Durmstrang, 1951

The pale skin of von Dorpat-Siegen's hands contrasted sharply with the crimson velvet of his robe. A lot of nonsense has been written about the symbolism of the colour. But if the school grounds are big enough for any number of children to get lost, than it is only reasonable that they wear a colour easily spotted. Especially on the snow, which covers the earth for four or more months here.

His eyes moved from his hands to the desk and then to the wall opposite. Among the portraits hung a set of photographs, some moving and some not. He got up and looked through the windows towards the hills. Students liked to talk about them as mountains, but they were hills, rather low hills. He came back to the desk, signed the last letter, and put it on the tray, to be sent tomorrow. Sending those letters was a cruelty, but a necessary cruelty. At least he wanted to believe it.

* * * * *

These people were brave, stupid and persistent. The first two traits came together often enough. It was the third that made them unique. They risked a lot, going again to the small hut in the forests; and they endangered the babushka, too. The old witch had just a few years left, so they should leave her in peace. On the other hand, she was old and had no future. Their child was young. As for its future, he preferred not think of it.

A woman's head appeared between the flames. Siegen sighed. Why he always had to talk to mothers?

"Good evening, Professor."

Headmaster just nodded curtly.

"Professor, I have little time. I want to ask you to call back your decision. Please. It's his only chance!"

"I know, Evgeniya Aleksandrovna. But I can not accept him. It's too risky for the school, for the whole community. I hope times will change and he will have a chance later. But not now."

"Professor Siegen, you can not refuse the child his right to education, his chance for a better life... for life," she added in a very low voice.

Von Dorpat-Siegen kept his face passive.

"You have already endangered him, yourself, the school and the woman who allowed you to use the fireplace, by contacting me twice. I can not allow it to continue."

"At least give me your reason!" Her head flickered among the flames.

"I told you in the letter. It is too dangerous now. The politics' weight is on us, too."

"But he has a chance to escape it..." Her head flickered again. Lead by instinct and not by conscious thought, he grabbed the jar of Floo powder and thrust it into the flames, where her hands should be.

"Keep it." Her head flickered once more and disappeared completely.

"You are an idiot," he told himself calmly, but furiously. "You had a perfect chance to get rid of her for good, and you blew it in the stupidest way imaginable. Serves you right."

He leaned against his armchair in front of the fireplace. If he just didn't understand her all too well... He looked again at the pictures. For over seven hundred years his family lived in what now was called the Estonian Socialist Soviet Republic. Both branches of the Siegens, the Muggles and the Wizards. They even had some tenants in common at one time. One of his Muggle kin drowned in the Peipus Lake seven years before his wizard ancestor was a school champion during the first Triwizard Tournament.

The wizard branch of Siegens still lived, in great secrecy, in the smaller house, which Muggles perceived as a ruin on the bank of the lake. The larger manor, once full of Muggle Siegens, had been turned into a local cooperative kindergarten. Or rather what was left of it, after thorough looting and partial burning, first by the soldiers, then by the peasants, had been turned into a kindergarten. The former inhabitants, who still looked at him happily from the motionless black-and-white photographs on the wall, were dead. Or as good as dead. Better for them to be dead than still live... or rather vegetate in Kolyma.

Few families and especially few pureblood clans like the von Dorpat-Siegens maintained contacts with their Muggle relatives, especially if the branches split centuries ago. The Siegen family ties were just strong enough to help several kids from the Muggle branch to escape. They now lived with distant relatives in Germany and would probably never see their house again. Better for them, again. So Siegen wizards themselves broke the rules he was now defending. But wizards' loyalties lay mainly with the wizards.

A head appeared among the flames and Siegen sighed. What came as a surprise was that it was male head, the boy's father.

"Professor." He bowed as much the fireplace allowed.

"Oleg Mihailovich." Von Dorpat-Siegen returned the bow, but didn't stand up.

"Professor, please tell us why you don't want our boy in your school, since he has... the necessary abilities?"

"It's too dangerous," answered Siegen shortly.

"What can he do..." started the man, but the wizard interrupted him.

"He can't do anything. But how will you explain his disappearance to the authorities? How will you smuggle him to the school?"

"I thought it could be arranged..."

"Sure it could," sneered Siegen, "and did you maybe expect him to come home every holiday?"

"If there is a better future for him, we will bear the loss," said Oleg stiffly.

The self-righteous and self-sacrificing were the worst.

"You can, possibly. What about him? Can you warrant that he will never try to contact you? Putting you - and us - in great danger?"

"But you have such pos..."

