Past Present

"Less than a week now. Four days. I do wonder why he hasn't written though. I hope something hasn't come up," Hermione said.

"Be patient. He'll write yeh when he writes yeh," Hagrid said sagely. Harry noticed that Hagrid had developed a much more charitable attitude toward Viktor since the Triwizard Tournament. He had once warned Harry strenuously to stay away from him. But then, Hagrid had just been rebuffed by Madame Maxime for calling her a half-giant (though it was true) and was having a generally uncharitable feeling about foreigners. And there was that little problem of someone trying to kill Harry at the time, as well. But his reconciliation with Madame Maxime, combined with their glowing descriptions of their trip to Durmstrang and most of the people they had gotten to know there had apparently changed his attitude somewhat.

"Can we go to the barn with you to feed the hippogriffs?" Ron asked, finishing his bun. Rather a brave thing to do, as Hagrid had owned up to baking them himself, and Hagrid's cooking sometimes left something to be desired.

"No, no. I already took care of 'em. An' it's gettin' late an' cold. Get yerselves up to the castle already, or yeh'll be outta bounds 'fore yeh get there," he said. Can't have ye gettin' into the barn just yet. Not fer a few more days anyway. Spoil the surprise yeh got comin', he added silently, to himself.

"We really should go. I still have to finish my Potions essay," Harry said.

"Oh, Harry, honestly. I was done yesterday," Hermione scolded.

"I only have the last paragraph to put on. I'm nearly done," Harry said defensively.

They put on their cloaks and bid Hagrid goodnight, and began the walk back up to the castle, wandering along the tree line of the Forbidden Forest, ambling slowly in the moonlight. "So, what do you reckon Hagrid's hiding in the barn?" Ron asked. "Mad dragon? Manticore? Breeding more skrewts? Fire breathing crups? Ogre with a toothache? Lethifolds on leashes, I bet."

"He did seem pretty reluctant to let us in there. Which is odd. Normally he's all for us going to the barn with him. I shudder to think what he might have tucked away in there for our next lesson. He is terrible at keeping secrets, isn't he?" Harry replied.

"Stop. Stop!" Hermione hissed, her voice low. "Do you hear something?" she whispered. They all listened for a bit, but Harry and Ron could discern nothing but the wind.

"Hermione you're hearing..." Ron began, but she grabbed his and Harry's sleeve and pulled them into the shadows of the trees.

"Put out your wands!" she ordered. And they did, standing there with the moonlight only, hidden in the dark tree line. Suddenly, Harry could hear it too. The occasional rhythmic thud, the rustle in the trees. It was impossible to tell where it was coming from, just that it was getting closer. Then it seemed to be across the grounds, in the trees, circling back toward Hagrid's cabin. Harry, Ron and Hermione stepped out a bit, cocking their heads in that direction. Then a gust of wind came, and the sound was drowned in its howl. For several seconds, the sound was gone.

"Well, whatever it was, it's gone n..." Harry began in a whisper, but was cut off in midword when he was knocked sideways and launched off his feet and realized that Hermione was tumbling down the incline with him, as well as a dark shape, which he came to recognize as a tall man in a thick, heavy cloak before his glasses were knocked off of his face. It had to be a man, it was too tall for a woman, too solid to be a dementor, and he had seemed just as surprised to bowl them over as they had been to be bowled over, judging from the sharp intake of breath when they had collided. They came to rest at the bottom of the small hollow, sprawled in a heap among the grass and the twigs and the dead leaves. Harry wheezed for breath. The man's knee had caught him in the gut halfway down the hill, knocking all the breath out of him. Ron half-ran, half-surfed down the steep hill after them, with his wand raised. "Don't move! Or I'll... I'll..."

At the same time, Hermione raised up from the ground, propping on her elbows. The figure in the cloak was pushing up from the ground as well. There's something familiar about those big hands on the ground, the only feature she could see as yet in the moonlight, she thought, and as he turned to look at her, to her great surprise, she recognized the dark eyes underneath the hood that looked so startled. Then distressed.

"Viktor..." she breathed. "What are you..."

"Shh! No time for that," he gasped, sounding out of breath, struggling to his feet and pulling the hood back. "Ron, for heaven's sake, put that down! Go hide! Or double back to the castle!" he hissed, bending over to scramble back up the steep hill. Harry and Hermione struggled to their own feet and began crawling up after him. A puzzled looking Ron followed.

"But what's going..." Hermione began, as she crested the rise and could stand upright again.

Viktor grabbed her shoulders and shook her, "No time! Either you stay in the trees and head back up to the castle or I shove you back down this hill and you stay there!" he breathed, then froze for a moment, listening.

"My wand..." she squeaked in a thin voice, looking frantically on the ground around her. He looked over her shoulder at the large hollowed out tree at the edge of the forest. A narrow crack ran up the front of the trunk, just big enough to turn sideways and wriggle through, but the inside was easily five feet across and largely empty. Two or three people could fit, though it was a tight squeeze.

"Okay, no time for running now. You hide. You do not come out, no matter what happens. No noise," he insisted, pushing her inside the narrow opening in the trunk. "You too, Harry," he said, nudging him inside as well. As Harry could not see very well with his bent glasses clutched in his hands and still had to concentrate rather a lot on his breathing, he didn't protest much.

