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Harry Potter and the Perversion of Purity
By ACI100
Book 4: The Deadliest of Games
Chapter 18: Battle Lines
October 1, 1994
Durmstrang Institute
6:49 PM
Restlessness stirred through all three schools' ranks. He actually saw several boys from Durmstrang make faint grasping gestures before coming to their senses. An awful part of him wondered what would have happened had one of them really gone for their wand.
The gathered students had all angled themselves sideways so that they could watch both sets of opposition.
Durmstrang and Beauxbatons made up the triangle's two lower corners, whilst Hogwarts comprised the third. Harry felt the urge to summon his own wand. Training with Dolohov this past summer had taught him that, if a skirmish were to happen, their position was the weakest.
But we do have Dumbledore, and they have…
He let his eyes roam closely over the other delegations.
Bloody hell…
It was like a small hill swathed from foot to summit in smooth, black satin stood at the blue-cloaked party's head.
How did I not see her sooner? Had he really been so enchanted by the sight of Durmstrang? I have to be more careful. I'll never win the tournament acting like that.
He refocused on the mountainous woman whose huge head loomed high above her students.
Her olive-skinned face held a certain charm, but it was difficult to focus on it. She was nearly twice the height of a normal man and easily thrice the width. She looked down her beak-like nose at all of them in a way that made her seem still larger than she already was.
Durmstrang's Highmaster was as obvious as the Beauxbatons Headmistress. His sleek, silver furs contrasted starkly against the dark mass of blood-red cloaks just feet behind him. Tall and thin with long black hair and a short goatee that ended in a sharp curl, his chipped and yellow-toothed smile failed to reach his ice blue eyes. Every inch of him screamed sharp and cruel in a way that caused Harry's guard to rise.
I'll have to watch out for this one.
A cold wind kicked up thin sprays of snow and stirred the cloaks of all three schools. Those from Beauxbatons flinched back from the gust's sharp bite whilst many Durmstrang students appeared to lean forward as if to show its teeth made no mark on them.
Harry studied the faces of those who had begun posturing and dismissed them outright. No one like that will be a threat to me.
It was like that gust of wind had dispersed the tension that had been like walls of stone separating all three delegations.
"Dumbledore!" The silver-clad highmaster strode forward and clasped the old man's hand. "I trust that you travelled well?" Harry did not miss the way those cold blue eyes flicked in the direction of the hilltop their stone dragon still rested on.
"Oh yes." Dumbledore's eyes were twinkling in that bemusing way of his. "I trust that you are well, Igor? I admit I was surprised when you decided to head north."
Karkaroff smiled, bright and wide, but those cold eyes were unmoving. "The cold and quiet suit me well."
"Yes, I guess they must." Another gust of wind stirred his silver hair and beard when Dumbledore turned to face Beauxbatons' towering headmistress. At six and a half feet tall, Dumbledore resembled a child looking up into his mother's dark, liquid-like eyes. "Madame Maxime. Such a pleasure."
"Dumbledore." His name rolled across her tongue like a fine wine as she offered up a hand the size of most shovels for him to kiss. "My students," she said with an adoring gesture back over her shoulder.
"Charmed." Dumbledore gestured Gemma forward. "The Hogwarts students' are in the hands of Miss Fawley."
Gemma looked even smaller than Dumbledore as she craned her head up to meet Madame Maxime's eyes. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Headmistress."
"But we have met before," Maxime rumbled as she clasped both of Gema's hands in one of hers. "You work for Mister Crouch, non?"
"That's right, Madame. I was serving as his secretary before this opportunity came up." She looked back over her shoulder. "I'm not working here alone, though."
"Ah yes." Dumbledore spoke in a way that made Harry think he had deliberately left this until the end. "Our second chaperone, Alastor Moody."
Moody did not sweep forward like the others had before him, but he gave both Maxime and Karkaroff a pair of nods.
Theodore's cloak slithered against the thin layer of snow as he leant into whisper, "Is it just me, or does Karkaroff look like he just saw a ghost?"
