in, followed by a half-dozen figures dressed in black and wielding automatic rifles.
"They're after me!" Sirius said, momentarily assuming it was more Mindless Ones and used to being the one strange figures were chasing.
"They're after me," Harry assumed, since this wasn't the first time people had come after him pointing guns.
"It's me they're after," Viktor insisted, though his reasons were his own.
"They're probably looking for Mr. Stark," Hermione explained, just getting back from the bathroom.
Regardless of who was right, the four sorcerers, blasé in the face of armed attackers, quickly drew their notice since they were the only ones of the few people still in the bar not screaming and diving behind cover. Neither were they just standing in the open, of course, but were moving into defensive positions. Everyone had taken a look at the situation and come to the same conclusion: they might have to risk magic or get shot. Harry and Hermione at least had on their theoretically-bulletproof enchanted undershirts (Pepper and the Grangers had insisted), but it was better not to risk the strength of the year-old runework.
The two Hogwarts students had trained together the most, and Hermione dropped against the back wall behind Harry's left shoulder, ready for him to shield them both if necessary while she worked more complicated magic. Viktor was quick enough on the uptake to see this plan, and take his own position to Harry's left, so Hermione was bracketed between them. Sirius, with actual auror experience (though perhaps not totally sure how dangerous the firearms were), went low as soon as he realized his mistake about the Mindless Ones, trying to flank right with the pub's wall at his back and tables and chairs for potential cover.
"Kill the boy, shoot anyone that gets in the way," the apparent leader of the men yelled as they charged into the room.
"Guess that solves it," Harry said.
"Solves what?" Hermione asked. "It sounded like Shiväisith. They must be elves." Given their black tactical gear and balaclava masks, that was hard to confirm.
"Huh," Harry had time to be confused by his translator implant making everything just seem like English. He didn't have much more time to consider it, since that was when they opened fire.
Vaguely clocking that the few other denizens of the pub were ducked behind the bar or crouching in a corner at the gunfire, Harry hoped it was safe for them to make magical shields. It was either that or hope they all shot him in the chest and that the enchantment would work. Harry's shield held against the automatic gunfire, but barely, never having an opportunity to test against that kind of impact.
Next to him, he was able to spare a moment to pay attention to Viktor's shield, where the geometric orange light was woven through by tendrils of purple. The bullets that hit his shield seemed to explode into puffs of metallic dust.
"They're all wizards!" one of the maybe-elves announced. "Ready the grenades."
"Grenades sound bad! No grenades," Harry warned the others, assuming they wouldn't understand the language. "Let's get out of here." The automatic gunfire was already shockingly loud in the smallish underground brick room, even with vaulted ceilings.
"There's a back door near the toilets!" Hermione yelled. From where he'd been skulking, Sirius managed some kind of transfiguration or related spell that shattered all the glassware on the bar, flinging a cloud of glass fragments and beer toward the assailants so they'd have to cover their faces. Using the distraction to make a break for the rear exit, the teens hit the steps up to the rear alley just ahead of the large black dog that was Sirius catching up to them. Shouts in the bar made it clear the elves weren't far behind.
"I don't know why they finally tried to come after me," Harry complained, as they were rushing into what turned out to be less of an alley and more of a narrow courtyard with extra cafe tables for the other businesses that backed onto the space. It was late enough on a Sunday night that nobody was out there, all the businesses that used it closed. "I thought they were keeping me alive for some prophecy or something!"
"I don't know, but we either stand here or try to outrun them," Sirius announced, shifting back into human form and making a professional assessment of the alley. "What are grenades?"
Before Harry or Hermione could explain the general concept, though they didn't have any idea of the specifics, Viktor volunteered, "Very bad. Dark elf use gravity bombs. Suck everything nearby into black hole."
"Right," Sirius frowned. "Running is out. Stay close enough to them that they can't risk using it." Harry was impressed by his godfather's on-the-fly tactical command, presumably remembered from the few years he spent as an auror in the war. Pepper probably would not be impressed that he was managing his teenaged charges like a strike team rather than trying to get them to safety. "Two on each side of the doorway. Hit them as soon as they try to come out."
He'd explained all that quickly and quietly enough that they were able to lurk to either side of the steps down to the egress before the attackers began to charge after them. Sirius had gestured for Harry and Viktor to take the right, toward the way out of the alley, and pulled Hermione behind him on the left. To their credit, the elves were working as a team and seemed to have a decent sense of tactics for moving through a doorway and covering all their angles. But they must have had less practice against magic, particularly used by a bunch of Gryffindor maniacs.
The first elf through the door got catapulted all the way up the stairs as Sirius transfigured the brickwork next to the doorway into a crude giant fistlike protrusion, stone rippling out far faster than stone should move (which is, of course, easy to do since stone doesn't normally flow at room temperature). Hermione wrapped the second elf in a magical whip, binding his gun and the arms holding it, and yanked him into the stone of the landing, throwing all her weight down so her elevated leverage would magnify the impact. While Harry was smashing the one Sirius launched with a magical eskrima stick, Viktor was once again manifesting his purple-and-orange shield to catch the bullets of the third and fourth elves still in the doorway.
