Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Стар крадец си тате,
крал си к'во ли не,
научи ме, тати, да крада коне.
Че една кобилка все ми е в съня,
цяла нощ препуска
как да я ловя?"
- Kanaleto - Sweet Chalga in Time^[I.ii]

March 8th, 1998
Vratsa, Bulgaria

The hammer smashed through the pit, obliterating the dried morsel within.
“Figs and mulberries,” cursed an annoyed Viktor Krum.

“These are apricot kernels,” corrected his father, Krum Starshi^[I.iii]. A grin of mischievous delight was painted on his lips.

“As if I don’t know that, Dad,” the younger Viktor said before rolling his eyes.

His next hammer swing was true, and his father quickly reached to pry the desiccated sliver from its shattered remains. The man stuffed it in a bag and happily dangled his feet over the shed’s rooftop ledge. However, calling it a “shed” was doing the ever-expanding structure a disservice. As large as some people’s houses, the building was like a museum to his hobbies; some wings, like the alchemy lab, were dustier than others; others were works in progress. The heat from the chicken coop, currently occupied by only one bird, and the fireplace kept the roof from icing over.

Viktor’s favorite spot was right here, though he rarely came here anymore. He loved leaning against the warm chimney when the weather was perfectly frozen - no wind to peck at his cheeks, only the pleasant heat going up his spine. Ever since he was a kid, he’d climb up here and imagine all the bad things just… going up in smoke: the pain of a skinned knee, the sting of the pesky nettle at the base of the walnut trees. Pain, worries. The chimney cured all.

He could smell the mix of mulberry and oak smoke mixed with the sauerkraut and venison being cooked, and his belly rumbled in protest.
“Hold your horses. It’s to simmer on low fire until the hens go to sleep,” commiserated his father, visibly proud of his bucolics.

Across the street, their neighbor’s rooster joined in on the fun.

“He is three hours late,” Viktor estimated by looking at the sun.

“You complain when he wakes you up when he’s on time. Now you complain when he’s late. What a curious inconsistency.”

“I just don’t like Grozdan’s stupid…,” he stopped to crack another apricot kernel. “... bird.”
Then, as if to demonstrate his feelings, young Victor smashed half a dozen pits faster than a cowboy with a six-shooter could.

“This one’s still young. Grozdan has had him only for a week. Give him a chance, son.”

*crack*

“What happened to the old one?”

“He had an accident. The usual .”
There was something adolescent in his father's voice.

“Nooo! Again!?”

“He fell in love with Pavlina. Then Pavlina did what Pavlina does best. The end.”

The two erupted with laughter. It felt good, and it echoed across the blanket of fog below.

“Where is she, by the way? I haven’t seen her since I came back.”

*crack*

“In her coop. She’s no spring chicken. I think the fog is bad for her knees,” the older Viktor pointed all around them.

True enough, beneath them, the garden wore a thick, foggy gown. With just a bit of imagination, they looked from a distance like two bored fishermen on a boat in the open sea, and the walnut trees around them were like the masts of an armada. Like a painting, stillness reigned supreme, and only the rhythmic drop of the hammer disturbed the mundane morning tranquility. Then again, weekends at the Krum villa were strictly for such easy tasks, adhering to the family tradition of abstaining from household magic. Viktor Krum had tried to weasel his way from the task once by promising to do it on Monday instead. Unfortunately, his mother reminded him that the recipe for the garden pesticide called for manually smashed apricot kernels - something about magic draining the cyanide in the pits, which kept their yard free of garden gnomes in the first place.

They looked peculiar, father and son. The older Viktor Krum had the shoulders of a silverback gorilla, but his posture was proud, straight-up, and perfect. Compared to him, the younger Viktor was, as a Turkish tabloid had once said in print, like “a vulture with the body of a baboon,” to which he’d replied with colorful invectives just shy of cursing out the poor journalist and his family; an action that had earned him the respect of some Turkish fans and the nickname “akbabayiğit^[I.iv].” Viktor Krum looked more like his mother; he wasn’t entirely her spitting image, but she’d rather be burned at the stake than spit.

Krum Starshi was also taller. His hair was longer, cascading just below his shoulders before the black locks zigzagged like a tangle of pomaded Euclidian parallels and perpendiculars. It was like a bramble of antlers, looked painful to the touch, and was an illusion. Alas, it was the only hairdo that matched the tragedy of his face, which time hadn’t blemished with wrinkles but had marred with scars. That had been the work of a veela for calling her “older than dirt.” The curse turned wrinkles into wounds that reopened every year on his birthday - a painful reminder of his age and foolishness. Viktor’s last letter, the last one in his correspondence with Hermione, had included a cartoonish drawing of his father’s scars in response to Hermione talking about how dull and ordinary her parents were. He still remembered the lines. 

“(...) Your parents are dentists? No wonder you have such a beautiful smile.
Normal is good, I think. My father, for example, is strange enough for the whole family. I don't even know where to start. He loves titles. He is both an architect and an engineer and in Bulgaria, such distinctions are just as important as the word “Doctor” everywhere else. So, naturally, he insists that people call him Architect Engineer Viktor Krum, which is already a mouthful. On top of it, he also uses the Senior suffix, which in Bulgarian is starshi. But he doesn’t go as Viktor Senior. No, no. He uses our surname, which is like a linguistic bear trap. Our family is named after one of Bulgaria’s greatest rulers - khan Krum the Fearsome. In our language, that’s Krum Strashni . Starshi. Strashni. Starshi. Strashni. One second of carelessness, and the trap goes snap! And yes, I think my starshi father named me after himself just so he could get away with such… strashni jokes.”

“Come on, son. You’re slacking,” his father reminded him. He was crushing the kernels with the back of his massive palms.

*crack*

Viktor winced.

“What’s the matter?”

“Every time you crack a kernel, it sounds just like that one time I broke my nose. That’s all.”

“That’s it? Because you have a look.”

“A look?”

“On your face. I know that look.”

The younger Viktor sighed. He might have inherited his mother’s looks, but he had his father’s talent for looking. It was too bad his father was incompetent with a broom - he could have been a great Seeker. And yet, his old man had once again outmaneuvered him with the right words at the right time and space. Here, on the roof, it was difficult to storm off and ignore his father.
And it’s not like running away would do me any good, he thought while scrunching his nose.

“The last time I saw it in the mirror was when your mom refused to go out with me, you know.”

“Wait… what?”

And there it was: their very own taciturn game of catch. Their quality time together would often turn into a back-and-forth of revelations - quick snapshots of the past with little to no context. Miniscule barings of the soul. Tiny strips of leathery sympathy that often raised more questions and ended with cliffhangers. The laconic Krums were anything but nosey. When one needed advice, advice was there for a price—a tit for tat, a this for that, a quid pro quo. As soon as Viktor’s dad had offered that juicy tidbit of information, he knew he’d have to trade something of equal value to hear the rest of it.

The problem with this barter system was that his parents had more to offer. He had to pick his trades carefully. Plus, they were his parents, for goodness’ sake. There was a limit to the things he could share. It’s not like I could go, “Oh hey, Dad, let me tell you about the girl I fell in love with a few years back, he let the unpleasant thought sour his mood. Or, “Hey, Mom, I forgot to tell you about that one time I transformed into a sharktopus and fucked a mermaid in a Roman bathhouse. I also had to fight a weird chimera from a mural!”  He inhaled cold air through his nose, then slowly exhaled. Do muggles struggle the same way?  

“There’s no way. Just no way,” he insisted.

Viktor Starshi laughed at his son’s bewilderment.
“I speak the truth.”

“How many times did you have to ask her to go on a date with you?”

“Just the once,” he mused. “It was a long time ago! To be fair, she thought I was concussed after getting hit in the head with a brick. But I remember it, you know? Clear as day. It was a Sunday, like today. I think it ruined Sundays for me for a long, long time.” 

Viktor Krum nodded before obliterating yet another apricot pit with the unwieldy hammer.
“But she did say ‘yes’ eventually. Obviously.”

“I’m afraid you’d have to ask her for the details. Some of them are classified, though. Well, then,” his father patted himself on the knees. “Speaking of your mom, I think now’s a good time to have lunch and see what she made for us. Oh, ho ho. Would you look at this onion?”

Their lunch, packed in a colorful shepherd’s bag, consisted of whole heads of onion, bread, canned liver pâté, and a jar of spicy quince jelly. Today’s newspaper was also rolled up inside, and Viktor’s father quickly flipped to the Sports Page while eating his onion as if it were the juiciest, most succulent apple in the world. The man’s nostrils flared from the pungent counter-attack.

Chewing on his open-faced sandwich allowed Viktor Krum to sigh in relief between bites. He had successfully managed to dodge his father’s prying. He didn’t know what to say. He’d never told his parents about Hermione, though he suspected they had read Skeeter’s scribbles about them. Still, officially, she was terra incognita for them, mainly because there was little to tell.

We were never together; he mentally gritted his teeth as bits and pieces of melancholia brushed up against his thoughts like some deep-dwelling jellyfish. There was nothing to tell. And now it is too late. Is she even alive? I don’t know.
He wished he had, from the very beginning. He wondered what kind of wisdom he would have gotten from his father. Things could have been different. Things could have been… otherwise. But he’d felt so cock-sure from the moment they’d shared that dance at the Yule Ball, and his pride had given him a false sense of invulnerability.

It is too late.  

*crack*

“Stop staring at the hills, son. Let’s see here,” Viktor Starshi waited until he had his son’s undivided attention. “Nothing but Quidditch today, it seems. The British Ministry of Magic might pull out of the World Cup after all, with the war going on and all. Does that mean the Irish may not play if they don’t host? The British Ministry governs them, too… right?”

“Yes, Dad,” Viktor said between bites of pate spread on his mom’s homemade bread. “The Irish and the English. The Scots. Oh, and the Welsh.”