"Now look here, what is going on?" Ron said hotly. "You come in here and start shoving us into trees and don't stop to explain what you're running from or why you just tackled us or even what you're doing here ..." Ron was working his way back toward the edge of the hollow, further away from the tree.

"You want an explanation?" Viktor said incredulously. "You'll get it in a minute. I apologize in advance. This is for your own good," he said through gritted teeth. He gave a fearful glance back over his shoulder, opposite where Hagrid's cabin was. Ron followed his gaze and it had just registered that the stars were starting to go dark in that corner of the woods, and the darkness was spreading in their direction, before Viktor planted his hands on Ron's chest and shoved him hard back down the incline. Off balance against Viktor's greater weight, Ron could not remain standing. He slid down the hill on his backside, and he saw Viktor leave the top of the rise and head back toward the tree. Then he heard a voice, farther off. It was neither Hermione, Ron, nor Viktor. He lay still in the pile of leaves at the bottom and listened.

Viktor positioned himself in front of the slit in the tree, spreading his cloak out behind him, hoping the darkness was enough to conceal anything that might not be hidden behind him. Anything that might give away the fact that there were more people out here than one. It would be soon enough, judging from the dark that was coming this way. He drew his wand back out of his cloak. "I see you. No use running any more," came the fruity, unctuous voice once more, clearer now that it was closer. Hermione grabbed Harry's arm inside the tree.

"Karkaroff!" she whispered urgently. Harry put on his glasses, though the frames were wildly bent and cocked oddly over his ear and nose. Viktor took a large step forward, and Harry could just make out the figure of Karkaroff in the moonlight beyond the edge of the woods. "Do you have your wand?" Hermione asked. With a sinking feeling, Harry realized he had lost it on the incline when they had gone tumbling. When Viktor had plowed into them at full speed in the dark. It was probably buried with a hundred twigs in a pile of leaves somewhere out there. He shook his head numbly. "I lost mine too," she said, clutching his forearm painfully.

"Why do you always run from what is good for you, Viktor?" Karkaroff asked.

Viktor gave a completely mirthless laugh. "Like you?" he asked in a quiet voice.

"Come back with me. You have no choice anyway. There's nothing for you here," came Karkaroff's purring voice. Suddenly they both seemed quite loud, even though they were speaking in a fairly normal tone. Harry had expected whispering. Then it occurred to him. There was no one up to hear them. Curfew had passed. They weren't supposed to be out here, in or out of a hollow tree. No one else was on the grounds. No one would miss them until morning. Hagrid was in bed. They were too far from the castle or the gamekeeper's hut for a conversation to wake anyone. Neither of them cared about disturbing anyone or drawing attention. Viktor would have probably welcomed someone coming. A properly armed someone who knew what they were doing, Harry thought ruefully.

"That is where you are wrong. Wrong. Like you were about so many things," Viktor said evenly.

"Wrong? The only thing I was wrong about was not exerting more influence over you earlier. Miscalculating and overcompensating later. Come with me. Come to him. He is willing to forgive. To offer blessing. To welcome you with open arms into the fold, offer you the eternal life he has ..."

Viktor snorted derisively. "What? Forgive like you do? Offer to share the same way you do? What kind of a fool do you think I am? I know you did not exactly spend a lot of time around us for fear of having to really interact with one of us or do some real work, but surely you noticed I was not a complete simpleton in class? Do you really think I believe he would forgive you for turning in your fellow followers without a repayment? A bribe? A...gift? Several gifts. Mine. Next you will be painting me a picture of him sitting in the middle of you Death Eaters saying 'Suffer the little children to come to me', Igor. The Dark Lord share? Voldemort, share? How generous has he been in the past? You must all be mad." Viktor's tone was cold and mocking, and it made Harry shiver. He noticed that Hermione trembled as well.

"Do not say his name!" Karkaroff said, with some of the same nervous fear and the edge of hysteria in his voice that they had all grown used to at the mention of that name. Harry noticed a tall, dark cloaked figure drawing up behind Karkaroff, and the swallowing of light behind it, the cold blast of air that pushed in front of it, the billowing seemingly empty robes clued him in as to its identity, as well as the respectful distance it kept between itself and Karkaroff as it milled around restlessly. Hungrily. Prowling.

"Harry, it's a dementor!" Hermione whispered in his ear, and he nodded. He had never felt so helpless. Here he was, trapped inside a hollowed out tree, of all things, with Hermione, the two of them wandless, Ron at the bottom of the hill out of sight, maybe without his wand by now, and they were just having to stand here, well hunch here, really, while Viktor stood out there with his former Death Eater ex-headmaster and a dementor ten feet away.

"Why not? Afraid of his name, too? Why is everyone so afraid of a word? Words hold power, but what is so special about his name? Everyone else rejects it because it reminds them, makes them afraid. Speak of the Devil, he is sure to appear. You all act like it is blasphemy. It is his bloody name! It is his name! And I refuse to respect it! It doesn't deserve respect! Voldemort! Voldemort! Voldemort!" Viktor spat the words at him fiercely, and he jumped at each recitation of the name.

"Harry! He can't do a corporeal patronus yet! Only the mist!" Hermione pleaded in his ear, her lips nearly touching it.

He jerked her closer and whispered back, "Right now, I think that's the least of his worries! Shut up, we'll only make things worse if Karkaroff or that dementor figures out we're back here!" I don't know how it could get worse, but I'm afraid to find out. I wonder where Ron is by now, he thought to himself. Viktor took another large step out toward Karkaroff, and Harry found it hard to decide who was looking more menacing. He could only imagine the look on Viktor's face.

