INIMICUS, sirius black

i. Sicilian Defense, Najdorf Variation

September 1st, 1974

Compared to the harsh winds of the North, the drizzle of London was practically a warm embrace, soothing chilled, frostbitten skin with languid drops misting the air grey. Nadia Chernova held her hand out from under her black umbrella, feeling the small droplets bead on her skin like tiny crystal balls. The droplets were misted over, reflecting the groggy, opaque air of London. She blinked, tilting her head up to stare at the overcast skies. A droplet landed on her eye.

She blinked again.

Nadia hated London.

The world seemed monochrome in this country, as if she were looking at the world through the lens of a newspaper with smudged printer ink. It didn't help that the buildings were of gray stone as well, muting the colors beside them too. She hated it. She hated this stupid city, with its stupid warm rain, and its stupid gray skies, and its stupid dull stone. She wanted to go back to the snow, the cold, where the wind chill blasted into her face like a morning greeting, where the snow collected on her hat like a pillow, where the ever present threat of frostbite made her stride through the weather with energy and life (Moreso, the fear of the loss of it). But here... it was as if she was living in slow motion, as if her brain had become foggy like the weather itself. Her mind had dulled from the sheer ordinariness of the city, and she despised it.

Nadia sighed again, and shook her head.

It wouldn't do well to be so disparaging of this weather, be so discontent with her new home – oh dear, she winced at that thought. She cleared her head, but the sour taste was left in her mouth. It was really quite warm, she thought to herself.

She missed the snow.

Station 9 ¾ was as dreary as could be, the gloom of the rain seeming to overtake the atmosphere as crying parents bid their children goodbye with faces that looked as if they were saying goodbye to a coffin. Handkerchiefs to faces, tears hardly blotted as kids raced away to the train – it was depressing, the lot of it. This scene never would have happened back home, she mulled bitterly. Yes, this never would have happened back home. She had never seen her father shed a single tear ever, yet these people find it in them to play the part of the lead in a tragedy, when hit with the simple fact that their children are leaving to boarding school. Utterly pathetic. Nadia turned away a little too quickly, unable to bear the sight any longer. Weaklings, she thought condescendingly, flaring her nostrils in concealed irritation.

Nadia weaved her way through the crowd, hands gripping her luggage as she pushed her way through the doors. She glanced at the tall clock outside, and heaved a sigh at the time. She made her way through the different train compartments by shoving her way through a throng of twelve year olds, stepping on several toes, and pushing a few midgets to the side. One of them screamed (a bit of an overreaction, no?). Another one opened its mouth, like an albatross about to gulp a fish (another overreaction?). Nadia Chernova was not a fish, and definitely had no intention of getting bitten by English midgets. She glared at them, contemptuously eying their ragged attire.

"Move," she demanded them, eyes narrowed. The twelve year olds seemed well and properly terrified, if their widened eyes and gulps were anything to go off of. As she passed through them, Nadia grinned. Hogwarts, Nadia mused inwardly, would be a breeze.

Nadia peered through a compartment door which oddly, was completely empty (despite how late she had been to arrive on the train), and opened the door, settling her luggage in the storage compartment. She glanced quickly at her checklist, double checking that she had not forgotten anything (though it was unlikely that she would have, considering the near obsessive organizing of her bag she had done for the past few days), and after once more ensuring that she was well good and settled, promptly sat back down. Nadia leaned back against the seat, closing her eyes for just a second. In the empty cabin, it was almost calm, noises of students muffled by the cabin door. It was ironic, how happy they seemed despite quite literally being shipped off to a boarding school. Every year. Nadia departed to Durmstrang with an odd feeling of disquiet in her stomach. To wade the deep sea with carnivorous monsters, to roam the halls with goosebumps prickling her neck in anticipation of some student trying to take out the heir to Chernov... it was disconcerting. It was not that Nadia disliked Durmstrang (for how could she? She was a Chernova) but she certainly did not come to the school in joyous giggles and smiles. She certainly never spoke so loudly and happily with her friends, in voices that could be heard even from a closed compartment door.