CHAPTER FIFTY

THE SWORDS CLASHED AGAINST EACHOTHER AS THE two wizards sparred, sparks of fire rising from the jarring conflict as the slicing sound—driven explicably from the wrath of the contact in between the silver blades, swept against the Bulgarian wizard's cheek—hot as it scorched his skin and grazed it.

He looked as his opponent with the gaze of raw conflict that two sparring wizards ought to hold for each other, but his own anthracite eyes seemed to let go of such a feat with great relief, for he smiled into the gaze, and watched his opponent return the smile in an equal proportion, the latter's light brown eyes glinting against his bronze skin.

The two Bulgarian wizards, both with the stark agility of their former International Quidditch playing years, where one had carried the role of a world renowned Seeker while the other a Beater for the Bulgarian National Quidditch team, sparred some more as their strength and dexterity translated itself into the blades they held—as though the fingers holding hilts had enough power to radiate all that was inside into a lifeless blade.

Then they stopped. Drenched in their own perspiration and humidity of the weather pressing in on their bodies at all sides, they stopped sparring, both of them panting and panting, breath rushing in and out of their lungs as they broke into laughter stemmed from exhaustion, and congratulated each other.

Newcastle, Northern Ireland. The trip made to come here, was arduous and mentally tiring in more ways than one, and both the wizards were all too aware of it.

Deliberately having to abandon the safehouse they had occupied with the others, only to move onto and seek refuge in another one, just because they had replenished their medical supplies, was atrocious, and anger stemming from that had fueled this sparring practice in the first place.

It was a means for the both of them to put away their anger so that it was stored safely, to be found and used when the need arose.

"You are getting sloppy, though," Zubair Dimitrova, the black haired, brown eyed, and bronze skinned former beater of the Bulgarian National Quidditch team, was quick to retort, his teeth glinting like his eyes against the contrast of his skin and the freshly blue-ing sky overhead them both.

"I could cut you through, Dimitrova, and you know it," Viktor Krum responded with half a scoff, his closely shaved head shining with perspiration as he rolled his anthracite eyes, his fair skin glistening in sweat as he stashed the sword to the heap of their other weapons at a side—with his seeker swiftness.

The past two years had hardened them both in a way that soft clay left exposed underneath the sun did to a project borne of clumsy hands and fumbling fingers—though the two Bulgarian wizards were anything but such projects.

"The new year feels different this time," Zubair spoke then, stashing his own sword away as he walked over to their small makeshift camp, finding a towel as he dried himself.

"In what way?" Viktor prompted, his gaze on the horizon above the rolling greens.

He knew it wasn't safe, camping out in plain sight despite using the multitudes of hiding and safety charms that the French wizard, Elias Dupont, had recommended they use. Krum knew still, that they should've picked a wilder spot with trees so tall and wide that should he lose to Zubair and get speared through, his friend could just leave his body and not bother with burials.

But Newcastle seemed to be devoid of spots like that, the town—away from the metropolitan—was but a rolling cascade displaying scattered snow and the rolling greens tucked underneath. Though it seemed to be a dangerous place to hide, it also seemed to be the least likely for a search.

"I don't know," Dimitrova's Bulgarian was swift as he plowed through the items they had both brought, searching for a clean shirt and a covering.

On Viktor's own body, sweat started cooling and crusting under the harsh early January weather—but he felt none of it's extremities. He had long deemed himself incapable of being bothered by any such extremities.

"This time last year we were fighting for Ireland," Zubair spoke, finding the shirt and putting it on after he discarded the one he had been wearing.

"We still had it then—or at least the Irish did—and now that we lost it, we're back."

"As visitors or trespassers?" Krum mumbled, his eyes still fixed on the horizon.

"Both," Dimitrova shrugged, pulling on a fur covering and joining his friend's side.

"But this year's different because we're not fighting for Ireland, like we were last year. We're just living and recuperating before we fight for the entire world."

