Past Present

Noisy. If he could sum up the Muggle world in a single word, it would have to be noisy. It seemed like every substitute for magic made noise. The racket in the train station had been incredible. Stadiums didn't even seem that noisy. He was used to lots of voices, crowd noise. So much of it here was artificial beeps and squeals and engines and horns and bells. Constant background noise. He stretched his arms up toward the ceiling as he lay in bed and listened to the sparse traffic on the wet and slushy street. It had let up considerably in the last few hours.

At least there was no stack of papers waiting, for what seemed like weeks. No match of any kind until Boxing Day. And no having to worry about Harry getting out of bed and wandering the halls. That was McGonagall's worry tonight. He had told Dumbledore all he knew, all his suspicions, now he can do with it what he will. They were just suspicions until proven. He didn't feel quite as ill at ease here as he had thought he would. One of Durmstrang's oddities did come in rather handy. They made sure you could defend yourself with or without a wand, so it didn't feel quite so vulnerable when you knew your wand was an absolute last resort.

Paying attention in physical self defense was what had enabled him to get the jump on that seventh year that made that first year cry. He had only been in fourth year at the time, and a good foot shorter. He couldn't remember either of their names, but he could certainly remember the lesson it had taught him. That being able to defend yourself physically was just as good as being able to hex someone in most circumstances. Better really. Most wizards relied too much on their wands. Funny how stuffing one loudmouthed bully into a rubbish bin had probably garnered him more respect than all his high marks, if not quite as much respect as being good on a broom. It made him feel a little more secure about traveling so much, as well, being so many places where he wasn't supposed to make use of his wand. Still felt a little odd to think that he didn't have to worry about those restrictions anymore.

As was his habit when he went to bed, he lay there and took a sort of final mental inventory before sinking into sleep. Alarms around the house, alarms around her door, magic might be a last resort here, but no point in being stupid, no chance of being able to get away with staying in the hall for the night, so do the next best thing, nothing to do in the morning but to get up, return to Hogwarts to collect Harry and Ron, and visit at Pavlova and the Burrow, none of the vague unease he had felt about going to sleep the last few weeks, even if he was still straining a little to hear the alarms tripped here. He thought it fairly unlikely that anything would happen here. The most that might happen is Umbridge gets too nosy and trips the alarm later tonight while trying to find out the sleeping arrangements. Probably just drove by and made sure they really did end up at the Grangers. That Ministry car following them from the train station and circling the block afterwards wasn't exactly discreet. It was killing two birds with one stone, really, this trip.

Maybe his head wouldn't ache tonight from being overtired and overworked, trying to do too much, as it had sometimes over the last few weeks. His head felt strangely and pleasantly quiet for the first time in some time, he thought, twirling his finger in the chain of the locket around his neck. It was so stuffy in the room, he tossed off the sheet and blanket, let the cooler air hit his bare limbs and chest, welcomed it. Viktor then closed his eyes and slept, completely undisturbed and relaxed, none of his dreams set on that foggy path in the Forbidden Forest, no unidentified screeching and no pain to wake him.