Year Three — Chapter 14: Packing Winter, Planting Serpents (~1,900 words)
Durmstrang's winter did not end so much as take a breath. Snow still shouldered the parapets, and the lake wore its steel mask every morning, but the wind had stopped arguing quite so loudly with human bones. On days like that the fortress felt like a beast between hunts—resting, yes, but with its eyes open.
Ivar liked the space that gave him to plan.
"Explain again," Jannik said, lacing his boots with the solemnity of a priest and the competence of a raccoon. "You'll leave a school that lets you charm spoons into chorus lines and duel professors with metaphors… to attend a castle that gives points for smiling in corridors?"
Klara didn't look up from the dagger she was oiling. "Hogwarts does more than points."
"It does ceilings that lie," Jannik said. "It does pudding."
"It does history," Ivar said, amused. "And a Chamber under the foundations that isn't in the brochures."
That shut him up. Jannik's grin reappeared immediately, larger. "Ah. The plumbing with a personality. Yes—very you."
Mila, perched at the desk with neat stacks of parchment, pushed a sheet toward Ivar. "Your transfer file," she said. "Volkov approved the notation that you've graduated out of Charms, Runes, Dark Arts, and Battle Transfiguration requirements. They're forced to accept your equivalency exams if they invite you."
"They invited me," Ivar replied, tapping a finger against Dumbledore's elegant hand on the latest letter. After first thaw, the Headmaster had written. Come as guest; come as student, if you wish; come as storm, if you must. Ivar planned to do all three without making a mess on the carpets.
Mila cleared her throat. "There's also… this." She slid a slim folio on top: a list of Hogwarts electives and clubs someone had copied for her. "Arithmancy. Ancient Runes. A Slytherin house that pretends it's subtlety. A Gryffindor house that pretends it isn't theatre."
Jannik leaned over her shoulder. "And a Quidditch pitch that pretends gravity is only a suggestion."
"Quidditch can have me when it learns manners," Klara said.
Ivar laughed softly. "Focus. Four months until September. We use all of it." His green eyes went thoughtful, silver threaded in the irises like moonlight remembering itself. "The Chamber won't wait for me. It never waits for anyone. But I can be ready when the story opens its mouth."
"Assuming it does open," Klara said.
"It will," Ivar replied, and for a heartbeat the room felt colder. "Rituals wake in patterns—and fools repeat them on schedule."
He didn't add and Notts love repeating old mistakes. He didn't need to.
---
The Letter and the Lie
Two days later, a thick envelope arrived on a hawk with a temper. It bore the discreet watermark of Gringotts and the loud confidence of House Black.
Inside: formal recognition—sealed and witnessed—that Ivar Orion Malfoy, styled Ivar Black, had been heir to the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black since 1982, the year Sirius fell and the tree rearranged its memory. A squibbling line in Gobbledegook confirmed holdings and obligations; an attached parchment listed cultural duties that weren't written anywhere official: keep ancient magics fed, keep old alliances watered, keep stupid cousins out of prison unless it served the house.
"Paper crowns," Jannik murmured, flipping the document with a finger. "Very shiny paper."
"Paper moves money," Klara said. "Money moves stone. Stone moves countries."
"Stone opens doors," Ivar added, and tucked the deed into his inner pocket like a knife wrapped in silk. "At Hogwarts, I'll need doors more than swords."
As if to punctuate the thought, another letter followed, this one in a hand he had come to enjoy arguing with on paper.
Daphne, he read aloud, truly regrets missing the chance to see Durmstrang's winter behave rudely to her hair. She accepts the premise that you will 'walk the halls as Black and Malfoy both' and suggests two very boring dinners at the Ministry to make sure certain names see you without learning anything. She also notes that an old rumor moves again in Knockturn: "a diary with a memory and a mouth." The Notts like the smell of it.
Klara's eyes sharpened. "A diary."
"Memory and mouth," Jannik repeated. "Finally, a book that can argue back when people read it wrong."
Mila didn't smile. "You think it's the Chamber."
"I think it's bait," Ivar said. "And bait wants a mouth bigger than its own."
He wrote back to Daphne in three lines. Accept one boring dinner; refuse the second. Tracey Davis can attend the first and repeat nothing. If you smell Nott at either, sit him between two people who ask precise questions and enjoy long silences. If the diary moves, I want to know where, not just that.
