Raindrops on Roses

Chapter 20: Sixth Year Part 7: Durmstrang

2024

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"Wake up English!"

Scorpius woke to the sound of someone shouting and banging on his door. For a moment he thought the Scamander twins must have set loose another animal in the Common Room, and now they needed help to catch it again, but then he remembered where he was. He sat up in the tiny room on his hard bed, his four-poster with its velvety blue coverlet miles and miles away.

So that wasn't just a terrible dream I had. I'm really here... at Durmstrang.

"Wake up English! You miss breakfast, harhar!"

With great reluctance, Scorpius burrowed out of the wonderfully warm nest he'd made for himself and clambered out of bed. On the outside the chill was bone-numbing. He was glad he hadn't taken off his shoes or any of his clothes the night before, even if his body felt stiff as a plank of wood. He yanked the door open. "What?"

"Aha, English is here! Thought you run away, harhahar!"

There was a man outside in the corridor. He had to be described as a man, no boy could be quite so huge. Scorpius was no longer short, but this fellow towered above him to an almost Hagrid-like extreme. He was wearing the Durmstrang uniform, which must have been significantly altered to fit him, and a huge grin. "You dress English! Good! Come, food!" He made eating motions with his hand, as though Scorpius were an imbecilic child.

"I'm not hungry," Scorpius said, but then his stomach rumbled and gave him the lie. He hadn't eaten anything since the day before yesterday, he realised dully. No wonder he felt sick and dizzy all of a sudden. The huge boy didn't seem to have understood his protests, however. He pointed at the blank slate on Scorpius' door. "You write name!" he ordered jovially. "Or not find you!" He handed Scorpius a thin stick of white chalk.

Scorpius did not particularly want to write his name on the slate. That would make him part of this place. "What if I don't want people to find me?" he asked, but the boy just pointed and mimed writing. Scorpius sighed. He closed the door behind him and wrote Scorpius in easy-to-read letters. He pointed to it. "Okay?"

The boy frowned at the name. "Scopus?"

Scorpius rubbed his eyes. He was not quite awake enough for this. "Scorpius."

"Scop..ass?"

Scorpius reached up and rubbed off the last three letters with his sleeve.

"Scop?"

Scorpius rolled his eyes. "Close enough."

The boy laughed and pointed to himself. "Arkady!"

Looks like I made a friend, Scorpius thought. "Pleased to meet you, Arkady."

The boy laughed at his pronunciation but did not try to correct it. "Come on, English! Food! Bena send me, bring you."

"It's still dark!"

"No sun, still morning, English! You want breakfast, yes?"

Scorpius was about to refuse again, but he really was pretty hungry. He set his shoulders and followed the boy down the corridor. There were a few other boys in fur cloaks moving back and forth, and they all stared at him curiously. Most were very young, looking quite drowned in their cloaks and hats. It looked like Masha hadn't been lying about this end of the corridor being the rooms for first years.

Arkady led him through the maze, for which he was quite grateful; he knew he would never have found his way otherwise. They came out in a large room with benches crammed together, full of students eating through bowls of hot porridge. There didn't seem to be any kind of system as to where they sat, the only colour being the crimson red of the robes they all wore. Arkady led him to a bench and shoved a bowl in front of him. The benches were hard, and the porridge unremarkable by Hogwarts standards, but Scorpius was suddenly so hungry that he ate it anyway.