"Viktor, you don't understand! You would if you came with me..." Karkaroff said a little nervously.

"What? Understand what? That you are all a bunch of cowards, so afraid of death you are willing to do anything for a scrap of a promise, afraid of each other, willing to turn each other in to avoid a punishment you deserve? Igor, I know all about your Death Eater days. And more importantly, after. Knowing someone who works for a ministry and finally being of age is handy. At least the Lestranges took what was coming to them. There is some honor in that, at least, I suppose. Hollow, but if you're going to sell your soul to the Devil, at least give him his money's worth. You did not even do that. You spouted names at them in the hope that they would let you go. Did half of them even join? Or did you just manufacture the list?" Viktor asked.

"Damn it, you have gifts! Gifts that could be put to use. You would be honored. You would be one of his greatest treasures."

Viktor seemed to shudder violently at that last word. Treasure. Sokrovishte. What a mockery of what his mother calls him, Harry thought to himself. "Gifts," Viktor said sadly. "Gifts I neither wanted nor can control as of yet. You know I cannot control them. What use would I be? Other than a way to get your foot in the door? You ought to wish me on the competition, Igor, since you trained me. You ought to know the answer is no. It will always be no. Ne. Nyet. No. There, Bulgarian, Russian and English. Surely one of them will get through your thick skull."

"Viktor...you noble fool. It's going to get you killed. Why here? Because of them, isn't it? There's where I made my mistake. I realized you were as stubborn as your father. If not more so. I didn't take into account that you were as sentimental and soft hearted as your mother. I left you too much freedom at first."

"Freedom? That is a laugh."

"I let you have a joy. Flying. But the temptation to get you famous, it was too great. I knew the first time I saw you fly, you would be famous. You far exceeded my expectations. I also made the mistake of not cutting you off from that disgusting Poliakoff. He was a bad influence on you. And he made you laugh occasionally. More joy. He was disrespectful and a rotten..."

"Do not run down Alexei Poliakoff," Viktor said in a low, dangerous tone. "He is a true friend, even if I did not know how to accept his friendship properly."

"And I let you read."

"Books. Escape when you cannot escape. Would you haff even cut me off from the library, Igor? Not much of an education." There was a false lightness in Viktor's tone now.

"If I had it to do over. And Elena. I had high hopes for you two. And you both defied me."

"We tried telling you. We were not meant for one another. If you had opened up your damn ears you could haff saved yourself a lot of trouble."

"So you kept saying. Stubborn. Willful. The two of you. I should have chained you together if nothing else. If I couldn't make the two of you accept one another on my terms, I should have cut you off from her. And that Brecht the last two years. Mollycoddling her and training her. You and your compassion." Karkaroff said the last word with great distaste.

"Compassion is not a weakness. It is a strength. If it weren't for at least a little compassion on someone's part, you would still be rotting in Azkaban. I should think you would be grateful for a little compassion."

"Sentimental fool. I never should have brought you here for the tournament. That finished you off, didn't it? Finished ruining you. Tell me Viktor, what was it? What was it that made you pick that filthy, disgusting little mudblood? It's not as though you didn't have plenty of others to choose from. Durmstrang was full of the lovely and the willing. Purebloods your age piled ten deep. They were drooling after you all over campus. Here, three schools full of girls and you zero in on that one. And she wasn't even particularly pretty. If you were going to pick a watered down bloodline at least pick the half veela, something with a bit of magic on both sides. Not that abomination, not that mudblood!" Karkaroff snarled.

"Never, ever call her that again!" It was an order that didn't leave room for argument.

"What was it? I can't figure out what she offered you, other than a chance to defy me. And you were never rebellious, even when I could sense you hated me with every fiber of your being. You never went out of your way to find ways to defy me. You took it when it came along, but you never went looking for it. It can't have been that. Like I said, she wasn't particularly beautiful. You had plenty else to choose from. Begging you to take them. I've run through all the typical enticements. She can't have offered you money. You make enough as is. For a schoolboy, you were fabulously wealthy already. You don't seem to particularly care for it in the first place. It can't be that she offered herself to you. You never availed yourself of that at Durmstrang, even though I would have turned a blind eye if you had decided to form a harem. And there were plenty of willing girls. You didn't even give in when one of them hiked her robes and bent over for you. I would have smoothed that over with the Potions Mistress. Put a nice little memory charm on her. No, Granger can't have offered her body. Unless you found out that there was something she was willing to do that you particularly liked? If you had only let me know about your tastes..."

"Stop it! You know better. You know it wasn't that. She offered me herself, alright, but not the way you mean it. I could never explain it so you would understand," Viktor replied quietly.

"Alright then. My other mistake was letting you win that argument. I should have beaten you, tournament be damned. You didn't care enough about winning anyway. But little good that would have done, eh? I could have beaten you half to death, and you have enough of Nikolas in you that you would have gone anyway just to spite me, wouldn't you? I hear you even made friends with Potter by the time I left. Exchange seeker tips, do you?"

"Something like that," Viktor said, shrugging.

"And my worst mistake. I started trying to get inside your head too early, too subtly. You fought me off," Karkaroff said accusingly.