He sent the letter on a raven that had never failed to find a moving target.
---
A House that Writes Back
Narcissa's hand arrived next, calm as strategy.
My son, she wrote, I have spoken with Dumbledore. He is not surprised by anything, which is not the same as being ready. You will be enrolled as a fourth-year, with waivers filed for Charms, Runes, Dark Arts, and Battle Transfiguration—phrased as "advanced standing" to avoid rousing anyone's allergies. You will be sorted with courtesy. You will not be surprised when the hat chooses the room that gives you the best angles.
About the Weasley-Malfoy contract: it holds. Arthur and your father both signed in blood. Whether Ginny says "Jenny" to her own name is her business; whether the contract is fulfilled will be yours and Draco's business when you are older. I write it plainly because I prefer problems to be told the truth before they breed.
As to a Notts' diary, I advise you thus: whatever old magic they think they are trafficking, assume it was built by someone crueler than they are and smarter than they think.
Ivar kissed the fold of the parchment—a private superstition he'd never admit—and tucked it away. He didn't share the line about the contract. Not because he hid from friends, but because some obligations were scars you covered in winter to keep them from splitting.
---
Volkov's Test
Volkov's ritual exam for the top cohort happened in a chamber two stories below any rumor. Ivar arrived with his elderwood wand and a stack of chalks, bowed to his teacher without drama, and painted the circle he'd dreamed in pieces all term: a ward that would look at a basilisk and refuse to become stone.
"Explain," Volkov said, knuckles in his pockets like a man preventing himself from clapping too early.
"Gaze doesn't kill," Ivar replied. "It instructs. The basilisk is ancient authority; the eyes are imperative mood. Stone is obedience disguised as physics."
"Mm," said Volkov. The sound meant go on or go home.
"So," Ivar continued, drawing, "we teach our own eyes better manners. This ring bends incoming sight into a mirror weave, but instead of reflecting back—which would be an attack—we bleed the command into a thestral-ink sigil and ground it in the floor. Result: I can watch her without either of us getting hurt. Selena—" the name came out before he chose it; it fit; it stayed "—will not be insulted by a shield. She will be acknowledged and answered."
Volkov's scarred mouth slanted. "You named a serpent you have not met."
"I'm learning to talk to her from a distance," Ivar said lightly, and felt the truth of it tug like a tide.
He cast. The ward rose with a soft sound like silk pressed between stones. Volkov stepped through it without turning into anything worse than himself.
"Pass," he said. "With the following insult: you did not make it ugly enough. Beauty gives people courage they sometimes haven't earned."
"I'll scuff it," Ivar promised, and unscrolled the rest of the exam with the efficiency of a boy who'd had his bones tuned by cold.
He left with an "advanced standing" certificate rolled and sealed for Hogwarts and ink on his fingers that wouldn't wash out for a day. He liked marks that stayed.
---
A Table to Travel
Ivar didn't intend to abandon his table when he boarded the Express. He intended to extend it.
He sat with Klara, Jannik, and Mila that evening and drew a map on the wood with a wet fingertip: Wiltshire. London. Ottery St Catchpole. A school set in land that remembered older stones beneath it.
"Klara," he said, "if I get pulled into theatre, you hold my knife for me."
"I always do," she said.
"Jannik, if a room is too quiet, make it obvious and loud."
"I was born for that accolade."
"Mila," he said, meeting her eyes, "for now you stay. Volkov is investing. Take the inch and make it a mile. When I call, come. Not before."
She nodded, steady. "I'll make us better from here."
"And the rest?" Jannik asked, tapping the map.
"The rest," Ivar said, "is letters and timing."
He wrote half the night. To Susan: September will be inconvenient. If the Ministry breathes down your neck, breathe back. I will take the public heat when it helps you. If it doesn't, we will pretend to dislike each other in corridors and drink tea after. To Fleur: If Beauxbatons sends a delegation for the Triwizard next year as rumors insist, bring fire and irreverence. We will ruin choreography together. To Daphne: Choose two boring people to sit me beside at that one dinner. I will find out everything they're not allowed to say and nothing I can't use later. To Tracey Davis (first letter): I appreciate people who hear everything. I intend to ask you to repeat nothing. In exchange, I'll make sure you're the first to know which rules are important and which are furniture. To Penelope Clearwater: I have a problem worth solving: a school with a hidden heart problem. You might enjoy diagnosing it. Lunch, September, library. Bring honesty; I'll bring ruinous curiosity.