“I hope you guys get a rematch against those leprechaun-lovers,” he mumbled. “No word on where the 423rd World Cup would be, they say. A record number of African countries are on the roster this year. They are saying one of the favorites this year is…”

Viktor tuned him out. He’d already gotten the lion’s share of Quidditch news earlier this morning at the Vratsa Vultures fan club. Most of what was in the newspaper was “yesterday’s news.” Yes, the Bulgarian Quidditch team was still training as if the World Cup were a sure thing. He knew that part already. The daily drills were much-needed distractions, even if they were monotonous. Viktor knew everyone was raving about the Senegalese, but he wasn’t keen on playing against them. He wasn’t itching to play any particular team this year - not when there was an actual enemy to face.

No one knew why he frequented the club so early. His fans were loyal, plus he always signed a few photos on his way out. All he wanted to listen to was the morning rebroadcast of the Potterwatch’s list of missing witches and wizards. The fan club’s wireless was the only one strong enough to “catch” the broadcast. Listening to it had become a part of his morning routine ever since Bill Weasley had shared the password for the broadcast with him. The relief from not hearing her name was almost perverse, but he needed it. It kept him civil. It kept him functioning. 

“Are you even listening to me?” His father interrupted his thoughts. “Did you hear what I just read about the Dimitrovgrad Dullahans?”

“No, sorry. Uhh. What’s up with them? Let me guess, their Seeker is dating a woman twice his age again?”

Krum Starshi shook his head.
“Not at all. Hold on,” he insisted, a look of worry tightening the scars on his freshly shaven face.

Viktor Krum knew the Dimitrovgrad Dullahans well. “The Headless Horsemen,” as they were also called, had more of a cult than a fan base. Wearing grays and funeral black, the Dullahans were too theatrical for his taste. They messed with people’s heads and focused on fielding brutal Beaters. The first time Krum’s Vratsa Vultures played against them, the Seeker left with a broken nose. It had been an easy victory otherwise. The best way to defeat a team of bullies, according to his coach, was to beat them fast, and thankfully four minutes against them had proven more than enough for Krum and his entire team.

Viktor patiently spread more pâté on some bread, drizzled some lemon juice on top, and took an enormous bite savoring the meaty paste stuck to his palate before he peeled it with his tongue and swallowed loudly.

“It says here… This is very interesting. The Dullahans were supposed to play the team of one of their sister cities. Do you know anything about the Darkhan Death Worms?”

“No. Where are they from?”

“Mongolia,” his father said. “And here I thought Mongolians flew on magic carpets. Strange.”

“Never played against any Mongolian teams. Are they any good? Wait, never mind that. What the f---, I mean, what in the world is a death worm !?”

His father just waved him off.
“Listen to this. It seems like every few years, there is some celebration in Mongolia that coincides with the migration of the Death Worm. They herd it from one region to another, usually from the Gobi desert to some town, and this act is said to bring prosperity to the people. To play against them on this special occasion is a great honor, yada, yada. Unfortunately, the entire Dimitrovgrad Dullahans team has been suspended because the team owner has ties with the Death Eaters!”

“Branimir Balabanov? No way!”

“A little too on the nose,” Viktor’s father said, pausing for effect before cracking another apricot pit with his palms. “If you ask me.”

“Dad!”

Viktor Starshi handed the newspaper to his son.

 “What? A team obsessed with their mascot - a harbinger of death, doom, and gloom turns out to be allied with Death Eaters. Death Eaters! There’s no subtlety these days. They’ve turned every problem into a nail because all they have is a hammer. It will bite them in the end. Mark my words.”

True to style, the son waved off his father.

“Wow, they photographed that idiot while the kukeri^[I.v] were putting their manacles on him!”

The photo was worthy of the front pages. It was a rainy sepia scene showing a bald man falling on his knees in the mud as two men dressed head-to-toe in goatskins were restraining him with cuffs and chains. The arrested man, presumably Balabanov, wore a chain with a brass cowbell the size of a cartwheel weighing him down. One masked kuker held a wand pointed at the man’s temple.

The image teased the ire out of Viktor, and hot blood filled the veins in his temples. The enemy was close - practically in his backyard. He wanted to fly to Dimitrovgrad and dispense … some justice. His justice. That self-same thought had him cracking his knuckles, summoning visions of his fingers wrapping around a masked Death Eater’s neck, slamming them against a brick wall again and again until parts of them…

*crack* *crack* crack*

“I think that’s enough for today,” Viktor Starshi concluded while sifting through a pile of shells for the cyanide-rich kernels. “I need to tend to the cauldron for the next few hours. Now it is time for dessert,” he gave his son a conspirator’s grin, which Viktor recognized as code for “Don’t tell your mom.”
His father produced a simple pipe from a pouch on his sash, tapped it on the rooftop to remove some ash, and then let it hang between his lips. It was a simple Cavalier design with an elegant curve and a polished, cherry-like sheen. Its profile always reminded Viktor of a snail.

“I thought you’d quit smoking, Dad,” the older Viktor imitated his son with teeth gripping onto the smoke pipe. He “pulled” on it like a baby latching onto a teat. Then he half-mumbled a whisper from the left corner of his mouth. “Watch this. It’s the newest thing.”

Whatever it was, Viktor felt an impact, then a pull originating somewhere in the center of their garden. The layer of milky fog rippled, and most of it coalesced into a vortex, like a cloudy dust devil or airy tonkatsu broth. The invisible force swallowed the fog with enough force to rustle the sparse greenery beneath. Rows and rows of snowdrop flowers shed their hoar frost peignoirs, and tufts of grass poked through the rime. Beds of daffodils sleepily raised their heads, and a perimeter of magenta hyacinths encircled raised beds of herbs and other dormant plants. Viktor Krum watched as his father’s pipe sucked in all of the fog, its chamber frosting up. His father, in the meantime, was patting himself. He was searching for tobacco and finding none.

“W-what are you--,”

A commotion inside the shed interrupted them both, and the flapping wings echoed through the chimney. The chicken coop had a simple flappy door, although large enough to fit a pig. It lifted, then fell as a fuzzy, feathery shape barely fit through it, jumped over the ramp, and landed with a confused thud in the garden. The creature ran in circles, making strange noises - equal parts cooing and bleating, though poultry in nature. Then it stopped and peeked at them with eyes hidden behind curtained windows. Nature never produced anything that would be considered “boxy,” which is why Viktor Krum was still getting goosebumps despite the myriad of magical creatures he had had the pleasure or displeasure of meeting.

“Pavlina! Come here, girl,” his father said while clapping at the thing.

Pavlina jumped. She flapped her wings, and everyone panicked when “she” cleared the vertical distance - Viktor backed away; his father almost dropped his pipe, and both men could swear they saw genuine fear in the creature’s eyes as feathers and curly wood shavings got everywhere.

“Don’t let her jump here, Dad. She’s ancient!”

“Bah! She’s fine. Jump up, girlie.”

Pavlina was a hut standing on chicken legs. Sort of. It was impossible to tell where the doll-sized “house” started or where the chicken began. Even his father, an Architect and an Engineer, had difficulties deciding whether Pavlina was a creature or a structure. She was angular, with feathery eyebrows over windowy eyes and a serrated, toothy beak that knew no satiation. She wore a rooftop-like wide-brimmed hat and puffed merry clouds of smoke when content. Or angry. Her lower half was almost entirely made from real feathers and poking out of bark-like, squamous skin. At the top was a monogrammed weathervane, which some thought was a stylized phi; only a select few knew it was a hybrid of the Cyrillic letters “Б” and “Я.”^[I.vi]

They said she was as old as the Krum family—a wedding gift from a good-natured godmother. Pavlina was also why Viktor Krum had a slight alektorophobia^[I.vii], or “fearful reverence,” as he called it. Pavlina was many things, but most of all, she was one of a kind. And she knew it.

She fought hard against the slant of the rooftop. Puffs of smoke matched her belabored gasps for air. Using her stunted wings for balance, the chicken hut leaned forward and pecked at a few misplaced apricot pits. Viktor’s dad reached for her beak, cooing gently. Then, he simultaneously twisted and pressed onto the weathervane until it slid halfway down its length. The chicken hut froze in place, and her beak went slack, revealing a circular door the size of a teacup dish. And just like that, his father was elbow-deep inside the structure, retrieving something from Pavlina’s throat or stomach, or so it seemed. The reality of the situation was truth-adjacent, although not close enough for a cigar. The truth was, Pavlina’s “innards” were bigger on the inside - an arable plot of land with the dimensions of a phone booth, enough space to grow pretty one thing and one thing only as long as young Viktor could remember, that “thing” had been a single tobacco plant that his father used for his pipe. Some wizards had offered him small fortunes for Pavina, but he had always denied them no matter the barter. How could he? She was the mascot of his house and family, and he’d never smoked regular tobacco. What if the taste of it was off?

The tobacco leaves were dry and readily crumbled into Viktor Starshi’s palm. He sprinkled some into the bowl of his pipe, which was already full of swirling fog. He brought a plastic lighter to the front, singed the top of the tobacco, and blew out a thick stream of shimmering mist. It wasn’t as foul as usual pipe smoke. The aroma swirled with notes of petrichor, ozone, and fresh linen and tickled the nostrils like concentrated carbonic acid from a soft drink like the tarragon-based Tarkhun his mother made.

“They call it ‘mistifighting,’” his father said between puffs of the stuff, and the English term rolled out of his mouth with an accented tumble, roll, and then a splat.

His son chuckled.
“‘Mistifying’, dad. And I doubt it’s good for you, even if they call it something else now.”

“It, uh,” his father coughed between words, practically illustrating his son’s point. “It feels better.”

Another set of coughs followed, then another. His last coughing fit startled the chicken hut, and Pavlina jumped in a feathery panic. From the sudden leap, a mint-colored egg dropped from somewhere and would have fallen off the roof were it not for Viktor’s Seeker reflexes. He dove for the egg, and Pavlina lept over him, then jumped off the ledge. Excited, the creature shook off the impact, circled a rusty wheelbarrow, and crooned.

“KUDKUDYAK^[I.viii]! KUDKUDYAK! KUD-KUUUU-DYAAAAAAAK!!!”

It sounded like a dozen squeaky swing sets creepily swinging at an abandoned playground. That, plus the screeching decibels of a chicken’s excitement.

Then the “bird-house” ran for the front gate, which meant a stranger was approaching their villa.

