Because I - George Weasley

11: Because I knew Viktor

After all the delegates from Beauxbaton had made it into the castle, I forced George to turn and watch the lake with me. While many of the other students were staring up at the sky for Durmstrang's horse drawn carriage, I had been previously informed of how exactly they were planning on getting there.

There was a sudden loud and oddly eerie noise drifting toward us from out of the darkness: a muffled rumbling and sucking sound, as though an immense vacuum cleaner were moving along a riverbed.

I nudged George and pointed to the massive bubbles surfacing at the Black Lake. He nudged Fred in turn and Fred pointed it out to Lee.

Students were looking around for the source of the noise, but no one had quite figured out where it was coming from.

"The lake!" yelled Lee, pointing down at it. "Look at the lake!"

From our position at the top of the lawns overlooking the grounds, they had a clear view of the bubbling black surface of the water. Waves were now washing over the muddy banks, and then, out in the very middle of the lake, a whirlpool appeared, as if a giant plug had just been pulled out of the lake's floor.

Slowly, the ship rose out of the water, gleaming in the moonlight. 2A few moments later, they heard the splash of an anchor being thrown down in the shallows, and the thud of a plank being lowered onto the bank.

The silhouettes of the Durmstrang delegates could be seen getting off of the ship. All of them were built like mountains, even hiding under the cloaks of fur, you could see the strength that most of them possessed. Even the few girls that had been brought along, although gorgeous, had similar body structures to the boys.

Karkaroff marched in front of the group, dressed in his usual sleek cloak.

He forced me into a staring match as he made his way to Dumbledore. His eyes didn't flicker from mine as he marched closer and closer to where I was standing. I shrunk back into George as he drew closer. He wrapped his cloak around me a little more, obviously thinking that I was getting colder as darkness fell upon us.

The moment his eyes finally shifted, it was like his personality had shifted as well. He was suddenly presenting everyone with his best fake smile, showing off his yellowed and decaying teeth.

"Dumbledore!" he called heartily as he walked up the slope. "How are you, my dear fellow, how are you?"

"Blooming, thank you, Professor Karkaroff," Dumbledore replied.

When he reached Dumbledore, he shook hands with both of his own.

"Dear old Hogwarts," he said, looking up at the castle. "How good it is to be here, how good. Viktor, come along, into the warmth," he called out.

Everyone's attention was suddenly on the young Quidditch player. He didn't seem bothered by the attention, as he never really seemed to have much of a reaction to anything that happened to him.

"You don't mind, Dumbledore? Viktor has a slight head cold," said Karkaroff.

As Viktor got closer to me, the corners of his lips turned up in the slightest smile. He winked at me.

Every girl in my vicinity began speculating over which of them he was winking at, and Fred was shaking Lee in excitement that the Viktor Krum had just winked at him.

"Am I crazy or were you the one he winked at?" whispered George into my ear.

I simply shrugged and looked towards the rest of the Durmstrang students.

Some of them looked towards me, others towards my sisters, contemplating whether they were seeing double.

"Jo," said a tall boy who'd stopped in front of me. He made an attempt to take my hand in greeting, but I backed away, my back pressing against George's chest. "Lovely to see you again."