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"You'll write to me?"
"Yes, Viktor. Thank you ever so much."
A boy and a girl move closer under the eaves of a railway station platform, or, rather, a boy moves closer to a girl, taking hold of her chin and kissing her gently, making her giggle and look around before turning her face back to him, allowing him to kiss her some more. Her hands tangle in the fur of his coat, pulling him close.
It's this scene that plays and replays in that boy's head as he puts himself through stress and strife several years after that kiss.
"This is an extremely bad idea. This is an evil place, I don't like this at all, and I don't like that you're forcing me to do this." Mutters Yuri Karkaroff, as he tramps through a wood tumbling down the flanks of mountains lining the frighteningly large lake which he calls home, the forest sitting between the jaws of the folds of stone and rock like a furry green tongue. A furry green tongue lapping at an almost painfully blue lake whose beauty obscures its malice. It's Viktor's idea to go stomping around in this dark place, as many such bad ideas are.
Speaking of the superstar, he risks a turn of his head to fix his friend with a manic smile, dry lips and the corners of his too bright eyes turning upwards. "Yet you live here, Yura. How can you call where you live 'evil'? And I'm not forcing you to do anything. You can walk away anytime."
"I was born here, as you know. A person can't help where they're born."
"You're rich. You could move. Wherever you like."
To that assertion, Yuri simply stares, and Viktor, unless he wants to walk into a tree or trip over a root, turns his gaze back to forward facing. A pair of footsteps crunch over dead and dying leaves and needles, moving ever upwards, the climb very steep in places. But that's what being a wizard is for, and the young men, boys really, begin apprarating past the really difficult parts.
The sun is still riding high in the hazy white sky, but drifting downwards towards the western horizon, when the duo make it to their destination in the middle of an ancient stone circle of intensely ominous mien. Twisted trees intertwine their branches above and their roots below it to make a secret, evil bower. And even so, the trek is far from done.
"Go on then. Do your thing, o' shaman." Says Viktor, when the ravens have ceased croaking and the sinister hiss of leaves dragging across each other in the foetid breeze has died down somewhat.
His companion's finely shaped nostrils flare. "It stinks of blood in this clearing."
Although he came prepared for creepiness, had decided to endure as much of it as he needs to in order to achieve his goal, Viktor still glances around at the ancient lichen covered basalt pillars surrounding him, some of which stand straight, some of which lean forward or back, seemingly enticed or repulsed by what they have witnessed occuring on the stone altar in the centre of the ring.
Yuri approaches the altar, and studies the lines of it, the etched symbols and the dark stains. The light (failing rapidly) plays with the pits in the stone. Pointed and deep holes, as if made with a silver knife. "Vitya, think again about this. These things never end well, and she is just a woman, one of millions." he cautions.
"I am not a heartless dog like you. I love only one." Huffs the voice at his back.
The gnarled trees shiver, their rustling dragging the celebrity's gaze up.
"Heartless, hey…" Yuri pulls off his gloves and places his hands on the altar, whose runes light up red in response. "Hmm, speaking of which…you want to transfix the Granger girl's heart and make it yours, is that it?" he stares off into the undergrowth, now on its way to pitch black. Shining white eyes stare back.
Viktor's voice grows increasingly gruff as he becomes increasingly perturbed by where he finds himself. The light is fading unnaturally fast, as if he and his best mate have entered a different, worse dimension. "You know Hermy-own is the only one for me. Stop putting this off."
"You never looked for another girl?"
"I never stopped looking. For Hermy-own."
How romantic, thinks Yuri, as he begins the dark magic ritual taught him by his father, Igor Karkaroff, master of much that goes beyond what even Durmstrang teaches. The spell Viktor wants performed is something like a love potion combined with the Imperious curse, and makes a person a slave for life, but with no visible signs of such mental clouding. To all but others who have experience of ancient, evil magic, they will appear as they always did, their decisions reasonable, no matter if such decisions might involve strange u-turns. Now, in order to make contact with the abyssal fiends which allow one to pull off such a feat, one requires a host of ingredients, chief of which are human sacrifices.
There are no human sacrifices present, unless one counts Viktor. No, Yuri failed to mention the exact workings of the spell, only saying that he would transfigure a plant into an animal sacrifice, and that the ritual could go very very wrong. At that point, his friend did not want to hear any more.
"What are you doing?" Viktor asks, when his pal is waving his wand over a nearby shrub. It turns into a dog, which he promptly ties up via a spell. A cat is more typical, but Yuri is what the kids call 'butthurt'.
"Sometimes I think you only associate with me because of what I do for you. Or can do." the latter growls, dropping the dog onto the altar. "And step into the circle. It wont work if you're outside it."
Most reluctantly, Viktor puts first his toes, and then his entire foot past the borders of the stone circle. In response it flashes red in jagged shapes, forcing a yelp from his throat. "You know that's not true, but I would be foolish not to ask for the help you can provide."
"Ask….Yes." Recalling the 'asking', which involved manhandling and veiled hints that VIP quidditch passes don't come cheap, Yuri grows even more pissed off. Time to break out the Latin, Latin which Viktor doesn't know very well, never doing much more than reciting incantations in parrot fashion.
"Nates tibi calcibus afficiam, arroganter stulte. Melius est te statim veniam petere, alioquin consequentias perferre-"
"Ah!" Viktor claps his hands to his fur covered ears, the standing stones bouncing the sound of the chant off each other and greatly increasing it. The world turns completely dark, save for the red glow of the stone and the pale white fire of watching…things.
After several rounds of this, the unwilling black magician pulls a silver knife from under his clothes and ceremoniously unceremoniously kills the faux dog, turning with bloody knife raised to face the only other human in the area. "Now, Vitya, stand still-"
At that Viktor Krum turns on his heel and takes off running, nerves frayed completely, leaves flying in his wake.
"Oh, man. I hadn't even reached the fun part." Sighing greatly, the older boy replaces his blade in a secret pocket, then transforms into his wolf form, intending to derive some enjoyment from chasing the fleshy stick that is Viktor.
Only Viktor is tripped up by wicked Baikal, and thrown some ways down the side of the mountain, and when Yuri catches up with him, he finds him impaled on a thin, pointed branch shaped like a spear.
"…That looks painful." he says, upon returning to normal and approaching.
"You think?!?" Viktor gasps, white faced and struggling to heave himself off the thing, which has gone through his chest and out the other side.
Yuri, typically stone-faced, grins, revealing teeth like something found at the bottom of the ocean, or the bottom of monstrous Baikal itself. He flashes his black eyebrows to complete the diabolic effect. "…Now who is heartless?"
Viktor turns from bone white to ashen grey. "Huh?! Stop making jokes and help me, you bas-" But the sufferer passes out before he can finish his sentence, highly insured blood sliding down the branch transfixing him to rain onto the leaf litter below. A breeze picks up the gore splattered leaves and twirls them around in little twisters.
His friend stares a moment more, before snapping the offending tree limb and yanking it out of the young man, sealing the holes in his back and chest and then tossing him over his shoulder. "It's very difficult to be your friend, Vitya." he says, before apparating away, the leaf litter continuing to dance in the dark after he's gone.