Viktor smiled a faint smile. Fight for the entire world. He knew he would perish before he could fight for half of it—before he could reclaim half of all that Voldemort had taken from him and those he held dear and from the world at large, but that didn't mean he wouldn't still do it. Somewhere, in the grip of that dark wizard, there was a killing curse with Krum's name on it, and though he knew it would eventually eviscerate him, he planned to fight and evade it for a while yet.

"Fight and die trying, right?" Viktor spoke, glancing at Zubair who grinned at him.

"Fight and die trying," He repeated it back to Krum.

They both turned then, back to face the horizon ahead. The sun had just come up, it was still bleeding and trying to regain it's wrath from the night that had stolen it from him. He still dripped the harshness to which he had succumbed to, and while the world thought him beautiful in this state, he cursed it as he hurried—not wanting to give those who reveled in his misery more of a show.

Another year. The thought of figures changing on a calendar did nothing for Viktor Krum. Nothing normal did anything for him anymore. He had grown obscure from the things that had once made him feel alive, he had buried himself and who he used to be in so many places—as though he was a traveler cutting off each body part he owned one by one and burying it under mud at the most compelling places he had visited.

Thus, when Krum looked at himself in the mirror, he looked like a cripple to his own eyes, though all his material body parts were intact. And then when the disgust at himself churned and burned inside him, he looked away, forbidding himself to catch a look of his reflection—even accidentally—again.

Northern Ireland though, seemed to hold more of his torn off limbs and sawed off halves. He feared he was walking on his own ashes, when he treaded the country's ground, refusing to understand anything otherwise.

"Come on, let's go to the others," Zubair lightly punched Krum's arm, fearing his friend's mind would drag him down.

That was why Dimitrova had taken to blabbing, uttering incoherent nonsense at times when the two friends were alone, if only to keep his best friend from spiraling—if only to keep him from out of the damned clutches of his innermost thoughts and heartache.

If there was one thing Zubair Dimitrova, the former Bulgarian Quidditch team beater, had realized in these past two years, it was the crushing fact that nothing terrified him more than losing his best friend to his own innermost demons, for Dimitrova knew they had become far vicious than any Dark Lord that could ever traipse the sparse Earth.

They apparated safely to the new safehouse then, having gathered their things and obliterating any signs that they had made camp on the spot where they had. Being pure bloods, apparation was less risky for them, whereas mudblood apparations and those of others in the similar vein, were being fervently tracked and noted, as part of Voldemort's decree under his jurisdiction.

"Thank goodness," A cry broke out then in their periphery as the two Bulgarian wizards arrived, the air of the safehouse—infused with the homely scent of baking goods, pine and a mixed floral perfume, courtesy of the many indoor plants being housed too—infiltrating their senses.

They had apparated right into the main hall of the dilapidated house they had fixed up.

Molly Weasley, the stout ginger haired woman, former esteemed member of The Order of The Phoenix, rushed over to greet them—an apron tied against her front—and possibly, to lament.

"You mustn't leave so early without telling anyone," The witch put her hands on her hips, the wrinkles in the corners of her eyes prominent as she scrunched her face in obvious distress.

"We were careful," Zubair offered sternly, switching to English for the first time in the day, hating the way the woman fussed.

Two years of being on the run and fighting alongside a group of people—all survivors of Voldemort's destruction—with similar motives, two years of being labelled terrorists and resistance fighters, two whole years of Molly Weasley taking on the assumed motherly role—and both the Bulgarian wizards had yet to warm up to the woman's controlling and demanding ways.

"I don't doubt that," The woman reasoned carefully, knowing how tense the waters were when she tried to get through to either of these two wizards.

She hadn't asked to be stuck with them, but neither had they.

"But I still worry," She let out, "If you get tracked, you risk us all."

"Then leave us be," Viktor spat out, speaking his first English of the day too, sick of the repetition of the same argument the woman presented each time he took Zubair out to train.