"You gave me two years warning to practice. What did you expect? Alexei was good enough for that. He helped me practice. Told me what we might be missing in our Dark Arts classes since you took them over. Remember, his father is in the Ministry. He remembers the good old days, before you started leaving things off the curriculum. Then when you started using these things..." Viktor jabbed his wand at the dementor, which was ranging farther and farther away, but always coming back to the area behind Karkaroff, "...you nearly killed me. You had them on campus, did you not? At Durmstrang?"

"Regrettable, I admit. I was getting desperate. I was hearing rumors that great things were being planned. That the Dark Lord was plotting his greatest triumph over that little brat! Coming back bigger and better and more powerful than ever! And if that were to happen, I needed you. Then my mark started coming back and you had learned how to fight off an Imperius somewhere, even though I didn't teach you. I needed you to conform, to break, so I thought I would let them soften you up a bit. You didn't eat. You didn't sleep. They nearly broke you, but you finally fought back so hard, I thought you were going to kill yourself trying to throw them off."

"Nearly did," Viktor answered matter-of-factly.

"I thought you were going to die in the infirmary that night."

"I did too. Sometimes I wished I had. That rotten Alexei might be the only reason I am still alive," Viktor said baldly.

Karkaroff put on his wheedling, simpering tone again. "Put the wand down, Viktor. I treated you like a son. No one here can show you that kind of love."

"Love! If that was love, I would not want to see your definition of hate! You manipulate all of us, sift through us for the ones you think you can use to your advantage, groom us how you like, and toss away the chaff to the fire. Igor Karkaroff, you can waste your breath all you like. We haff a standoff. You lose either way. You leave me here, you do not get your ticket in. Voldemort and his Death Eaters kill you on sight as a traitor. You try to kill me and make a mistake, I am fully justified in killing you. You try to kill me and succeed, you still do not get your free pass," Viktor reasoned.

"What if I leave you and promise to kill someone else? You won't kill me without provocation, immediate danger. You have principles. Anything less would be murder. I can leave here and promise to kill someone you love. I don't have a hope of killing your Mama and Papa by myself, you and they have well seen to that. I won't be able to break into Hogwarts at will and kill Potter for fun. Killing Potter would be signing my death warrant for sure. The Dark Lord wants to do the honors himself. But I can promise you this. If you don't go, I will hunt down that girl and torture her. I'll make her wish she was dead for days. Weeks. I'll make it so bloody and violent that there won't be a scrap of flesh big enough to bury. She's a mudblood. She'll have to leave the magical world sooner or later. Maybe for a parent's funeral, if necessary. I could arrange that. I hear those Muggles are foolish enough to list their names and location in big books to make them easy to find. I bet there cannot be that many Grangers in London. I have to get the right one sooner or later. You can't protect her all the time, Viktor."

"Then I might make an exception in my principles. It would be worth the term in Azkaban if they convict me. Besides, we both know it is only a matter of time before the dementors abandon it. Kiss or no kiss, I wouldn't be there long. And don't fool yourself. I would be your worst nightmare as an executioner. You know I haff a particular talent for all those petty tortures. Talk about bloody scraps, it would finally be a pleasure to know those curses. And you know all about how good I am at the not so petty ones. I could give you back your memories. A hundred times bigger and better and more vibrant and more clear than they were when they happened. I would make you live with yourself, Igor. What you haff done. I could make you relive it over and over and over. I know what that is like, unpleasant memories that just will not go away. That particular talent comes out fairly well when I lose control. It has been a long time since I lost control of myself completely, hasn't it? I bet I would not even haff to try now. It would just happen while I got rid of you, no effort at all. All your Death Eater days right there in your head. Make you feel like a big man to hear defenseless little children you haff killed scream? Guess we can find out."

Hermione and Harry clutched one another harder inside the tree. He had that same helpless feeling of something being fundamentally wrong with the world he had when he had seen Dumbledore standing over the imposter Moody's body on the floor last year, looking enraged. Something was desperately out of kilter. Viktor shouldn't sound like that. Viktor's voice was cold. There was something in it that he and Hermione had never heard before. The anger was not new, but something else was. Hate. Pure, unadulterated hate. He advanced another step on Karkaroff, who was beginning to look as afraid as he had been surprised at Viktor's words. Then Karkaroff's expression changed, smug and oily as ever. "Well, well, what have we here?" he said in his usual unctuous tone. Then the dementor came back into sight, clutching a petrified Ron. It had sniffed him out at the bottom of the hollow. "Go with me or he dies, the dementor is hungry," Karkaroff said carelessly.

"What makes you think I care?" Viktor said. For the first time, Hermione found herself wishing that Viktor was a better liar.

"Don't lie. You don't do it very well. I know you made friends with him too. He sat in your box at internationals. I saw him."

"So it was you!"

"Ah, so you saw me then! Well, I must be more discreet next time I go spying. Besides, even if you disliked him, you wouldn't want him to die needlessly. Without purpose. You might as well tell me where the other two are. He wouldn't be out here without Potter and Granger, now would he? No indeed, he wouldn't. Might be afraid in the dark," Karkaroff said, with a high pitched hysterical giggle. "Bad things in the dark." Viktor seemed to be weighing his options. The hostage changed things. Now it might as well be three against one. "Fair enough, Viktor. I'll get him to rat on his own friends. A couple of drops of veritaserum on the tongue, he'll soon tell me if he's alone," Karkaroff said, producing a bottle from his pocket. He administered the potion and asked Ron, "So, boy, where are your friends?"

