A Visit To Bulgaria

Viktor collapsed into Hermione's waiting arms. The weight of him was a shock to her, and she felt her own knees go weak. She sank down to the floor and cradled his head in her lap, stroking his hair, whispering his name desperately. Her body was as tense as a well-tuned violin. Viktor's fingers were uncurled, and she could see that they were stained with unicorn blood. His Quidditch uniform was almost soaked through with sweat and his face was turning an unflattering shade of purple. Hermione realized that in saving Alexei's life, Viktor had almost killed himself.

"Dealing with demons," muttered a mediwizard standing near to her. "Can't imagine why he'd do something so damned heroic and foolish."

"You know," Hermione huffed, "if it hadn't been for Viktor doing this spell, Alexei would be dead and we might never know what happened to Anastasia."

"I know," said the mediwizard sadly, "but it marks you, your soul, you know, every time you perform a Dark spell. There's been damage done to him," and he gestured towards Viktor, "that no amount of potions and charms can heal." The mediwizard took out his wand and said, "Accio stretcher!" A stretcher flew from the far corner of the infirmary to where Hermione and Viktor lay. He helped her to lay Viktor down on it. "Best now if you take him back to his room and put him to bed," he suggested. "He'll be out cold for at least a day. He just wasn't prepared to perform this sort of spell. It's quite draining."

Hermione nodded and thanked the mediwizard for his help. Leaving the now-conscious Alexei to the other physicians, she levitated the stretcher and began the long walk back to the tower.

*~*

It was dark when Anastasia awoke, in a crude dungeon cell. She tried to turn over but cried out in pain and realized that her entire body felt like one enormous bruise. Her normally coiffured hair was matted with dirt and blood. She inspected her own body for wounds, but found none, and knew then that the blood in her hair and on her hands and torn clothing was Alexei's. The sight of the blood brought the memories rushing back into her mind in a deafening wave.

"Get away from her!" Alexei's voice was desperately serious now. He had grabbed hold of her wrist and shoved her roughly behind him when the Death Eaters began to advance. He had his wand out from its sheath and pointed it squarely at the chest of the tallest of the Death Eaters.

Anastasia shivered. She did not know why they wanted her, but she did know that it was her that they planned to take. She had awoken from her nap on the forest floor to find the three of them, in their white masks, only a few feet away from her, their wands pointed. She had her own wand out in a second, and was screaming for Alexei, for Viktor, for Hermione, for anybody. She was certainly a competent witch, but no match for three Death Eaters. Their power shone about them in a black haze.

Alexei had come, sprinting through the trees, and held off the Death Eaters for as long as he could. He shot all of the disarming spells that he knew at them, but the wounds on his body quickly grew in number. Anastasia couldn't fathom why the Death Eaters were giving him open wounds instead of simply knocking him unconscious. Then the tallest of the three said a spell in an ancient-sounding language that Anastasia had never heard before. Instead of a shot of light coming from his wand, as with most spells, a cloud of red vapor issued forth and slowly advanced on Alexei, whose elegant Ball clothes were by now ruined with his blood.

Anastasia gasped and almost fainted then, but she felt Alexei's hand strong on her wrist and managed to keep herself conscious. She suddenly knew the spell they were using. She had just been studying it the past spring in History of Magic - a spell often used by Death Eaters when they wanted to leave no clues as to their presence. The spell sent a demon into the body of the target, through an open wound. She remembered, vaguely, that demons could only enter the body through open wounds. Considering the situation, she was amazed that she could remember anything at all.

She knew that nothing could stop the demon; at least nothing that she knew. She felt a scream rising out of her throat but she stifled it, because she knew it would do no good. Viktor and Hermione were off dancing, and she knew that they had both fallen into that dancing trance and would not notice if someone came and yelled straight into their ear. She closed her eyes and felt a tear sliding down her cheek as the demon advanced on Alexei and the red mist slowly poured itself into his wounds. He went rigid as a board of wood, and fell onto his back, his eyes staring blankly at the starry sky.

Anastasia could still feel the warmth of his hand where he had grasped her. She stood up straight. If they were going to kill her - and she was fairly sure that they were - she was going to face it bravely. She knew that Viktor would do the same thing, and she wanted him to be proud of her.

