Year Three — Chapter 5: The Forge of Loyalty
Durmstrang had two seasons: winter and rehearsal. Even when the sun appeared—thin, apologetic, a coin you couldn't spend—the wind kept practicing how it would murder you later. On mornings like this, the sky was a brittle blue plate and the lake had frozen into a mirror mean enough to tell the truth.
Ivar decided it was the perfect day for mischief.
He arrived in the mess hall early, hands tucked behind his back like an innocent man concealing a thunderstorm. The trench of coals down the center threw heat the way a dragon throws opinions. Students filtered in—yawning, grumpy, bundled—finding seats by habit and hierarchy. Near the far pillars, a cadre of fourth-years with chipped-ice smiles watched Ivar's table the way wolves watch a fence.
Jannik slumped into place opposite him and stabbed a fork at a slab of meat that looked like it had lost a duel. "I'm filing a formal complaint," he announced. "Breakfast should not require courage."
Klara sat beside Ivar, calm as a blade cooling on an anvil. "Then eat the bread."
"Bread tastes like sadness."
"Then be hungry," she said, and stole his bread.
Ivar, who had been humming a melody only he could hear, flicked his wrist. The oil lamps along one wall brightened imperceptibly; the draft shifted; the far door creaked a half-second before someone touched it. He wasn't casting spells so much as persuading the room to agree with him.
"Don't do that," Jannik said, noticing the synchronized door-swing. "It makes me feel like the castle is flirting with you."
"It is," Ivar said, straight-faced. "She likes me best."
Klara didn't look up from buttering stolen bread. "You say that about winter, fire, knives, and snakes."
"Well," Ivar said, finally grinning, "they're not wrong."
A first-year approaching with a tray hesitated, eyes big as coins. "M-Malfoy? I—ah—I saved you the last honey roll."
Jannik perked. "A gift? For him? Why do you all never bring gifts to me?"
"Because you're chaos with stubbed toes," Klara said. "He's chaos with a crown."
Ivar accepted the roll as if it were an oath. "Thank you," he told the boy, voice soft. "Eat with us."
The boy startled like a hare. "Me?"
"You brought tribute," Jannik said solemnly. "The ancient laws apply."
They made space for him. The fourth-years near the pillar watched this, measuring. Ivar watched them back without looking at them. There was only so long you could ignore a pack that stared at your plate.
He leaned into brightness instead. "Right," he declared. "We're replacing the morning announcements."
Klara sighed, which was her way of saying I will allow this because I cannot stop it.
Ivar rapped a spoon against a pewter cup; the sound cut the room like a neat incision. Conversations thinned; heads turned. He stood on the bench—balanced too easily for a boy on a narrow plank—and spread his hands. Mischief sparked off him like static, the air alive with it.
"Good morning, my violent academics," he said. "On the docket: one, eat your protein or the wind will eat you; two, Professor Makarov would like you to stop bleeding on his favorite flagstones; three, if anyone finds an eyeball near the dueling yard, please return it to Anton, who keeps misplacing his perspective."
Laughter rippled. Even some of the older years who disliked him hid smiles behind cups. Ivar rode the sound like a wave.
"Finally," he added, "reminder: the lake is a mirror today. If you look and don't like what stares back, improve the original. Snowflake says self-reflection builds character."
"Snowflake," Jannik stage-whispered, to the first-year, "is his giant murder-snake girlfriend."
The boy choked on a crumb. "G-girlfriend?"
Klara patted the child's back once—comfort, threat, both. "He's joking. Barely."
Ivar bowed to the room with shameless flourish, then hopped down. The fourth-years' eyes narrowed. A leader who could make the room laugh was a problem you couldn't hex quietly.
As if conjured by the thought, a raven arrowed in through a slit window and landed on Ivar's forearm like a whispered plot. It presented three letters: waxes green, bone-white, and pale blue.
"From Daphne, Susan, and Fleur," Ivar said, like a man reading the menu at a duel.
"Say their names again," Jannik begged. "Slower."
Klara slid a knife through her bread with surgical finesse. "You're a child."
"I am an artist," Jannik said with dignity, then leaned forward. "Read aloud."