They could tell Ron was struggling to stay silent. He bit his tongue, he stammered, but finally, it tumbled from his lips, "In the hollow tree! Behind him!"

"Useless now, you can have him. Bon apetit," Karkaroff said dismissively, and the dementor started pulling back its hood and leaned toward Ron.

"Expecto Patronum! Wingardium Leviosa!" came Viktor's voice, and a silvery fog surrounded the dementor, stunning it, then Ron went hurtling by them, into the thick trees. He would be concealed by the forest.

Then Karkaroff's voice rang out, "Expelliarmus! Fool. Delaying the inevitable. I'll give you a choice. Move aside, let me at Potter, and I will let the two of you go. Even Weasley, if I feel charitable."

Viktor stepped back in front of the opening to the tree. Harry and Hermione had to crouch to peek out around the bottom of his cloak, between his feet. "No you will not. What would prevent you from killing them anyway? Your word? I know what that is worth. Nothing. Less than nothing."

"Move aside Viktor, and I won't kill you."

"The only reason you would spare me is if you think I am valuable, and we haff already established that I am not going willingly. Unwilling, I would be worse than useless. I would be dead weight. He would be your ticket in. I would be the sideshow. If you want at him, you haff to kill me. I can finally see you in all your Death Eater glory, Igor. Killing the unarmed." It was a stall, a stall for time. Time to think.

"What have you got to lose Viktor? Move aside. Even if I am as untrustworthy as you say I am, you lose nothing. You might even die first and not have to watch me torture her. If I tell the truth, you and she can leave. She only loses one of her friends. Not both of them, and you, if she cares for you at all, and her life. You can't make that decision for her, can you?"

"If I move aside, I lose everything. I would rather lose my life than render it completely meaningless. I would be no better than you if I stand aside. I would be worse. I would haff judged the word of a man I know is a terrible liar, a murderer, a Death Eater, a coward, and a traitor over the life of someone who showed me kindness when they did not haff to. Someone who showed me love." Viktor sounded as calm as if he were discussing a grocery list.

"Oh, so you're a noble fool? Look to your heart, Viktor. Look to your heart and ask yourself if it is worth it. If they are worth it. If she is worth it. Is she?"

Before Harry could grab her, Hermione had wriggled out of the tree and run around to the side of it. "Stop it! Stop it!" she screamed, sounding hysterical. Harry wriggled out after her and stood beside her, and Ron joined them, creeping out from the shadows. Viktor stepped between them and Karkaroff once more, one shoulder pointed at each of them, staring Karkaroff down. Harry noticed Viktor had reached up and was clutching something at his neck with his left hand.

"Stand aside. Don't be stubborn." Karkaroff insisted.

"Too late. Haff been stubborn all my life. Got a double dose. My mother is not as completely soft as you think she is. And as to your question, I haff asked myself that. A hundred times. Forty of them in that library over there before I forced myself to talk to her. When I throttled myself over learning her name. When I stood you down over the Yule Ball. When I cornered Harry about her. When I wrote and hoped and waited and sucked up the courage to ask her somewhere again. And I always get the same answer back. Yes."

"Then I hope she appreciates it. Crucio!" Viktor stood for a moment, then crumpled onto his hands and knees, still clutching whatever it was with his hand.

"Is that the best you can do?" Viktor said through clenched teeth. He scooted around to face Karkaroff more fully, never taking his left hand away from his neck to steady himself. Harry sucked in his breath. He knew what that felt like. It felt like every fiber of your being was electric, the bones crushing, the life being pressed out of you. Red hot searing pain in every cell. How could he move at all?

"Flagellare!" Karkaroff shouted, and a crack sounded through the air. When Viktor looked back up, he had a fresh cut across his cheek, oozing blood.

"Pitiful. Unoriginal. Whipping has been done to death," Viktor mocked. Harry looked around. Hermione and Ron were frozen with identical, wide-eyed looks of horror on their faces. His own mouth was hanging open. I wonder if I look so fish eyed, he wondered, then scolded himself for wondering such an absurd thing at the moment.

"Fractura," Karkaroff said idly, strolling closer and pointing his wand at Viktor's hand. A muffled pop sounded, and this time, Harry noticed that Viktor's little finger was turned in at an odd angle all of a sudden.

"Broken bones? Please. I thought you were a Death Eater, not an amateur," Viktor said in a bitter voice. Why was he deliberately goading Karkaroff?

"Very well then," Karkaroff huffed, indignant, pointing the tip of his wand at Viktor, no more than a foot away now. "Avada Kedavra!" As the words left his mouth, Viktor shouted something back.

It took a moment for the words to register. Then another moment to realize why they were familiar. "Guerda Engelikos!" echoed off the trees in the dark, and Harry's legs buckled, the strength drained out of them, as though he had been hit with a jelly legs curse. He saw the green flash leave Karkaroff's wand, and the blast of white light that emanated from Viktor. There was a blast of heat, a rush of hot air, almost like a bomb exploding, and the bodies went flying. Karkaroff and the dementor pushed farther out into the open, Viktor picked up off the ground and hurtled backwards into the trees. While still blinded by the light, Harry heard a loud crack and a sickening, solid thud behind him.