He's right. Karkaroff was standing stock still. Had his furs not covered up so much, Harry had no doubt every muscle would be taut and visible.
"What's up there?" he asked. Theodore had spoken in that amused way of his that often meant he knew more than he was saying. Harry cast a subtle Silencing Charm over the pair of them and waited.
"Karkaroff was a Death Eater during the last war," Theodore whispered as they began to move inside.
"Imperius Defence?"
"Oh no, not Karkaroff." There was an edge in his close friend's voice. "Karkaroff sold other Death Eaters to the ministry. Tried to, anyway. Most of the names he gave had already been captured, but there was an important one that he gave them."
"Which one?"
"Augustus Rookwood."
"What's his deal, anyway? I hovered around the escapees quite a bit, but I couldn't get a beat on Rookwood."
"Not surprising. I don't know much about him, but I do know that he was an Unspeakable."
"An… Unspeakable?"
"That's what we call anyone who works for the Department of Mysteries. Dad says the people who work there call each other that, too, since they don't ever know who they're working with. I've never been sure how serious he was."
He let the ward collapse once they had stepped inside. Spheres of magical light hovered in thin brackets carved into the walls, casting the long, narrow corridor in a greenish light that looked dimmer than he remembered.
Of course it looks dimmer, he realized. Grindelwald has better eyesight than I do.
Durmstrang's mess hall was lit well around the edges, but its centre floated in a dense pool of shadows.
"Divide yourselves according to your year," Gemma told them when the crowd began dispersing. "Each year has a corresponding table. The backmost one is for seventh years, the front for first years."
The tables were long, sprawling horizontally across the hall, laid out like seven long rows before the dais and the high table sat atop it.
Food of all sorts was already spread out and waiting. The smell of it was everywhere; a thousand different scents choking every inch of the cramped and crowded mess hall.
"Look," Theodore muttered when the fourth years split off and headed towards their table, "you're famous."
There was, indeed, a fair few heads craned so that their owners' stares could follow him.
More famous than I thought, he realized with annoyance. He was drawing just as many stares as Dumbledore.
Let them stare; he would earn their interest soon.
"You are Harry Potter?" a broad-shouldered Durmstrang student asked once he had been seated. His English, while slow and plotting, had been surprisingly precise.
Might as well get this over with. "I'm Harry Potter, yes."
"A pleasure." The boy offered his hand and Harry took it firmly. "Your German is very good," he said in the school's official language.
"Unfair is what it is," Anthony Goldstein said in precise but less smooth German. "He didn't have to learn it like the rest of us."
The broad boy reached across the table and clasped him on the shoulder. Harry forced himself to stay still. His friends were one thing, but he did not appreciate strangers touching him. "I approve," the Durmstrang boy said. "My father made sure my brother and I could speak a handful of languages. We can talk in English if you'd prefer, but I'm a bit out of practice."
"German is fine," Harry said without effort. "Which other languages do you know? Besides English and German, I mean?"
"Go on, Your Highness," a blond-haired boy jumped in. "Wow them with your royal wit."
"Do you really want to go around calling me Your Highness where some people might hear?" There was a weight in his words that went over Harry's head.
"I've heard that there are important attendees here," he said with caution.
The blond-haired boy and another with a fox-like face began to snicker. "You could say that," the former told him.
"Our pampered prince here chief amongst them," fox-face said.
The first boy who had spoken to him was flushing now. "If she—"
"Oh, calm down, Ladislav," his blond friend urged him. "You're taking all of this much too seriously."
"Not Ladislav," the fox-faced boy said with mock incredulity. "Never rich, highborn Ladislav, the third of his name to have a steel rod shoved halfway up his ass."