Ivar broke the Greengrass seal first. Daphne's hand was elegant, precise, patient in a way that meant impatience was happening somewhere off-page.
Lord Black, the letter began. (She always used the title when she wanted to poke his composure.) I find candor agreeable. In return for yours: I don't want to be a story. I want to be a strategist. Contracts are tools. I intend to use mine. Do not mistake stillness for softness.
Ivar smiled. "She's already playing for position."
"Good," Klara said. "Games are honest when you admit you're playing."
The Bones seal yielded to warm, uncompromising script.
Ivar, it read, my aunt keeps dossiers. I keep people. I don't know if that makes me naive or sensible. What do I fear? Being used for my name or my kindness—both happen more than you'd think. But you asked; that matters. Tell me what you won't do, and I'll tell you what I won't forgive.
Jannik whistled. "Oh, I like her. She writes like she'd argue with thunder and expect it to apologize."
"Thunder should," Ivar said.
The pale blue wax of the Delacour seal opened on a blade's edge.
Monsieur Black, Fleur wrote in formal French, my mother says English boys mistake drama for depth. I hope you are the exception. I do not bow. Neither do you. Very well—we will dance instead. Send me something true. Not power. Not rumor. You.
Klara's mouth tipped. "She will scalp you if you bring anything less than your marrow."
"I was going to send a lock of hair," Ivar said, deadpan. "Do you think she'd accept the whole head?"
Jannik choked. "Chaos. Absolute chaos."
Ivar wrote three replies between bites of meat and honey roll.
Daphne, he penned in a hand that made pride look like restraint, still water hides strategy. Agreed. I won't confuse quiet with consent, nor polish with weakness. If you knife me, do it from the front. I'll respect the aim.
Susan, he wrote next, I won't use your name or your warmth. I will use your will, if you offer it. I won't forgive cowardice. Or cruelty without cause. Everything else is negotiable over tea.
Fleur, he finished, switching into French so meaning could find the right bones, truth: I'm a storm that learned to wear a suit. I laugh loudly; I burn warmly; I ruin enemies like weather. I like old runes, new knives, and people who don't flinch. Your turn.
He sealed the letters. The raven waited with the patience of an accountant. "Deliver carefully," Ivar told it. "She bites," he added for no one and everyone.
The bird tilted its head as if to say I am a professional and was gone.
"Cute," drawled a voice that remembered nothing about living through winter. The fourth-years had fanned out like poor ideas. Their leader—a long-armed boy with a scar that thought it was a personality—braced his hands on the table. "The Black Crown keeps pen pals. Does he braid hair at midnight too?"
Jannik beamed. "Yes! Also we paint nails with the blood of our—"
Klara nudged him with the force of a suggestion that might be a shove later. She didn't stand. She didn't need to. Her stillness made the bully blink.
Ivar considered the boy the way a surgeon considers a tumor: impersonally, with a genuine interest in removal. "Can I help you, or did you come to audition for humility?"
Snickers traveled the benches. Pride flushed the boy's cheek. "You hide behind your muscle," he jerked a chin at Klara, "and your mouth," he pointed at Jannik. "Let's see you without them. Three on three. Noon. Yard."
"You said three," Jannik said brightly. "There are four of you."
The boy lifted his chin. "Pick your fourth. If you have any friends left who aren't paid in fear."
Ivar's smile was a knife wearing dimples. "Noon," he agreed. "Try not to be late to your own lesson."
The fourth-years withdrew, swagger pasted over worry. When they were gone, the first-year beside Ivar whispered, "They hate you."
"They hate how fast gravity works when I enter a room," Ivar said cheerfully, and ruffled the boy's hair. "Eat."
Klara finally turned to him. "Fourth?"
Ivar flicked his gaze toward the far bench where a quiet second-year girl sat alone, shoulders hunched, wand held with delicate competence. "Her."
Klara followed the glance. "She limps."
"Only when people look," Ivar said. "And people rarely look."
Jannik's grin widened. "Ah. Chaos."
"Kindness," Ivar corrected. "Then chaos."
---
Noon turned the yard into a knife. Sunlight bounced off the ice with cruel sincerity. The dueling circle had been cut wide into the snow, its rim marked with iron rings that had seen more pride broken than bones.
