Let The Dark In

1

She didn’t mean to notice him.

When Headmaster Dumbledore announces that Hogwarts is hosting the Triwizard Tournament and students from Durmstrang and Beauxbatons will be visiting the school to compete, Hermione can’t help but be curious. Apparently, the event has been under discussion for the last two years, all the way back in Hermione’s Fourth Year, but the negotiations had fallen apart due to ideological differences between Dumbledore and Headmaster Karkaroff.

Harry and Ron both say they don’t care about the tournament, mostly out of bitterness over the age restriction limiting entries to Seventh Years, but when the doors fly open and the student delegations enter, everyone turns to stare.

The Beauxbatons students enter first, a flutter of airy blue. They are as French as can be, effortlessly elegant in their silk robes as they stride forward in unison behind their Headmistress, a towering woman with a sleek bob. But the poise fades as they begin shivering and a number of rapidly transfigured shawls and scarves appear as Headmistress Maxime is being welcomed by Dumbledore. As they huddle together tucking scarves around each other, they are suddenly rather charmingly relatable.

The Beauxbatons students have barely started finding seats for themselves when the doors of the Great Hall swing open again and the Durmstrang delegation enters.

They’re so different from Hogwarts and from Beauxbatons. As if they’re from a different world entirely, as removed from Magical Britain as the Muggle world is from Hermione. There’s a coldness about the students filing in, a dark allure and intensity that is so foreign and interesting when contrasted with Hogwarts’ atmosphere of whimsy and cheerful oddness or even the elegance of Beauxbatons.

Hermione suspects it’s because Durmstrang is a Dark Arts school.

She’s read about the schools before, the little that’s known given that the magical schools are excruciatingly secretive about their locations and the magic they teach. Beauxbatons is somewhere in the south of France, and although their location is unknown and some subjects secret, the Ministries of France and Britain often coordinate.

Durmstrang, on the other hand, operates alone and by their own rules and standards. Hermione isn’t even sure which country the school is in. The one thing she does know is that they don’t restrict themselves to solely learning defensive magic, they study the Dark Arts, not just theory, they use them. And it’s not only Northern European Dark Magic, unlike Beauxbatons and Hogwarts whose admissions are strictly national, Durmstrang accepts students throughout Europe.

Dark Wizards like Grindelwald studied magic at Durmstrang.

At the front of the delegation, nearly shoulder to shoulder with Headmaster Karkaroff, is a boy who’s startlingly blond. Pale skin, even paler hair, and sharp features set with icy grey eyes. Everything about him stands out starkly against the fur-trimmed scarlet of his uniform. He stands out. He’s self-assured and almost insolent. Unlike the rest of the Durmstrang students who look around the Great Hall with its enchanted ceiling with at least a degree of wonder, his eyes sweep across the room and the student body before him with an air of indifference that’s almost forced. As if he refuses to be impressed by what he sees.

Hermione doesn’t know why out of all the students in the crowd, he’s the one she notices first. There’s just something about him that’s hard to look away from.

“Bloody hell,” Ron says from beside her. “I think that blond tosser in the front is a Malfoy.”

She tears her eyes away to stare at Ron. “A who?”

He laughs and points at the blond boy. “A Malfoy. I dunno his first name, but he’s definitely got to be a Malfoy. Old pureblood family from here in Britain. Bastards, the lot of them. Always Slytherins here at Hogwarts. Heard his dad sent him to Durmstrang because he didn’t want his son near any Muggle-borns.”