“Who could it be? It’s almost lunchtime on a Sunday,” Viktor’s father observed.

He was calm and collected, but Viktor saw him reaching for his wand—a battered-looking walnut with an unknown core as thick as his thumb.

“That won’t be necessary, Dad. I know who it is,” assured him Viktor. Though sometimes I doubt I know him at all. Or if anyone ever could.  

His eyes were still sharp. From the rooftop, it wasn’t hard to identify the man by his gait - hands in his pocket and a hitch in his step. It wasn’t quite a limp, but it was an identifier. It was almost as if the man wanted to telegraph a certain dignified distinction or status, wanting to eschew the crutch of something as physical as a cane. He was tall and almost Viktor’s age, wearing robes of the shocking blue produced when argon played well with mercury vapor and phosphorus. He also wore a matching hat that cascaded limply in front of one shoulder like a sleeping cap and was just as cerulean and celestial as his robes.

With one swift motion, Viktor levitated Razvigor, his flying birch, and grasped it by the “neck” before balancing a foot on some of the roots at the back. That position allowed him to hover off the ground vertically with the " broom, " though he could saddle it instantly, if necessary. The slow-flying mode allowed him to think better as he tried to think of some witty, welcoming phrase. Alas, Pavlina had beaten him to the locked gates and was busy making a spectacle of herself.

“Down, Pavlina. Down. He’s a friend, even if he smells like a Nuclear Power Plant running on mint.”

But the chicken hut wouldn’t listen.
“KUDKUDYAK!” She repeated, and again, showing the flabbergasted visitor the rows and rows of human teeth inside her beak. “KUD-KUU-D--,”

Viktor sighed.
“Cluck the fuck up, Pavlina. Enough.”  

Then he cast Silencio on her for good measure.

Vsevolod, his goatee-wearing friend, stared at him, pointed at the chicken hut as if it were the proverbial elephant in the room, then asked in perfect English,

“What in Baba Yaga’s name is that?!”

I'm sure Pavlina's thinking the same thing, Viktor thought. He waved him off and then beckoned the newly arrived guest to enter. The act seemed to calm down the feral Pavlina, whose birdbrain had already been distracted by a grub on the ground.

Dispassionately, Viktor did his best Lurch^[I.ix] impression.
“Welcome to Villa Krum. Can I offer you an egg in this trying time?^[I.x]”

Chapter Text

“But under the surface, I feel berserk as a tightrope walker in a three-ring circus^[II.i]
Under the surface, was Hercules ever like, "Yo, I don't wanna fight Cerberus?"
Under the surface, I'm pretty sure I'm worthless if I can't be of service
A flaw or a crack, the straw in the stack
That breaks the camel's back, what breaks the camel's back?”
- “Surface Pressure” by Jessica Darrow, from “Encanto”

Viktor Krum led Vsevolod across a promenade of muddy flagstones whose gaps were filled with walnut debris and things Pavlina found worth pecking. The Russian professor couldn’t look away from the chicken-hut.

“What does she eat?”

“It’d be easier to tell you what she doesn’t eat, really,” admitted Viktor. “Mostly chicken feed. Bugs. Worms. I’ve seen her eat a snake, even a hedgehog. Grandpa used to tell stories of her devouring garden gnomes in his youth, but I think she’s officially too old to chase them. She eats any rooster feisty enough to get close to her.”

“Unbelievable.”

“Oh, believe me. I know. This way,” Viktor pointed at a path through a brick arch. The two continued in silence, interrupted only by their feet sloshing through the mud. They scraped their feet on the concrete stairs leading to the house, and then Viktor Krum led unceremoniously through the vestibule of his childhood home.

Floral wallpapered walls flanked them, but most of them were decorated with hanging art and electric sconces illuminated gilded backgrounds. They were greeted first by familiar faces - some snarling, a few smiling, all of them glaring with the coal black eyes full of scrutiny. These portraits moved, but it was clear they existed trapped in distant memories of bygone eras dripping with the vestiges of outdatedness and obsoletion - heavy wools, fur caps decorated with flowers, and embroidered chemises from generations ago. The larger ones with backgrounds of hammered gold leaf filled their passing peripherals with golden auras - the atmosphere, so lugubrious and intense, was softened only by the motion of the painted. Like tombstones, the portraits were labeled with names, short epitaphs, and lifetimes as hyphens bookmarked by births and funerals. The further down the hall they went, the more recent the dates got. Some obituaries were so wordy that sentences wrapped around the frames, but mostly they were taciturn and stoic.

“I see you have a vampire in the family, Viktor,” Vsevolod noted after skipping sideways and away from the portrait of a fanged, liver-spotted octogenarian.

Viktor shrugged.
“Who?” He feigned ignorance. “Oh. Chicho^[II.ii] Zograf? “Asen Krum - Zograf. 1891 - 1992. Lived, laughed, and loved for a century. Died, got vampired, then expired a year later,” he recited the brief writing under the elderly man’s necrolog ^[II.iii]. “We had vampire hunters in the family. But that was centuries ago. Come to think of it, one of them killed Chicho Zograf. Which is why she didn’t get a portrait on the walls.”

“Zograf? Any relation to the Keeper Lev Zograf?”

“No. It's like the nickname^[II.iv].”

“Ah, an iconographer, then.”

Viktor nodded.

“What you saw is… Was. It was his self-portrait. He painted most of the 20th-century portraits in the hallway. He…was a good man. A stupid black cat jumped over his grave during his first funeral. You know how these things go^[II.v].”

“I know. But not like you know.”

The hallway curved cornerlessly into a wider gallery of more recent pictures where a stylistic transition was evident. Gradually, textured gold leaf gave way to the silvered sheen and coppery sepia of developed photography. Photos and portraits of smug aristocrats blinked lifelessly or prowled back and forth in their confined spaces with listless scowls. Among them was Viktor Krum himself. Vsevolod waved at a few portraits of his friend and was shocked when they acknowledged him with a wave of their own. Or so it seemed. He was accustomed to seeing his friend with a fist in the air instead.

“Are all of your photos… Ah. Yes. I see. You are playing Quidditch in all of them.”

“I hadn't noticed before,” lied Krum with a grin matching the bravado in all depictions of him. There was some arrogance to it, but it only added to that gritty charm his fans adored. 

They reached a circular chamber lined with wooden peristalsis and potted plants. There was a firepit in the middle, and an old-fashioned well formed from mortared river stones. A central spiraling staircase above the fireplace led to a floor above them. And that was it. Or so it seemed. 

Villa Krum was more a shelter than a home, an igloo of stone and wood to protect from the elements, medieval at its core, yet modern in philosophy; the kind of place that usually came with a statement on a plaque. It was cozy, even homey. It stored memories and foodstuffs, but there were no chairs nor a table in sight. The true home of the Krum family was outside these walls - on pillowy cots under shady walnuts, in the gazebo covered with grapevine, and even the rooftop of the shed. 

“A lovely place you have, Vitya.”

“It's not a place that inflicts you with homesickness, most would agree. That doesn't mean we are unwelcoming, though. There are guest rooms above, and we will be dining on venison and sauerkraut tonight. You, of course, will stay. I assume you--”

“I'll stay,” assured Vsevolod. “We have a lot to discuss. Plus,” he rummaged through a leather messenger bag. “I did not come empty-handed.”

Half an hour later...

“Grindewald is dead!?” shouted Viktor. 

The announcement had come through the radio mere moments ago. Viktor had been trying to find his mother's station while she made coffee to pair with a plate of snacks scrounged from the pantry when the news, fuzzy and garbled, almost made Mrs. Krum drop it.

“I thought the day would never come,” Krum's mother told them. “Serves him well. Do they say who did it?!”

Viktor nodded, which Vsevolod knew was Bulgarian for “no”.

“Too bad.”

They scanned the other stations for news, but the information was scant

Viktor’s mother shook her head.

“It's the war. Details are being kept from us. So the enemy does not hear. Or the enemy's enemy. The truth… they will keep it until the end.”

“But we all know, don't we? We know.”

Vsevolod nodded, and Viktor’s mother kept shaking her head in agreement. They were all on the same page.

The Russian sighed and looked at the little spread they had been preparing on the wooden lid of the well. He had brought a tiny can of black caviar and looked mournfully at the wasted pearls. The news had dashed their appetite.

“Maybe Mr. Krum would like some?”

Viktor shrugged.
“It’s for the birds if you ask me,” he said. “I never had an appetite for it. Not now, especially

The silver-haired woman smiled before pinching her son.
“No need to be rude, Viktor. Or to behave like they caught you in the forest,” she said, then exchanged a few lines in Russian with her guest before taking the caviar to the shed. Right before the door closed behind her, she pointed a comically large wand at the radio and let silence reign again.

They both waited until her footsteps lost their sound.

“Sometimes no news is good news,” Viktor concluded. “What did she say anyway?”

“That teaching you table manners in a house without a table has failed.”

Their laughter became the clinking of long-necked glasses. They both rinsed the taste of salty fish eggs with the cleansing fire of rakiya^[II.vi].

“What’s this? Apricot-made?” Asked Vsevolod while peering through the crystal-clear ochre of the liquid. 

“It is a blend of grapes and apricots,” Viktor said while filling another set of glasses up to their necks. “Here. Nazdrave^[II.vii].”

“Nazdrave, friend. Fuck, it burns so good,” the Russian giggled with rakiya-rubicunded cheeks. “You know, the first time I had rakiya was during my first year of teaching at Koldovstoretz. Some 6th-graders were distilling it in the Potions classroom after hours. I’m pretty sure their professor waited until they were finished to confiscate it. It sucked. Worst hangover I’ve ever had.”

“Don’t forget to eat the egg I gave you, then. Dinner will be late and the day is still young,” and he moved a silvered egg cup with Pavlina’s hard-boiled egg closer to his friend.

The Russian brought his face closer to it.
“Do I have to? I am used to eating eggs of… anonymous lineage.”

“Oh, come on, city boy. It’s just an egg,” Viktor savored the lie in its infancy.

Vsevolod took the back of his spoon to the beige eggshell, speckled with minty droplets the color of a bread mold, and marveled when the shell came off as one continuous piece.