Harry struggled up onto his wobbly legs and readjusted his mangled glasses. Out several yards in front of him, lay the smoking, mangled, lumpy heap that had once been the dementor. The foul smell of sulfur seemed to be wafting from it in the yellow smoke pouring off its robes and the pile of thick, dark goo around them. Was it dead? Could you kill a dementor? Karkaroff's body was a few feet away, unmoving. Surely he was dead? He would be on them if he weren't. Beside him, Hermione was standing up and trying to make her way toward the trees. "Viktor..." she said in a strangled voice.

Harry pounced on her, grabbed her around the waist. "No, no Hermione. Don't look. I looked with Cedric. I wish I hadn't. You'll wish you hadn't... it's terrible..." he knew he was babbling, but he couldn't help it. She quit struggling, turned and he hugged her while she sobbed. It was oddly quiet crying for Hermione. He could barely hear her. Or maybe that was the roaring in his head.

"I'll go," Ron said grimly, walking over and picking up his wand from where he had been standing with the dementor and lighting it. Harry buried his face in her hair. He didn't want to look. Anywhere. Not at the horrible smoldering heap that might or might not be a dementor body, not at Karkaroff, not at Viktor. Not at Ron's expression when he had seen death. Not at Hermione's face. He would just stay here until someone came and got him, pried them apart. "Harry! Harry! He's alive!" came Ron's voice at his side, and he shook him by the shoulder.

"Karkaroff? Alive? But..."

"No! Viktor! He's moving! He's hurt, but he's moving! Come on!"

Ron led them back through the trees about five feet, where Viktor lay crumpled on top of a freshly broken branch in front of a solid oak. He had obviously taken the branch with him from another tree, it was not an oak. Then bounced off the trunk. His face was turned into the pile of leaves on the forest floor, but he flexed a finger or two on his left hand, then gave a wet, shuddering cough. Harry felt petrified. He should do something but he couldn't move.

"Run, get Hagrid! He can get him up to the castle!" Hermione shouted, and edge of desperation in her voice. Without a word, Ron handed Harry his wand, then sprinted back to the tree line. They could hear him running full tilt once he cleared the trees. Viktor gave another weak cough and choked. Hermione put a hand behind his head and lifted it slightly out of the soft ground and detritus of several autumns beneath the tree. A mouthful of blood ran out, but there followed a wheezing breath. It seemed forever until they heard Hagrid's voice call to them.

"Harry? Hermione? What on earth is goin' on? Ron came thumpin' on the door babbling something about Viktor..." he hesitated when he brought up the lantern and saw the full scene at last, "...Krum..." He knelt beside them and brushed a bloody strand of hair from Viktor's forehead. "Oh lad," he said sadly, then shook his shaggy head. "Ron, yeh get up to the castle, get Madame Pomfrey, take Fang wi' yeh. Hermione, hold the lantern. Harry, yeh help me get 'im up." Harry nodded numbly. Hermione scrambled out of the way, and Hagrid tried to gather Viktor up as gently as possible, but he seemed to jerk or whimper at every touch. When he lifted his torso from the ground, bracing him around the shoulder, Viktor's right arm swung back at an unnatural angle, bent midway between shoulder and elbow, and he let out a pained, strangled cry. "Wrap his cloak around the arm, Harry. Gather it up an' tuck it in against his body. It's broken, " he said softly. When Hagrid stood, with Viktor's head resting against his shoulder, his left leg also looked oddly twisted, the foot pointing out too far and blood streamed from the corner of his mouth when he coughed again. Harry finally registered that Hagrid had on neither coat nor cloak, he had come straight from bed. Viktor's dark hair was soaking blood into Hagrid's dressing gown and pyjamas, and Harry could finally see the jagged cut hidden up near his hairline when his head lolled back slightly. There didn't seem to be a spot on him that wasn't wet and red by now, and he looked strangely dwarfed and delicate in Hagrid's arms.

Hagrid started for the castle with him and Hermione ran along beside, muttering something under her breath, and Harry finally distinguished it as the constant repetition of "Viktor, please don't die, please don't die," by the time they made it to the front entrance. What she said, he thought numbly, not quite willing yet to think the words 'Viktor' and 'die' in the same sentence. He's not dead, Harry, he told himself. He focused on the rattling breaths he could hear from Hagrid's arms, and clung to that sound.

Inside Madame Pomfrey met them at the door to the hospital wing and went to work on him almost before Hagrid had time to lay him on the bed. She jerked the curtains around them and they could hear her murmured exclamations every few seconds. Hermione sat down weakly two beds away and sobbed, while Ron and Harry stood silently by, their knees so shaky they almost knocked together. After a couple of minutes, Hagrid came over and told Ron, "Go get Dumbledore. He'll be needin' ter know. Go on boy! He needs ter know what's goin' on!"

Hermione took her face out of her hands and looked up at Hagrid. "Please. Please let me over there," she whispered, though she looked like the last thing she wanted to do was move from her seat.

"Let Madame Pomfrey work. Then we'll see what Dumbledore says, eh?" he said gently. "Harry, lad, yeh gonna be alright?" Harry nodded his head.

Dumbledore swept in wearing his dressing gown and walked over to the drawn curtain. "Poppy, may I pull the curtain?" he asked in a calm voice.

"He's a mess, but I suppose you can. Those lot have already seen it," she called. "They shouldn't be in here in the first place, but I'm too busy to throw them out."