"Transfigure the guns! You just have to ruin the barrels," Harry yelled at Sirius while he continued to put strikes into the battered elf, suddenly realizing that the adult probably had no experience with firearms to know that trick.
"Really? They're not magicked?" Sirius asked, focusing his magical will and waving his arms to enact another transfiguration. The rattle of bullets immediately ceased. Harry glanced over and saw that he'd gone farther than simply fouling the rifle barrels: each of the guns looked like it had basically been in one of those experiments where an aluminum can full of steam was dropped into cold water: Sirius had simply caused the guns to implode into their empty space.
In the silence, his opponent knocked senseless, Hermione still tangling up another elf with her whole body weight braced against the railing along the steps, and Viktor dropping his shield to prepare an attack, Harry tried yelling, "Those who would welcome the curse," the meaning of "Dahvee" sprawling in his head as his implant switched him to Shiväisith, "we have captives against your grenades. I thought you needed me alive! Why are you trying to kill me?"
"Who are you, that speaks our tongue?" one of them asked.
Baffled that his assassins didn't know, he answered, "Uh… Harry Potter."
That got a moment of stunned silence before the elves admitted, "There has been a mistake. We did not realize that our target would share your fellowship, Harry Potter."
"Oh… were you trying to kill Viktor?" he asked.
"Such was our contract. Return our captives and we shall attempt it at a later night."
Harry explained, in English, "They were after Viktor. They say if we give them these two back they'll try to kill him later."
"Do those sirens mean police?" Sirius asked, referring to noises that currently only he seemed to be able to hear with whatever hearing benefits his animagus abilities gave him in human form. He was clearly weighing whether they could defeat the elves directly before more locals showed up. Off of everyone's nods that there was law enforcement incoming, he decided, "I say let them go. We might be revealed already, but we'll definitely be if we keep fighting."
Viktor seemed inclined to press the attack, realizing that they'd been after him the whole time and might have killed him if he hadn't made such good new friends. But he also didn't want to be the one that revealed magic to Earth and grunted his assent. Hermione dropped her magical whips and Harry stepped back so they could grab their unconscious teammate. "You should stop taking contracts on Midgard," Harry suggested in Shiväisith, wondering how many successful assassinations the dark elves had enacted on Earth that he hadn't been caught up in.
"We shall consider your words, Harry Potter," the leader said as they carefully collected their unconscious teammate and began to rush down the alley before they got into a fight with the Bratislava police. It was honestly entirely possible that they didn't do much work on Earth and were very intimidated by how thoroughly Harry had been thwarting their attempts.
Purple light flashed along Viktor's arm as he clearly considered unleashing something nasty at the fleeing elves, but he suppressed the instinct and turned, frowning. "Thank you for the help," he said in English. "I know not vhy they try to kill me."
"Also important, why did they stop when they knew Harry was here?" Sirius asked.
Harry shrugged, explaining, "They have some kind of prophecy that I'll find something they lost, so they're trying to keep me alive? I think someone tried to pay them to kill me a couple years ago and they decided to just try to kill Tony and frame me so I couldn't go back to school." He gave it a beat, "They kind of suck, but unless there's another prophecy that Viktor would do something they don't want, they probably got paid to assassinate him? They said there's a contract."
"I vill be more careful until I am back at school," the older boy acknowledged, still confused as to why he rated an elven hit team.
"Should we… stay for the police?" Hermione asked.
"And tell them what?" Sirius shrugged.
"We should probably see how much the people in the bar saw, at least," Harry suggested. "Oh, and warn Kamar-Taj that we had to use magic in public."
"I'm emailing them already," Hermione acknowledged, typing away on her phone.
That urge to make sure they hadn't outed themselves did take them back inside to check on the bartender and remaining patrons, and had them wait around for the police to show up. They stuck to a few true but misleading facts: the attackers had been speaking a language that sounded a lot like a guy that had attacked Tony Stark two years earlier, they seemed to be gunning for Viktor Krum (up-and-coming race-car-driving phenomenon) but nobody was sure why, they'd fled the attack and hid in the alley, and the attackers had run out the other side.
It seemed like the people in the bar had been looking away from the pieces of magic they'd done in public, and the place didn't run cameras in the space during business hours. The Bratislava police department might have asked questions about why there were no bullet holes in the walls despite the report of automatic fire but… well… it turned out Slovakian police were not that into opening a huge investigation into foreign nationals attacking each other, especially when nobody actually died and Sirius had a strangely-keen insight into which officers to pass his spare drinking money to with a note that the wealthy celebrity group would like to leave and go to bed. Hermione managed to contain her disgust at the flagrant bribery.
As they cleared out onto the winding streets of the city center to begin walking back to their hotels, a shadow detached itself from a building across the street. "I take it your discretion was sufficient?" came the Danish-accented voice of Master Kaecilius. He had shed his robes for street clothes, but was wearing several pieces of jewelry that probably meant he was still ready for action.
"I was just about to send another email, sir!" Hermione agreed. She checked to make sure there weren't cops or bar patrons exiting right behind her, but still lowered her voice. "We were careful, and we don't think anyone saw anything."
