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"Trust me, Vitya. I didn't plan this," says Yuri Igorevich Karkaroff to his best friend of many years, Viktor Krum(off). Says so with the slightest hint of a smirk. Just the slightest hint of the Duper's Delight that often afflicts his father. "It's not my fault. Soulbonds and soulmates and all that happen regardless of what the desires of the victims may be."
Viktor, sitting on the man's leather sofa with a soothing cup of tea in one hand and a consoling bottle of vodka in the other, stares at his interlocutor with bemusement, and also a touch of brotherly hostility.
Truly though, it's not Yuri's fault. Truly. One cannot induce such a thing as a soulbond. The greatest wizards have been trying for thousands of years to develop the ability to make women fall in love with them at will, and never once has it occurred, quite the opposite, causing the class as a whole to turn to the pursuit of immortality and material wealth in the form of the Philosopher's Stone, as a consolation prize. At least then they will have the thing all women want, and infinite time to try and convince a female to tolerate them.
"I will treat your sister as more of a queen then any real queen has ever been treated." Yuri continues, in what he imagines is his 'reassuring voice'.
With his teacup already halfway to his lips, Viktor onehandedly spins the lid off his vodka bottle, and takes a big gulp while he still has tea in his mouth, eyes bulging out of his head at the mixture. Master of quidditch, master of drinking.
"Red string!" he gasps, throat burning twice over.
"Hmm?"
"Red string of fate, asshole. Russian, do you speak it?! Where is the string?" Surging to his feet, Viktor goes sniffing around his pal like a bloodhound, knocking him onto the sofa and grabbing each of his bony ankles in turn. He locates no red string.
"Our soulmarks are different, look," Yuri, still lying upended on the sofa, pulls up his left sleeve to reveal what appears to be a Dark Mark, but spitting roses instead of a snake. "Viktoria has the same one."
"That's a tattoo. An ugly one." says Viktor, dully.
"What do you think a soulmark is, Vitya? A tattoo done by God Himself."
"And He knows what you're like. No way He'd do this."
"What is that supposed to mean? I'm the nicest guy."
To that Viktor shakes his head and takes another sip of vodka. "Nice guy. Yeah."
"I love your sister. I'll make her happy, I promise you." Vulnerably earnest as he rarely is, Yuri climbs to his feet and gets in his friend's face in a way that could be described as 'aggressively genuine'.
In response, Viktor burps, causing the other man to yelp and hiss. "You'd better, Yura, or I'll turn you into a decoration like that one." He gestures at a tiger skin rug lying on the floor.