“Smells familiar,” he said. “Oh well. Down the hatch.”
He swallowed it all, chewing just enough to humor the act itself, and quickly regretting doing so. The first cough he covered with his sleeve, but the second and third sent pieces of his lunch flying everywhere. And smoke. So much smoke. It billowed from his nostrils and ears - whiffs of tobacco, basil, and sulfur.

“What the fuck,” Vsevolod. “Why does this taste like cigarettes? Blegh . Pfffft. Pff. Ugh! ”
He reached for more booze, letting the spirit dull the eggy, ash-tasting chunks stuck in his teeth. “Viktor. If I didn’t know better-,”

“Oh, relax. It’s just an egg,” he said while trying to give his friend a pat on the back, but Vsevolod wouldn’t have it. “Of course, Pavlina’s eggs taste like whatever’s growing inside her.”

“Growing what!? Second-hand smoke? I was trying to quit. Cold turkey. Almost made it a month. And you fed me tobacco!!”

Viktor was doing his best to choke down his laughter, hand on his chest. He found the scarab-shaped lump underneath and squeezed it. It was attached to a golden chain around his neck, and he couldn’t remember who had given it to him or if he had bought it from somewhere. It struck him as the type of item one had to bargain for.
“You’ll forgive me when the time is right,” he said.

“Asshole. Some host you are.”

“Okay. Okay. Truce. Consider it payback for all the bullshit you put me through last Christmas.”

“Truce. But you’re still an asshole.”

They spent the next few minutes exchanging exchanges around the covered well, but if either of them was looking to be incendiary, they were both like wet tinder. Small acts of betrayal were how they caught up, but theirs was a kinship between young adults who had already gotten a taste of adulthood and decided it just wasn’t for them yet.

“Well, Professor, I think it's time,” the Bulgarian began anew. “It has been three months now. No letters. That annoying owl delivered no cryptic messages of yours. I was almost beginning to miss the snowy shithead. Now you're here and… Should I be worried?”

“Vitya! My friend. Rest assured, I am here to continue the little Christmas mystery we unearthed. But I have been busy, too. Only a fourth of my students came back this year. The Koldovstoretz halls feel deserted, frosted with fear. And if you were to visit my home, you'd see that some portraits are missing, and that's not because they've become one with the landscape. “

“Predateli ^[II.viii] ….,” Krum let his Bulgarian tongue lash out.

But their tongues were similar enough, and Vsevolod continued knowing he had been understood.

“That hallway of yours, I saw it in a vision. I knew I could be safe here when it showed no empty spaces.”

“You didn't trust me?”

“I… Look. Don’t take it to heart. Trust tends to evaporate quickly when people from your own people turn out the way some of my relatives did. It's not that I doubted you specifically. My vision was meant to show me a trustworthy place with trustworthy people. Fate can be cruel like that.”

Vsevolod sighed, but he put on a smile. 

“And now I'm here. I know it’s much, but you’re not as thick-headed as others think.”

“If you’re in trouble, my home is yours. Of course.”

“I'm fine. I just needed to clear my head. I admit that I might have let that chess ordeal get to me. It kept me going at first. I love a good mystery, but it's easy to get obsessed. Plus, it's not up to me--,”

“Oh, so it should be me? Why me?”

Vsevolod looked like he was going to pull his goatee out, then shook his head after realizing Viktor’s “gambit” which was straight from the Aries’ playbook, and his playstyle in Chess - bravado and boldness performed with an energy one had to match or get fatigued by taking moves that eroded their position. Viktor’s question was bait and he knew his friend was aware of it. No matter the answer, no matter how flattering, Viktor was going to deny and deflect it. He had to.

But his Russian friend was sly, his answer a snarling chuckle.

“Because you're Viktor fucking Krum.”

Still, Viktor wanted to have none of it. His fist landed heavily on the well’s lid, the thud echoing into the chasm below, sending glassware rolling all over the place. For a second, he remembered a certain crystal carafe doing the same, and he tried in vain to soften its fall with a foot that connected with nothing. In that same blink of an eye, the brandy on his breath felt flowery and sweet. Then it was all gone. 

“You ride into storms while riding a tree, Vsevolod!” Viktor fired back without letting the strange memory interfere. He just buried it in the same common grave as other inexplicable things bound to reanimate on a dark and stormy night. “It’s in your job description, I'm pretty sure.”

Vsevolod rolled his eyes and his eyelids flickered in tune to a sudden burst of radio static.
Then, surprising them both, he slammed an open palm on the “table”. He lifted it, revealing a Tarot deck, and then his lips began moving, but no sound came out. Instead, a disembodied voice on the radio hijacked the white noise to say:

♪ Deck of Cards, show my friend the present! ♫

“Uh, what?”

♪ Cut! ♫ The same station ordered.

Viktor Krum humored the possessed radio and put the top card at the bottom of the deck.

♪ Now draw! Draw! See your present! ♫

“I thought you didn’t bother with the Tar--,”

♪ DRAW! ♫

The back of the card was a faded navy with a black border. Viktor breathed in through his nose, then held his breath before revealing the card’s face.

It was the Five of Cups in the upright position.

♪ Sometimes Fate disappoints us in ways that seem personal, but loss is inevitable. It is a disappointment. It is sadness. It is asking oneself, “What could have been?” Abandon all hope and you may find out, but it will be too late by then. Letting go is painful, but it is necessary. When this card is your Present, it means you’re stuck dwelling in the Past. Don’t be ashamed of healing, ♫ the radio narrated fuzzily with Vsevolod’s voice.

Viktor gave the radio two middle fingers.
“I've got a card for you, too. How about the Zero of Fucks?”
But the reality of the situation was not lost on him. There was more to the card, but this time it was not some hidden meaning - it was the art itself. Viktor with his black cloak was the “spitting image” of the hapless Tarot man. Three cups were horizontal on the “table”, but two remained full of rakiya - almost like the face of the card.

The happenstance gave Viktor pause and both Vsevolod and the radio came back to their senses, slowly. Then, all of a sudden, rapidly, with thoughts and radio waves breaking the sound barrier. His friend squeezed his fist with an open palm and tried to catch his divided, black-eyed attention, but Viktor pulled back when static electricity slithered up his arm and rattled his elbow

Vsevolod opened his lips, but this time he sounded like the radio.
♪ Do I look alright? ♫

“Are you sure you’re alright, dude?”

♪ What do you mean by ‘What?’! ♫

Viktor scowled.

“What?”

♪ It's not just yours. It is our future. Well, pres-”! ♫ He inhaled the last syllable as his eyes rolled back into place.

“What did I say about reading my future?”

“...-ent now, really. In seeing my future I have as much say in whom else I see as a mirror has a say in what image to reflect,” Vsevolod finished his thought, this time on time. “Well, whoa. I am sorry you had to witness that. Anomalies like this happen to me from time to time.”

“W-what? That sounds like a frequent thing when you put it like that. What did I just see? A curse?”

“Look,” the Russian centered himself by pinching the bridge of his nose. “It’s of little consequence right now. I have a theory, but it's theoretical, and frankly, I don't want to talk about it until I know what I'm talking about. I’m fine. My visions are weird with electronics.”

A tiny wisp of smoke, acrid in color and stench, slithered through the cracks of the radio.

“See?” Vsevolod reiterated while sucking up the smoke with the tip of his wand

Just as you offered to help me, I am here to help you. Because it has to be you, Viktor.”
The magimeteorologist steadied himself.
“This quest, or whatever we want to call it, is not for me. Literally. Those who divine do not do the deeds, friend. Didn't they teach you that in Durmstrang!? Fate for people like me; well, it's like the pretty wife of your best friend. Look, but don't touch.”

“So, let me get this straight. If you touch it too much, you’d go blind?”  

To demonstrate his allusion, Viktor shook his fist up and down. Slowly. Suggestively.

“I mean, what you're crudely referring to is fictitious, Viktor. There is something larger than us. I mean, it is the right thing to do. At the very least, we'd be saving someone, right?”

Viktor, his fingers digging holes into his temples, shook his head.

“Right.”

They both exhaled.

There was something different about bartering with his Russian friend that he found fundamentally different from the quid-pro-quo with his parents. Vsevolod never “bartered,” he preferred to share and teach because one could not put a price on education. Like a literary device, perhaps because their friendship had started as pen pals, Vsevolod had time been like the marginalia by the monologues and soliloquies of a borrowed textbook. 

“Tell me what you've learned. Please,” The Bulgarian Seeker conceded.

Stroking his beard, Vsevolod finally allowed his face to shake off the doldrums.

“Using the magic word? On a Sunday? What would your mother think?”

Who knows what that woman thinks? Viktor pondered the same conundrum.
“Rules were meant to be broken.”

“I'm going to make a lot of assumptions here, so forgive me. Let's start with what we know, in general.”

“Should I be taking notes?” Viktor asked. “I have a quill somewhere.”

“Just listen,” the Magimeteorology Professor raised his voice. He stood the fallen rakiya shot glasses and spread them across the table. “First we start with the Where. There seem to be scattered across Bulgaria, places of power, and meaning. Over time, these places have caused the major leyline to branch out toward them. One such place was the Mithraeum in Hissarya,” he pointed to a glass conveniently placed in the outline of some spilled brandy. “The leyline there was associated with the branch of Magic we call Transfiguration. You were able to tap into this font of power.”

Viktor kept mum, nodding along.

“Now, the What. Across these locations, a total of 12 chess pieces were scattered. Six black. Six white. One type of piece per color. They are also loosely tied to the Zodiac. At the Mithraeum, you found the Black Pawn of Pisces. The task required you to be able to swim and transform; then, you had to catch fish. Assumption #1: The challenge matches the nature of the Zodiac sign, the chess piece, and the leyline involved. ”

Viktor gave his Russian friend a thumbs-up before stuffing his face with a handful of peanuts. Still chewing, he picked a few and placed them by the standing shot glasses as a way to mark the What pieces. 

“I had to trace the two halves of the Pisces symbol on opposite sides of a sliding door to free the fish,” he added. “Whoah. Saying this out loud sounds pretty ridiculous.”

