Chapter Text

POV Albus Dumbledore

Chapter 1 – Arrival

Cold was the first sensation I felt, when the ship broke water surface with a deep, gurgling sound. It swayed softly back and forth, as light flooded the small cabin, rendering the dusty yellow lamps along the slouched ceiling redundant. They looked pale now, like ambers. Faintly glowing. The ship’s rounded windows were small, with algae and foamy lake water running down the glass, but the brightness outside was overwhelming, even this early in the morning.

When I climbed the narrow stairs to the main deck, which proved challenging, as the ship had started moving forwards, swaying, still, I found Vasili, the skipper, waiting for me. He’d started smoking his pipe again. Small, greenish-grey clouds came out of it, concealing parts of his salt and pepper beard, as well as a prominent nose. It was neither hooked nor very large, just prominent. Red, veiny, while the rest of his face had a withered, leathery quality, as did his hands. He looked hunched, when he walked, but his voice was surprisingly soft. (This, of course, had taken me some time to figure out, as he didn’t speak much.) I couldn’t have guessed his age, if my life depended on it.

“Good morning.”

“Yes,” Vasily said, looking at me with the same calm and weary expression he’d had last night when I came aboard. I suspected he didn’t speak much English.

“It’s beautiful.” I took in the scenery. The lake was crystal clear – a shade somewhere between deepest blue and bright tourqoise – and surrounded by mountains, as far as the eyes could see. One one side, the mountains were of a lush green. Vibrant, even more so than the hills around Hogwarts were. On the other side, spikey, silvery-grey cliffs, towering so tall that they disappeared in the feathery clouds above or were covered in snow – it was hard to tell. One couldn’t see the mountain tops with bare eyes – not from here anyways.

“Krasivyy,” Vasily agreed, taking the pipe out of his mouth. He took a swig from a hip flask, sealed into a leather pouch, then looked at me as if he couldn’t decide whether to offer me some of his drink. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to find out what he was drinking this close after dawn.

“Is this Russia? I always believed, the school was located in Sweden!” I looked around, trying to find indicators in the local flora and fauna, trying to spot animals, magical creatures, that would tell me anything, but the mountains were deserted. If not for the vibrant green, they would have looked eerily lifeless.

“No,” Vasily said. He didn’t elaborate.

After several more minutes, a light mist sunk over the water surface, cloaking the ship. It wasn’t moist, as it would have been in England. If I wasn’t looking at it – and it was unmistakable there, I barely could see Vasily’s face now – I would have believed it wasn’t there at all. A magical illusion. One last charm to shield the castle from sight. When it lifted, a long, wooden dock became visible. It looked withered, damaged from the moisture in places.

“We haf arrifd,” Vasili said, when the ship hit the dock, and all movement halted.

Vasili helped me climb down a side ladder, while my trunk floated down by my side and I faintly wondered how little children managed this journey every year. It didn’t seem particularly safe or comfortable, not compared to the Hogwarts Express, at least.

“Thank you. Will it be much farther? Should I contact someone – I wasn’t told…”

“Up,” Vasily said. He pointed one leathery finger to the end of the deck. In the shadows, a blackened gondola lift hung between the cliffs. As the morning sun hit it, the gondola’s surface reflected it, shimmering, almost. The surface, beneath peeling paint, was made of a metal, neither gold nor silver, as it looked to dark for either option.

“Gud-bye, Dumbel-dorr,” Vasily said. He didn’t offer me his hand. I wasn’t sure whether this wasn’t a custom in the North, or whether he simply didn’t like handshakes. Based on my first impression of him, both were very much possible. It would have been rude to insist.

“Good bye. I hope you have a pleasant journey back. And thank you so much for your help. I hope I didn’t take up too much of your time – your family must have missed you.” I didn’t know why I said it. it just felt a touch ungrateful, not to make any conversation at all.

“Ah, dey laik sometime away from me,” Vasily said, stuffing his pipe once more. “Dey say I’m…  Kakoye eto bylo slovo… chatterbox.”

“I would never have been able to tell,” I told him with a conspiratorial smile, and his eyes narrowed, then he gave me a wink. I could tell that it was his way of smiling back.

“Gud luck,” were his last words, before he climbed back on the ship. the message, for all its nicety had an ominous ring to it, as if to say: ‘You’re going to need it.’

The gondola, for all its rustic, aged appearance, sailed up into the mountains in a silky, effortless movement. I could see the ship sailing away, as I rose high into the air. From above, it had a strangely skeletal look about it, as though it were a resurrected wreck, and the dim, misty lights shimmering at its portholes looked like ghostly eyes. Finally, in a whirl of rising water, it sank beneath the lake’s surface once more. within seconds, the water was undisturbed. Calm, untouched nature. As if no living soul had ever been there.

When the gondola lift had reached the mountain top, the mist had almost lifted. I could make out the rough outline of a castle. Only when I came closer, it became apparent that it had been quite visible from the start. It simply looked so much like the stone cliffs, dark grey, sharp and rugged, that I hadn’t been able to tell what I’d been looking at. There was a grim beauty to it, though it must look quite intimidating to children’s eyes.

Out of the mist stepped a woman wearing a fur coat over her robes, which seemed sensible for a  frigid September morning. She seemed to be frowning at me. yet when she extended her hand in welcome, I could tell that it had been an attempt at a smile.

“Welcome to Durmstrang.”