Just to assure readers - There is an assumption made by a character at some point towards the end of the story, however the story will not take a dark turn in that sense. It is just an assumption. This will make sense as you read, I hope!

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Percy has spent the entire week leading up to the Halloween feast filled with anxious thoughts. Professor McGonagall informed him that Ethics classes had been cancelled due to some unforeseen circumstances, but if there were any 'friends' he had made at Durmstrang, she'd be more than happy to send them any messages. He shook his head quickly and declared, in true honesty, that he hadn't managed to make any close friends.

"Not any that would miss me." Whilst the initial sentiment was true, this was a lie.

The Year Eleven class he was placed in reminded him of his family - well, of Fred and George, Ron and Ginny. They liked to joke with him, and play around, and be loud, and talk about useless things, as if they had no worry about the future, while he had to worry about his NEWTs, his CV, and obtaining good enough recommendations to pursue his career aspirations.

And that was probably what annoyed him the most, the fact that most of them never had to worry about what they would do after they graduated. He found out through the mock ICW that Dursmtrang, unlike Hogwarts, could afford to be extremely selective about the student body because of its location and the enormous wizarding population that could choose to send their children there. The students around him were either smart enough to pass the entrance exams, which were nothing to scoff at, got in on any places allocated for Wizarding students from certain locations due to various Ministry ties, or rich enough to pay their way in. And by the way some of them were acting, they seemed to fit into the last category, although he dared not ask and offend any of them.

And yet a part of him, a part of him he tried to push down and ignore, a part of him that he would admit to, to no one, not to his mum, not Penelope, not even his own diary, liked the attention that he was offered by some of the Durmstrang students. Those that did not seem stuck-up or wealthy, were quite nice companions to have around. And in spite of his reluctance to talk about his home in specifics, for fear that they would scoff at his modest upbringing, he liked being asked questions about himself for once, and others being interested in him, and to have other students look forward to seeing him.

After finding out about the Halloween inter-school feast, however, Percy did not know how to feel about these two worlds colliding. His heart was pounding as the feast started, and he barely paid attention to the decorations, and found himself merely nodding as Penelope was pulling on his arm to bring attention to all the little details added to the Great Hall. She'd put on a pair of pumpkin earrings that made faces and when poked, would tell a little joke, however she hadn't managed to get Percy to even notice them, much less touch one.

Instead of the usual four tables, one for each House, there were round tables around, which students were advised to mix between different Houses, and leave spaces for the Durmstrang students. Most students, however, save for some such as the Patil sisters, stuck together with their usual friends and Housemates, including Harry, Ron and Hermione. Fred, George and Lee Jordan stuck at another table nearby, and Percy found himself surprised at their serious looks as they were all awaiting the arrival of the Durmstrang staff and students.

"Hogwaaaarts!"

The cry came unexpectedly, and several heads snapped back towards the doors of the Great Hall, and Percy clearly saw the stocky Hungarian student who had mocked him a few weeks back happily announce their presence, before getting struck at the back of the head by Karkaroff.

The pouring mass of other Durmstrang students coming from behind reacted to this with laughter, and Percy soon found himself the centre of attention once again, as the Year Tens felt most comfortable being with the one person they knew in that entirety of the Great Hall, and swarmed him from the moment they laid eyes on him. Most of the other students, however, seemed to have been instructed on where to sit, and many of them made beelines for tables where Slytherin students were sitting.

The sentiment, in some cases, was returned by Hogwarts students who recognised Krum, Khachaturian, Papastere and Bulgakova, the Quidditch stars of Durmstrang, and soon enough, students started to mesh with one another, introducing their friends and Housemates.

"Anyone sitting here?"

Harry turned to see the red-headed student that helped him a few weeks ago, her hair now pumpkin-coloured. She sat down next to him and Hermione, and a couple of other students that Harry recognised must have seen him as well during that incident sat down at his table, including the tall, pockmarked student that fell onto him.

"I don't believe we've ever met, or been properly introduced. Alexandra Szabo."

