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Wizard 101: Never talk to your mirror. It might turn out to be a magic mirror.
Being too pureblood to have seen a Disney film growing up, Yuri was tragically unaware of this on the day he got up and spoke to his mirror. To be fair, he was still more than a little tipsy from the night before. Some sort of celebration was had. He couldn't remember. At first he spoke to the beautifully wide, hotel style mirror in his Viktor's beautifully large, hotel style bathroom because he imagined Viktor was not suffering a raging headache.
“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all. Answer: Me…but I kinda want to be Viktor Krumoff right now.” he mumbled, doing his friend the honour of reattaching the chopped off tip of his name after it had been snipped off to fit in with the international market, his forehead resting on a forearm which was itself resting on the marble sink.
The mirror shivered silver, and then the man half leaned over in it stood up straight and spoke. “Why? You're better looking than him. Even with all those moles.”
Sadly without another mirror, the mirror man couldn't admire himself. He simply had to go by his counterpart’s extensive memories of appreciating his own appearance. Unlike Viktor he wasn't gangly, and he was neither thin nor fat nor over muscled, but just right. Like the porridge from that one fairy…
“What do you mean ‘even’? These are called beauty spots for a reason. Also, he can fly real good…”
“So can birds. You can fight real good. Meanwhile, he beat up some children once, and only once. Also, he gets no girls. Zero girls. Nada. Zilch. Can you tolerate that? I don't think so.”
“He sits on a broom like such a badass…”
“I guarantee there's more pain involved there than you can imagine. Have you ever sat on a broom for twelve hours straight?”
“He doesn't have a headache.”
“I don't know where you get that idea from. I know you think Bulgarians are jokes, but just because he hasn't frozen to death in a gutter outside doesn't mean he hasn't drunk just as much as you.”
"There's no way he has a headache. He drinks like a woman-"
Seeing that the young man so foolishly babbling away at him would continue to bring up inanities in the time honoured Russian way, the mirror decided to teach him a lesson.
“Fine, be like that. Be Viktor for a day. See how you like it, pal.” The pane of glass shivered again, and the young man's eyes in it transformed into fully black orbs. He then turned and left the room (and mirror), and Viktor Krum entered, taking his place. Unlike Yuri, he was wearing a shirt.
Thanks to the drunkenness slash hangover, Yuri was initially unaware that when he eventually stumbled out of the bathroom he stumbled out as the biggest sporting superstar in the wizarding world. However, he soon became aware of a problem when his new, longer limbs began pinwheeling about and getting into trouble without his consent, and he bashed his skull on an overhanging thing??? which the real Viktor always ducked.
“Lord help me. I'm tall. Vitya! What's wrong with you?!” he hissed, while studying his new left hand. There was more than one, and it kept floating around. It was also way larger and much less handsome than he was used to. “I already don't like this.” he said, in a normal voice.
He liked it even less when he arrived back at his bed and found his friend sleeping in it. The fact that his friend was wearing his body was a secondary concern. He was very precious about his bed, and not getting crumbs in it, which was what Viktor did in his own on his off days when he'd lie around, behaving like a muggle and watching Trisha with a pyramid of cheese covered rice cakes beside him.
“I'm going to beat you so hard if you do anything like that to my bed, or while wearing my body. So hard. If you put a pound on it I'm going-” After about five minutes of hissing threats into his own ear, he stumbled off to the purgatory that was Viktor's bedroom. Unlike his it was not cool or stylish or even functional, but just some barely furnished man-cave the celebrity slept and watched Trisha in. No wonder he couldn't get the quote unquote ‘pretty’ girls of his dreams, and had to settle for nothing. How strange - to have high standards for one's women and no standards for one's living environment. The complete opposite of his best friend's priorities.
'Yes, but that's why you have had to be healed of syphilis five separate times, Yura, and me never.' he imagined Viktor saying, in Yuri's voice. Well, the only cure for the tragedy of being tall and ugly is to drink more vodka, which Yuri attempted to do upon navigating his way to Viktor's room, only to be hit with the terrible realisation that the man was Bulgarian, and thus had not vodka sitting around the flat surfaces of his bedroom, but some sort of brandy or whatever his barbaric national drink was.
“He'll! What's wrong with you! How do you live?!” cried a distant voice. Viktor, dozing away happily amongst dreams of brooms and pretty girls, turned in his sleep, resting with his hands neatly tucked beneath a cheek.
“Oh yeah, you don't live. We had to come save you from five centuries of being LAME!” cried the voice some more.