On one side: the fourth-years—Scar, Tall, and Too-Confident—plus a girl with clever eyes who would have been dangerous if she'd chosen a better cause.
On the other: Ivar, Klara, Jannik…and the second-year: Mila, if Ivar's memory served (it always did). She stood to his right like someone prepared to be forgotten and resigned to surviving anyway.
"Rules," Makarov barked, because of course the professor had materialized like a stormcloud that graded. "No killing. No permanent maiming. No curses you can't fix yourself. If you use Fiendfyre, I will bury your wand in the yard and make you dig it out with your teeth."
Jannik whispered, "I love him."
"Focus," Klara said.
"Begin," Makarov snapped.
Scar leapt first, spearing a Stinging Hex with the confidence of a man who had never stung anything important. Ivar didn't even lift a shield for it—he bent his body just enough that the spell skimmed his coat and dissipated, an insult that didn't deserve a reply. Klara surged into the gap, her wand a metronome of violence: shield, bind, shove—her boot slid on ice and didn't slip; she'd carved runes into the sole long ago.
Too-Confident tried to flank Jannik, who cackled, ducked, and threw a glittering comet of a charm that wasn't on any syllabus. It detonated in a cloud of harmless sparks that turned breath into visible ribbons—distraction, joy, noise. The crowd laughed without meaning to; the fourth-years' timing broke.
Mila whispered—just once—and a thin line of frost sketched itself across the ground exactly where Clever Eyes planted her step. The older girl faltered. Klara's bind snagged her wrist. One down.
"Pretty," Ivar told Mila, angling his body and voice so the word reached only her. "Again."
Her cheeks pinked, but her wand steadied. She sent a whisper of rime across the circle; Tall hit it at speed and discovered humility with his knees.
Scar bellowed, angry that the world wasn't following the script written inside his skull. He hurled raw force, the kind of Blasting Hex that cracked pavers and confidence. Ivar met it with a palm-up shield woven in three syllables—Latin for bones, Norse for weight, Parseltongue for the curve that sends things elsewhere. The hex slid off like rain off a roof and blew a dramatic hole in nobody.
"Your aim is honest," Ivar said conversationally. "Everything else is lying."
He didn't aim a curse back. He aimed humiliation.
He stepped into Scar's reach and tapped the older boy's wand with the elderwood tip—once, the way you tap a wineglass to call the room's attention. The rune-seed he'd placed with that touch bloomed in an instant, harmless as a party trick and devastating as an idea: Scar's wand erupted with a bouquet of silver-edged icicles and a banner that read, in good classical Russian, MY HUBRIS IS TALLER THAN MY TALENT.
The yard roared. Even Makarov made a sound that might have been a cough and might have been a smothered laugh. Scar flushed a color that didn't occur in nature and swung—not his wand, his fist.
Ivar caught it without looking like he'd caught it. He squeezed until knuckles remembered what discipline felt like. "No," he said softly, and released. His eyes were bright and friendly and promised ruin. "Use your wand. Or walk away."
Scar chose wand. It didn't help. Klara swept his legs with a spell that turned ice into rubber for half a heartbeat; he flailed; Jannik's glitter bomb—"for morale!"—erupted under his boots; Mila's frost stitched exactly where the heel would land. Scar sat down hard, dignity first.
Tall rallied enough courage to try a chain of hexes. Ivar let them push him two steps, three—then shifted the rhythm with a single Parseltongue hiss that made the magic listen to him instead. Tall's third hex bent ninety degrees and clipped his own ear. He yelped, humiliated more efficiently than harmed.
Clever Eyes—bound but not beaten—flicked her wand to cut the rope. Mila's answer was cleaner than mercy: a neat, precise Freeze Jinx that caged the blade in rime before it could saw. The second-year's breath steamed; her hands did not tremble.
"Good," Ivar murmured. "Name your price after."
"What?" she whispered, startled even with six spells flying.
"You helped," he said. "I pay my people."
The fight ended when Klara decided it was over. She drove Too-Confident backward with a sequence that clicked like clockwork—shield, shove, stun, bind, stay. He stayed. Makarov lifted a hand. The iron rings around the circle glowed dull red. Victory.