“Correct. It is ridiculous. However, we learned something useful in that regard. Do you remember that Maritza couldn't see the outlines of the Pisces symbol? I found that to be odd. Why would that be? Maybe magical creatures are excluded from this treasure hunt. Perhaps on purpose? It would have been very easy for a rusalka to accomplish this task. Ergo, it follows that-,”

Viktor cleared his throat.

“Assumption #2: Magical creatures can't help. Right? ”

“I think so. Which, most importantly, brings us to the Who, represented by this Five of Cups, which is you. And then: the Whom. According to the Pawn we rescued, the missing chess pieces belong to Caïssa, a mythical dryad of Thracian origin. She is their “Mother,” captured by “a thin-fingered woman” after a chess game. Was there a bet involved? We don’t know. Nor do we know how a muggle like Sir William Jones knew about Caïssa. Let's use this plate of leftover black caviar for her, by the way.”

Viktor peeled the brown skin from another peanut and looked at the entire picture.

“So, we find the shot glasses first. Second, we collect the peanuts. Then, we save the black caviar. Sounds pretty easy. Were you able to find anything else in your research?”

“Little. Most of it is from the rest of the poem, but I will spare you the details because it is trite and confusing. Lusting gods and goddesses, you know the deal. The rest teaches the reader about chess. And because I am kind, I brought you a copy of the whole poem. You know, in case you get bored.”

“Uh-huh.”

“While the poem was a dud, the Pisces pawn was not. Here’s where it gets interesting. The Pisces pawn has limited memory, and it runs out fast. It remembers small details about the last “war” it fought in, and it also recalls its neighbors. It started on a black square and was followed by a Black Knight. Two other Black Pawns flanked it, but we already had our Black Pawn, so I asked it about the Knight. At first, it just spat out lines from the poem. Here, these,” Vsevolod pointed at the poem and read some of it out loud.

“Then four bold knights for courage-fam'd and speed,
Each knight exalted on a prancing steed:
Their arching course no vulgar limit knows,
Tranverse they leap, and aim insidious blows:
Nor friends, nor foes, their rapid force restrain,
By on quick bound two changing squares they gain;
From varing hues renew the fierce attack,
And rush from black to white, from white to black.”

The margins of the poem were filled with Vsevolod’s notes, all of which were written in tight and almost indecipherable Russian Cyrillic. Viktor believed that it looked more like oscillating sutures than anything else.

“Hey, what’s written on the back?” He asked, flipping the page before getting his answer. “More of the same?”

Vsevolod grinned.
“Not at all. You see, I got to ask the Pawn where I could find the Black Knight. Of course, it remained cryptic until the very end. So here’s what we have.”

The poem consisted of just four lines, written in blocky English with a blue pen. 

“By the cliffs where a despot held domain,
Where shags and shrikes nest and monks gave cries,
Seek Apollo’s worn statue, weathered and stained,
Since his iron eagle flew in blackened skies. ”

“Does it mean anything to you?”

Viktor replayed some choice words in his mind. Alas, all he could produce, was a shrug.
“Merlin’s beard. “ Shags ” and “ shrikes ”?

“They are migratory birds. But I do not know anything about a monk bird,” Vsevolod said while biting his upper lip. “I’m afraid this is where I stop being helpful. Do you know who the “despot” is? Or anything about a statue of Apollo?”

Viktor Krum shrugged.
“Something about this poem feels wrong. Like we’re missing something… but I know someone who might know more.” He sighed and reached for his wand, resting the tip against his chin. With a heavy sigh, Viktor Krum yelled the incantation to the most powerful spell he knew... “MOOOOOM!”

Mrs. Krum apparated next to them, not even a heartbeat later.

“Yes, dear?”

She was a woman who did not look a day past her mid-forties and was responsible for most of Viktor’s looks. She was a touch more pallid, her cheekbones high and round like the curves of a porcelain vase. Her hair went down into a single braid, threaded through a belt-like loop, and Vsevolod saw old coins hanging from delicate hairpieces. Viktor’s mother wore a fur-trimmed vest that held up, via a perimeter of abalone shell buttons, onto a pair of loose-fitting pink woolen corduroy pants.

“Mom, Vsevolod is going to stay with us for a few days.”

“Oh, wonderful,” she clasped her hands. “I’ll get to tidying up a guest room immediately, then.”

“No, Mom. Mom. I can do it. We need your help with something first.”

“I have a spare moment,” she said while putting plates away and sweeping stay peanuts off the edges of the “table” and into the palm of her hand. “It is a mess in here. How much have you two been drinking?” The accusatory disappointment in voice was enough to dispel the men’s buzz. The rest evaporated when she blasted them with lilac beams from her wand.

“Amethystos^[II.ix]!”

The Sobering Enchantment crashed into their temples, turning the alcohol in their bodies into bitter tears which solidified and made their eyelashes heavy with crystals they spent the next two minutes blinking away. She babbled with the rapidly detoxing Vsevolod in Russian while fetching them a carafe of water.

Viktor winced at the sight of it.

“My apologies, Mr. Fedorov. I am sure that the opportunity to have more rakiya will present itself sooner than later. Perhaps with some dinner?”

“That would be lovely. And..,” he paused to massage a mote of migraine out of his sinuses.. “Ugh. Worry not about the enchantment. We need clear heads right now.”

Mrs. Krum smiled. The act seemed to nudge her appearance closer to what Vsevolod assumed was her age.

They showed her the poem and gave her a minute to think.

“Oh, a riddle. I am decent at those," she mused.

“My mother is being modest, friend. I don’t know what a wheelhouse is, but riddles would be the foundation of it. It also sounds like something designed by my Dad.”

“A wheelhouse is part of a ship, Vitya. It’s where the wheel is, well, housed.”

“English is so literal,” the woman said. “Isn’t it?”

“Are you a writer, Mrs. Krum?”

“Aren’t we all, Mr. Fedorov? You write. I write. Viktor writes… somehow. Alas, no. I am not a writer.”

“Hey! You taught me how to write. AND read,” her son protested, clearly falling for his mother’s trap. “What my mother won’t admit is that she writes under many pseudonyms. Children’s stories and poems, mostly.”

Vsevolod appreciated the subtle wordplay.

“Ah. Not a writer. But writers, yes? I see. And what of this little riddle, Mrs. Krum?”

“Well, I can tell it’s not for children. Nor is it a child’s play. But I have noticed a couple of things. Here,” she pointed at the line about birds and monks. “Notice the difference in tenses here. The birds nest. The monks gave cries. Immediately, one thinks of destroyed monasteries. The country is full of them, so it is not very helpful. And still… I sense the tragedy it is referring to. There is a theme here too, like a proper haiku," she said while running the the tip of a quill against her lips. Carelessly, a dot of ink smudged a smidge on the bottom one, blending with the pale rose lipstick she had. ”Every haiku belongs to a season. Sometimes there are clues - keywords they call kigo. An autumn haiku is a prideful dragonfly landing on an overripe cluster of grapes golden like the sunset over a wheatfield, while a cuckoo's echoing song that cuts the nightly silence is a haiku portent for a fleeting summer. But kigo is about time. This poem is about space. But is it just a region? Something as all-encompassing as a season, like "mountains" or "plains"? Or something specific?"

“Cliffs and nesting birds. It’s all a bit coastal, isn’t it?” Vsevolod seemed to catch her drift. "But why go through all the trouble to be helplessly vague? It must be specific. Has to be! So somewhere along a coast. Maybe some ruins of the Roman kind? Or a monastery? That would fit the bill.""

“Perhaps you are right, but I'm afraid that you have only narrowed things down by a magnitude. Do you know just how many Roman or Greek settlements there used to be along the Black Sea coast? You probably do not know this, Mr. Fedorov, but Bulgaria’s Black Sea coastline once had an ancient Greek colony called Apollonia. It’s known as Sozopol now, but more than 2,000 years ago it had temples to the god and a larger-than-life statue of Apollo. Sadly, it was looted by the Romans and taken to Rome. This I know from studying some of the coins minted there.”

“Mom is a numismatist ^[II.x] ,” Viktor explained. “One, not many… I think.”

“When was this written? It must be recent. Very recent, if I’m right.”

“We don’t think so. Probably not?” Vsevolod said, although he made no effort to hide his doubt.

“Must be a coincidence, then. There used to be a population of seals in these lands known as “monk seals”, but they were declared extinct just a year ago. So unfortunate. It would have placed the location you seek somewhere along the northern coastline. Okay. That takes us to Apollo’s “iron eagle,” which postdates this after 1969,” she grinned.

“1969! Of course. I am an idiot!”

“What happened then?” Asked Viktor.

“It was before your time, don’t be so hard on yourself.”

Tired of being the only clueless person in the room, Viktor raised his arms.

“I’m still in the dark here, people.”

“Oh, come on. You can’t tell me you haven’t heard about the moon landing! You know? The Apollo 11 lunar module? Probably the most magical achievement done by muggles… ever!?” The Russian said before pinching his nose. “ Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed. ”

“Oh, that moon landing,” Viktor Krum rolled his eyes. “You should have just said so.”

“Well, that’s all I’m good for, you two. No idea who the “despot” is. Do let me know when you figure it out. In the meantime, I will be upstairs to set up a guest room. So glad you’re staying with us, Mr. Fedorov. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

Then she apparated upstairs.

“I can’t believe it. It was right there. Staring me in the face, night after night,” an embarrassed Vsevolod said while holding onto his face in self-pitying shame. 

“I swear, Vsevolod if this riddle sends me for green caviar to the moon, or worse, America..”

“What did you just say?”

“America?”

“No.”

“Oh, that “green caviar” bit? It’s like a wild goose chase. A Bulgarian saying. There is no such thing as green caviar, so being sent to fetch it is a waste of time.”

“Uh-huh,” mumbled Vsevolod. “Not like the caviar I brought, right?”

“Yes. Um. I’m sorry I said it was for the birds. It was rude of me.”