"We do not have such possibilities, Oleg Mihailovich," Siegen interrupted him again. "We are a small community, and our balance is precarious. We would like to increase our number by including Muggle-borns, I mean children born in non-magical families. But the risk is too big."

"But why?" the father asked angrily. "Our son..."

"He is not the problem. You are. Are you sure you won't be arrested? You went to great length to contact me, so I owe you the explanation, but nothing more. We cannot risk that you will be held hostage and used to turn your son against us. You love him, obviously. I think he loves you, too. What if the only way to prevent your imprisonment, will be his giving up our school location? We have a potion, called Veritaserum. It makes you speak the truth, even if you don't want to. Want to see MVD armed with it? This can be a prize for your life. A bottle, or worse - a recipe. Now do you understand?"

He didn't tell him about Cruciatus. They wouldn't understand. But MVD would be happy with it, no doubt.

"So there is no way out for him?" asked the father darkly.

"Not this way. We can not solve Muggles', I mean non-magical people's, problems."

"So why did you sent this letter?" cried the father in desperation. "Why did you give us any hope at all?"

"Why do you still have it, Oleg Mihailovich? Didn't it say burn immediately after reading?" Von Dorpat-Siegen snapped the paper from Oleg's fingers and dropped it into the flames, which were not Floo-ed. They both watched the letter turning into ash.

"Why? Because he is still a wizard. Untrained and wandless, but a wizard. And he must know it, to be able to hide it. And you must know it, to help him hide it. And because we hope that the situation will change enough to let him have a proper, magical education."

"So you must survive long enough to help him survive. But he can't come here now. That's all. I ask you not to contact me again. The woman whose fireplace you use now has the right to live, too. Don't bring doom on her head."

Oleg Mihailovich wanted to say something more, but pursed his lips, nodded curtly and disappeared.

* * * * *

Von Dorpat-Siegen stood on the tower balcony, looking at the lake and enjoying the sun. On the shore, small, red clad figures were running to and fro, playing a game they alone knew the rules to. Behind the narrow strip of water, another group was training on the Quidditch pitch. All of them were pure-bloods, or at least they were not the first generation Muggle-borns. There was a handful from Scandinavia, but they were so few, it didn't really count. Being such a minority, they were sneered at, and he pitied them, although, on the other hand, they irritated him too with their ridiculous ideas brought from their homes.

He would like to see more students in the school, even Muggle-borns. But the Scandinavian wizarding community was dying out, and nobody knew why. The Slavic countries, where traditionally most students came from, all fell under the "the most advanced system in the world" rule, so only the pure bloods from there could come. He hoped against all reason, that they would understand why such segregation took place. Wizards were no longer safe, even with their self-imposed secrecy. Being un-plottable did not protect the building from accidental shelling.

* * * * *

He stood on the very same balcony five years ago, when six Shturmovik planes appeared in the morning mist. What made the pilots attack what had to appear to them as an abandoned and rotting village, no one knew. Maybe it was the mist and the sun playing their tricks. Maybe a student shot some sparks for fun, and the pilots took it for the Finnish anti aircraft artillery. What was the difference?

The planes roared above, strafing and dropping bombs. Blasts of heat cleared the fog and he saw the Magic Defence teacher pointing his wand upwards, and the more sensible Muggle Studies professor toppling him to the ground. The castle trembled. People in red robes ran frantically, and for the first time in his life, Siegen cursed the bright colour, visible even in the fog. The fog! He pulled his wand out and cast the summoning charm repeatedly, his wide gestures bringing more and more mist towards the castle. He heard the engines again, the ack-acking of the guns, and the building trembled once more. Behind him a mirror broke with a loud crack. The planes disappeared as fast as they came.

"Seven years of unhappiness," shot through his head, "but to us or them? Our mirror. They broke it." He cursed himself for thinking of Muggle superstitions and ran to check the situation. They were lucky. Only two bombs hit the castle. One was a dud. They transfigured it into a small stone and banished it to where it came from. Transfiguration would wear off pretty soon - it was no longer their problem anymore. The other one made a large hole in the western tower, but it was nothing that could not be repaired. The Potion Master lost most of his personal things, but the laboratory in the dungeon was intact, except for some broken glass from the shock. There were six, lightly wounded students and a teacher - the same unlucky Potions Professor.

"I am actually lucky," he remarked philosophically. "If I didn't go for my coffee, I would be in the same shape as my desk."

So everybody was relieved and happy - this stupid post-shock happiness, until, on the third floor, they found Ásbjórn Oddarson decapitated by the 23 mm shell. When the emotions calmed down, they realized they were lucky again - Ásbjórn, being one of the Muggle-borns. But even the purebloods, even the richest and nastiest of them, the most likely to stir trouble for the school realized it was an accident. Besides, most of them had witnessed much worse things.