Applause rose like weather. It wasn't unanimous—nothing worth having ever is—but it was loud enough. The fourth-years gathered themselves with the brittle dignity of men concluding that the lesson had, in fact, been about them.
Ivar crossed to Mila as the noise ebbed. Up close, he could see the careful way she stood—weight off the left ankle, the limp she hid when watched.
"You noticed," she said before he could speak, tone braced against pity.
"I noticed you work around it so well most people don't," he said. "That's not weakness. That's strategy."
She blinked fast, then nodded once, like accepting a promotion she'd already earned. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet," Ivar said. "I'm going to get you a better brace. And gloves enchanted for grip—your release is cleaner than your hold. Also, you're dining at our table for a week. Jannik tells stories badly; you'll suffer, but we grow from pain."
"I resent—" Jannik began.
Klara clapped him on the shoulder hard enough to adjust his spine. "He's right."
Makarov stalked over, scowling that special scowl that meant well done and also I hate that I am impressed. His gaze swept the fallen icicle bouquet still sprouting from Scar's wand, the glitter that had chosen permanence on Too-Confident's boots, the fine frostwork from Mila's precise jinxes.
"Rules next time," he told Ivar, voice rough. "Less…opera."
Ivar's smile was all respect and no apology. "Understood."
Makarov moved on. Jannik leaned in. "I love you in a legally nonbinding way."
"That's the best kind," Ivar said.
They returned to the hall as the sun decided to try being a rumor. Word always ran faster than feet; by the time they reached the benches, the first-years were already reenacting the banner with kitchen spoons and a tablecloth, and someone had composed a four-line epic that rhymed "hubris" with "blue bruise."
Ivar ate like a man who had just done something obscene to physics and expected dessert. In the middle of the meal, a messenger hawk—Durmstrang's stubborn cousin to Hogwarts' owls—dropped a folded parchment beside his plate. He recognized the hand before it landed. Volkov's notes always looked like he'd threatened the quill with violence.
Black, it read. Your frost-weave student is worth time. See me after seventh bell. Also: stop making slogans during duels.
Ivar showed it to Mila. "Promotion incoming."
She swallowed, overwhelmed, and then—slowly—grinned.
"Look at you," Jannik said, moved in spite of himself. "Recruiting like a tyrant with good dental."
"Smile is a weapon," Ivar said, demonstrating a wicked one. "And loyal people are armor."
Klara wiped a smear of gravy from his chin with a soldier's casual intimacy. "And enemies?"
Ivar's eyes went soft as silk and mean as winter. "You saw."
They finished eating. The hall's noise slid back up its usual scale: clatter, gossip, the low hum of a fortress digesting victory. Ivar's raven returned for second breakfast: a single letter from Wiltshire, thin as lies. Narcissa's hand.
You were seen, it said. And so were those beside you. Good. Remember: crowns fall if not bolted to alliances. Bolt them yourself. With kindness where it works. With terror where it doesn't.
He folded it, touched the fold to his mouth in a kiss that was superstition or strategy or both, and tucked it away.
When the afternoon drills ended and seventh bell tolled like iron deciding your fate, Ivar detoured. Not to Volkov—later—but down. He liked to end victories where the stone could taste them.
The ritual chamber received him with that familiar pressure under his boots, like walking on a sleeping giant's ribcage. He didn't draw a circle. He didn't need fireworks to explain a fire.
"Good evening," he said in Parseltongue, light as laughter, deep as grave dirt. "I brought someone new into our weather. She's small and sharp and unafraid."
The dark around him smiled the way only darkness can: without moving, with absolute certainty.
You build, the stone said—not in words, but in weight arranged as approval. You bind. You break that which must be broken. Chaos for your own; nightmare for the rest. This is how a crown stays warm.
Ivar laughed—a bright, reckless sound that echoed and returned to him sounding like prophecy that had learned better manners.
"Exactly," he said, and when he left the chamber the draft chose to push at his back rather than in his face, and the torches along the corridor burned higher for a heartbeat, as if the castle itself applauded.
Outside, the lake was still a mirror. He glanced into it as he crossed the courtyard, and it did what good mirrors do when they know they are seen: it showed him not as he was, but as the world was beginning to understand him.
Not just a boy with a wand.
A storm with friends.
A crown with teeth.