Past Present

"Oh, get down already you silly dog! Anyone would think you had never seen a storm before!" Viktor pushed Natasha's muzzle gently away from his chest. She had been practically in his lap before the clap of thunder finished. She whimpered and lay down next to Ivan on the hearth, and Viktor picked up the book he had been reading that Natasha had knocked out of his hands.

Ron moved the curtain back from the large window facing the mountains. "I've never seen one like it. I mean, the lightning's almost blue and it's sizzling around here like... like..."

"Like lightning?" Harry supplied.

"That is what happens in mountains full of lakes," Viktor murmured, shaking out the pages and smoothing them where they had bent against the floor. "Things back up and build up and scrape against one another. Then when the cooler air finally nudges things loose, this is what you get. You think this is bad, you should see some of the ones at Durmstrang. We get lightning sometimes during blizzards, even."

"How cold is it there, really?" Harry asked. He had gotten so used to Viktor in short sleeves, it was hard to picture him in those huge robes again.

"Depends. Some years, it gets cold starting in September. By mid-October, it's always cloaks outside when the sun is not out, sometimes inside by then. Last year we had an early blizzard. Freakish. A couple of weeks into September, just after the opening ball. The snow piled up to my waist. Usually it does not snow until December. It usually comes off by April though. May and June are always warm."

"You play Quidditch in cloaks?" Harry wondered.

"When it is cold enough. A couple of matches a year."

"The ship. What's that like?" Ron put the curtain back down.

Viktor looked over the cover of his book, silent for a moment. His eyes flicked to the window and another flash of lightning. "A little musty. It takes four people to make a crew. So we took shifts, usually fifth years and up. Karkaroff took a few of us on some trips during the year where we crewed for practice. When you leave for Durmstrang, you get on at a port up north, a small shipping town in Russia. There are small quarters on board, you have an assigned berth, we get on, sail out past a cliff, into a cove there, and a whirlpool opens up. From there, it is underwater until you get to the lake in front of the castle. Then you come up like we did at Hogwarts. Kind of leaky when you are not careful about making sure things are sealed. Last year, we flooded the bottom berths with four inches of water because some idiot did not check the cargo hold like he was supposed to. But I suppose I should thank that idiot, because it helped me solve my egg."

"You mean the one with the clue about the second task?" Harry remembered sitting in the bath with his shrieking egg, wondering how he was going to get any sense out of it.

"The ship listed a little during the day when we were gone, and the cargo hold door was loose. Water ran in, and when I got back from Snape's class, I had water in my room. I spent the whole night before looking through things from the library, trying to figure out what noise it was making and the thing made my head hurt when I tried to listen to it. Let us just say I was not haffing one of my more easygoing days already and coming in to wet ankles did not improve my mood," Viktor said, his mouth set.

Ron laughed, "You threw it, didn't you?"

Viktor ducked his head behind the book, but not before they saw him smile. "With pleasure. And great force. Alexei tells me I knocked a picture off his adjoining wall. Luckily it came open and fell in the water. It was almost worth the two hours we spent casting drying charms."

"Bit damp in here isn't it?" Hermione rubbed her shoulders and arms.

"Bit damp out there, Hermione," Ron countered.

"Incendio!" Viktor said, not looking up from his book, wand in his hand. The fireplace was so large that they actually felt a blast of hot air as the flames shot up. "She is cold," he explained when Anya looked up from her own book in surprise. "We hardly ever light that except in winter," Viktor explained again. Ivan and Natasha looked rather indignant and stalked away from the hearth to flank Viktor's chair, looking at Viktor as though reprimanding him for daring to light a fire behind them. "You need not look at me like that. You wanted in," he told them, shutting his book.

"What are you going to do when you get these two together with Crookshanks?" Ron got down off his chair and gave Natasha a scratch behind the ears.

"Oh, they like cats," Viktor said lightly.

"Really? They like cats?" Ron had to share his attentions with Ivan now, as he shoved his shaggy head under Ron's arm.

"To eat mostly," Viktor added darkly. Hermione nearly spilled her cup of milk.

"What!?" Hermione wheezed.

"Teasing," Viktor raised his hands, palms outward in a protestation of his innocence. "Unless Crookshanks suddenly turns man eating cat and takes a dislike to me, I think he is safe."

"I wouldn't put it past him..." Ron laughed as Natasha suddenly decided to lick enthusiastically behind his ear, nearly bowling him over.