Work Text:
The Flying Dutchman is a menace, everyone who has ever attended the Durmstrang Institute understands this, as well as anyone who lives in South Africa. I have never attended the Durmstrang Institute or lived in South Africa, but I'm dating someone who has attended Durmstrang (and visited South Africa), and I'm in love with its headmaster.
“Speaking of the Flying Dutchman and headmasters, where does Yuri Igorevich find the time to be master of students, professor of dueling, auror, tattoo artist, captain, pilot, model, actor, singer, Freemason, professional abuse victim, celebrity chef, lifestyle coach, druid, Viking, vegetarian, streamer, sultan, and last but not least, Krum's companion and bodyguard?” Nikolai Alexandrovich asks across from me where we and our colleagues lounge about a Ministry cafeteria table. The way he's been sniping at him recently, I'm beginning to think he's about to declare our squad leader his archenemy. That would be hilarious, cause he'll get wrecked. Again.
“Ask him! Don't ask me!” Mikhail Mikhailovich squeals.
“Vodka, obviously.” says Olga, around the pink straw of her vodkashake (chocolate).
Krum laughs around the yellow straw of his own vodkashake (strawberry). “He does drink a lot of it.”
“Also, that's only, like, half of his jobs. He's also aide to the Other Gods.” Chirps Anna, plucking at the black straw stuck in her ginormous vodkashake (vanilla).
Vasily slams his fist into the table, knocking everyone's shakes into their faces. “I want to BEAT him!!”
“Alright, pipe down there, biggin.”
A soft voice emerges from behind the gibbous walls separating our dimension from the void, heralded by no footsteps. “I am not a vegetarian. I don't know where you got that ridiculous notion.”
We, and by we I mean everyone except for Olga and Krum, scream. For no reason, as at first glance Yuri Igorevich isn't especially intimidating. I mean, he can't even lie about being six feet tall. It's only when you get to know him, and you come to realise that he rarely blinks and is always either staring wide eyed or half lidded, that you understand that he can and will eff your shit up royally for absolutely no reason. But I suppose that is the process of becoming close to any serial killer.
Krum, who, like all celebrities, doesn't care about the violence perpetrated in his name so long as his photos are flattering, squawks a laugh. Gosh, what I would give to have attended school with them and been the fly on the wall. “I spread that rumour, Yura.”
Obviously in a bad mood, Yuri pivots to face his bestie, turning stiffly, like some sort of clockwork figure. I have come to learn that that is also a psychopathic trait. They wear their own body like they're a demon possessing it...which is pretty much the truth. “Why would you do something so heinous.”
“Because you laughed at my love letters, that's why.”
“The magnitude of the punishment does not fit the crime.”
“Yeah, well, crime is your job, not mine. I'm an athlete. I'm not supposed to think.”
“Anyway! We're talking about going back in time to save the Flying Dutchman from becoming the scourge of the seven seas.” Nikolai Alexandrovich says over a cigar, as our leader takes a seat and a (pistachio) vodkashake with a grey straw appears before him.
“Why.”
“Why not?”
“True.”
“I don't believe you people ever do any damned work. All you do is everything but.” Mutters Krum, his foot playing with mine under the table.
Vasily Sergeyevich and Mikhai Mikhailovich take exception to the outsider’s comment, while the Medvedev Twins begin gnawing at their own lips, and growling. “There's only so many people you can kill in a week before there are no more, Viktor Ivanovich. Besides, you aren't a cop, you're a holster sniffer. A wannabe. A would-be stealer of valour.”
“...Excuse me?! Yurets, are you hearing this?! Handle your men!”
A cafeteria wide food fight breaks out when Yuri deigns not to handle his men. God, I love him so much.
💖💔💖
“We're going back in time again. Where's the ship?”
“Why do you need my ship?”
“We need your ship to fight and or save another ship, obviously.”
