Chapter 8
I stared at the page before me, absolutely mystified by all that I had learned from one book. Sure, the book was over a thousand pages long and pages longer and wider than the width of both my hands twice over, but the information about these schools was abundant. Almost three weeks had passed since the incident of the library, or maybe four? It was getting harder to keep up with the date. And all we'd done was stare at this book, taking turns to scan and read the pages and endless amounts of words.
"Oh my god" I whispered, my eyes wide as I looked at the class of 1966 from The Durmstrang Institute. A fuzzy, old picture was placed there, a photo of a man that could only be just 17. I'd only ever met my Uncle Adam a hand full of times before my parents died, and then there was the one time he came to Grimmauld place in his disheveled state, but I had no doubt the man in this picture was him. Confirmed by the writing below, 'Adam Hale'.
"Whoa, your uncle went to Durmstrang?" I heard Cam ask over my shoulder. I looked at him and nodded numbly.
"I guess so. But my father went to Hogwarts, I don't understand why they would have gone to separate schools" I sighed, looking back to the book.
"Well, there's one way to find out" piped up Roze, looking at me out of the corner of her eye as she flipped through the book on the schools.
"How are we supposed to find it? It's Durmstrang, no one knows where it is" Cameron pointed out.
Roze rolled her eyes and pointed to a page. "This gives us the roundabout location. All we have to do is go somewhere near the lake, and we'll figure it out from there" she shrugged like it was that easy.
"Figure it out from there? Sure, brilliant, that'll work. We'll just show up in a random place in northern Slovakia and hope for the best" Cam agreed sarcastically, rolling his eyes and began pacing.
I sighed, staring down at the open page on the Durmstrang Institute. Unless invited, the exact location of the school was unknown, even in this expansive book that held almost all other information needed to know.
"Well, it's not a totally random place..." I began hesitantly, looking to Cam. His eyes met mine with caution. "It's really quite a specific random place. Next to an expansive lake, next to the Orava forest"
"Char, we already looked that up. The forest surrounds the lake for hundreds of kilometers. That's still totally random" Cam pointed out incredulously.
"It might just be the best we're going to get. The book gives us clues to find the school once there, we'll find it" Roze nodded, looking back to the book.
"Pointers that may or may not have worked for others are not clues, Roze".
"But what else have we got to go on? It's been weeks, Cam. This is as close to something real as we've gotten. A real location we know Adam's been" Roze looked at Cam with pleading eyes. "We have to follow this through"
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"Whose stupid idea was this?" Roze grumped, collapsing against one of the thousands of trees that surrounded us. She was covered in dirt and grime, not much unlike Cam or myself.
It had to of been weeks of wandering this forest, feeling like we were going nowhere but endlessly somewhere. My sanity was on edge, the protective enchantments mentioned in the book were definitely confusing the mind, our minds.
The lake seemed as wide as the ocean, never able to see land on the other side, only the crystal blue horizon. As we learned the first day we apparated to this place, never go in the water. It a changes your perception of time and thanks to Cameron's woodland skill, what we thought was a half an hour swim was in fact days.
My ears perked up as a distant crunch sounded in the woods. My head snapped around in the direction it came from, but there was nothing in sight.
"What?" I heard Roze's soft whisper behind me, but I only brought my index to my lips as my eyes searched the never-ending forest around us. I began to think I'd imagined the distant noise, when both Roze and Cameron perked up, hearing the noise again. It was the sound of twigs breaking, leaves crunching, branches snapping. It got louder and closer and had all of us on our feet, backing away in the other direction.
"Another trick?" Cam asked in nothing but a whisper. I shook my head, my eyes still scanning to find the threat that was obviously coming for us. It was closer now, whatever it was, it's monstrous footsteps causing the earth to shake beneath us and my heartbeat could have been heard back in England.
"Run!"
Cam and Roze turned on their heels and sprinted, all of us darting along the lakes edge. Where the forest ended, the lake began so our only option was to run in the shallow waters the fringed the lake, or risk being tangled and caught up in the branches, vines, and hazards of the forest floor.
In front of me, Roze shot a look over her shoulder, her flaming orange hair whipping into her eyes as she checked behind her. Whether she was checking to see if I was there or if she could see the beast behind us, I wouldn't know because with her widening eyes, and small scream that escaped her lips, I knew she saw what was trying to kill us first.
I couldn't help but check after that. Bared, sharp teeth met my glance. The long and ragged mane flared out from the lion's head, but a long and golden scaled dragon's tail caught my eye, the triangle point of the tail swiping at the air 15-feet above the already 8-foot giant. What was even more confusingly terrifying was the body of the monster- that of a goat. White fur reflected in the sunlight, even amongst the dirt and blood that layered its coat.
My heart launched as my footing slipped in the shallow water, forcing my eyes back in front of me. But they slammed shut in second when met with a wave of crashing water, and the sound of Roze's piercing screams.
Water filled my lungs, my body tossed in tumbles, limbs bending and folding over each other as I tried desperately not to drown. For a few seconds, my head surfaced above the rapid water. The beast stood on the shore line of the lake, its poisonous stare penetrated me as it had obviously missed out on a good meal of three teenage wizards.
My head was dunked under water once more, but the feel of a hard foot kicking me in the stomach made me loose the breath I had just caught. Darkness edged, and my lungs felt emptier of air than they had ever felt.
When that first breath filled my lungs as I breathed in the fresh air on instinct, it was the best feeling in the world, and my eyes snapped open to see the ominous grey clouds in the sky, the sounds of splashing and shouting filled my ears, and the feel of small, delicate hands clutching my arm were tight and desperate.