Hadn't the two of them relocated everyone safely to Newcastle? Hadn't the two of them scoured ahead and found the new safehouse, and labored deep into the night to fix it up to make it habitable? What the fuck was this strain then, this ludicrous distrust on their capability? This persistent belief that they would both slip up? This delirious warning every time he tried to step away to fucking breathe for a while?

"Leave us fucking be," Viktor reiterated again, emphasizing on each word. "We'll get our own safehouse."

"You aren't going anywhere, Krum."

A smooth voice perked up then, and the figure of Sirius Black appeared from out of the adjacent door that led to the living room of the house, the wizard's hands dug in his pockets as he shrugged, a look of careful understanding on his face as he tried not to offend—not to cause disruption that would lead to an eruption of anger in between either of the offended parties.

Black was the only other remaining member of the former Order of The Phoenix, besides Molly Weasley. All the remaining others had died in the battles that had ensued over the past two years, and Viktor Krum hadn't really had the time, capacity or even the curiosity to decipher anything about them but their names.

In truth, he couldn't care less about The Order and what they had stood for. Why should he, when none of it mattered in the end? What use was Dumbledore's cause when the man lay long dead, accompanied by the members of his cause?

Sirius Black's greasy wavy hair was past his shoulders now, and to Krum's eyes, he had long since become a man of only words to offer and nothing else, for behind every raid they managed to carry out, every attack they had advanced alongside other able resistance fighters of some countries who had duly given themselves up after the fight fell through, behind all of that was only Sirius Black's tongue and words, no muscle.

Black had long since stopped using his muscle, and Krum despised him for that.

"I'm sorry," The man spoke. "But you know it's safe for you to stick with us all. You've been alive these past two years with us, haven't you?"

Viktor's fists tightened at his sides. Alive. What the Bulgarian seeker was at present didn't qualify as alive, for stones weighed heavy on his chest, crushing him bit by bit every second that he breathed. He was barely breathing.

"No thanks to you," He let out, his jaw tight. "You're a fucking burden, Black, the quicker these people shed you off the quicker they'll realize they are much better off. Then how much time will it take for your corpse to rot after you've been killed the second you are seen?"

Viktor stepped menacingly forwards towards Sirius Black, and the latter—though elder by an addition of perhaps fifteen years, but comparatively frail in front of the Bulgarian wizard's ample muscle, and burly physique—had to clench his teeth tight and discreetly only to not flinch away.

"It is you who is safer with us, Black, you'll rot if I stop giving a shit. Every person under this fucking roof will rot once I stop giving a shit about anyone. Do you understand me?"

"We need you," The words stumbled out of Sirius Black's mouth then, "And you need us."

He added the last statement unconvincingly yet stubbornly, but the fact that he had even said it, made Krum's blood boil.

Because it was an utter falsehood. There was only one thing Viktor Krum had wanted even while Voldemort had remained only a fucking concept that had supposedly risen from the dead. While whispers and rumors had swirled and boiled in his periphery—all without any visible solid ground—Krum had remained focused on his life, and throughout all that, there was only one fucking thing he had ever wanted. One person. One her.

He hadn't wanted anything else, and now, after her, he wouldn't ever truly want for anything else.

"I can crush your windpipe, Black," Viktor exhaled, his eyes burning into the older wizard's small ones. "I can make you choke on your own blood at my feet right now, and then I can ask you again if it I who needs you or if it is the other way around."

Sirius Black swallowed thickly, the skin on his jaw quivering slightly as his facial skin reddened discreetly. This was the thing with the surviving member of the ancestral Black family, and now the second of the two remaining members of the Order of The Phoenix. Sirius Black thought he was discreet in everything he did. He thought he was discreet when he exercised his control over the haphazard resistance movement he had assembled over the past two years. He thought he was discreet in hiding his fear and emotions.

But Sirius Black wore his apparent ineptitude in most matters clear on his face, and Viktor saw it each time.

"Don't talk to him like that," A third voice spoke up, and they all turned to look at Harry Potter's form running up to towards them, as he came down from the stairs of the upper floor, two of his friends at his either sides.