Ladislav's expression — one that evoked the sense of rumbling thunder — brought his two friends up short. "You think that it's all fun and games," he whispered to them. "You think that just because she's oh so sweet and gracious here, you can say whatever it is you're thinking." All signs of mirth had vanished from his two friends' faces. "Let me tell the pair of you that you're wrong. She's that way here because everyone bends over backwards for her. I've seen her when that isn't happening, and trust me, both of you want to keep doing the limbo."
Harry's patience was wearing thin. "Who are you talking about?" he asked in as light a tone as he could muster. "I'm not much for doing limbo."
The blond and fox-face exchanged a pair of vicious grins. "No one in particular," the latter said. "Ladislav here is just a poor puppy who's terrified of his kennel master."
Ladislav bristled. "I have no kennel master," he said through gritted teeth. "The pair of you should know that. I—"
"Am the son of Vladimir Marchenko," fox-face jumped in.
"High Martial of the Tsar's Imperial Guard," the blond-haired boy finished.
"Your father works for the Russian Tsar?" Harry could not stop himself from asking.
"Yes. It's why my father was so insistent that I learn other languages."
"That way," said the blonde, "you can praise the hand that feeds you in—"
"Enough!" Ladislav's voice sliced through his friend's and left no doubt, despite the others' banter, who led their little group.
"I've heard the Tsar doesn't leave Russia much these days," Harry said to diffuse the tension.
"There's no real need," Ladislav explained. "I'm not sure how much you know about Magical Russia, but we're very isolated and are happy with the arrangement."
"I know a fair bit. I studied up over the summer and found your country fascinating. I prefer the way it's run compared to Britain, actually."
"Coming from their saviour?" fox-face asked. "What would they think?"
"Probably either that he was the next dark lord rising, or that we should do the limbo for him and change things to his liking." Theodore shrugged. "It depends on the day."
"Oh, right." He had become so engrossed in parsing the best he could that he had almost forgotten his fellow Hogwarts students. "Ladislav, this is Theodore Nott and this is Anthony Goldstein." The girls were seated further up the table.
"Reynolt and Alexei," Ladislav gestured at his blond friend first, and then at fox-face. "Their surnames don't matter much. Most don't here."
"Except for yours, of course," Alexei jeered.
"Yes, well, he has mine already, thanks to you."
Alexei opened his mouth, but a deafening gong resounded through the hall and demanded that they fall silent.
Karkaroff had risen from his place in the centre of the high table. The silver of his furs was among the brightest things in the mess hall, but they looked more grey than silver in the light of a sphere hanging just behind him.
"What's that on the table there, just in front of him?" Goldstein asked.
Harry squinted. Rich red silk obscured something underneath, but it was impossible to tell what that something was.
"Welcome one and all to Durmstrang, the finest institute of magic there has ever been." A sea of red-clad students shouted their approval and slammed their steel-toed boots against the grey stone floor. Karkaroff waited for them to quiet before he let a sharp-toothed smile spread across his face. "In my humblest opinion, of course."
Harry flexed his fingers underneath the table. I wonder what you'll say when I win this tournament for Hogwarts.
"You all know why you're here." The Highmaster's voice had grown whip-like in its intensity. "The Triwizard Tournament. A test of wit and skill. A tournament of champions."
A knife-thin man with short grey hair and brisk, clipped tones introduced himself as Barty Crouch.
Barty Crouch Jr., but no one else knows that.
Crouch gave a concise speech about the tournament and its history, whilst in the chair beside him, Ludo Bagman vibrated with excitement.
"The champions will be chosen on October 31st," Karkaroff boomed once Crouch's speech was finished. "Only those of you seventeen years or older may submit your names."
"Where do we submit?" Harry recognized the student who had shouted — Tobias Prichard, a seventh-year Hogwarts student with more courage than he had brains.
Karkaroff's eyes grew cold and a hush fell over the red-clad crowd. Harry, perhaps alone amongst the Hogwarts students, understood why. Interruptions like that were not tolerated at Durmstrang.
"A good question. Albus?"
Dumbledore stood. His footsteps echoed in the silent hall as he walked into the open doorway leading out into the corridor and gave his wand a flourish.