“No, precisely. Precisely. You were rude, but you were right. It is for the birds, Viktor. Honestly… Your talent for Divination is palpable,” he said while putting the lid back on the half-eaten can of Caspian sturgeon roe. “And this is perfectly good and expensive black caviar. It is not my fault your family does not have mother-of-pearl spoons for it. But I digress! What time is---”

He was interrupted by the familiar chime of a cuckoo clock, and his blue-green eyes followed the sound in time to see a miniature figure on a broom bust out of the doors from the clock above them. Dressed in red, the wooden puppet raised its fist into the air, and an invisible crowd cheered his name.

Once.

VIKTOR KRUM!

Twice.

                       VIKTOR KRUM!

Thrice.

                                                VIKTOR KRUM!

“Before you say anything--,”

“SO much to unpack,” teased him Vsevolod. “But it’s three o’clock already. We still have plenty of time. Here, put this in the fridge for now,” and he handed Viktor the can of black caviar. He never looked up from the newspaper, focusing on a chart of the skies and their celestial motion. “Sure, the Sun is in Pisces now. Mercury is in Aries, which is good for us - quick minds, razor-sharp wit, and passionate discussions. Yes, we have seen this already.”

“What are you on about now?”

But Vsevolod offered him no answer.

“The Sun is important here because of Apollo, but the intent, the clue, it’s all about the Moon. And would you look at that? We are in luck. According to my calculations, the Moon moves precisely from Cancer to Leo at 22:47. Couldn’t be more ideal, my friend. It’s almost as if things are all aligning according to plan. Of course, there’s no predicting how things will turn out with her, but she’s a chicken, isn’t she?”

“Vsevolod Fedorov,” Viktor interrupted. “Please don’t talk to yourself while I’m here. Explain yourself. Slowly.”

“I will. But first, I need to calm down and be outside. I need a place to think.”

“Well, you’re in luck. I know just the place.”

Chapter Text

“It is the strangest feeling of my life--intersubjectivity, as if our consciousnesses have opened up and flowed together and now one has only to look at a flicker of the other’s mouth or eye or at the chessman he holds in his hand, wobbling…”
- Tom Wolfe, “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test”

“Well, here we are. What do you think?” Viktor asked after letting Vsevold lean against the warm bricks of the chimney. 
As if to inspect it further, Vsevolod shimmied even closer. Though the air outside was brisk, the heat on his back was almost therapeutic. He was naturally a squinty-eyed person - heavy-lidded, almost fatigued-looking. There was no teary dullness behind them, oh no, they were like perpetually rolling marbles. Vsevolod’s eyes were gray in the winter, but today they had more color to them. Viktor thought they were like mid-spring figs: a sea green speckled with plummy purple. He’d never seen such color before and mentally jotted it down as odd, but not worth asking about. 

“I wish I had a cigarette, that’s what I think,” he admitted while pulling on his jacket’s collar. “Oooh, it’s toasty, this chimney. The view is nice. I was imagining a mansion or some foreboding castle, but this is better. It explains a lot. Especially that cuckoo clock.”

Usually smelling like creme de menthe and olive oil, Vsevolod smelled different, yet familiar to Viktor. Familiar in the way he, as an athlete, knew well. Stress sweat, he thought as Vsevolod kept on fanning himself from the chimney’s warmth. It was anticipatory, but it wasn’t like the two types he knew how to differentiate - not piney like the stress of something intangible, like defeat, nor was it like the musky ozone of stressing about something of flesh and blood. Most remarkably, to Viktor, what was different was the lack of tobacco stench and muggle pine-scented all-purpose cleaner. He really disliked the way his friend carried the one-dimensional miasma of his vice with him and was thankful it was gone. Viktor’s nostrils flared as something unusual wafted from Vsevolod, something he’d never smelled on him before. It was sharp and salty. Sea breeze. Green. Pistachio, burning olive oil, and the honey-butter pairing of fresh hops boiling in sweet wort. 

“Oh, please. The local fan club had it commissioned,” Viktor said while pinching the ridge of his nose. He shrugged. “End of topic. You said you needed a place to think, so - do it. What else do we need? It feels like we’re missing some things.”

“The leyline and the Zodiac sign.”

“Yes. Them. Sagittarius makes sense, right? The knight piece is a horse, and the centaur is used as a symbol for the constellation of the archer.”

Vsevolod pinched the tip of his goatee and gave it a clockwise twist. 
“Yes. Symbolically speaking, the Sagittarius could be a Knight or a Bishop, but I like the odds of the centaur imagery. They are archers and so is Apollo. They are both associated with healing.”

“And… Divination?”

“Almost certainly. Apollo is the God of oracles, foreseeing, and omens. And, like the knights we know, he is an entity of honor, promises, and oath-keeping. It fits nicely. I’m familiar with some of the methods of his oracles, but they haven’t served me well in the past,” he sighed. “I know what you’ll say, but we’ve been over this already. It’s taboo.”

Vsevolod did not need to be a talented diviner to predict Viktor’s annoyance, and the Bulgarian did little to hide it from his face. Viktor was the type of wizard who carried his magic like a bludgeon, but it often failed to cut through the more sinewy tendrils of theory or logic the way a machete would have. The intricacies of magic vexed him. Vsevolod knew to give him some time, though he went for a change in topic instead. 
“What is up with the no-casting spells on Sunday deal? Christian superstition? Or is there more to it?” 

Viktor scoffed at the professor’s attempt to mollify him. At the same time, he ran into some frustration while searching for an answer. There was something inherently Christian behind his family’s tradition, but only in the sense that more than a thousand years ago, religious muggles explained magic as the deed of a saint. In fact, all of Saints Cyril and Methodius’ pupils who had worked on creating and spreading the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabets, were powerful wizards whom people canonized as saints. Saint Naum of Preslav, for example, was as much a theologian as he was an accomplished enchanter specializing in polyphonic enchanting. At its core, the answer to Vsevolod’s question had everything to do with the early magical tradition of these apostles, but it was neither the time nor place for such explanations. Instead, Viktor’s silent annoyance molted into a nasal exhale. 
“It is defensive magic that my father did when he built the house. The cornerstone is enchanted to draw magic from my father once a week. If he is around and doesn’t do any magic from a certain sunset to sundown, the cornerstone turns the offering into localized magic for a specific purpose.”

“Oh, it’s a genius loci. How very interesting. Any idea what happens when the magic is needed?”

“A what now? And, no. Never.”

With visible excitement, Vsevolod explained the allegedly ancient concept, and Viktor was happy the professor was simply putting it in laymen’s terms. He was still confused about what it was, but he understood how it operated.

“So it is to a dot what leyline is to a.. Line? A point of magical energy?” the Bulgarian tried to put into his own words. 

“Mmmm. Not always. Sometimes it is just like a line. In such cases, it is perpendicular to a leyline. Vertical,” he explained by pointing at the smoke coming out of the chimney. “Yours, however, is more like a spot. I’m guessing your father’s spell acts just like a genius loci. I thought I’d sensed a lick of transfiguration magic in the air.”

“You… do?”

“You know how it always feels like a migraine right behind the eyes? You don’t get this all the time here? Probably because you’re so used to it. You grew up here, after all. This might explain your aptitude for transfiguration, you know?”

“As long as the spell does what it’s supposed to, that’s fine. What matters is that you are under its protection too. Ever since you ate Pavlina’s egg, actually.” 

“Fascinating!” Vsevolod’s eyes lit up. Contrary to most people, his usually askance eyes became open fully with brightness when he was in thought, rather than the other way around. “This prob---,”

“What are you running from, Vsevolod?” 

The Russian professor’s eyes darted away from Viktor’s kalamata-like glare. 

Then the Bulgarian continued. 
“Don’t downplay it, and don’t joke about it, either. You are under our protection now. My father will want to know.”

“And you all deserve to know, I assure you. And I want you to know. It’s just.. A lot. It’s a lot. It’s not as simple as admitting that some of my adopted cousins got new snake and skull tattoos, Vitya.”

“Go on.”

“I need a cigarette for this. I do,” a visibly trembling Vsevolod admitted. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

Viktor smiled. Even he was surprised at how good it made him feel - it was like putting away a rain-soaked umbrella to feel the rays of a triumphant sun. 
“Start with whatever is most simple, then.” 

Vsevolod flailed as if presented with an impossible task. 
“None of it is simple,” he groaned. “That’s the thing. So I won’t be doing that. You deserve the truth, Viktor. You’re right. So here it is. I wrote you in a letter once that I don’t come from a wizarding family. I don’t have your lineage or pedigree. My parents are Squibs. My adoptive parents, that is,” he reiterated, then allowed himself a brief pause. “My real parents were centaurs.”

Vsevolod continued. 
“It happens rarely. So rarely, in fact, that there is no word for it, not officially anyway. No government has an official classification for it, but my papers state I’m Human. But I am not. Not really. Some centaur societies have pejoratives for what I am. ‘Walkers’. ‘Dehoofed’. Or, worst of all - ‘Thoroughbred’. Of course, I never showed early signs of magic. I never got invited to Koldovstoretz, either. But my parents paid for the best tutors they could find. Despite the obstacles, I studied my ass off. Now I’m here. That’s petty much it.”

“I… don’t know what to say,” a flabbergasted Viktor admitted. He reached for his friend’s hand and clasped it with a mighty squeeze. “Thank you for telling me. Is this why you are being…?”

“Hunted? Yes. I have been researching my… condition. After Koldovstoretz’s library turned out to be a fruitless endeavor, I started requesting books from other schools. I think I got flagged by someone in my efforts. Now, some of my relatives want to prune a magical creature from the family tree. How else could they remain pure? How else could they be accepted by their Dark Lord?” 

“Yet still. A centaur?”

“Barely,” Vsevolod shook his head. “Just a thoroughbred.”

“I’m not calling you that, you weirdo Russian.”

Vsevolod exhaled, slithering his palms from Viktor’s grasp.
“It’s silly. Minus the sudden deadly danger hanging over me, of course. But it feels good to have gotten this off my chest. My god,” he groaned, pulling off his gloves. “And now you know why I can’t come with you.”

“Because you’re a magical being?”

Vsevolod just shrugged. 
“I suppose.”