But when the flash of light came straight at her chest, it was not the sickly green hue that she expected from the Avada Kedavra, but rather a glittering blue color. She had little time to ponder the meaning of this before unconsciousness came over her like a wave.

After occupying an hour or so with going over and over what had happened, Anastasia gave up trying to make sense of the situation. There's no logic to any of it, she thought despondently. She was sure that Viktor had been alerted to the kidnapping, and that efforts were being made to rescue her, but this made very little difference to her in the present. She was still sitting in a damp cell in a very unpleasant dungeon, and to top it off, she was starving.

Frustrated, she spoke out loud, in Russian. She knew that the Bulgarian Death Eaters always spoke Russian. "Hello?" She reached out to touch the bars of the cell and was given an unpleasant electrical shock. Cursing inventively in French, she began to pace back and forth. "You know, I'd really appreciate some food," she said, to no one in particular. Nothing happened, which did not surprise Anastasia in the least. She sat down in a corner of the cell and drew her knees up to her chest, shivering. The air was chill and dank, although she knew that it was summer. The air was damp and Anastasia closed her eyes and tried to think happy thoughts.

She had been attempting to think happy thoughts without any success for about half an hour when she heard a quiet clinking sound in the far corner of the cell. Food was appearing out of nowhere; a loaf of bread, a chunk of cheese, an apple, and bizarrely enough, two bottles of butterbeer. Anastasia eyed the food suspiciously, but she was starving at this point. Tentatively, she bit into the apple.

Nothing happened.

Breathing a sigh of relief, she chewed and swallowed, and began devouring the rest of the food, cracking open the butterbeer caps against the bars of her cell after discovering that her wand was gone.

After eating, Anastasia went over her situation in her mind. She was bruised and sore, but had no broken bones. Her wand was gone, which was a significant problem. What disturbed her the most, however, was Alexei's blood, which stained a considerable part of her clothes. It was stiffening the fabric as it dried, and Anastasia shrank in revulsion from her own clothing. She sat against the wall of the cell, waiting for a rescue that she did not think would ever come.

*~*

A woman was crying somewhere near him. Was it his mother, or Anastasia? He struggled to sit up, so that he might see. But his body rebelled against him; he barely had the strength to open his eyes. The woman was still crying, softly, and murmuring to herself. He could barely hear her, but he could feel the heat of her body close to his.

"Wake up, please, please, please, wake up, please, wake up," said the woman over and over, her voice hoarse and almost in a monotone.

Looking down to his chest, he saw a familiar arm thrown across it, and out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed puffy brown hair.

Hermione. She was lying next to him on his bed. Yes, he was in his room. His mind threatened to cloud over again and he fought it, trying to stay conscious.

"Please, please, please, wake up, please, wake up," she muttered.

"Herm...Hermy..." he croaked, amazed at the effort it took to form a simple syllable. His throat felt ravaged and dry.

"Viktor!" Hermione shouted. She jumped up and held one of her hands to his forehead. "Your fever is gone. Your fever is gone. Oh, I thought I'd lost you. I haven't lost you. You're here! You're awake! The fever's gone!" She threw herself onto him, hugging him desperately, and he choked and gasped for breath.

"Herm, please, not so hard," he said with difficulty.

She was kissing his forehead, his cheeks, and his bruised lips, not paying an ounce of attention. "At a time like this, not so hard? You just woke up! I thought you were dead! I could kiss you for hours!"

"Herm...aack!" he gasped as she kissed him a little too ardently.

The door opened and Madame Vulchanov came in, completely unnoticed by either Hermione or Viktor. She observed for a minute before chiming in.

"Am I interrupting?"

"Eep!" gasped Hermione. "Erm, no. Excuse us, Madame."

Businesslike, Madame Vulchanov sat in Viktor's desk chair and tried to ignore the bizarre tableau set before her: Viktor sprawled on the bed, moaning in pain, and Hermione sitting contritely on the edge of the bed.

"It has been a week since the assault on Mr. Poliakoff and the disappearance of Miss Krum. Now that you have recovered, Mr. Krum, we will need you to participate in a few interviews."