He reached up a long arm and pulled the curtain back. He considered the resident of the blood soaked bed for a long moment, then said, "Well. I must say, I didn't expect Viktor for another four days. And I expected him in rather fewer pieces when he did arrive. I gather you three were with him when this happened? Perhaps you can shed a little light on it?" Dumbledore said, suddenly looking haggard in the dim lights.

Harry found himself blurting out the events of the night in a rush, while Hermione continued to sob and wail progressively louder, and Ron tried to comfort her. He didn't realize until he said, "If he hadn't done it, we'd all be dead. And he did it without a wand. I don't know how he did it without a wand," that his cheeks were wet and he was crying as well.

"Igor, eh? Well, that explains why he arrived early," Dumbledore said, considering Harry for a space.

"And if you three hadn't been blundering around the grounds at night in the dark, maybe he would have made it to the castle without having to stand against Igor and a dementor, if that fantastic story is true," came a familiar voice from the doorway. There stood Snape, in his dressing gown as well. "I was doing patrol and I could not help but notice Granger's caterwauling and Weasley's pounding up and down the stairs, so I came to see what was wrong," Snape said nastily. But even Snape looked a bit paler when he stepped inside and took a closer look at the bed.

Madame Pomfrey continued to fuss and work over Viktor, and they sat there for what seemed hours, waiting for her to pass verdict. Finally she stopped and walked over to Dumbledore. "He really should be in hospital, but he shouldn't be moved either. I think it would be best for him to stay here for the time being, if we can keep a close watch on him. Heaven knows what else he may have wrong with him that I haven't found yet."

"How bad?" Dumbledore asked.

"He might as well have hit a tree full speed on a Firebolt. Better, maybe, he might have slowed down first. He's done a fair job of bashing his head, cuts and bruises all over him. Broken right arm completely in two that's going to be a right bugger to heal, take days, maybe, before he can use it, and his left knee was wrenched right apart, probably take a week or more before he'll be able to bend it at all. Three before he can stand on it, if he's lucky. He's cracked some ribs, and at least one of them broke and punctured a lung. Another minute or so in that position with his head off to the side and he would have drowned in his own blood. The pinky snapped cleanly, the cleanest break I've ever seen, that should be easy to take care of, but that's the least of his worries. The funny thing is, he has what looks like a burn. In the palm of his left hand and on his fingers. Blistered him. Looks like he tried to grab a hot coal and squeeze it, but it's perfectly round. And I don't know when he'll wake up. I wouldn't bet on anytime soon. I think there's more than the knock on the head to it. There's something else going on."

"Burn?" Dumbledore walked around the bed, and gently turned over Viktor's left hand, tracing a finger over the palm and adjusting his spectacles on his crooked nose. Then he reached the same finger up to something lying at the hollow of Viktor's throat. He picked up a small metal disc on a chain, which Harry recognized as the gold locket Viktor had been given for his birthday. There was a red burn under it as well. "Guerda Engelikos, I presume," Dumbledore mused as he flipped it over and saw the Cyrillic script on the back. Harry nodded when Dumbledore regarded him over his glasses.

Dumbledore readjusted his glasses and began giving orders. "Poppy, let these three stay here, if they like. They won't sleep anyway. Let her pull the curtain and finish cleaning him up, then you can sit at his bedside, Hermione, as long as you promise to stay out of the way. Hagrid, Severus, I think we had better go out and see if we can locate Igor and what's left of that dementor, as well as Harry and Hermione's wands. Viktor's too. Hornbeam and dragon heartstring by Gregorovitch, if I remember from the weighing of the wands. It should have survived. Hagrid, I suppose you will be taking care of Ivan and Natasha a bit longer than planned. Until Viktor can do it himself. You can let them out of the barn now, I think. No one but these three would recognize them, and I think the surprise has already been sprung on them. They might want to keep you and Fang company. Baramir is in the with the other owls already. He arrived with a letter for me two days ago. I don't know where his things are. You might go through his cloak when you get it off of him Poppy. His quarters are almost ready, but he won't be needing them just yet in any case. Do you need any help getting him into something more suitable for the hospital ward?"

"No. No. You go ahead. Your job will come later, when we try to figure out or treat what else is wrong. You and Snape. Part of this may be beyond my ken. I've never treated anyone who's managed to melt down a dementor before. I didn't know you could do such a thing and I don't know what he might have done to himself in the process. I'll be talking to someone at St. Mungo's first opportunity."

Dumbledore and Snape returned some minutes later, fully dressed now, and in their cloaks. Dumbledore handed a wand each to Harry and Hermione, then laid a third on the bedside table when Madame Pomfrey opened the curtain again shortly after they had returned. An unearthly yelping and wailing and howling sounded outside the infirmary window, and soon afterward Hagrid came in, now dressed as well, with his usual horribly hairy overcoat on top. "Might've been a mistake lettin' those dogs out. They're makin' a terrible ruckus. They know he's in here, pinin' over him somethin' terrible. They're just gonna keep doin' that until we let 'em in," Hagrid said, looking expectantly at Madame Pomfrey. As if backing him up, Ivan and Natasha howled that much more vigorously, and at least one of them began hurling themselves against the window.

"Oh, very well then. I can't take that racket, he'll never get any rest nor will anyone else within a country mile with that going on. Turn my hospital ward into a kennel. Now, are any of you three hurt, or just dirty?" Madame Pomfrey muttered.