Viktor giggled in his sleep, a trait the boys shared in equal measure.
A little later, Viktor's magical Bulgarian lion alarm clock rang, waking Yuri with a roar and a shower of rose petals after only half an hour's sleep. His headache was less, but his queasiness was more. And he was still Viktor Krum, and in bed full of crumbs. At least he was wearing a shirt. Why didn't he think of that? Oh yes, because unlike Viktor he wasn't burdened with a physique which required hiding.
“Vitya…don't you have a match today? An important match?” he asked, over breakfast, which the pair of friends always ate at the bar in the kitchen like the eternal university students they were, despite never having attended magical university.
For a moment Viktor continued to eat, contentedly munching his Bulgarian breakfast, then he made a face with Yuri's handsome muscles and skin and eyes and lips. A very stupid face.
“OHMYGARSH!”
It's all fun and games wearing your friend's body like a nice soft t-shirt or set of pyjamas, exchanging your gangly awkward Ferrari of a form for his perfect Lamborghini figure…until said friend needs to do your job for you.
“What are we gonna do?”
“You're going to have to play the match, that's all. You’ve got my body, you'll be fine.”
“I've got your body but my mind. What about your specialised knowledge? Acquired over a lifetime of hard work and obsession?”
Viktor returned to eating. “You don't need knowledge to play quidditch. Just catch the snitch, dumbass.”
🦅🐺
‘Just catch the snitch’ - Easier said than done, as it turns out.
“Viktor, why do you look so bamboozled?” asked Yuri's coach when he presented Viktor's body at the place (stadium??) he was supposed to present it at. The man stared into his face, eyebrows furrowed, but of course he would never suspect that a different person was piloting the vehicle he'd come to know and tolerate.
“My flatmate was giving me hell. Nagging, you know.” Yuri said, assuming he was speaking the way Viktor must when he himself was out of earshot.
“Huh? Really? I thought he was very relaxed? Oh well, even men have their moods,” the coach returned to a sheet he was reading, which looked like Ancient Runes but was actually something to do with quidditch. After a beat he looked back up at his number one player. “Well go get changed then. The match can't start without you, fly boy.”
Shock, horror - changing rooms. Of course these were, unfortunately, a thing at Durmstrang, but Yuri thought he'd escaped the torture when he'd run his ass away from the place like a fairytale princess escaping a bad arranged marriage, but no. At least it was Viktor's body which would be getting gawked at and commented on this time.
“Hey, Viktor. Looking good.” commented one of Yuri's teammates, a man he'd seen many times live or in photos but who he still didn't know the name of. He didn't know the names of any of his friend's teammates, in fact. They were Bulgarian, mostly, so why would he bother?
“I know.” he replied, while fumbling with his locker…he had no key. Viktor failed to mention that his uniform didn't magically appear on his body when he arrived at his place of employment. So Yuri had no key, leaving him staring at a flat piece of locked steel, behind which was the uniform he needed if he was really going to pretend to be the one and only Viktor Krum(off). Well, only one thing for it…
“Viktor? What are you-”
An explosion several explosions rocked the long, twirly whirly combined locker and shower room, Yuri casting a spell to open his own locker, but using Viktor's wand and Viktor's body to do it, resulting in every single one blowing up except his own.
“Are you in an extreme strength bad mood today or something?!” yelled some twerp calling itself Volkov, shreds of clothing and clouds of talcum powder and foot fungus medicine flying around the room, choking everyone. Whatever, even if the entire team collapsed it would make no difference so long as Viktor/Yuri himself didn't.
“I have a headache.” Yuri eventually replied, after opening his locker the old fashioned way, i.e with a crowbar.
Author: WHY are you like this?
Yuri: Excuse me? Like what? Who are you?
Author: The author. Obviously. Who else would be talking to you from out of the ether?
Yuri: God, typically.
Author: Your only god is me, because you’re neither real nor a popular character.
Yuri: WHAT
Autjor: To quote Hot Fuzz - ‘Shame.’ - for everyone else I mean, not you. I’m semi-happy about it, cause now I can mold you however I like, and I don’t have to be upset by other’s people stupid headcannons and batshit insane-
Yuri: You sound insufferable.
Author: And you sound like me…So what does that tell you, mate?
Next stop: broom. The veichles, the best that could be produced by the magical hands of man, were kept locked up in a high security vault after being delivered to the stadium in a high security carriage. Trolls guarded them every inch of the way, and even Viktor/Yuri had to be frisked to within an inch of his life like he was going to do who knows what upon entering the vault to collect his steed, a Firebolt: Extreme2BillionBadass, an item worth more than all of the Balkans (lol) together.