"He's hardly recovered," interjected Hermione.

"What about," Viktor said slowly, "Alexei?"

Madame Vulchanov paled. "They have not told you?"

"He's been unconscious for a week," Hermione reminded her.

Vulchanov hesitated.

"What is it?" said Viktor.

"Alexei Poliakoff was kidnapped from the infirmary two hours ago," she said reluctantly.

Hermione gasped and Viktor swore, his voice dry and raspy.

"As far as we know, he was kidnapped by the same Death Eaters who took your sister. They left the same Dark Mark symbol. It is the Dark Mark of the Russian Death Eaters." With her wand she drew it in the air. It was a shimmering red symbol, identical to the British Dark Mark except that the skull had a wreath of snakes on its head.

"The Russians? What would they want with Alexei and Anastasia?"

Madame Vulchanov hesitated again, but Viktor knew what she would say.

"There's...there's a pattern, Herm," he whispered. "They want me. They are taking away everything that I love so that I will come to them." He coughed violently.

"But why the Russians?" Hermione persisted.

"Karkaroff," said Vulchanov. "He never was very popular with the Bulgarian Death Eaters, but he held a position of great power with the Russians."

"I was his protégé," said Viktor. "He wants me to become a Death Eater. Doing that Dark spell to heal Alexei probably just encouraged him. Karkaroff knows what I am capable of."

"Speaking of that spell, Mr. Krum, I thought you should know that Katrina Nikolayevna died last night."

He nodded. "I expected her to die eventually. I knew that we would not find a suitable host for the demon before it killed her."

Vulchanov looked at him severely. "It was murder, Viktor."

He sat up in bed and glared at her. "My only sister and my best friend have been kidnapped by Death Eaters. Everyone that I love is in danger, and the man that I once honored and respected as a teacher and mentor is blackmailing me into selling my soul. I hardly think that my actions in this matter can be described as murder! Katrina Nikolayevna was a Death Eater, Madame, and she deserved to die a far worse death than the one that I gave her. I will rescue my sister and Alexei and I honestly do not care how many Death Eaters I have to kill in the process." He stopped briefly to cough. "Now, before you do anything else, we have to make sure that several people are safe. Hermione, can you write a letter for me?"

"Yes," she stammered, rushing to get a roll of parchment and a pen.

"Madame Vulchanov, I suggest that you contact the Bulgarian and Russian Ministries of Magic and tell them everything that happened with Stasi and Alexei," said Viktor.

"As you wish," she replied. She crossed the room, opened the door, and glanced back at Viktor. "I will send a mediwizard to you. You are very ill." Then she was gone.

"Are you ready, Herm?" he asked.

She sat at his desk, pen poised over the parchment. He noticed that her hand was shaking and her face was white. "Yes," she whispered.

"Herm," he sighed.

"What?"

"Come here," he said, patting the bed.

Hermione tentatively sat down on the bed next to him. She eyed him with a mixture of love, concern, and a tinge of fear.

"You think I am a murderer," he said, sadly. "You think I am ruthless and cruel, and you have every reason to think that."

"No, Viktor," she protested, but he cut her off.

"Hermione, there is something that you probably already know about me, but I must tell you again. There is nothing in the world more important to me than the people I love. I love Alexei, and I love Stasi, and the Death Eaters have taken them. My parents will most likely be next, and after that, they will take you. I have to stop them."

She nodded. "I understand. But I can't see how you could put that demon into her if you knew that she would die."

"I am not proud of it, Hermione, and I hope that I will never have to be that cruel again." He laughed softly, and sadly. "I wish that I could hold you, and be close to you, or jump up and race off on a broom to find Alexei and Stasi. Perhaps my punishment for what I did is that all my strength has left me."

Hermione softened and kissed him gently. "It will return," she assured him. "Let me write that letter for you now."

"All right," he said, and dictated the letter to her. It was short, and when she had finished writing he asked her to read it back to him.

