The Darkness of the Soul

Harry soon resigned himself to the fact that Durmstrang didn't have a single house like Slytherin - they had eight. The school's martial approach and subtle encouragement of Dark Arts techniques probably contributed, or perhaps it was just a difference in marketing techniques, but far too many students had the arrogant, self-important stance that reminded him of his old nemesis.

Strangely, this target-rich environment actually discouraged his attempts to teach humility through pain. He was almost unrecognizable from his previous classes. He would quickly move through the planned lessons, and then have his students work practical examples, filling in space by giving them what they seemed to want - personal stories and opinions about the dangers of the Wizarding World.

He was worried that he came across like Gilderoy Lockhart, and he tried to always emphasize that he'd accomplished everything important with the help of others. This seemed to avoid too much of a hero complex, but it also had an unintended consequence. Without the heroic Harry Potter as their idol, the children seemed to listen to gossip, which painted a different picture.

He overheard them sometimes, as he wandered through the dark halls and courtyards, still trying to map out the entirety of the castle. The ones that thought he was overrated didn't bother him half as much as the ones that thought he was dangerous - and the spin that some of those conversations put on it was chilling. One of them stayed with him for weeks - he heard a couple of students from House Dalmuti talking in the East Garden.

"I still say he's nothing but a murderer - he killed his own student!"

"That's not that unusual for a Dark Arts teacher - it happens sometimes. It's a dangerous subject."

"But he's not a typical Dark Arts teacher. He hasn't taught us much that's really useful yet. I mean, if we had to fight a bunch of bloodthirsty giants, do you really think we could hold them off with a tickling charm? We need something that does real damage."

The students were both first-years, and although strictly speaking, he could have fined them both points for their cheek, he had lost some of the fire he had banked against the Slytherins in past years. Besides, hearing eleven-year olds speaking so nonchalantly about death was too much for him at the moment. He considered correcting them, telling them that he didn't believe that Falco was dead, but what would he say? "He's still alive, I think?"

In his wanders through the Castle, there were a few places he kept coming back to. There were four large gardens, each walled and connected to the outer walls. He supposed that there had been some special defensive reason for this, but now the walls around the gardens also abutted most of the Houses and classroom buildings, and the North garden also abutted the Castle proper. Many of these places where the walls met contained doors, some of them concealed, and Harry was doing his best to find them all.

He found that, unlike Hogwarts, there was no stigma against Professors visiting the various Houses - this was probably because, unlike Hogwarts, the Heads of House were just seventh year students, not selected Professors, and thus the Professors didn't have the same competitive reasons for staying out.

That didn't mean that his appearances were unmarked, however. The Houses seemed to almost come to attention when he entered, and they seemed to regard his walks through their lands as a sort of drill inspection. He rarely said anything, though, or gave any recognition to their actions - except in one case.

It was late on a Thursday night in September, and he was walking through House Martello. The House had been last year's loser, and they had already spent several nights recently serving detentions with others. It seemed like some of the other houses were more than happy to have detention, since they knew that it affected Martello even more than them. Apparently, once you were in the last place, you tended to stay there - it was hard to ever work your way up to the lead.

The detentions had not only demoralized the House and its members, they also took away valuable time from the students' studies, and the care of their House. Unlike Hogwarts, students here could not expect house-elves to make their beds for them, although they did at least launder their sheets. As Harry entered the House through a passageway hidden behind a currently unoccupied painting of N. Machiavelli, he saw a half-asleep boy jump up in alarm, and start running through the hallways, bringing people to alert, with his house amulet flapping on his chest from the effort. The boy seemed completely terrified.

Harry frowned. There was something painful about having people run in terror from him. He paused for a moment, and started studying the frame of the painting he'd entered through, and then looking at the other paintings in the hall. He heard students running and working at their beds frantically. He waited for almost fifteen minutes, until it had just about quieted down, before he proceeded.

The students were sweaty and out of breath, and almost all of them had obviously thrown their beds together frantically. There was a resigned look on some faces. They probably thought that their losing streak was about to continue.

He took the time to actually look into each room, rather than walking through in his normally ambivalent fashion. The dorms were positively spartan, unlike the posh ones at Hogwarts. The underclassmen had two-level bunk beds, with six bunks to a room. There was more than one class to a room, which was a big difference from Hogwarts - in fact, the first four years seemed hopelessly scrambled between rooms.

The boy who had noticed him first was still working on his bed, but he jumped up when Harry entered the room. Harry recognized him from one of his Dark Arts classes - his name was Mister Nagarian, although he couldn't remember the boy's first name. From what Harry had gathered, he was from one of the small Eastern European republics.

Harry stopped, and looked at the bed. There was something in the trembling manner of the boy, the absolute terror, and for a moment, he thought of Neville's first meeting with Snape. He examined the corners intently - the bed, for all the boy's haste, was just about perfect.

He spoke loudly. "One of the people that I learned the most from in my time at Hogwarts had a saying. He pointed out that you could never know everything; that you could never predict what might come. The only defense, he would constantly repeat, was CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" Harry's loud voice echoed in the wet stone halls.