He sealed the letters with the Black crest because some doors require the right knock.
---
Interlude: The Diary Moves
In a damp back room off Knockturn Alley, Lord Nott poured tea and poison with equal grace.
"Are we agreed?" he asked the heavy man across the table, whose eyes were courtesy and whose hands had never met a quill they didn't resent.
Gregory Goyle, Senior, nodded once. He had the look of a man who knew how to break bones and tables and didn't mind which. "Agreed," he said. "I'll see it placed with care. Children lose things. My boy won't."
Nott smiled without warmth. "The diary is not to be used by our sons, Mr. Goyle. It is to be delivered. Let it find its… proper home."
"Where?" Goyle asked. "Whose hands?"
Nott's eyes glinted. "In Slytherin, the object will decide. Old blood recognizes itself. You know how it is."
They both pretended not to know that Nott meant Weasley girl as surely as if he'd said it. They both pretended the contract between Malfoys and Weasleys didn't make that a delicious kind of blasphemy.
Goyle accepted a parcel. It was book-sized. It was heavier than paper.
Outside, a boy not yet twelve ran past the window, laughing at nothing. Men like Nott liked that sound until they learned how to weaponize it.
---
The Wand and the Will
Ivar's wand lay on the desk like an autobiography: elderwood charred by hellfire, core stitched of thestral hair and basilisk fang, tempered with phoenix tears. He hadn't told anyone the full story of it. He likely never would. Some tools require privacy to behave.
He palmed it and felt the familiar thrumming. "You've been thinking," Jannik said, flopping into the chair opposite and folding into the shape of a conversation.
"Always," Ivar said.
"About her," Jannik guessed. "Your basilisk. The one you named before you met. Bold."
"Accurate," Ivar said. "Binding is rude unless it's consensual."
Jannik frowned. "You plan to ask a colossal murder-snake for permission?"
"Ask? No. Offer terms," Ivar said. "Protection. Reverence. A job. Freedom inside a bigger freedom. Familiars aren't pets. They're promises."
Klara, listening from the bed while pretending not to, nodded once. "Promises have teeth."
"Yes," Ivar said, smile thin and pleased. "Bite the right things, and you keep your friends warm."
He laid out the ritual forms that would matter at Hogwarts: sight-warp runes to hang on the inside of his lenses if he wore any; skin-ink that turned glances into glancing blows; a hummingbird-thin ward that would sit like a second eyelid over a basilisk's gaze and translate Kill into I hear you.
Mila traced a finger over the chalk. "This one," she said, touching a twist in the weave. "It will cost pain."
"All good translations do," Ivar replied. "I've budgeted."
---
A Visit, an Offer, a Refusal
Professor Karkaroff requested Ivar's presence, which meant come be told not to embarrass me on foreign soil. Ivar brought his best manners and nothing to apologize for.
"You will represent Durmstrang," Karkaroff declared, steepling his fingers like a cartoon villain begging for a caricature. "Wear our reputation like a coat. We built you; show them our architecture."
"Volkov built me," Ivar corrected pleasantly. "The winter maintained me. You… provided rooms."
Karkaroff's smile fractured enough to show a hinge. "Do not make enemies you don't need."
"I never do," Ivar said, sincere. "I simply make fewer friends than I'm offered."
Karkaroff reassessed, then pivoted to a more practical sin. "We have… visitors who may be of interest to you before you go." He slid a parchment across the desk. Two names. Both Notts, both hungry. "They came asking about our curriculum. I sent them to the guest quarters. I suggest you… don't meet them."
"Very ordinary advice from a school that loves legends," Ivar said, pocketing the warning like a compliment. "I accept."
He did not accept. He found where the Notts were sleeping and left a calling card between the door and the floor: a single rune that meant seen and unimpressed. When Theodore Nott woke to go piss, he'd step on it and think of him. That was enough.
---
Goodbye, Not Quite
The last week of term became a series of farewells that refused to be dramatic. Ivar made them jokes; the jokes landed like oaths.
