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“Vitya, here.” One Yuri Karkaroff, on a bright Friday morning one day not long after Voldemort meets his final demise, holds out a piece of luxury cardstock towards a luxury quidditch player where he is performing Romanian dead lifts and barbell squats in lovely Sofia sunshine.
“What the hell is this?” Viktor asks, after tossing his humongous weights onto the padded floor and taking the offered item, which looks terribly like a ticket to a Gothic fair, being black and silver.
Thanks to his frayed nerves being deranged by the highly unnecessary sound of cast iron weighing three times as much as himself hitting the floor at speed, Yuri appears to have morphed into a demon, his wickedly pointed beard and evil eyes exuding all the fury of hell. “A party invitation, Bonbon.” he says, calmly.
The culprit studies the invite closely, raising it till it almost touches his best eyeball. “This says ‘Yuri Igorevich and Guest'...” he looks up, white faced. “Are you attempting to have the media hang, draw and quarter me? They already think I fly too well to be interested in women.”
“No, but I can't take a woman or else I'll be hung, drawn, and quartered by four billion others.”
There is no whip lying about his home gym because his trainer is not around, but Viktor looks around desperately for one anyway. “Stop two-timing everyone then, idiot! This is the most supreme First World problem ever!”
Having delivered what he came to deliver, the new headmaster of Durmstrang does up his heinously expensive silver sable coat, his dead gaze fixed on the wall of mirrors opposite. “Regardless, it is still a problem. One I expect my best friend to assist me with. Besides, this is not the sort of party at which paparazzi need be feared.”
“Take one of your sisters!” Following his friend’s example, Viktor also looks into the massive mirror, necessitating that he begin posing and admiring the vascularity of his muscles, as exposed by the few scraps of clothing he's wearing.
Yuri fails to be impressed, turning away with the very slightest curl of a lip. “I’d never take a female I love to this sort of party. And you need to stop caring what plebs think of you. Everyone who's anyone knows you're my friend, and nothing less than that.”
“Fine. This will be a good time?”
“The best.”
In a last ditch effort to save himself, the superstar begins searching for a maiden and or knight in shining armour to come and rescue him from his duty.
‘Hermione, I need big help, Karkaroff Part Two forced on me an invitation-’
‘Ginny, I need serious help. He Who Must Not Be Named wants to take me to a party-’
‘George, Yura is being a giant asshole again. He wants me to attend a party-’
‘Fred, Yura is playing a nasty prank on me. I'm sure-’
‘Draco. How's your Wronski Feint coming? Also, I need help. Yuri-’
Sadly, he is a pureblooded wizard, and can do nothing but send letters attached to slow birds in order to communicate.
👹👤👹
“Why don't I get a cool mask?”
Late on a subsequent afternoon, as the sun is plummeting out of the sky, Pan returns to bedevil Viktor's life, this time dressed to the nines in black evening dress and creepass silver mask, which does little to increase his overall demonic styling besides adding a pair of horns to his forehead.
“Because.” Yuri, his dark eyes magnified somehow by the design of his mask so that he appears to be all eyeball, doesn't deign to elaborate but only asks if Viktor is ready.
“Don't I look ready?” Stepping back from his pal and the door, the champion throws his arms up and out to show off his own dress robes, which look very similar to those of Durmstrang because they are those of Durmstrang, upscaled to accommodate his extra muscle mass.
Yuri blinks. “You look like you're hoping to return to school and relive your childhood. If you want a job, just ask. I'll make you the flying instructor. When we host the Triwizard Tournament, you can try again with Hermione.”
Viktor's arms fall to his sides with a notable crack. “I hate you, man.”
“I hate you too…and stay close to me, alright?”
The men must apparate to another country, and then climb aboard a black carriage drawn by thestrals in order to reach their destination. A black carriage into which other people in silver masks climb. People who exchange warm greetings with Yuri and who look upon Viktor in a way which makes him realise that he is a quidditch player. A professional quidditch player, the best in the world, but still, a man who chases a ball for a living. Never before has he ever conceived of the true scale of the world. The true height of the sky. Professional ball fancier, sadly, is a title not very far off the ground.
“Viktor Krum. My children are big fans of yours.” says a man with a voice of fire and ash, his amplified eyes a bright green behind his mask. The woman beside him giggles, a sound like the edge of a silver knife.
The young man sans mask, gulps, but increases the stoicness of his expression and voice. “Thank you.”
Things do not improve when he and his companion approach the massive set of double doors forming the entrance to the isolated mansion in which the party is being held and he hears what sounds suspiciously like a password enter the air in Yuri's voice. It's in Latin, but he doesn't catch it. The doorman bows and indicates that they may enter a gargantuan hall, like something out of St Peter's Basilica. Dark wood and marble predominate and statues that are in reality vast stand small because they are set so high up. While Viktor gawks, little of this makes any impression on his friend, who exchanges greetings with other cultured weirdos. Some of their voices and forms cause deja vu in Viktor, but he ignores it in favour of sniffing out something to eat, something to drink, and something pretty and feminine to gaze upon. The last is very difficult because A: masks, and B: nasty women.
“Cheers.” He says, upon being handed champagne by a servant who is also unmasked. The man's eyes remain cast down though, so it's hardly any better.
About two minutes later things take a massive downwards turn when he follows his companion into the main banqueting room, where he's in for a shock. There's a coffin lined with black satin lying in the middle of a black and white marble floor, and a man in disarrayed evening dress lies in it as if he's supposed to be there, a black blindfold covering his eyes…Beads of sweat too great for his bushy eyebrows to handle run into Viktor's right eye, burning and blinding it. In response, he pivots one eighty degrees and goes to sit on a bench in the hall.
“What's wrong with you, Vitya? I told you not to leave my side.” Yuri says, when he breaks away from a crowd of loudly laughing freaks to check up on him.
Viktor stares at the black hems of the man's dress robes as they flutter just shy of the polished floor. “I didn't realise I was at a cult party. Why did you invite me to a cult party?! I thought we were friends?! Brothers?!”
The culprit swigs some champagne and swirls the leftover around his glass. “Don't play the ickle baby boy. I thought you'd attended several of these shindigs before. In fact, I know you have.”
“I went to nice dinner parties…that I can't remember very well. But they were fun, and there were no coffins!”
“Pfft!” The lips visible below the silver mask struggle to contain a bray, so much so that Yuri must search for a distraction or else burst into hysterical, insulting laughter.
Luckily, just then, a flock of owls bombard the stained glass windows above the huge double doors, breaking through and showering glass onto the expensive floor. A flurry of feathered animals assail Viktor Krum, granting him a good excuse to run out of the doors and down the rural road into the night, pursued by letters proclaiming that his other friends are on their way to rescue him.