"Harry Potter." he introduced himself amused for the second time, extending his hand and shaking her.

Soon enough, Him, Ron and Hermione found themselves soon enough shaking the hands of the other students. Now outside of Durmstrang, Harry found their accents to be quite strong in some cases, and it took him a few seconds at times to fully understand what they were telling him, but soon enough, he had gotten used to their particular ways of speaking - especially as they seemed surprised to hear one another talk in English. Alexei Poliakoff was the student who stumbled on him, a Year Ten student in the same class as Krum and Szabo. The student with bright green eyeshadow next to Hermione was Krista Bauer, who made the entire table laugh with her affable response to Hermione's compliment of her eyeshadow and make-up.

"Thanks, Karkaroff absolutely hates it."

Minerva McGonagall looked over towards the laughing group of students through her glasses, as her and the other Heads of Houses welcomed the array of Durmstrang professors into their Great Hall. She wondered if this was how Durmstrang students generally were, or whether Karkaroff must have told them to put on this overly friendly act. Yet the more she looked at their interactions, the more she found most of the students, from both schools in fact, to be genuinely friendly to one another.

Part of her felt odd seeing the difference between the Durmstrang students here grinning ear-to-ear and practising their English with amused expressions, to how they acted in their own environment, stone-faced and almost martial-like. She still remembered an incident when she had overseen a Herbology class, when no one knew the answer to what professor Samovich deemed as a 'basic' question, where the professor had used a Weather-Modifying Charm to make it hail on the students for the following five minutes, having them shake like leaves for the remained of the class.

"Meteolojinx recanto. Let's see if this wakes you up, my babies." she finally said, before clearing her throat to the silent class, who all looked like this was not a unique occurrence, and that they've been hit with worse jinxes. "Onto our next topic, then."

Minerva could not help but think that if any of the Hogwarts professors would have done that in one of their classes, that the letters of complaint would pour in for the next couple of weeks, and if they had caught any students like Malfoy, it could have even led to the removal of the professor.

Wonder how Lucius Malfoy would have dealt with his son being treated like that. She couldn't help but wonder, remembering very well how he had wanted his son to study at Durmstrang. Yet could the boy even deal with half of these professors?

From Deputy Headmistress to Deputy Headmistress, Minerva had been invited many times for tea in Rada Pann's own office, and on many occasions, she took the offer of her previous student, in order to ascertain more about the staffing body of Durmstrang - for the protection of the Hogwarts students, of course, but also to understand more about the institute and be able to relay it to Dumbledore. After all, Albus would have been too conspicuous walking the hallways of Durmstrang and would have never been able to blend in their staff room, yet Minerva fit right in, as a professor herself. Especially as she found many subjects in common with the Durmstrang Transfiguration professor, a Moroccan witch around her age, by the name of Warda Hattab, who very kindly took the offer to attend her own Transfiguration classes.

"Will miss Pann not be joining us today, then?" she asked Karkaroff as he passed by her, to take a seat next to Severus. "I heard she was not well."

Minerva looked up towards Karkaroff, who seemed to be using his imposing height in a misplaced attempt to intimidate her, before he seemed to decide to dignify her with an answer by nodding his head and slightly waving his hand towards the door of the Great Hall. She turned her head to the direction he pointed at, and saw both Rada and professor Hattab. The Durmstrang Transfiguration professor, a head shorter than her colleague, was admiring the decorations of the Great Hall with wide eyes, talking excitedly to a pale-faced Rada, who was steadying herself with one hand on the professor's bright turquoise cloak, following behind her.

"On the contrary, professor, she insisted on coming." Karkaroff stated coldly behind Minerva, lightly startling her.

Minerva McGonagall, however, hadn't been the only one who had noticed not only Rada's sudden appearance, but her appearance as well. And while the Durmstrang professors seemed to act and talk to her as if nothing was wrong, Minerva couldn't help but notice some of the students look behind their backs and whispering to one another - and she wondered if this was the first time they'd seen her in the past few days as well.