"Then perhaps we will not need to rely upon more sorcery to undo what was done," he shrugged with a friendly smirk. Honestly, the guy was so hard for the kids to read. He liked to joke, but half of his jokes sounded like sarcastic complaints. Considering Sirius and Viktor he said, "I admit, I don't know your friends."
Harry explained, "This is my godfather, from, you know, near school. And a new friend who goes to Durmstrang."
Kaecilius' smirk only grew at the understanding that names didn't need to be shared, particularly in public, and he said, "Then I am pleased you had allies that were able to help in a crisis." He looked particularly at Viktor for a moment, admitting, "My life might have gone very differently had I been found by Durmstrang as a child. And yet, it would have meant I could not have gone to Kamar-Taj." He shrugged as if the trade might have been worth it. "Very well. Get back to safety, and be wary."
As the master sorcerer moved back into hiding, presumably to open a portal back to New York, the quartet walked away and made it to the main road, turning back toward their hotel. Convinced there weren't any listening ears, Hermione asked, "What did he mean, that you can't go to Kamar-Taj? Is it… because of the way your magic is?"
Viktor thought for a moment, then explained, "My headmaster say masters of magic are too traditional. They fear experiment and forbid much magic." He shrugged as if to say that he wasn't sure if he agreed, but admitted, "By time they tell me of Kamar-Taj, I have already made… deals."
"You're doing witchcraft!" Hermione realized. "Is the purple energy dark magic?"
"Is strong power," he sighed, "but I have seen Star Wars. I try to keep deals small. Finite. It still taint my magic, maybe forever. Others I go to school vith… they care less."
"How many of the dark wizards the Masters have to fight went to school at Durmstrang?" Harry wondered.
"Let us just say… not many alumni come to reunions," Viktor frowned. He noticed the wary look in Hermione's eyes and his frown deepened. "I am careful. I ignore the voices vith promise of more power. But I do hear the voices."
"Are there… dark wizard rivalries?" Harry wondered. "Could one of them have sent elves after you?"
Viktor just shrugged again. "I am top of my class, so maybe? But dark elves hate us for using their home. I think they vould not vork for a schoolmate."
"Maybe not on purpose," Harry shrugged. "It's just a theory. I've been figuring the Malfoys sent them after me two years ago."
"Vell, this is my hotel," Viktor gestured to a place that wasn't as nice as where they were staying.
"You should stay with us!" Hermione realized. "You aren't safe."
He shook his head, a little mollified that she was worried about him, and said, "They vill be honest about giving me a day. And they do not like the light. I vill be far from here by tomorrow night, and they vill not find me until I am back at school. Please know that I owe you for saving my life."
"Don't worry about it, man," Harry said, shaking his hand. "We'll see you at Hogwarts."
As the older boy walked off, Hermione asked, "Wait… what do you mean we'll see him at Hogwarts?"
"He mentioned there's some convergence tournament this year that he was going to be around for," Harry summed up.
"The Tri-Worlds Tournament is this year?" Sirius asked. "That seems like something they should have mentioned at the althing!"
"You've only been on it for like a week," Harry shrugged. "Maybe they mentioned it at an earlier session. But, yeah, we didn't know about it earlier. Why is it tri-worlds and not nine realms?"
Sirius explained, "The last one was a long time ago, but I think only Hogwarts, Durmstrang, and Beauxbatons really participate. Asgard doesn't think it would be fair, or they're afraid about what would happen politically if they lost. The other realms don't really do magic."
"What's Beauxbatons?" Hermione asked.
At the same time Harry said, "Earth does magic!"
Stopping to wait for cars to clear so they could cross the road to their hotel, Sirius explained, "Beauxbatons is the light elf school on Alfheim. And I don't know why Midgard never joins in. Maybe it's just because they send all their school-age kids to Hogwarts."
"Or let them get snapped up by Durmstrang and become witches," Hermione grumbled, clearly mentally composing a rant that she probably wouldn't quite yell at the Masters about but would definitely give in force to Harry. "Wait, are we going to meet light elves!? That could be fascinating."
"Wouldn't their 'kids' be hundreds of years old?" Harry figured. "That doesn't seem fair."
"They don't work like Aesir. Or like D&D elves," Hermione corrected from her cultural studies class. "Whatever they did to them when they stopped being dark elves, they made them so they could have kids at about the same time humans or Vanir can. If they took over a century to become sexually mature, they probably wouldn't have a whole planetary population in five-thousand years."
Showing that he wasn't quite over being a hormone-soaked teen boy, Harry almost tripped on the curb as she said "sexually mature."
Drifting off into silence as they all considered the realities of a bunch of basically-witches and elves at the school, they didn't really have a game plan for when they got up to their floor of the hotel to be confronted by Pepper in her pajamas and bathrobe demanding, "Why is Phil Coulson calling me to ask if we know anything about terrorists with assault rifles downtown!?"
Harry's eyes widened as he realized they'd contacted Kamar-Taj but forgot to warn his family. He began the explanation with a lame, "It wasn't even me they were after this time…"