He stood a last time at the bench and banged his cup to announce the important changes: "Glove amnesty is now glove inheritance—if you've been borrowing the same glove all term, it wants you more than its original owner. The parapet is closed to spoon choreography until the new first-years arrive; then it becomes tradition. And if anyone here mutters that they are 'less' because someone leaves, they owe me ten laps and fifteen honest compliments to people they ignore."
Makarov shook his head like a man refusing to admit pride. Volkov clapped Ivar once on the shoulder in front of everyone, which was akin to canonizing him. Klara said see you soon in a tone that projected if you die I will kill you. Jannik wrote a song called "Our Crown Went South But the Snow Stayed Loud" and performed it badly on purpose. Mila handed Ivar a slim case: a pair of rune-stitched lenses he could slip on if he needed a physical layer between his eyes and hers.
"For a basilisk you haven't met," she said.
"For a friend I already have," he said, and meant her.
They packed. Winter into trunks. Trunks into carriages. Carriages into the mouths of boats that loved the lake less than it loved them. On the last night, Ivar went below, whispered good evening to the stones a final time, and said aloud the one thing he rarely admitted even to himself:
"I'm afraid," he told the dark. "Not of them. Not of the basilisk. Of turning into the wrong story."
The chamber approved. Fear is a tool that tells the truth about edges.
"Then I will use it," he said, and went up to sleep like a general who'd finally found a quiet map.
---
Across the Summer
Summer in Wiltshire smelled like grass remembering it had survived winter. Narcissa walked the gardens with him and spoke of manners as sorcery; Lucius reviewed obligations with the precision of a knife counting its own notches. Draco wrote him three letters that were mostly about Quidditch and a boy named Potter who seemed to attract trouble the way lightning attracts towers. Ivar wrote back with advice on how to aim charm and when to stop throwing it.
From London, Amelia Bones sent two lines that weren't an invitation and weren't not. If you come in August, we can pretend to disagree in the Atrium and agree later in a broom closet. Bring one question you intend to answer without my help. He liked that game. He accepted.
From France, Fleur sent a ribbon that matched nothing and a challenge that matched everything: Bring me a reason to admire an English castle. I will bring you a reason to fear a French woman.
From Daphne: dates, rooms, names, and a reminder that the boring dinner would contain a Notts-adjacent aunt whose laugh sounded like small knives. He stretched his smile accordingly.
And from Knockturn, invisible but inevitable, the diary moved through hands that did not know what they carried and mouths that would never admit they were hungry.
---
The Door
September arrived like a drum. The letter from Dumbledore was precise: Platform 9¾; eleven o'clock; do not be theatrical until after lunch.
"Tragic," Jannik wrote back, signing his name in the margin like a smudge. Be theatrical at eleven-fifteen, then.
Klara wrote nothing and pressed a small blade into his hand, the kind that could be concealed in a sleeve and an argument. Mila wrote a rune on his palm with invisible ink that would flash only when the room wanted to lie to him.
At King's Cross, London pressed around him—softer than winter, louder than war. He watched families disappear into the brick and let the sight make him honest: children first; politics later; monsters properly sorted into categories.
He stepped through the pillar like a boy stepping through a comma in a sentence that had been waiting years to finish.
The Hogwarts Express glittered with the kind of red that thought it had earned the right to be pride. Steam sighed. Owls scolded. A woman in a tartan shawl scolded louder and hugged harder. A thin boy with round glasses looked smaller up close and more inevitable from afar.
Ivar's lips curved. He adjusted the jacket that knew how to become a uniform, and the crown he didn't wear straightened anyway. He had winter in his bones and a basilisk already listening for the shape of his footsteps.
"Good evening, England," he murmured, though the sun was up and the sky had not yet learned how to be a ceiling. "Let's be polite before we are honest."
He boarded the train with a trunk full of letters, a head full of maps, and a ward that could look at death and say I hear you instead of I obey. Behind him, Durmstrang exhaled winter; ahead of him, Hogwarts inhaled story.
Somewhere between the two, a diary waited in a boy's trunk for a hand that wouldn't understand it until it was too late. Somewhere under a castle he had not yet walked, a serpent old as arguments waited for someone to greet her properly and tell her she could be more than a weapon.
Ivar smiled, a promise to himself and a threat to anyone who forgot the difference.
The train moved. So did the weather.