Soon enough however, the murmurs and whispers were replaced by silence as both Headmasters spoke to the mass of students of the opportunity that had been given to the students, stemming from a time of crisis - which Igor Karkaroff re-emphasised many times during his own speech, ensuring even the House Elves in the kitchen easily understood his axe-like subtlety.

"Your professor doesn't look too good." Harry stated as the mountain of clapping started to die down, and the tables quickly filled themselves with food and drinks.

"Not that anyone would when having to listen to that drivel on a daily basis." Fred turned from his own table, leaning against the back of Harry's chair. "Fred Weasley, utterly enchanted." he added, putting his hand forward.

"Add Perce to the mix when Pann drags him back and forth, I'd consider that Ear-Knotting Jinx an Ear-Knotting cure. George Weasley, positively charmed."

"Not the first time it happened, I heard Eftimiou talk about it last time, he said he was in the actual class last year when it happened." Poliakoff waved Ron's concern off as Szabo commented that Percy never mentioned he had brothers, let alone a set of twin brothers.

"That Bighead boy badge got to his bighead-head, then, innit?" George turned towards Fred amused, who shrugged his shoulders.

"We're seven brothers in total." Ron spoke. "Well, six brothers and a sister."

"Is that normal, in Britain?" Poliakoff asked, turning around. As he spoke, both Bauer and Szabo slapped his shoulders, and Szabo hissed 'it's not polite, did your mother really birth you this stupid?' However, Poliakoff, twice the size of the students, seemed to not have realised his blunder, he turned towards Harry to ask a question, before deciding in the last moment to instead ask Hermione, realising who he would have asked his question to. "How many siblings do, uh, you have?"

"None, but, uh…"

"Hermione's parents are Muggles, so it wouldn't be like a wizarding British family." Ron stated, before realising that perhaps saying Hermione was a Muggleborn in front of several Durmstrang students in front of them, and a couple of others within earshot, was not the best idea . "Oh, I meant-"

"Blood may be thicker than water, but blunder brothers are thicker." Fred whispered in Harry's ear, and he had to bite his bottom ear not to burst into laughter at that comment.

"Oh, don't- it's fine, we don't care about Muggleborns. I don't, at least." Bauer stated, to the surprise of the Hogwarts students. "I think I dated one once?... Maybe? Oh, no, he was Macedonian actually-"

"But Durmstrang doesn't accept Muggleborns." Hermione interjected.

"Oh, that's-... that's just our school, that's not me, or Lex, or Alyosha, or…" Bauer looked around, waving towards a mass of students. "-or Viktor, or Ta-... wait, what are they doing?"

They all turned around, and looked over their shoulders to see Karkaroff, Snape, and fourteen students around them.

"Looks like the headmaster's presenting his Quidditch-all star team, to uh-..." Szabo turned around, and Ron picked up, grumbling under his voice.

"Slytherins. Unbelievable, presenting them like they're going to play each other- like he thinks they're going to win the Quidditch Cup this year."

"Who won last year?" Poliakoff asked, only to have the Hogwarts students in front of him shift their eyes towards one another. "Oh come on, what did I say this time?"

"It got cancelled last year, on account of the… well, attacks that led to Durmstrang hosting us, that destroyed part of the school." Hermione answered.

"We'll win this year though, won't we Harry?" George asked, before waving towards Oliver Wood to join their table. "Woody here has us training three times a week, soon enough I'll have seen him more than my mum. Already dream of him at night, bless our Oliver."

"Who's on the Durmstrang team?" Ron asked Poliakoff, pointing his finger. "I know that's Viktor Krum… that's… Petrov Khachaturian, the Keeper?"

"Right." Alexei Poliakoff turned, and pointed to each of the Durmstrang Quidditch players, presenting them and their positions.

