Fifty Shades Of Ice

The walls, floor and ceiling of the hideout are carved in ice, and so is most of the furniture in the rooms. Charms prevent the ice from melting and keep the temperature inside fit for living. Even the bed is made of ice. Wide and covered with blankets and furs, it looks comfortable. But the person lying on the bed sleeps curled up, with his back to the wall, his fingers gripping his wand firmly. He wakes several times during the night, always with a start, and looks around. It is never dark in his hideout -the light of many torches reflects off the icy walls, and there is no dark place for anyone hide. There has been no intruder there so far, but Igor Karkaroff knows it's just a matter of time before they find him.

Every time he wakes up, he looks at the clock on the icy shelf beside him. He gets up when the clock tells him it's about seven in the morning. Without the clock he would lose track of days - his rooms are always lit the same way, and outside it is almost constantly daylight, a sign that summer is near.

Karkaroff gets out of bed, walks to a stone basin attached to an icy wall and mutters a charm that melts the right amount of ice to fill the basin with water. He could easily make the water warm - even very young wizard children are able to do that. But he prefers to wash himself with cold water for a reason he can't quite explain to himself. He feels that the cold water somehow keeps him alert, and that is something he needs desperately.

He points his wand towards a large wooden box, a wizards' wireless, and turns it on to have some music while he shaves himself. The music is occasionally interrupted by news. During all the time Karkaroff has spent hiding here, there had been no mention of the Dark Lord in the news. But the Dark Mark hasn't faded a bit since it became clear last year, and it has burned strongly several times, informing him that his former Master was summoning his followers - people who were once Karkaroff's friends, and who would probably some day be his executioners.

A cheerful tune is playing from the wireless, but the sound is faint here, far in the North. Karkaroff concentrates deeply on shaving, just like he concentrates on reading his books and performing spells - his mind is desperate to have something other than his future to think about.

Having shaved and dressed himself, he leaves his room, passed through a white hallway, takes a silvery cloak from a hanger and ascends a flight of icy stairs. He says a password and a door, previously invisible, opens up at the top of the stairs. The sky is blindingly bright, and he has to close his eyes for a moment before putting on his invisibility cloak and going outside. Owls always leave any letters for him in the snow outside, but there are no letters today. He receives letters less and less often - a good thing probably, because owls can be followed.

Carefully ensuring that his whole body is hidden by the cloak, Karkaroff starts to climb an icy hill. He walks slowly, aware that he shouldn't be doing this - it is his daily ritual or, to be more accurate, his addiction. From the top of the hill he can see a white palace far in the distance. To an untrained eye the palace would be invisible, blending with the snow and the ice. But Karkaroff has spent most of his life in the far North, and during this last year of isolation he rarely even saw anything other than snow and ice. He can probably distinguish fifty different shades of white.

He had to come up here and watch Durmstrang every day. He couldn't help it, and even the endless polar night in the winter didn't stop him. Durmstrang was just faintly visible then, lit by a faint glow from inside the windows and the torches surrounding the skating ring in front of the palace. Karkaroff would watch the school he had dedicated his life to, and feel helpless anger boiling up inside him. He knew from the few letters he received what was happening - the majority of the staff had been glad he had disappeared. Now they were free to do what they had always wanted to - invite Mudbloods to attend Durmstrang. And Karkaroff could do nothing but watch the palace helplessly from afar, knowing it was being defiled by their presence. He consoled himself with the thought that it wouldn't last for long - the Dark Lord would soon rise in Britain and begin spreading his influence over the borders. It was a pleasant thought, even though the rise of the Dark Lord meant death for him.

He would stand on that hill for hours. Even when the snow was falling and covering the invisibility cloak with a white layer, he would watch Durmstrang in the distance until he'd feel frost forming on his eyelashes.

He is extremely careful as he returns to his hidden home, using spells to wipe away his footprints and ensuring that the door is properly closed.

Back in his hideout, he prepares a small meal for himself as usual - the stacks of food protected by the ice and conserved by spells is probably enough for his whole life - and sits down to read a book on Arithmancy. The complicated charts manage to occupy his mind completely for a while, but the moment he lifts his eyes from the book he is aware of everything again. He was one of them once - he knows how relentlessly they search for their prey, how they torture and how they execute. Longing to see something different than the white icy walls, he points his wand into the fireplace and starts a fire.

Like most of the room, his fireplace is made of ice and protected from melting. It had been connected to the Floo Network before, but Karkaroff disconnected it after his first few months of hiding. He missed being able to talk to his friends directly, but he was aware that, eventually, his friends would receive orders concerning him. And then he might push his head into the flames to have a friendly conversation, only to find that, on the other side, a blade was waiting to cut it off.

He sits into a chair near the fire, turns on the wireless again and tries to relax listening to the music and the crackling of the flames. But he never closes his eyes, at least not completely - he keeps an eye on the door of the room, just like he always does.

A sword is hanging from the wall above the fireplace, a family heirloom, still as sharp as it was all those centuries ago. Karkaroff has held it in his hands many times, wondering whether cutting of his left arm would help him. He has never been able to gather his courage and do it; a part of him suspects that it wouldn't help him anyway. It is impossible to break one's bond with the Dark Lord - the Mark on a follower's arm is merely an image of the real Mark, the one on the soul.

Suddenly the music stops and the voice of a speaker is heard. With a nervous gesture, Karkaroff points his wand at the wireless and orders it to speak louder.

"We have just received sensational news from Britain," the voice says. "The British Minister of Magic has publicly confirmed the rumours that He Who Must Not Be Named has returned ..."

Karkaroff remains in his chair, listening to the news with a strangely calm expression. He had dreaded hearing this for a year, and he would have expected to feel more afraid now. But instead, in a odd way, he feels relieved. Now all he has to do - all he can do - is wait for the end.