“Krum, stop faffing about. Here.” A tiny woman with the face of an Easter Island statue beckoned him over after everyone else had been given their brooms, released by her from their own individual troll-proof glass cases.
“I’m the most important person here, so why am I last?” asked Yuri, upon stepping up to the woman. In response she picked up a perfectly ordinary broom and whacked him in the side with it.
“Ow! What the-”
Whack! Again, on the shoulders, hard enough to create a welt and snap the broom.
“Speak when spoken to, boy! Important. Hmpf!”
An esoteric ritual began, the woman muttering as she unlocked a series of locks, muttering incantations Yuri couldn't catch, and didn't want to. Serious business this professional quidditch thing. Eventually, after fifteen minutes of bullshit, the Firebolt emerged into the free air, but the woman still wouldn't give it to its rider till he held out his hand to her, which she promptly nicked with a small silver knife, then bade him wrap his bloody palm around the scarlet handle of the racing broom.
The priceless item promptly exploded into a million pieces, leaving him holding dust.
🦅🐺
“You must catch the snitch when your team has one hundred points and the Germans have two hundred and forty.”
The Bulgarian national team's manager, upon being told that the best broom in the world had suffered a spontaneous implosion, suffered a couple heart attacks and then disapparated away, returning in a wretched half-dead state, but with a replacement in hand. That one didn't explode when Yuri touched it, chiefly because the old woman couldn't be bothered to go through her ritual again. Then the manager told him something he already knew, that being that he must catch the snitch.
“Why so specific? Can't I catch it whenever we have enough points to win?” he asked, innocently.
The manager frowned, then scowled. “Are you trying to be funny, boy?”
Worried that being funny might out him as an impostor, Yuri shook Viktor's head, resorting to the latter's tactic of tactical muteness.
“One hundred to two hundred and forty, got it?!” barked the manger.
Yuri nodded
“Good, now get out there and do your job.” For some reason the man felt the need to slap him for luck. If he had slapped him on the cheek Yuri might not have minded so much, but alas.
To go out he had to climb on his broom, but it was not like he'd never flown before. Viktor was his best friend for Pete's sake. They flew together often, hardcore flights too. There was no way he was going to risk attempting Viktor's more flamboyant moves though, so when he and the rest of his team surged out of the tunnel into the bubble of air contained within the stadium he had to disappoint the fans by flying like a normal human being, and not a demi-god, barreling past the thousands of eyes, lights, and cameras blinking from the stands, trying desperately not to fly into one of his teammates or the crowd. That by itself was an ordeal, even after having charms applied to him that meant he wasn't affected by the rushing wind or the flood lights.
“Krum didn't do a flip?! Is he sick?” Squawked hundreds of throats as he passed by at a tremendous speed, crimson cape flapping like a muggle superhero's. Tomorrow his alleged illness would be all over the front page news and gossip pages.
“Krum! Why didn't you do a flip?” asked the magical stone in his ear which relied instructions from the manager.
“I have a headache.” Yuri said again, after doing what Viktor always did, which was accept the homage of the people, singled out for adoration above all others, the Bulgarian and German teams patiently waiting in position for him to have had enough.
“What?! Why didn't you say something?!”
Yuri thought it prudent not to say anything again as he took his place, mind busy with recalling everything the real Viktor had ever said and done in relation to his job. Suddenly the strangeness of his taller, thinner body was becoming a problem, too much of his thought going into wielding it, instead of wearing it as naturally as he wore his own.
“Don't screw this up, boy, or I'll put you on the most decrepit thestral carriage I can find and send you across the Atlantic to teach the Americans how to fly.” growled the voice in his ear.
“I'm thirty-two years old.” said Yuri, gloved hands tightening on his broom handle as the referee put his whistle to his lips and the immense crowd held its breath.
“What?! No you aren't-”
The whistle blew and Yuri shot straight up, just like Viktor always did. From there he'd scan the entire field like the eagle he greatly resembled, searching for a tiny golden field mouse, dark eyes wide and unblinking, furious in their intensity, jaw muscles clenching and unclenching. Getting into being Viktor, who he knew better than Viktor himself knew Viktor, and not keen on being around Americans, Yuri put his all into it, tuning out everything else.
Eighty - two hundred
Eighty - two hundred twenty
One hundred - two hundred twenty
Well, almost everything else. A pretty sound drifted in over the white noise.