Muttering swept through the mess hall. Students were exchanging puzzled looks and wondering if anything had yet been cast.
Harry felt it; a foreign feeling that was new to him, but oppressive in a way that signalled wards.
Dumbledore swept Karkaroff a deep bow once back inside the mess hall proper and took his seat again.
Karkaroff reached down and removed the silken cover from the object sitting just in front of him. Beneath it was a jewelled casket whose gemstones glittered in the glow of magical light hovering just behind the highmaster's chair.
"This," he gestured to the tall, wooden goblet resting inside the case, "is the Goblet of Fire."
Just like Crouch told Voldemort. I'll bet he was right about the age line, too.
"The Goblet of Fire will be the impartial judge that chooses the best candidate from each school. Once selected, they will be put through three rigorous tasks that will test them in ways they have never before been tested."
Crouch cleared his throat. "The Supreme Mugwump has drawn an age line around the Goblet of Fire. I do not advise any trickery in an attempt to get past it. You will be disappointed by the results."
"You have from now until October 31st to place your names in the Goblet of Fire," boomed Karkaroff. "Be warned — this tournament is not for the faint-hearted."
"It's enough to make a bloke consider," Theodore whispered in his ear as they made their way towards the mess hall's exit. "All the pomp and circumstance gets to you a bit."
It really does. His blood was singing with anticipation — images of him hoisting aloft a shapeless yet magnificent trophy flashed through his mind at top speed. Then all of them will have a reason to stare at me.
"It does a bit, yeah. I wonder—"
Someone slammed into him. His head snapped back and bounced hard off the stone wall behind him. Dark spots crept into the edges of his vision, but he reacted instinctively and summoned his wand with a flick of his wrist.
Theodore cursed and went for his own wand, but a thick arm slammed him in the chest and sent him stumbling back against the wall.
Someone slammed into him again, softer this time, but something about them was familiar.
Then they were there — Cassius, Cassie, and Diana, all of whom had their wands drawn as they formed ranks around him. Theodore had recovered his own wand and levelled it at the two men glowering at Harry. Each of them was at least as tall as Dumbledore and twice as broad. They were dressed in heavy sleet grey uniforms that reminded him of muggle combat gear.
Who the fuck are they? Surely neither of them were students.
"Enough."
That single word — spoken by someone standing behind the hulking men — was enough for his assailants to back down and let the speaker through.
She was tall — taller than both Cassie and Diana by what looked like half a head — and dressed in Durmstrang's blood red robes. Her eyes were like an afternoon sky in mid-winter and her dark hair shone in the sphere of light that hovered just above her.
Her eyes swept over Harry's group before deciding they would rest on him. "You are the Potter boy?"
He tilted his head up to meet her stare unblinkingly. "Yes, and who might you be?" Silver sparks flickered at the tip of his still drawn wand.
Her smile lit up her face, and unlike Karkaroff, her eyes sparkled with its light.
But it's no more real than his.
She gave a graceful curtsy then offered him her hand. "My name is Katerina. Katerina Romanov."
Fucking hell… Half a dozen japes back at their table made more sense now.
His legs moved of their own accord, carrying him forward so that he could kiss her hand, whilst his mind worked at top speed.
There was no princess at Durmstrang back when Grindelwald attended. Why would she come here? She could have had the finest private tutors that the world could offer.
And the risks…
"It's… a pleasure meeting you, my lady." His lips formed the words without him thinking — Lucius had trained him well this past summer.
"And you, Harry Potter." It was like a shock went through him when long fingers trailed through his windswept hair as she pulled back her hand. It left him bristling inside; the motion had been like how one might stroke a cat that had been troublesome. "I hope that you enjoy your stay. I will see that my guards don't trouble you again."
She made a sweeping gesture with the hand that had trailed so briefly through his hair. "Come." The two guards followed without a backwards glance.
"Merlin," Cassius muttered just behind him. "You really do attract a special kind of trouble, don't you?"
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