The squad (plus Mitya and Krum) lurk upon the savage shores of Lake Ladoga, waiting for Yuri Igorevich to get his act together and summon a magic ghost ship from the depths. Apparently, going on a fantastical adventure through Middle Earth has given him some ideas because a series of trebuchet lift their giraffe necks over the canopy of the forest near to where, presumably, Durmstrang is. I wouldn't know, I'm just a pleb. My fellow girls stare with love at these giant siege engines, ignoring the flock of charcoal grey dragons joyously wheeling about over the heads of a herd of peacefully grazing gargantuan elephants.
“What are you planning on doing with those?” They ask, of Durmstrang’s headmaster. Fun fact: at twenty-four, he's not even the youngest headmaster the place has ever had. That school is a kingdom, and sometimes, through bloodshed and unfortunate accidents, you can find yourself ascending the stag horned throne as a baby.
“I like how you assume they have something to do with me.”
“...”
“I'm testing range.”
“Range of what?”
Yuri Igorevich suddenly looks as shy as a young boy, tearing my heart into two pieces. Thank God medical aid for aurors is good. “Koldovstoretz.” He says, with a bashful smile.
Thankfully, the Uzhasnyy chooses this moment to emerge from the watery abyss, because I was about to be no longer responsible for my actions. Also, that's my old school he's looking to lay siege to...I choose to see romance in this.
“Alright, boys and girls, we have Mission: Prevent the Flying Dutchman From Ruining Everyone's Lives,” I think Nikolai Alexandrovich just wants to wear a sailor uniform, because he looks like that cartoon muggle man with the spinach obsession, minus the muscles. Slapping an ancient map onto a table in the helmsman’s cabin, he points with a special stick at important areas. “The Dutchman sails all over the world, but it is most commonly, and easily, found here, the Cape of Good Hope, otherwise known as the Cape of Storms. And a storm is what it will wrap itself in, so prepare your bad weather gear.”
“Question-” Krum raises a multimillion dollar hand. “-the ship is cursed because of the captain tempting God…how do we prevent that from happening?”
As one entity, Yuri and Olga raise their wands, which happen to be made of the exact same wood - aspen. “We shoot the captain.” They say, identical grim smiles on their deceptively calm faces.
Well, that's the plan sorted. But first we need to actually get there, five hundred years ago or whatever, and for that we need time-turners…you know how difficult it is to slip a time-turner around the neck of a Spanish galleon?
💖💔💖
There is nothing my squad can't do given enough vodka when they put their minds to it, and the Durmstrang ship sails through the mists of time and space to emerge onto a furious mixture of the Atlantic and Indian oceans, during a storm so vicious it feels preternatural, its hull and sails and passengers draped with as many time-turners as any of these things can fit. The rain blends in with the black clouds and black sea, making it feel like you're being stabbed by invisible thugs. Lightning occasionally reveals the horrible truth, which is that you're travelling onboard an ancient ship across an even more ancient body of murderous water.
“To arms! We give no quarter!” A male voice yells from somewhere over my head. It's that sort of day, a lazy day, and I'm sitting with my beloved, my boyfriend, and the girls at a nice tea table set out in the middle of the main deck, near the main mast. If there's one thing Russians like (get wrecked, Krum) aside from vodka, it's tea.
“Don't you want to handle the helm?” Olga asks Yuri, after we all collectively ‘mmm!’ over our tea. The Durmstrang ship is great, cause its magical force field prevents your hair being ruined or your body drowning.
Yuri smacks his lips and places his cup down with a clink on its saucer. He should be wearing a badass three cornered hat of some sort, but that is not how Siberians do things, and he still looks like he expects to freeze to death momentarily. So do I. So does Krum. Africa? Never heard of her. “No, I want to shoot the captain.” he says, like he's talking about what plants to purchase for his garden.
“Maybe you should shoot the captain and then handle his helm? Because the Dutchman still needs to reach port for this to be a happy ending.” replies Olga.
“Whatever I'm doing, I'm going to be shooting someone.”
It's my turn to contribute to the conversation. “Ow.” My hand rubs the area over my heart, which is protected by skin, bone, and badass auror robes.
“What's wrong with you, Katya?” Asks Anna, her own teacup exuding dark vapours, just like our boss’.