"Roze" I spluttered, pulling myself into a sitting position. Her eyes scanned me quickly and worriedly. When she obviously depicted I wasn't harmed, she fell back and sat on the grainy, black sand.
"Was that a bloody Chimera? Are you kidding me? Who has a Chimera prowling their school's border? What the bloody hell" she rattled, the fury radiating off her small, soaking body. Hair plastered to her pale face.
"School?" I questioned, the grogginess of my mind only just clearing after almost drowning.
Roze nodded, and just lifted her arm to point. My gaze followed, and there sat the castle that housed the Durmstrang Institute. It wasn't nearly as big as Hogwarts but could be just as old.
"How?" I sputtered. "How did we just end up here after weeks of searching?"
"Those rapids, they must have just carried us here. I don't know Char, but thank god" Cam shrugged, holding out his hand for me to take and his other for Roze. He lifted us up effortlessly.
"Well, we can't just walk in there, can we?" Roze sighed.
I nodded, scanning what was around us. We were covered by trees at the edge of the forests that surrounded the school, having washed up right on the edge. My eyes locked onto the source of the shouting I'd heard when washing up out of the water. Four boys, maybe just younger than ourselves, with matching buzz cut hairstyles, were doing laps and yelling at each other to swim faster in the lake just nearby. Their clothing and other items sat on the shore.
I pulled out my wand, and thanked my lucky stars that it didn't get lost or broken in the rapids, and spoke the enchantment "Accio uniforms". All the clothing that lay by the shore shot to my feet in an instant.
"In case you forgot Charlotte, this is an all-boys school. You and I? Not boys" Roze pointed out.
"Still have that Poly juice potion?" I asked, and a slightly mischievous glint appeared in her eyes.
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It took some careful potion skills on Roze's part, but after splitting the Polyjuice into three, managing to subdue the students that came looking for their uniforms, and snipping a bit of hair from three of the four, we walked the hallways of Durmstrang and no one batted an eye.
I was painfully obvious how this school got its reputation just from walking its corridors. Passing classrooms and seeing the spells they practiced, the potions they taught, what the professors were educating. Dark arts were a heavy influence here.
Caught up in the stark differences between Hogwarts and Durmstrang, we rounded a corner and almost ran into the Headmaster himself. I remember Igor Karkaroff from the time he spent at Hogwarts during the Triwizard Tournament. His jet-black hair had started to turn more silver, from age or worry, I didn't know. But other than that, he remained his tall, formidable Russian self.
Luckily for the three of us, he was too deep in conversation with his companion to notice us, and disappeared inside one of the doors that lined the corridor. We waited a few moments before following, and ended up trailing them along a winding staircase that led to the top floor of the castle. We hid behind the doorway that was the entry into what was most likely Karkaroff's living quarters.
"Headmaster, you're needed here," the scrawny man said, his thick Bulgarian accent enveloping every one of his words.
"He's back, Petrov" was Karkaroff reply as he hurried to pack things into a leather carry bag. Things like maps, old parchment, books.
"But sir-"
"No! He will come find me and he will kill me. I will not serve Him again, Petrov! I have to hide" Karkaroff barked. He struggled with a drawer, but gave up in his rush, muttering something about not needing it anyway.
"Where can you hide from You-Know-Who?"
"The Ironbelly Caves, they're my best hope" and then he clutched the bag to his chest, and disappeared in a long streak of black smoke, confirming to all of us that he was a death eater, as he was rumoured to be at the time of the tournament.
Petrov stood there, looking lost as he stared out at the storm clouds after the headmaster. I stepped out from behind the doorway, and his head snapped towards me.
"Larson, Iver, Vasiliev. What the hell do you think you're doing up here?" he barked, but there was a palpable note of terror tremoring in his voice. Cameron obviously picked up on this too, because he squared his shoulders and stepped towards the man. He stepped back.
"What are the Ironbelly Caves, Petrov?" Cameron demanded. The man looked shaken but kept his mouth shut. That is until Cameron pulled his wand out. I knew it was only as a threatening move, but Petrov didn't.
"Iver, you always did fail history. You should know they are the original home of the founder of this school. You should know it still is home to the largest family of Ironbelly dragons in all of the northern hemisphere" Petrov spat.
"How do we get there?" I asked, putting on my best mean glare.
"Larson, you should know better," he said suspiciously, but when I pulled out my own wand, he went back to terrified. "No one knows! The three challenges? Come on, history boys! The three challenges that are handed down from head master to head master. You must complete all three, to first find out where the caves are, and then not be burned alive by the dragons that live there"
I shared a look with Cameron and Roze, only just noticing Roze's features were beginning to seem more feminine. I wasn't the only one who noticed though.
"What is this? Who are you?" But he didn't wait for our answer as he barged past, and rushed down the stairs. I swear I heard the sounds of falling, but I didn't waste time in checking.
"Now what?" Roze asked, but I'd already begun to search the room, throwing things out of my way.
"He's not the brightest wizard of our time, that Karkaroff. He must have written it down somewhere" I explained.
"And probably took it with him" Cameron reasoned. But I shook my head, moving over to where the Headmaster was struggling with the drawer earlier. It was jarred tightly on an angle, but I was able to hit it back on its track with a strike of my hip and it slid open easily. Inside lay a journal, and on quick inspection, some were written in Russian, other parts in a language I had never seen.
"This is it" I nodded. With the way Igor needed it, the hand writing, the journal like setting. "Trust me." Roze and Cam nodded.
A wailing assaulted my ears, and it was obviously Petrov had sounded an alarm. We were out of time.
On the hope one could apparate out of the headmasters quarters, I held out my hand to Roze, and she linked her arm with Cameron's. The unwelcome but familiar feeling of being squeezed inside a tight tube found its way through my body as Roze apparated us out of there.