Siegen conferred with fellow teachers and decided they did not fail the duty to protect the school. The Misleading Charms and Warning Charms surrounded the school, and the wards were checked and strengthened every week. They sometimes saw the soldiers walking towards the front, which at the worst time was no more than 20 km away. They always circled the school grounds, although there were no visible obstacles. The only exceptions were several wounded and lost soldiers, whose minds were too fogged with exhaustion to be affected by wards. One they patched up a bit, then obliviated and left close to the usual track for the next passing unit to pick. The other three, too far gone, were now occupying the tinland on the lake. Somebody put fresh flowers on their graves every few days. Siegen personally suspected the Flying teacher - she was the only Fin on the staff, it was most likely she took care of her compatriot's place of rest.

The school was ready for evacuation, should the front come closer. But it is not easy to evacuate an institution that was almost eight hundreds years old. The teachers spent many sleepless nights, picking and sorting the most important items to take. Siegen followed the Muggle news closely, not to be caught unprepared. Oh, yes, in these parts of Europe, even the purebloods, students, or teachers, were well acquainted with Muggle affairs. In the worst possible way, too. He laughed dryly, when he read that "knowledge of the other reduces fear and prejudices". Not always, not everywhere.

* * * * *

"Professor? It is so good you are here!"

Von Dorpat-Siegen spun so fast that his robes twirled around him. "I told you not to contact me again!" he spat furiously.

Oleg's face was defiant. "You have no right to refuse to hear me out. We cannot give up this chance for our son so easily. Mrs. Krasnoyarska thinks the same, she herself asked me to use her fireplace again."

Curse the old hag! She wants to commit suicide, let her eat nightshade berries and not ask for security to do it for her. Doesn't she feel any loyalty to her old school? The problem is - she does. She just attended it in happier times, a hundred or so years ago. Siegen flipped his fingers and a tiny hourglass appeared in his hand.

"You have thirty seconds."

"We can arrange an accident or something. The boy will 'die', so he can attend the school. We will give him up... Let him have his chance! Please, professor!"

"I appreciate your perseverance, Oleg Mihailovich, but it is impossible," the Headmaster shook his had extinguished the flames in his fireplace with a flip of his wand.

* * * * *

He finished the paperwork for the day, talked to the Potion Master; agreed with the Flying Teacher that the school needed new brooms and asked her to look for some cheap, but reliable ones; personally supervised the punishment for Mr. Boyarski, who hexed another student in the corridor; visited the hexed student in the infirmary; and finally had a few minutes to himself. He sat on the rock in the middle of the lake; it was his private retreat and by unspoken agreement nobody had ever bothered him there. In fact only he and the person, who again laid fresh flowers on the soldiers' graves, used to come to the islet.

They were safe here... but were they? Just thirty kilometres to the east lay the kingdom of secret police and of ultimate control of everything. Their Dark God had his men here as well. They were safe as long as the Muggle politicians kept low profiles and agreed with almost everything. "Finlandization" it was called. The Muggles liked new words. They made them feel they understood. No, he couldn't accept even an apparently "dead" Russian, Muggle-born, boy. He did not know how much surveillance Durmstrang was under. Maybe it was just his paranoia. Maybe he will be recorded in the "Annals of Durmstrang" as the "cowardly Headmaster, who seeing agents everywhere, caused not only the loss of great number of unschooled wizards of Muggle origin, but who also was directly responsible for the concept 'Durmstrang for purebloods'".

It was a temporary measure, but it had lasted too long. Temporary measures have the fatal tendency of turning permanent. They haven't been accepting Muggle-borns from Russia since the twenties, thirty years now. Germany - since the thirties. Twenty years. They could accept them now, but they all preferred to go to Beauxbatons. And the rest of Eastern Europe from the forties. Ten years. Too long. The last few years to graduate knew almost no Muggle-borns... Except for the real Muggles, these people whom they saw themselves or their older brothers and sisters told them burning the cities and hoarding the inhabitants for mass-executions. Great! To protect the school he raised an entire generation of wizards, who would hate Muggles and despise Muggle-borns.

But what was he to do? He couldn't be the last Headmaster of Durmstrang. How he would like to exchange places with the first one, a small and scrawny wizard, who managed to get a free trip with King Erik, under the pretext that he would protect the crusaders of 1155 from local shamans. In fact, he only wanted to contact the shamans and he was successful enough to establish the school in 1161. Great way to celebrate the 790^th anniversary, Siegen thought, to refuse entry to so many students. Old Loki "þynning" Flossason would hex me, luckily he had been dead for seven and half century so far and should remain so. Although with my luck lately, everything is possible.