‘I'm sorry if I say, "I need you"
But I don't care, I'm not scared of love
'Cause when I'm not with you, I'm weaker'
Down in the stands, on an elevated platform, young men younger than himself, boys more truly, were gyrating for the entertainment of the crowd while they waited for Krum to do something epic.
“Oh, Merlin's beard! Boy band.” hissed Yuri, when he unzoomed his more than ordinarily acute eyes from the group. Oh my gosh, One Direction is here. Vitya’s favourite band, he thought. Worse than America and a decrepit carriage. Can't embarrass Viktor in front of them. He'll never forgive me.
‘Is that so wrong? Is it so wrong
That you make me strong?’
Their boyish voices, amplified many hundreds of times by magic, floated sweetly up to him, plucking at his ears, sliding down his ear canals, no matter how he thrashed and attempted to stop it. The sound waves were insistent, and he would listen to their catchy melody whether he liked it or not. Is that so wrong? Would it be wrong to say that the song was making him…strong?
“Is there something wrong with Viktor Krum? Is he having a fit?!” screamed thousands of people, including the real Viktor Krum.
“I think he's about to perform the Wronski Feint!”
No, he was about to catch the snitch, and he did become possessed by the music, possessed twice over, his rolling eyes catching on a flicker of gold. At a steep seventy-five degrees he dove, moving at three hundred miles per hour at the tail end of the dive. Shards of wood, people, and even heavy iron bludgers flew by to either side, knocked flying by Yuri slamming into them or delivering glancing blows from the force of his passage. The little golden bitch of a ball fluttered around above the grass, tempting seekers to kill themselves in an attempt to catch it. Reaching one hand out and pulling up with the other the same way Viktor had shown off for him many times before, Yuri tilted his magnificent broom nose up just in time, within the last inch, snatching the snitch out of the air and keeping it captured within the cage of his fingers as he surged back into the sky, taking out a few more players and pieces of equipment in the process, shooting past a singing, dancing boy band, who lifted their hands to salute the scarlet comet, fireworks in red and black bursting free from the top of the stadium.
‘Is that so wrong? Is it so wrong
That you make me strong?’
🦅🐺
Earlier the same day, Viktor, in Yuri's body, was having a grand old time, strolling down the streets of Sofia with a bounce in his step, more than a bounce in fact, a dance. No one knew who he was, for one, and for second he had charisma and the sort of good looks which enslave people upon sight, as well as a cold violent temperament and the skills to back it up. Plus, he was wearing Yuri's best black military inspired robes. Life on easy mode, like being a female, that's what he got in the body swap. No stress coming from being shackled to a beast of an industry. No catastrophic failures with women to his name. Just some bastard of a father, a job in law enforcement, and the burden of being Russian. Dealable.
With confidence so high it was somewhere in space, he danced his way through crowds of locals and holidaymakers into his favourite Bulgarian restaurant, a place like a fairytale where he rarely got to go or else he'd be mobbed. It had reached the point where Yuri would be mobbed too, since he was recognised as being Viktor's friend, but Viktor hoped a pair of muggle sunglasses covering his beautiful eyes would cut down the risk of his beautiful body being noticed.
When he entered he scanned the room as Yuri did whenever he entered a room, looking for something to destroy inevitably, and immediately spotted a familiar looking couple, sitting at a table by the window, arguing in whispers that were doing nothing to prevent them being overhead.
“What do you wanna go see him play for, 'Mione?!”
“What do you mean? It's Viktor Krum, Ronald!”
“Yeah, but so? You can see him on a chocolate frog card any day. We're already in bloody Bulgaria. Isn't that enough?”
“We came here for you! I want to watch him for you!”
“And for you. You guys are friends. Still...”
“Yes, so? Is that a problem, Ron? Please be honest and say so instead of going along just to get along. I promise I won't bite.”
Striding over to the couple, Yuri/Viktor snatched his sunglasses off and bent down, holding a strong hand out to the young woman, hitting a stunned Hermione with the full force of his liquid gaze, like staring into the eyes of a hundred poets all at once. “I hold VIP tickets to all Viktor’s matches. Would you to like attend with me, Hermione?”
To her credit, Hermione spared the briefest glance for her red haired companion, who was already sinking deeper into the turgid mass of sloth he lived in, then turned back to the striking stranger who was no stranger at all, but someone she well knew. “Oh my word, yes!” Taking Yuri/Viktor's hand, she threw her napkin onto the table with the other, the pair of people laughing as they ran out of the restaurant, leaving Ron sitting thunder faced all alone.