Professor Dumbledore:

Due to the recent kidnappings of my sister Anastasia Krum and my friend Alexei Poliakoff, I have good reason to believe that my parents and the parents of Hermione Granger are in great danger. I beg you to keep them at Hogwarts until the Death Eaters who have taken Anastasia and Alexei are arrested. Hogwarts is the safest place that I can think of. I know that I am asking a great deal of you, but I know that their lives are at stake - especially Mr. and Mrs. Granger, for you know what pleasure the Death Eaters take in killing Muggles. I will arrange for my parents and for Mr. and Mrs. Granger to take a Portkey to Hogwarts.

Viktor Krum

"Good," said Viktor. "Fold it and seal it with the Durmstrang wax and seal on my desk.

Hermione did so, and tied the letter to the wing of Viktor's owl, who was waiting outside the window. With a flap of its wings, it sailed into the air.

Viktor sighed with relief and leaned back on the pillows that Hermione had propped behind his back. "Thank you," he whispered, and closed his eyes. His face, usually a healthy tan color, was deathly pale, and there were black circles under his eyes.

"Can I do anything for you?" she asked. "Draw a bath? Bring up some food? You really should eat something, you know."

He shook his head. "I cannot digest anything. I think that one of the mediwizards put a charm on my stomach that gives it the illusion of being full, so that I wouldn't miss eating." He sighed. "But a bath would be nice. I suppose I don't smell very good."

Hermione chuckled, and went to draw the bath.

*~*

So this is it, thought Alexei. All of my life has added up to this, being at the mercy of deranged Death Eaters.

There was a bizarre humor in the whole thing, but Alexei knew that it was the sort of humor that if you started laughing about it, you never stopped. So he tried to be perfectly serious, and comprehend the enormity of the situation. Six Death Eaters were standing guard over him in a large hall, whose ceiling went up so far that Alexei could only barely see the rafters. He shivered in the thin shirt and trousers that he had been wearing when the Death Eaters had come for him. Closing his eyes, he felt the cold pervade his skin and soak down to his bones. Was it only a few nights ago that he had been dancing with Anastasia in the sweating Midsummer night?

Oh, he thought, Stasi. He remembered her golden hair spread over his shoulder as they lay in the forest together, exhausted from the Revels. He remembered her laugh, her smile, all of the simple things that he had gotten used to seeing every day, and now might not ever see again. He cursed himself for leaving her that night to seek out the company of Tatiana, foolishly believing that he needed another woman besides Anastasia. It had come to nothing - Tatiana had already left by the time he arrived at the bonfire - but here, with his death certain and imminent, the guilt clawed at him. He loved Anastasia deeply, desperately, as much as he loved his life. Shaking with fear and cold in the fortress of the Death Eaters, he could think of nothing but her, and if his pride had not prevented him, he would have wept.

"I always knew that you were a sniveling weakling beneath your swagger, Poliakoff," drawled a voice that Alexei knew well. He shivered and turned in the direction of the speaker. Only one person spoke that exquisitely cultured, courtly version of Russian that was almost archaic to Alexei's ears.

"Karkaroff," whispered Alexei.

Igor Karkaroff smiled; as usual, it did not reach his eyes, which were two glittering blue fortresses. It was quite a peculiar effect, his smile: the bottom half of his face curved into an expression of mirth, and the upper half as stern as if he were carved in stone. "You never were one of my favorite students, Poliakoff. I remember that you had a great deal of success seducing the ladies, but could never master anything set before you in a classroom."

Alexei did not dignify that with a response. He stood silently, his posture straight and chin up. He knew that he was not brilliant like Hermione, or brave like Viktor, or honest like Anastasia, but he would not cower before Karkaroff.

"I see that I cannot make you fear me as you once did, Poliakoff," said Karkaroff, almost sadly. "You do not fear for yourself anymore - a trait that you inherited from Viktor, no doubt. He was a fearless boy." Alexei suspected that he saw nostalgia in Karkaroff's shadowed eyes.

Karkaroff blinked, and the nostalgia was gone. "But that girl has made him a fool, that boy who had the makings of the greatest of Death Eaters. There's still rage in Viktor. I saw that when he sent Katrina Nikolayevna to her death." Karkaroff smiled. "A sad waste of a rather deliciously demonic woman, I might add. But it showed me that I can still drive him into a veritable madness by hurting those he loves most."

