Marauders - Always - Part One

CXLI: Are You Laughing at Me?

Viktor Krum woke early, a wee bit seasick from the ship's constant rocking. He got up and washed his face in the basin, brushed his teeth, got a sheet of parchment and a pen and dutifully wrote:

Viktor Krum, Durmstrang

He stared at the dark strokes of the black ink on the stark white parchment.

He wondered if any of the other boys would even attempt to submit their own names or if they were all so resigned to the fact that Viktor was the intended Champion for Durmstrang that they didn't figure there would be any reason to pretend there was any chance someone else might be chosen.

Viktor imagined what might happen if someone did and their names were indeed the names chosen for Durmstrang. He wondered if Igor Karkaroff's head would actually explode? He pictured steam coming out of the old man's ears as thick and grey as his goatee.

Surprisingly the image actually made Viktor feel a bit better.

He stepped out of the private cabin room, stopping short when he saw he was in the barracks level of the ship and that the other boys who had been brought along from Durmstrang were put up in horrible canvas hammocks that were stretched between the beams that upheld the ship's main deck overhead. The hammocks looked unstable and rough, and he could tell from the way the other boys groaned and cracked their backs that the hammocks were not very comfortable and ha wave of sickly guilt came over him.

"Of course Vikky gets a real bed," said one of the other lads, spotting the large mattress on the bed over Viktor's shoulder.

"Anything for our champion," mocked another of them, snickering as Viktor flushed and hurried by, climbing the steps to go above deck.

The morning air was chill and Viktor could see a light frost across the grounds of Hogwarts. He pulled on his hat and shoved his hands into fingerless gloves before walking quickly - yet carefully, the frost had made it a bit slick - down the plank from the ship's deck to the dock. When he'd reached shore, Viktor picked up his speed even more, half-jogging up the winding pathway to the castle, keen to stay warm more than the desire to cross the distance. It was a good bit of wake-up exercise, he thought as his breath hung in puffs before him.

Inside the castle was warm, much warmer than it was inside the Durmstrang ship - or the Durmstrang school, for that matter, where they only burned the fires for necessity and special events, generally they used their furs for warmth, even indoors. It was surprising to find the Hogwarts students dressed in plain clothes, then, and, being a Sunday and a holiday, many of them wore muggle clothes rather than their uniforms and robes. He stood in the entrance hall, looking about at them, marveling a bit.

What must it be like, he thought, to grow somewhere that wasn't so cold and unyielding as the places he was used to? It wasn't the first time Viktor had wondered such a thing.

He walked up to the Goblet of Fire slowly, staring up at it. The blue starfire blazed and glimmered, turning even the ceiling of the high entrance hall blue with light. He still couldn't believe it was real, and that the story of the Blind Seer going to see the Bulgarian god of the things beyond the sky was possibly as real as the hewn oakwood goblet. He could feel eyes on him, staring at him, analyzing him, being in awe of him... and all he wanted to do was turn about and shout at them all to stop looking at him and to look at the Goblet, to appreciate that the Goblet was really the amazing thing in the room, not him.

Viktor stomped up to the Goblet, bowed his head to it as though greeting it reverently, and carefully, breathlessly, reached up and held his name over the brim. For a moment the parchment seemed to float on top of the starlight... and then it was swallowed up with a small rippling. He stepped back, not daring to stay too close to such an important magical object, paying it the respect that it deserved.