He threw the stone into the water. He still had some work to do, but was sure they would try to reach him again if he came to his office. No, he really couldn't make exceptions for anybody. Pity the kid couldn't go to some other school.

Wait a moment. Couldn't he? In Beauxbatons, he could pass for some White Russian's child. But no, they had been assimilated now. So he should speak unaccented French and this was impossible, even with a barrel of Language Potion. And the French, with all their communist sympathies... No, he had really become paranoid. Hogwarts' would be a better choice. Although they were so happily isolated there, they might not understand what it was all about. And this Dippet man, he wouldn't notice if the students turned his hat upside down on his head. On the other hand, their Transfiguration teacher was a sensible guy. Siegen had met him twice during some international meetings. Siegen himself was a Charmer, but the man was knowledgeable about Charms as well, so they had lots of common topics. What was his name? Got to go and check.

On the floor of his office, in front of the cold-now fireplace he found a letter. They obviously tried again and were prepared for the possibility he wouldn't be present. He sighed and picked the envelope.

* * * * *

"So you are decided?" Siegen asked again. Oleg and Evgeniya looked at one another, and then nodded.

"Yes, we are," said Oleg.

"And the boy is willing to go?"

"Yes. He wants to go very much." Evgeniya's voice trembled slightly on the "very". Siegen pretended he hadn't noticed.

"All right. Then start your preparations. I want you to be ready with the 'accident' on a weeks notice. Your son will then be transported here, but very soon will go to the other school. It's safer you do not know where. That would be all. And I wish we meet again in happier times." Oleg opened his mouth, looking for words.

"Don't thank me," Siegen warned him, "I do it against my better judgement"

* * * * *

The boy was rather skinny and looked frightened. He ate a lot and stayed mostly in his small room, reading. For others he was a temporary exchange, but since he hardly met any of the students, the story proved unnecessary. He was a fast reader and a fast thinker. He divided his attention between first year textbooks and the newest Muggle history.

"It is different from what they taught us in the school," he remarked.

"You were taught a pack of lies," said von Dorpat-Siegen, not wanting to engage in pleasantries.

"But why it is possible?"

Siegen shrugged. "People can be cheated and bullied. When you have an idea, add an organization, money, ruthlessness, lots of lies and a complete disregard for rules, except for your own and you can do whatever you want. If you succeed, of course. If you fail, you're dead."

"Why do wizards not stop it?"

"We can not. There are too few of us. Besides, you would need to combine the forces of all the wizards."

"So the wizards would need a leader? Like we have in Russia?" The boy's eyes shone with enthusiasm.

"Heaven forbid!" Siegen shivered. "We don't want to change wizarding world into this kind of nightmare."

"But if it was for a good cause..."

"It always starts with a good cause, boy," sighed Siegen, "only later..."

"I would like wizards to have a big man, a big leader," said boy, "so the wizards can be strong and need not to hide."

"And what about the Muggles?"

"Muggles are afraid. My parents are, too. If you are strong, then they are afraid. They are not dangerous."

Siegen sighed again. He hoped his good deed wouldn't turn against him. "Making good is like fucking your own mother," was the local proverb one Romanian witch had quoted him. Hopefully in the States, where the boy was going, he would forget his ideas. He should. The atmosphere was different there, it should serve him well. He will grow up. Everything will be fine. He will disappear in this multi-national crowd and the traces of his origins should be gone soon. He will be happy and Durmstrang will be safe.

* * * * *

Two days later, they stood in the office, the boy ready, dressed in new robes, with a new suitcase. Almost all his things, which could be traced to his home, were gone. He only kept a few photographs.

"You will first go to England. An acquaintance of mine will wait for you. His name is..."

"Professor Dumbledore," said the boy, bored a little.

"I am glad you remember. He will get you a wand. Don't try to use it, before you get to school."

"I know."

"Well, that would be about all." Von Dorpat-Siegen checked the large clock. "Right, your portkey will activate in two minutes. The journey may not be pleasant, but it is absolutely safe and very short. Don't lose the letter to Professor Dumbledore. And keep your eye on your suitcase, the professor is not supposed to look after your luggage." He shook boy's hand and patted his shoulder. "Safe journey. Take care. I wish you luck, Igor."

The piece of Karelian birch bark the boy was clutching in his left hand shone for a second and he disappeared with a whiz.

"Good luck, Igor," repeated Siegen. "I hope you will be a great wizard. And you'll be able to come back here. Maybe even to teach?"

He turned back to his desk. There were papers to read and sign. And the Flying teacher wanted the final decision on brooms.