"Viktor would rather that see all those he loved dead than join the Death Eaters," spat out Alexei, although he was not sure if that was true.

"Are you so sure?" asked Karkaroff softly. Then, he smiled. "We have the girl, you know."

"Hermione?" gasped Alexei. If they had Hermione, the situation was bad indeed.

Karkaroff shook his head. "Oh no, Poliakoff. There was another woman in his life before her, you know."

Confused, Alexei thought, Rachel has been dead for years! Who is he talking about? Then, a glimmer of the truth came to him, and he felt as if he had been punched in the gut. "Anastasia?" he whispered.

"She thinks that you're dead, you know," said Karkaroff with satisfaction. "She's crying her eyes out as we speak." He thought for a minute, and then said maliciously, "It's too bad, really - the crying makes her face so red and splotchy. And I was enjoying watching her, you know. She always was the most beautiful girl at Durmstrang."

Alexei leapt up and would have attacked Karkaroff if the Death Eater guard had not sprung forward to hold him back. "You disgusting, horrible pig," he snarled.

Karkaroff laughed. "Take him away," he said to the Death Eaters. Alexei felt himself being dragged to his feet and pushed towards the door. Then Karkaroff spoke again. "Put him with the girl. They'll both be dead soon anyway, and it will be so charming to watch their reunion."

*~*

Hermione sat at Viktor's desk, writing short letters to Harry and Ron, as Viktor bathed in the small bathroom adjoined to the bedroom. She warned them of possible danger, and suggested that Harry go to the Burrow for the rest of the summer, if he was not already there. It was a struggle to keep the letters as cryptic as possible, but she did not want anything to happen if the messages were intercepted on the way. When she was done, she folded the pieces of parchment and sealed them with the Durmstrang crimson wax and seal, and sent them on their way with another little owl she had found pecking at the window.

Glancing down at her clothing, she grimaced. The day was cold - oddly so, for the middle of July - but the shirt she wore was damp with sweat and smelled none too fresh. Her pants were creased and stained, and her hair hung limply in a haphazard ponytail. Sighing, she took out her wand and Summoned some fresh clothes from her room. Once they arrived, she changed into them and folded her dirty clothes in a neat pile which she left by the door.

Viktor emerged from the bathroom, clouds of steam following him. He was wearing his Durmstrang pajama shorts and was pulling an old T-shirt over his head. Walking slowly and with a pronounced limp, he made his way to the bed and collapsed on it. Frustrated, he said, "This is not good at all. I cannot even walk from room to room without getting exhausted!"

Hermione pursed her lips and said, "It's going to take a while, you know. Perhaps a week or more before you're as healthy as you were before."

"A week?" he exploded. "We do not have a week! Alexei and Stasi are in the hands of Karkaroff! We cannot waste a single hour!"

"There's nothing I can do, Viktor." She fervently wished that she knew some higher-order healing spells. "But I heard of a spell, once - only it's very dangerous - "

"Anything that will get me on my feet, Hermione, I am willing to do."

She nodded. "It's a simple transference of energy, really. Nothing complicated in theory, but it's very easy to mess up and end up with the spell caster dead. I'm sure that your chief mediwitch - what was her name?"

"Helga Stanislavka."

"Yes, Stanislavka - I'm sure that she could do it. I'll go talk to her." She started for the door.

"Wait, Hermione," he said.

"What?"

"I...I am sorry."

"Viktor! You haven't done anything to be sorry for!"

"No, but I am sorry that these things happened. I wanted this summer to be perfect for you. I thought that I had succeeded, at the Ball and the Revels, I thought that I had really made you happy. And now everything's a mess, Alexei and Stasi are probably dead, and I can barely walk. I suppose this is not how you wanted to spend your summer. For that, I am sorry."

Hermione laughed, merrily, and Viktor wondered what could possibly be amusing about the situation. She came over to the bed, bent down, and kissed him gently. "No, Viktor, it's there that you're wrong." She grasped his hand in both of her own. "Alexei and Stasi are in danger, and you're very ill, and there are Death Eaters at every turn - but we have each other, Viktor." Her voice went down to a whisper. "And I can think of nothing better to do with my summer than spend it with the person that I love."

Before he could reply, she had gone out the door.