“Yurets broke her heart.” Growls Krum, his black eyes glaring dangerously at his pal from under his ferocious eyebrows. You know, he's growing on me. Like mould.
“I did no such thing.” Yuri, for some reason, blushes. He must be anticipating the slaughter to come.
“Yes you did!”
“Nah ah.”
“Yeah ah!”
"No."
“Don't make me beat you!”
“Don't make me beat you back. And win.”
But before the men can delight us by getting up and throwing each other around the deck, Vasily calls from the crow’s nest. “Starboard! The Flying Dutchman!”
“Sweet!” We, all of us, leap to our feet and crash our skulls together, resulting in the first half of the battle being a daze.
‘Battle’ - at this point in the timeline the Dutchman is not a murderous phantom, but an East Indiaman just tryna make port, and battle consists of assassination (also a skill all aurors are required to be proficient in). Yuri and Olga apparate from our ship across the waves and through the storm, their wands drawn. I go with, because obviously. Epic pirate music begins playing. Captain Van der Decken is yelling at the weather from the quarterdeck, every two seconds lifting his hands from the helm to shake his fists at the wrathful sky, which, as even I know, is not how you steer a ship. No wonder he couldn't make it to Cape Town, which isn't that far away. Sometimes the lightning illuminates the famous mountain, painting it white against black, its flat top looking like the roof of the world.
It also occurs to me, very belatedly, that we don't have to kill the man, only shut his mouth, preferably by rendering him unconscious so that he can't even think blasphemy. Accordingly, I act quickly.
“Olya! Look! A shoe sale!” I yell, pointing at the open ocean.
“Where?!” She spins around, and goes cluttering towards the gunwale, knocking down waves of sailors in the process. One down, one to go.
My one true love is experiencing the horrors of rain and its effects on his perfect hair, which is the sole reason why Van der Decken isn't shot and dead yet. Having whipped out his priceless heirloom mirror (swiped from the Winter Palace by his uncle) he's standing on the stairs leading up to the quarterdeck, busy checking himself out in it, his wand hand lowered. Sweet. Time to get revenge for the twenty-four hour, three hundred and sixty days a year torture I undergo.
“Ex-pelliarmus!!”
💖💔💖
I often have dreams and or nightmares of Yuri Igorevich staring at me with disdain from across a pub table, and that's probably because such a sight forms the end of three out of five of the average week's working days. It is no different this humble Wednesday.
“Sorry, I'm attempting to enjoy a vodka and cranberry here.” I say to the glowering menace sitting across from me. The rest of our companions are clapping and laughing as Nikolai Alexandrovich, Vasily Sergeyevich, and Mitya perform a victory dance on the table. I'm being unfair, Yuri Igorevich isn't really glowering, because that risks wrinkles. Instead, he's staring at me with no expression whatsoever. But I know that in his heart, he's glowering. I know this, because his hair is still disarranged from when he was catapulted into the ocean at great speed.
“Hahahahhaha!!” As if recalling this incident affecting his best friend, Krum throws his head back and brays drunkenly, almost deafening my poor right ear, his muscular arm tightening round my shoulders, a glass of vodka rising to his lips via the other hand. He's not so bad. He's ascending the internal scoreboard I use to assess males. He's also taller than Yuri. And seems to find everything I say worthy of notice.
My beloved flushes again, his supermodel nostrils flaring. He begins speaking, and as he speaks his eyes widen, till the deranged inner child inside swaps it's face for the deranged outer man's. “Sometimes I wonder if you like me, Yekaterina Igorevna, or if this whole thing is some sort of convoluted LARP, no doubt for the purposes of gaining clout. What is not in question, is that you enjoy humiliating me…possibly also for the purposes of gaining clout. If I find you posting that reel on muggle Instagoon, I will come to your poor person flat and kill you. And then delete your account. What do you think about that, huh? You'll lose all fifteen followers. Your life will be over.”
My heart is pounding, but I know I have to say something cool. I am also exceptionally pleased that he's been stalking my page. “I’ll be very happy for you to meet my mother, Yuri Igorevich.”
“Hahahahhaha!!”