Viktor hated seeing him like this—short of breath, uncharacteristically nonchalant, and uncertain. Even back when they were just pen pals, Vsevolod had always carried himself with a dignified erudition. He was never a man of few words, yet his explanation now felt rehearsed and artificial, a stark contrast to his usual spontaneous nature.
Something was off. Viktor couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being lied to, though the thought made no sense. Why? he wondered. Why lie to me? And what was with the fear? Was Vsevolod afraid of him? Viktor dismissed the notion almost immediately, but not before it ignited a flash of anger. He tried not to stare and found himself questioning odd details: Had Vsevolod’s eyes always been set so far apart? Or that color—had it changed?
Am I afraid of him? That thought, too, he discarded. Instead, it led him to an unexpected realization—this was Vsevolod. This man, tired and diminished, was still his friend. Their connection had never been built on appearances or certainty, but on letters filled with ideas, debates, and a shared reverence for the intangible. The discomfort of seeing Vsevolod like this made Viktor acutely aware of just how much he valued that bond. It wasn’t built on pride, but pride had somehow become a part of it—woven into Vsevolod’s voice, his mannerisms, and the unshakable confidence he once carried.
His anger deepened. It wasn’t directed at Vsevolod, or even at himself. It was aimed squarely at what had been lost—at the erosion of dignity and pride. Centaur or not, it was Vsevolod’s humanity that had been wounded, and that was what stung the most.

It was that same, deep-seated anger that defined what happened next. 

There was a sudden surge of energy coming from beneath them. Vsevolod felt the vibration up his spine. His eyes widened as he began to fumble for his wand which was not an easy task in his seated position. 
Viktor was faster, whipping about like an unattended water hose. His hornbeam wand sought out the threat in every cardinal direction, a litany of curses and enchantments queued up in his mouth like the teeth inside a shark maw. 

“Viktor!?” the Russian hissed. 

“The chimney! Back away from--”

He had no time to explain. Unlike Vsevolod, Viktor had always been, and still was, a man of few words. He sprung into action, grasping his friend’s empty hand with heels planted for leverage. He yanked him out of there just in time as the chimney vomited forth green flames. 

Viktor weighed his options against the threat, but he still couldn’t see an enemy. Nor did he have any protection against that cursed greenlight. Vsevolod was also pointing his wand at the chimney now, using Viktor’s shoulder to steady his arm at the elbow. He had to. He was shaking.
 
“What’s that?” Vsevolod asked. “No… Who’s that?”

Viktor was beginning to see it too - a certain face between the flames, round and familiar. 

“Father?!” 

Chapter Text

“One bite, then another,
the hen waltzes with the stars,
naming what must be.”
- Epopeya Papunyakova, Bulgarian author 

Viktor Starshi’s projected image spattered unevenly like a campfire in the rain - his lips were moving, but the sound of words was distant and muted as it echoed up the chimney’s length. The elder Krum’s face seemed to be straining as if trying to see beyond the horizon. Eventually, whether from reading his father’s lips or following some instinctive masculine behavior, Viktor Krum approached the chimney and slapped it. The image fizzled out of focus when he did. Then, the sound of fire roared through the flue. 

Viktor slapped the chimney again. This time, his father’s words came loud and clear, followed by the distant echo of his real voice down in the shed. As father and son engaged in a… spirited exchange—something about “respect” and “architecture,” though the words were lost in the crackle of flames—Vsevolod slowly lowered his wand and tried to decipher the Southern cousin of his mother tongue. Bulgarian lacked the princely lavishness of Russian but carried a beauty of its own. It was precise and old. It was a language that chiseled itself into the air rather than painting scenes of wordplay with gentle brushstrokes. The dissonance was mesmerizing, and Vsevolod, lost in his thoughts about linguistics, felt like someone was calling for him. Yes, I suppose it's much like a sculptor's chiseled arm… well, chiseling away at the marble. So rustic. So adroit, the Russian thought while still chasing the tail end of the arguing Krums and their stertorous speech when his friend called his name again—this time with a trailing “-e,” sharp and vocative, stripped of the soft, weaselly underbelly Russian had first lent it. No, this was no gentle whisper—it was a clash of velvety antlers, and ivory tusks meeting in sharp dispute. “Vsevolode?” This time, the name wasn’t just spoken; it was thrown at him, a verbal jolt like hands gripping his shoulders, shaking him back to the present.

“Daskale!” the younger Viktor's grunt rolled at him like a boulder than a hill. Then it switched to the tephric pitter-patter of English. “Earth to the Professor!? Vsevolod?”

“Sorry, I struggled to understand everything. It was just so… spirited. You were arguing? Something ab--,”

But Viktor Krum, suddenly insistent, intercepted him.
“Vsevolod,” he cleared his throat. “Vsevolod. This is my father. Architect Engineer Viktor Krum…. Starshi. Bulgarian’s all he speaks, but he welcomes you into our home and, uh, apologizes for just now showing up to meet you.”

Quickly bearing his gatherings, the Russian magimeteorologist instinctively forced a smile while father and son exchanged more fiery words. 
“W-what just happened?” he asked while focusing on the scarred projection of Viktor’s father. “Is he okay? He seems angry.”

“Nonsense. How to explain this in terms that make sense?” Viktor pondered out loud. “He thinks that all the expansions he has been making to the shed have disturbed the Floo Network of the fireplace. But he also claims it was intentional. Mostly. And of course, he claims he “has a guy,” who can fix this.”

“O-okay.”

“Come on, let’s go downstairs. He needs our help and wants to shake your hand.”

Down the ladder they went. The shed’s door was thick, but Viktor knew how to lean into it just right—shoulder pressing as he twisted the handle. With practiced ease, he barged inside.
The floor was polished concrete, softened by carpets and sheepskin furs. Along the walls, cabinets studded with zimnina^[IV.i] gleamed like treasure troves, their jars of pickled goods reflecting the green firelight from the hearth. Cauliflower pearls floated in brine beside emerald-green tomatoes and ruby-red peppers, their colors deepened by the garnet orange of carrots and the dark glisten of jeweled jams and compotes.
And among these rustic riches stood the larger-than-life figure of Krum Starshi. Krum Starshi was a monument of a man, and his handshake carried the weight of generations.

“My father says he’s glad he cooked for an extra person,” the younger Viktor translated some stray phrases. 

“Oh. And how did he know to expect a guest?” 

“He saw a.. a smok^[IV.ii] in the ashes of the fireplace this morning. It was probably looking for a warm place to sleep. He asks if you know what a smok in the fireplace means.”

“What does it mean? It must have been cold,” Vsevolod nonchalanted. “In the context of prophecies? What is a… smok? Some kind of reptile?”

“It is a snake. I don’t know how to translate it properly. No venom. Painful bite, though. I don’t know what answer he’s looking for,” young VIktor shrugged. “He’s probably just trying to show off to his new guest. You know.. Dad things.”

Vsevolod twirled the tip of his goatee. 
“I suppose it depends on the circumstances. Are we approaching this as a case of ophidiomancy^[IV.iii]? Are the ashes in the fireplace more important? Then I’d have to consider spodomancy^[IV.iv],” he pondered the possibility while twisting his goatee widdershins. “Neither of them are my specialty, but the Etruscans performed both. Do you realize how many ways there are to read a snake? More ways than there are to skin a cat, that’s for sure. Why, even since the time of the Babylonians, the very word for “snake,” has been synonymous with omens and portents. Honestly--,”

Translating for his father, Viktor Krum kept on nodding. 

Vsevolod continued, his voice rising in intensity. “The Mesopotamian collection Šumma ālu ina mēlê šakin^[IV.v] is full of omens about snakes inside a house. Most of them are… well, bad. But did the snake climb up or down the wall? Was it red? Was it nesting? Did it hiss, bite, or come in from the street?” His questions spilled out faster, each one more urgent than the last. Then, he paused dramatically, as though something critical had just occurred to him.
“It wasn’t coiled, was it? Ask him!”

His voice cut through the air, sharp and commanding. The details were everything, and he knew it. The smallest variation in the snake’s behavior could change the entire interpretation, and Vsevolod was desperate to know which omen they were dealing with. Or so it seemed. He couldn’t keep a straight face long enough and demonstrated the significance of a coiled snake by dragging a thumb across his throat. Remembering the long list of snake-related prophecies written in Akkadian cuneiform had been relatively straightforward - most of them foretold the death of the father, besting an adversary, loss of property, or in the case of the coiled snaked inside a household - the death of the father’s son. That part Vsevolod kept to himself. Instead, he offered half a dozen or so other interpretations until his friend waved him off and translated it all simply as “He doesn’t know.” Even Vsevolod understood it. 

“I’m all ears, then,” he admitted.    
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      "We have a saying about drinking—something about a smok. I guess they drink a lot? I don’t know. But my father says that if a smok takes up residence in your home, it means only one thing: a guest is coming for dinner… and he isn't bringing alcohol."

“Well, he’s not wrong,” Vsevolod rolled his eyes. He was going to have to carve that one onto the Babylonian tablets for completion’s sake. “But it’s not like I came empty-handed!”

They all laughed—not together and certainly not in unison. Vsevolod's laugh was somewhat strained and congested, while father and son chortled long-windedly until they were short of breath. As their laughter filled the cramped shed, Vsevolod couldn't shake the feeling that he had just passed some sort of test.
Then, seized by a sudden thought, the Russian turned to Krum Starshi and asked,
“Latine loqueris, architecte ingeniatorque^[IV.vi]?”

Krum Starshi nodded, cracking his wind-dried knuckles. “Latine loquor, sed…” He paused, searching for the right words. His fingers twitched as if sliding the beads of an abacus until the phrases “clicked” into place. “Videlicet difficultas, difficultas omnino ediscendae peregrinae linguae, quasi felle aspergebat omnes suavitates … Latinas fabulosarum narrationum. Nulla enim verba illa noveram, et saevis terroribus ac poenis ut nossem instabatur mihi vehementer.^[IV.vii]”

Both Vsevolod and Viktor the Younger felt the weight of those words, each syllable sliding into place like bullets chambered in a revolver. Vsevolod recognized the slightly altered quote from St. Augustine, repurposed to reflect the harsh reality of Krum’s childhood. It was remarkable how ancient words could summon such vivid, modern memories. He also had endured the displeasure of learning multiple languages under the tutelage of an insufferable old goblin—whose favorite student, rumor had it, had been the Mad Monk^[IV.viii] himself.
“Quaedam numquam mutant^[IV.ix],” was all he could say. He wanted to ask more, to explore the sudden gap in the armor that Krum Starshi had presented himself, but Vsevolod found himself incapable of doing so. It was as if Latin, long moribund, had lost its bedside manner entirely and atrophied beyond recognition. 
Viktor Krum Sr. gave him a solemn nod before Vsevolod switched to English for young Viktor’s benefit. “Well, at least we’ve found one common tongue.”