"This boy did his part, and also managed to give you all enough warning to do yours. Three points to you, Mister Nagarian," he nodded. Three was about as much as a Professor could get away with adding on a whim - there was no hard limit, but anything more than that would trigger questions that he didn't really want to answer, like what he was doing in the area to begin with.

He walked off, but the boy was positively glowing. He also gathered, from the looks on the other students' faces, that he'd made a positive impression. He didn't know if it was for his kindness, though, or his ability to speak loud in enclosed quarters.

Harry stopped by the scoreboard on his way back to his Quarters. The board showed the names of each of the students at Durmstrang, over a thousand in all, together with their current score, grade average, and house. His points would have already been tracked, as the magic of the Castle took care of such things, but he wanted to see how the standings looked.

Mister Nagarian's first name was Sarcos, and he was currently somewhere in the middle of the pack. He was doing fairly well for House Martello, though, which seemed to be lagging - Harry wondered how much of that was just simple exhaustion.

Looking at the board, he saw some familiar names, and shuddered. MacNair, Nott, and Karkaroff were in a few places. He wondered if they were related to those he'd run into back at Hogwart's, in Voldemort's employ.

He still hadn't asked anyone if Kirsten was related to Ivan Karkaroff, the former Headmaster of Durmstrang. If she were, he didn't know if she'd blame him for bringing up old wounds, although it might explain her hatred for him. If she weren't, she might be upset at him for suggesting the connection. And even if he asked someone other than her, he was afraid it might get back to her. He'd already noticed that most of the other Durmstrang Professors, the "real" Professors, as he thought of them, had a habit of exchanging information without including him.

Whatever the reason for it, Kirsten hadn't let up, although she was at least coldly courteous during the language classes that he attended. Her disdain was still obvious enough, though, that most of the students in those classes had picked up on it, which had helped his standing with the sixth and seventh years, at least.

~.~.~

Viktor felt guilty for how little time he had been able to spend at Durmstrang. He knew that Hermione was counting on him to watch over Harry, but it was difficult. He got the feeling that Harry wasn't happy with him for something, although he really wasn't sure what it was. He hoped that Harry didn't have a problem with his relationship with Hermione.

His musings were interrupted by the Snitch, which had finally made an appearance. He was in the place where he did most of his thinking, perched on a broom high above a Quidditch stadium. It was an exhibition game, Bulgaria's national team against the Russians. He knew that it had been fairly boring for the fans so far; his attempts to help things by doing a few Wronski feints had only succeeded in crippling the other Seeker and removing all chance of a surprise ending.

Viktor swooped down for the Snitch, actually going a little slower than usual. His coach was always telling him that he had to worry more about his fans, and what they thought, and telling him that going too fast for them to see where he was going was cheating them out of something. He didn't understand, himself. He was either playing, or not playing, this subtlety was beyond him. But, although he didn't understand, he did obey.

Viktor wished that people would be more straightforward with him. He had understood Hermione immediately; known that Quidditch wasn't the reason she cared for him. If she only cared about celebrity, she would have been pursuing Harry, but they both said that she was not. He knew that he could trust them, they were good people, and they would not mislead him.

Catching the Snitch, he landed. His fans applauded, and he listened. He was proud of what he had done, but he listened to the fans with a jaundiced ear. Too many fans had been fickle, turning from loving him to hating him when he missed a Snitch. Not that he missed one often, but the experience had stayed with him.

Turning, he marched to the locker room, ignoring the disappointment from fans who hoped that he would be staying there to sign autographs. Even with his Seeker senses, he almost didn't notice the dark figure who stood inside the room, waiting for him.

"I knew you would be first inside the room," its voice said, from underneath a dark hood. "You always are. You don't care for your fans?" The voice sounded familiar, but Viktor could not place it. There was a dark wand in the figure's gloved hand, pointed at him.

"What do you want?" The Seeker asked, harshly.

"Ahh, but that is the question for you. What do you want? Fame, celebrity, these things do not matter to you. What does, I wonder?"

"That is not for you to ask," Viktor said bluntly. "You should go, before the rest of my team pounds you into dust, as you no doubt deserve."

There was a small laugh from the figure, "That is not likely to be a problem. Have you not noticed that the rest of your team always stays to sign pictures, and give speeches? I probably have you for at least a good ten minutes before they return. Perhaps longer."

"Then, what do you wish to say?" Viktor folded his arms.

"I wish you to talk. What do you want, Seeker? What would I have to give you, to gain an ally at Durmstrang?"

Viktor laughed. "If you serve a Dark Wizard, you probably have a dozen allies at Durmstrang already. What would you need of me?"

"That is my concern. I will ask a third time, and then no more. What would you want? What would make you serve me?"

Viktor was getting angry at the presumption. He had always prided himself on not playing social games, on not wearing a mask in public and another in private. "There is nothing you cannot give me that I do not already have!" He pulled Hermione's last letter from his pocket, and held it up in his fist.

There was the sound of a contented sigh from the figure, followed by "STUPEFY!"

When Viktor woke a few moments later, his hand was empty, the letter gone. His coach and the team Healer were standing over him, looking concerned. He answered none of their questions, but merely hurried to the showers. He trusted no one, no one but his Hermione, and possibly his friend, Harry. None but them need know of this attack.

None but them, and whoever had taken his letter.