"Dirty..." Hermione mumbled, and got up. She was dry eyed now, and she walked over to the bed and sank into the chair next to it. She traced the blistered burn in his palm much as Dumbledore had done, then threaded her fingertips loosely between his. Ivan and Natasha came padding in from the hall, in front of Hagrid, whimpering and yelping, and they both sniffed and licked at his other hand before sitting at attention at the side of the bed. Harry and Ron walked over, each absently scratching a shaggy head between the ears. Harry's curiosity had overcome his horror and he had to see now.

Gad, he looks horrible, Harry thought to himself as he winced. His hair had been brushed back and the jagged gash on his forehead was pasted together with some thick, greasy orange salve, as was the clean slice across his cheek. He had two spectacularly black eyes that put his World Cup bruises to shame. His lower lip was split and swollen, and where the locket fell at the hollow of his throat when he laid flat, there was a perfectly round, red burn mark. A few smaller bruises and scratches covered the rest of his face, arms and hands. Madame Pomfrey had bandaged up the broken pinky and the broken arm. His left knee had a thick splint propping it up, running down to and braced under the arch of his bare foot with bandages. Madame Pomfrey had put him in shorts so she could get at the knee, and several large bruises that looked suspiciously like branch marks spotted the bare right leg, and the open neck of his shirt just showed the top of the mass of bandages and bruises that was his chest. Ivan stood and stuck his muzzle into the side of Viktor's face, licking at his ear and whimpering. Viktor's head rolled to the other side, but he did not stir. "It's okay now. He'll be alright," Harry said, grabbing Ivan's collar and pulling him back. He wasn't exactly sure who he was trying to convince.

He laid a hand on Viktor's bare knee and found him disconcertingly cold and clammy. Madame Pomfrey echoed "He'll be alright," when she brought the two of them chairs, as well, then added, "It will just take time. He's young. You bounce a bit easier when you're young," as she left them to take her call from St. Mungo's.

They spent a mostly sleepless night, all but Viktor, and come morning, Dumbledore made Harry and Ron go to class. "Hermione can afford to miss class a bit easier, don't you agree? I'll let them know that they are to let you sleep if you absolutely can't hold your eyes open. Hermione, I'll let your teachers know to send your homework to you here, if you wish," and Hermione had nodded at this, not taking her eyes from Viktor's face, "but you two had better go. Professor Snape has agreed to let the two of you finish your essays during class, if you don't have them done."

In the late afternoon, after a quick nap and a look in on Crookshanks, Harry and Ron found that Hermione had not even left the infirmary for meals, and Madame Pomfrey had served her there. She left her books and lessons untouched, and she looked pale and drawn when they dropped back in for the second time. "I don't know what is worse," Hermione fretted, "when he was completely unresponsive and didn't twitch or dream or move in his sleep at all, or now," she added.

Ron looked at the bed, where Viktor was currently as unresponsive and unmoving as the night before, and asked, "What do you mean by 'now'? Seems the same," he said bluntly, yawning and stretching.

Hermione looked at Ron dolefully. "He has spells where he talks in his sleep, like he's having a nightmare. He tosses and mumbles things. Mostly in what sounds like Bulgarian, although some of it could be Russian. If only I had a dictionary..." Ron had shuffled off to the library afterward and asked a very surprised Madame Pince for a Bulgarian-English dictionary, which she had finally dug up from the depths of the back room, to join the Russian-English dictionary he had located on the shelves. He knew Hermione always felt better forearmed with a book.

Next morning Ron and Harry stopped by again before going to breakfast and class, to find her already up. Viktor was mumbling, "Ne poveche. Stiga smyrtta," over and over under his breath and he moved restlessly. Hermione showed Harry a piece of parchment filled with her scribbling, various spellings and misspellings of the words he was saying.

"Problem is, it's Cyrillic. No standard Latin spelling. I think that's it though. 'No more. No more death.' Bulgarian and Russian sound so alike, but the Russian doesn't really make sense, unless he's having a completely ridiculous nightmare about laundry or something, and surely he wouldn't be dreaming about something that silly. Dumbledore has been in and out all night and Madame Pomfrey has had her consultation. I think Dumbledore was even surprised that you could kill a dementor. Karkaroff, he's dead too. They found his body. Just like he'd been hit by the Avada Kedavra directly. You do understand what this means, Harry?"

"No! I don't understand what any of it means!" Harry snapped at her irritably, then immediately regretted it.

"It means you're not the only one to have survived a direct hit from the Avada Kedavra, to turn it back on someone. We all saw it," she said softly.

"I'm just tired, that's all," he said by way of apology. By late that afternoon, Viktor sometimes opened his eyes for a short space, but they were oddly blank and flat and dull and lifeless, and there was no sign that he really saw anything in the room. While Hermione and Ron slept for a few hours upstairs, Harry watched him lie there, staring unseeing at a point out past Harry's shoulder, and Harry scratched Natasha's ears while Ivan curled at his feet. Unbidden, the memory of Dumbledore telling him about Neville's parents, still in a ward at St. Mungo's, not even able to recognize Neville, came to mind. There were worse things than dying. Viktor still spoke only when his eyes were closed, and Harry wondered what he was seeing, what scenes were playing on the inside of his eyelids while he slept. I understand what this means, he thought to himself. Another boy... no, a man, he corrected himself, put himself in front of a death curse for me. And he might be worse off for it in the end than Cedric, even if he did survive.