The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix Part Three

CXXXI: No Son of Mine

Viktor Krum was in his dormitory at Durmstrang, bent over a parchment.

The room was silent. 

Being who he was, the Headmaster Igor Karkaroff had seen to it that Viktor had a private room with lush carpet and a huge bed, his own private loo and the option to be served meals in his room by the elves, should he choose not to go to the main dining hall. Viktor ate more meals than he probably should have done in the dormitory because of that option - it was just so tiring being constantly asked questions about the World Cup and his role on the Bulgarian team, questions about if he was going to go pro when he left Durmstrang, and what the other famous players were like. Everyone was fascinated, and so Viktor was given the right to hideaway as needed.

It was the one special treatment that he truly appreciated.

Even now, his plate of dinner sat untouched beside his textbook.

Tonight, the questions were worse than usual, even, because it wasn't just the quidditch and the players and the future plans that everyone was whispering about in the corridors. Tonight, it was the news that had broken that Viktor's father had fired the famous Oliver Kent from training Viktor Krum - weeks before Viktor was scheduled to go to Scotland to compete in the Triwizard Tournament. 

Everyone in the castle knew already that it would be Viktor that would compete. The others that were supposedly going to put in their names to the Goblet of Fire were a formality, a requirement set forth by the British Ministry hosting the event to make things "fair". But everyone knew Karkaroff wouldn't chance it.

So why had Oskar Krum fired his son's trainer?

Speculation abounded, tornadic, all around Viktor and he'd slouched away to his room the moment his classes were ended to get away from it all. It was hard enough having lost Oliver Kent as a trainer, but even worse to be constantly asked about it or, worse, to hear others whispering their speculations without consulting him at all.

The truth was, Viktor knew exactly why his father had fired Oliver Kent.

It was because of two nights ago, when Oskar had come to meet with Igor Karkaroff, to figure out when best to schedule training sessions for Viktor, that Oskar had come up to Viktor's room without Viktor expecting him. Viktor had thrown the Quaffle Talk magazine onto the floor and hurried to cover himself up but the fact of the matter was that Oskar had caught his son in the middle of something rather embarrassing and despite his son's pleas to just let it go, Oskar had insisted on pressing the matter... and when he'd found the magazine, wrinkled with the spine broken to a centerfold of the handsome Chudley Cannons Seeker... Well. 

"This is what happens when you are spending too much of the time around one of them," Oskar had accused. "I knew that he would be pushing these thoughts into your head. You are impressionable! You are not to be thinking these sorts of thoughts." Oskar shook the magazine at Viktok accusingly, slamming his fist on the desk as he shouted. "You are a man, Viktor, you will act like one. No son of mine will be acting like - like this!"

Viktor had no words to argue, he'd simply sat and stared, letting his father's words wash over him as he stared at the desktop, jaw tight and teeth grinding, his knee bobbing with anxiety as Oskar shouted. His cheeks were red with humiliation. He was just glad that nobody else could hear his father's words.

Aleksander's words echoed in Krum's head. "You let him force you into things you do not want any part of, and you let him force you to forget about things which you do want as well. I wish for you to listen to your heart about just one thing in your life for once, Viktor, before your life is gone and you realize that you never had it for your own."

"No longer will I stand for this, no longer do I pay for this!" Oskar said, and he used his wand to incinerate the magazine.

"Father, I --"

"Do not dare to talk back at me, Viktor, do not dare to do it. I will not have it!" Oskar had said. "Now, you are soon to be competing in the Triwizard Tournament and you will need a new trainer in time --"

"A new trainer?" Viktor looked up. He'd thought his father had been talking about the magazine, but suddenly he realized Oskar was talking about Oliver Kent. "No, Father, Mr. Kent, he is the best trainer there is."

"Surely not. It is decided already. Igor has other trainers to choose from, good Bulgarian trainers, men who are not likely to be secretly on the side of Hogwarts. Oliver Kent, he went to Hogwarts, did he not? And these good Bulgarian Trainers, they will not make you to question things that are unnatural. No more of this." Oskar had waved his palm at the mussed up bedsheets, at the place where he'd found Viktor when he'd come in the room.

Viktor's face burned. "Oliver Kent had nothing to do with - with that."

Oskar snapped, "Was it not his picture you were looking at?"

Viktor closed his eyes.

"It is decided." Oskar growled ominously, his expression one of disgust. "Now I go and talk to Igor, we get things figured out. I will find a good Bulgarian Trainer and you will train twice as hard as you have been. We will straighten you out." He shook his head, "You disappoint me, Viktor, and I will not be disappointed."

The door had slammed behind his father when Oskar had left, so hard that Aleksander had come upstairs ten minutes later to ask what had happened because he had heard the door slamming from down the stairs, where the other boys' dorm room was.

"Nothing happened," Viktor had lied.

"I know you better than that," Aleksander had argued, "I know better than to believe you, Viktor."

"Well believe me you must!" Viktor shouted, and he'd pushed Aleksander out of the room - out of his life, apparently, for Aleksander had not spoken to him in the three days since Oskar had left, nor had Viktor spoken to him, or to any of the other boys, for that matter, aside from what was required by his classroom work. It was to class and back to his room and nothing else.

Viktor was bent over a parchment, his quill poised.

Dear Mr. Kent,

I am sorry.

But he had no more to say and finally, he balled up the parchment and threw it away.