The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix Part Three

CXVII: I Am the List

Viktor Krum sat in the library at Durmstrang, head down over a textbook. All around him, students were whispering about the announcement that the Academy would be taking part in the Triwizard Tournament against Hogwarts School and Beauxbaton's. The students of Durmstrang were abuzz, all eager to go and represent the school in the tournament, though Headmaster Karkaroff had said that he'd already created a short list of students who would be going to Hogwarts to submit their names.

Aleksander Nicolaev sank into the chair opposite Viktor. Aleksander's face and frame were much narrower and angled than Viktor's wide-shouldered build, and his eyes a piercing blue - bright as ice on the lake on a clear, sunny day. He put his short stack of books down on the table and opened the cover of the first, though his eyes were trained on Viktor, rather than the book. He quietly leaned forward. 

"Are you one of them?" he asked quietly.

Viktor kept his eyes on the book before him.

Aleksander watched Viktor's eyes moving over the page for a moment and when Viktor didn't answer him, he flicked a few pages in the book open before him, then turned it around and forced it under Viktor's nose, covering up the book he was already looking at.

Viktor stared at the page Aleksander was showing him.

There was a photo - a very, very old wizard photo - depicting a young boy being speared by a swordfish. The boy's body was limp, the fish's sword having gone straight through, and Viktor was forcibly reminded of hors d'oeuvres served on tiny toothpicks at the fancy parties his father often held around the holidays. Viktor stared at the picture with distaste, his mouth curved into a sneer and he pushed the book away, back to Aleksander.

"That's what Karkaroff is sending his short list off to," Aleksander said, voice low, but anger and disgust just under the surface of his tone.

Viktor's voice was even lower so that Aleksander almost couldn't hear him, even a breath away. "It is what he sends me to do, you mean."

"So you are on the list."

Viktor's eyes turned up to Aleksander's. "I am the list."

"He sends only you?" Aleksander hissed.

"He will send others but I am the one whose name he will give for selection. It will be made sure that I am the tribute for Durmstrang." Viktok repeated the words that Karkaroff had said to him just hours before in the Headmaster's Study.

Aleksander let out a low breath of frustration through his nose that sounded a bit like the chuff of a bull. "You can't possibly have volunteered for that, you can't possibly want that."

Viktor turned the page in his textbook, his eyes returning to dueling strategy for his war theories class. His voice was resigned, "My father approves most profusely."

"Your father?" Aleksander grunted. He frowned and slammed the book shut, then looked around. "Your father - of course, I ought to have known that he had something to say on it. Your father can't force you to do this, Viktor. You must make up your mind for yourself for once. You must tell him what you wish! You could be killed at this tournament. This isn't like the Quidditch that he makes you play and train for," Aleksander said. "This is dangerous."

Viktor looked up at Aleksander. "You know more than any other that my father does not take what I have made up my mind to do as consideration for what I will be required to do."

Aleksander scowled. "You let him force you into things you do not want any part of."

Viktor stared down at his book very intently.

"And you let him force you to forget about things which you do want as well."

Viktor closed his eyes.