“This isn’t Sunday Mass at some Catholic church, you know?” Viktor quipped. To him, Latin was more a nuisance than anything else. He had always felt that the Cyrillic alphabet had been devised to break free from the hegemony of the ancient three—Hebrew, Latin, and Greek—which was precisely why his father had never bothered with Russian or English.

Unbothered by such historical baggage, Vsevolod sniffed the air, catching the aroma wafting from the hearth.
“What has your father cooked that smells so divine?”
Curious, he approached the fireplace. There, a large, glazed earthenware pot glistened over smoldering coals, its lid sealed with a dough crust sprinkled with poppy seeds. The ceramic exterior was painted in the vibrant Troyan style—swirling patterns of melted orange, white cobwebs, and splotches of yellow and green like trapped wasps in amber.

“Kapama,” answered Viktor’s dad in Bulgarian while breaking the bready seal. Chewing on it like it was some prized delicacy, he then lifted the lid, and a tangy aroma of fermented cabbage and succulent meats rose from the pot like steam from a hot spring. Vsevolod leaned over, revealing a caramelized layer of sauerkraut and shredded carrots. Pork ribs lined the inside like the staves of a barrel, their bones arching at the top, pale and hollowed, with meat that had fallen tenderly away—a sight that instantly made mouths water. Between them was a finer twist of ribs that lined the length of a bloated sausage like some scaley centipede that Vsevolod assumed used to be the smok in the fireplace. Mr. Krum had stuffed it like a blood sausage to the point of bursting.

“Kapama is my mother's favorite. My father cooks it every Women's Day,” the younger of the Viktors explained. “Help me carry the pot to the house. Here, you'll need these,” and he tossed Vsevolod a pair of thick, fireproof mittens. 

The two carried the pot of kapama like a mouth-watering thurible while Pavlina was running circles around them.  The scent was intoxicating: clay-singed fat, gamey venison, bold smoked paprika, and bay leaves layered over earthy peppercorn and fiery allspice. Beneath it all lay pork chops, with another spiral of blood sausage coiled in the middle, and a pudding-like layer of sauerkraut, mushroom caps, and white rice settled at the bottom. 
As soon as they entered, the aroma filled the villa’s main hall, softening the atmosphere like the warmth of a purring kitten. They placed the pot on a three-legged table, ladling the rich stew onto plates that matched the clay pot’s design. Viktor Sr. tore apart fresh-baked bread, and Mrs. Krum poured ruby-red Gamza wine from a wicker-wrapped demijohn. The young vintage, bold with blueberry and cherry notes and strong tannins, complemented the savory, sour, and sweet flavors of the meal. They ate in contented silence until the demijohn was only half-full, and the plates were wiped clean with the last bits of bread. 

The second half of the wine jug invited gossip and chatter late into the evening. Vsevolod explained his profession and field of study to Viktor's parents, who listened attentively, asking about the weather before shifting the conversation to Quidditch. Soon, they were recalling heated moments from matches between their national teams, the memories still fresh with rivalry.

Viktor, omitting certain details (like the centaurs), explained why Vsevolod needed to stay with them. This led to a cascade of toasts, bold promises, and half-serious boasts, all of which eventually drained the last of the wine and prompted Mrs. Krum to bring out bowls of cherry compote for dessert.

And so the evening went—seemingly, and in truth, for hours—until the Viktor cuckoo clock chimed 22 o’clock.

“Never gets old,” Vsevolod mused at the quirky clock.

Viktor shot him a look sharper than a Snitch’s turn.
“It’s time for some divination, my friend.”

“You’ve mentioned that. But what exactly do you have in mind? There’s no thunderstorm on the horizon.”

“True. But we already have everything we need.” Viktor’s eyes glinted with excitement. “At precisely 22:47 tonight, just 37 minutes after moonrise, the waxing gibbous will shift from Cancer to Leo. And now, you’re going to ask—”

“So what?”

“When the Sun or Moon is in Aries or Leo, it’s the best time for alectryomancy.”

Vsevolod blinked. “But we don’t h—. Oh. Ooooooooh. No way. You think it’ll work?”

“There are a lot of technicalities, but why not? It might help us crack our riddle. I wouldn’t trust it for anything more complicated than that, but divination by roosters has been used for far more important matters.” Viktor leaned forward, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “One of our... colleagues by birth, a Syrian wizard named Iamblicus, once used alectryomancy to predict the successor of Roman Emperor Valens. His rooster pecked only the letters spelling ‘THEO’ in Greek, which didn’t exactly narrow things down. When Valens heard about it, he panicked and ordered the execution of anyone named Theodorus, Theodotus, or Theodectes—just to be safe.”

Viktor gave a half-hearted shrug. “Seems a bit rude to predict someone’s replacement while they’re still alive and ruling.”

Vsevolod smirked. “Spoken like someone named after a certain khan wh—”

“Yeah, yeah. What happened next?”

“To Iamblicus? Poisoned himself. As for Valens, he was succeeded by the last emperor to rule over an undivided Rome—Theodosius I.” Vsevolod’s grin widened. “Now, pick up your jaw—we have a chicken hut to wrangle.”

There was some debate about which letters to use for the divination circle. The riddle was in English, but tradition dictated Greek or Etruscan letters. Vsevolod favored Greek, given Apollo’s mention in the riddle, but Viktor was adamant about using Cyrillic.

“You can’t start new traditions if you’re always clinging to the oldest ones, Vsevolod. We know it’s here, in Bulgaria. Somewhere along the coast. Let’s use the script of my people.” He clapped his friend on the shoulder for emphasis.

To his surprise, Vsevolod didn’t argue. Instead, he exhaled, nodding. “What’s one more technicality, right? Go ahead. You need to draw a circle within a circle, then segment the space between them into squares. Each square gets a letter.”

They picked a snowy patch of frozen ground behind the shed for the ritual. Viktor carefully scrawled all 30 letters of the Bulgarian alphabet inside the most symmetrical circles he had ever drawn.

“If I’m not on a broom or using my wand, my circles are atrocious,” he muttered, stepping back to admire his work.

Vsevolod smirked. “Your wandmanship is solid. Better than the scribbles in your letters.”

“If you keep talking like that, I’ll have my mother feed you nothing but Pavlina’s eggs the entire time you’re here,” Viktor shot back.

“Noted. Most dully noted,” Vsevolod sighed. “Now, you need to place a single piece of caviar in each square. Then, just bring Pavlina out. We’ll put her in the center and record the letters she chooses.”

“Noted,” Viktor mimicked him, rolling his eyes.

Partitioning one tiny fish egg per letter turned out to be an excruciatingly tedious task, as evidenced by Viktor’s muffled curses.

Pavlina arrived at her own pace, her window-like eyes scanning the circle with cautious suspicion. Vsevolod tried to entice her with a spoonful of black caviar. After an extended moment of deep contemplation, she accepted.

“I know it’s way past your bedtime, girl,” Viktor murmured, gently tossing her into the inner circle.

Kudkudyak? Pavlina chattered, shaking out her feathers. The wind caught her weathervane crest, spinning it once, then twice. Kud-kuuuuu-DYAK!

A second bird call rang through the night. This one was not Pavlina’s—a deep, lingering Kroooooh that sent a familiar chill down Viktor’s spine. Moments later, a snowy owl landed squarely on his shoulder, its wings still half-spread.

Krooh. Krooh. Krooh!!

The owl extended a feathery thigh. Viktor unrolled the parchment tied to it, bracing himself for bad news. But the moment he saw the text was in Bulgarian, his worst-case scenarios evaporated. He scanned the handful of sentences once, then twice.

“Caviar?” he offered absently.

The owl leaned away from the spoon as if it had just been handed dragon dung, then, in the rudest rejection Viktor had ever experienced, it swiveled its head nearly 270 degrees and took off without a sound.

Before he could even comment, Vsevolod let out a delighted squeak. “Look! Vitya, look! It’s working! She pecked the letter ‘К’! Replace it, hurry!”

Pavlina, apparently waiting for Viktor, gobbled up the next offering the second it landed.

“‘К’ again. Okay. Next?”

“‘A’!”

“…‘A’ again.”

The Russian continued scribbling the pecked letters into the snow at his feet. “‘A’ a third time.”

The ritual continued until Pavlina, apparently satisfied, hopped out of the circle and began preening her tail feathers.

Viktor stared at the letters in the snow.

“By the cliffs where a despot held domain,
Where shags and shrikes nest and monks gave cries,
Seek Apollo’s worn statue, weathered and stained,
Since his iron eagle flew in blackened skies,” he recited.

Vsevolod squinted at the letters they had gathered. “It’s out of order. К-К-А-А-А-Р-Л-И… Ring any bells?”

Viktor rubbed his hands together for warmth, deep in thought. “By the cliffs, huh? Somewhere along the coast…” His eyes lit up. “…Oh. Hahaha! It’s too on the nose. Literally.”

He turned to Vsevolod. “It’s Cape Kaliakra. ‘Cape’ in Bulgarian is ‘нос.’”

Vsevolod blinked. “Oh. In Russian, that means ‘nose.’ I think I get it.”

“There’s nothing to get.” Viktor shrugged. “Cape Kaliakra is famous. But I don’t know anything about an Apollo statue there.”

Vsevolod practically bounced with excitement. “Then we’ll find it!”

Viktor, however, had a somber look in the pale moonlight. “Not yet.”

“Why not?”

Viktor sighed. “My Quidditch team just got invited to play in Mongolia.”

“Mongolia!?”

“Yeah. Land of horses and archers. I’m sure it has nothing to do with our little Sagittarius quest. Nothing at all.”