There were two reasons Ron Weasley had asked for this - one, he was genuinely interested to know who was in the Quidditch team, and paid close attention together with his brothers and Oliver Wood to Poliakoff's presentation. The second reason was, well, he was interested in knowing the name of who he found to be one of the Beaters, a Year Nine student by the name of Tamara Danaga. Ron felt a bit awkward looking at her, even if he knew everyone else was doing the same, and he hoped his face did not show his slight embarrassment.

He found her quite pretty, with her freckled face and curly hair, with her shapely figure and full cheeks, with her grin from ear to ear and large earrings, with how she tied her robe together, even to the headscarf she had wrapped around her forehead and tied at the back, bouncing from foot to foot as she seemed to be cracking jokes that Viktor Krum was most definitely not interested in.

Even as the conversation around Quidditch died down and made way for a completely different change of subject, Ron still found himself catching a glimpse of Tamara, watching her as she moved across tables to a girl that looked similar to her when it came to their hair, to their freckles and even the way they tied their head scarfs, albeit compared to Tamara, the other student appeared to be quite gaunt, with her wrist bones protruding and deep, dark eye bags under her eyes. Both of the girls appeared to be cracking jokes with the Slytherin Head Boy for a few minutes, before the girl next to Tamara leaned into her ear to say something, before slowly getting up and approaching the professor's table.

Ron was surprised to see her tapping Karkaroff's shoulder, and seemed to be telling him something, pointing towards the door. Karkaroff's expression appeared at first perplexed, before his usual frown returned, and he seemed to tell her off, which did not surprise Ron at all, considering all his interactions and what was being talked at the table right then and there at the same time as he watched that scene. However, what surprised him was that Karkaroff appeared to look around, before excusing himself and getting up, escorting the student out of the Great Hall. The student was walking slowly in front of Karkaroff, lightly holding the hem of her dress as if to pay attention to where she was walking, almost bumping into one of her classmates as she was paying more attention to the floor than to her actual surroundings.

"Have any of you seen that?" Ron asked, but by the time the students at the table turned to look around, Karkaroff and the student were already gone. "Your Headmaster left with a student, just now."

"Oh? Who?" Bauer asked, yet none of them appeared concerned.

"I don't know… she was thin, and had black hair, and-" Ron explained as the male student that had bumped into her approached their table, and saluted Poliakoff, shaking his hand. "Sorry, that girl you bumped into, was she alright?"

"Sorry, did we grow up on the same street, my brother? Did we tie each other's shoelaces, or…?" The student furrowed his brows, mocking him. "Because I don't believe that I have to answer to you." Ron's face had certainly caught a noticeable shade of red by now.

"Don't be a dick, Niko, come on." Poliakoff whispered, his comment drowning in Szabo's more colourful and louder 'did your balls grow and we didn't get the memo?' comment, at which the twins burst into laughter.

As the table got more heated and colourful, leading to some professors getting from their tables to reprimand their specific students and offer a plethora of detentions, Ron Weasley took advantage of the situation and slipped from the table, exiting the Great Hall and closing the door slowly behind him. As all students and staff were now behind him, the hallways were quiet, quiet enough that he could hear two sets of footsteps and a male voice, which he was sure must have been Karkaroff.

He wasn't sure why he was following them, but something about the situation did not particularly strike him as Karkaroff escorting the student out of the kindness of his heart - did that man even have a heart? No, that would be like Snape helping Hermione because he's a good professor - utter rubbish. And a part of him wondered, if the thin and frail-looking student was close to Tamara, if they were sisters maybe - and if he would have helped her in any way, then perhaps… perhaps…

Ron's pace increased, to the point he could see the back of Karkaroff's robe in front of him as they turned corners. Unfortunately for him, both him and the student spoke the same language, and Ron had no idea what they discussed, but the tone of voice of the student seemed to be calm, certainly not fearful or worried, and-... was she laughing?

No, she was certainly laughing.

Ron stopped in his tracks as the voices died down, and collected his thoughts.

Oh, come on, Ron Weasley.

He shrugged his shoulders amused, when a shiver ran down his spine as he heard his name not in his own thoughts, but behind him.

"Ron Weasley."