Viktor watched the—now sixteen year old—boy approach with a sudden calm elation as his eyes met the boy's own dark ones through his thick glasses.

Two years, and Harry Potter had grown up perhaps the most out of any of them, his gait—though still swift and that of a teenager—bore a certain determination and tenacity. He had changed and multiplied his own strength like Krum had hoped he would, in these past two years. Though the boy was still as clumsy as could be with a sword, Viktor had at first hand witnessed his stealth with his wand, and it was impressive each time.

"Please, Krum," Harry spoke up then, and in his eyes Viktor suddenly saw a flash of her reflected back to him.

She had doted over the boy, protected him above all else, until she hadn't anymore.

He tore his eyes away from the boy's and glared instead at Sirius Black. Anger kept it all way. Every flashback, every regret, every single moment of hurt—Krum's anger kept it all away from him.

"We can't fight against each other, alright?" The boy persisted, directing his plea towards his godfather—Sirius Black—as well.

"We can never fight against each other," Black repeated, swallowing.

"We don't," Molly Weasley—a silent contender so far—let out in frustration, "We only worry for these two—"

"Worry about yourself," Zubair sneered then.

"Zubair," Harry Potter uttered, quickly placing himself in front of the two Bulgarian wizards, blocking their approach and direction towards the two former members of The Order.

"Look," The boy sighed, trying me meet both Krum and Dimitrova's eyes. "Relax, alright? You can go train where ever you both want to, and for however long you want to. We know you're careful, we know you won't risk us."

Sirius Black and Molly Weasley both swallowed their protests, though Viktor could see the words bobbing in their throats—heavy to swallow.

But Viktor's own resilience backed down at Potter's words. If there was one person he and Zubair kept coming back to this godforsaken resistance movement for, it was Harry Potter.

The boy was Viktor's to protect, to keep safe. Viktor had already lost him once to Voldemort, but he and Zubair had gotten him back out from the captivity. Viktor had sworn he would never let such a thing happen to the boy again, and that was why he kept coming back—even if he knew he would find Black's blatant ineptitude in his face.

Harry Potter still bore the marks of that captivity on his back. Ugly gnashes that had been struck on his body so deep, leaving him battered and bleeding on that cold granite floor when Viktor had first seen him inside that cell.

He pushed that memory back, forcefully thrusting it away from his mind. Potter seemed like he had mentally healed from all that had happened to him, so then why could Viktor not at least appear like he had, too?

"Come, mum," Ron Weasley, one of Harry's two friends—a careless yet reserved ginger haired and freckled boy of sixteen—led his mother by the hand, eyeing Krum with a careful distance and caution before he guided his distressed mother away.

Sirius Black cleared his throat, but without saying anything, tapping Harry on his back lightly and excused himself, clearing the hallway.

Hermione Granger, the second of Harry's friends and of his own age—a thin and pale, thick sable haired girl—lingered in the hall as she cast her small brown eyes upon Harry's form. He met her eyes, a confirmation in them as she shuffled on her feet.

Viktor felt her eyes glance over his form, but he ignored her, keeping his own eyes on Harry. He knew the girl was attracted to him, Harry had often mentioned the feat with much amusement on nights Krum and he had conversed about other things than the impending doom weighing on their shoulders. Viktor had shrugged it off then and he ignored it now, for he had long since stopped caring about attraction other than the one he had once felt towards a certain girl.

But that attraction had wrecked him apart. That attraction had left him crippled to the extent that he couldn't even bare to look at himself in a mirror anymore. His red hot anger stemmed from that betrayal, but it also stemmed from that fact that everyone—including this thin sable haired girl who he'd never look at the way she wanted—even Sirius Black, knew of the betrayal that Krum had suffered.

They all knew how weak he'd been to let it happen to him, they had all seen the helplessness he had succumbed to. And he hated all of them for that. He felt as though they had seen what they didn't deserve to see, and no matter what he did, he couldn't take it back. He couldn't burn their eyes and rip their minds apart to undo any of it.

"Leave," Viktor let out then, his words directed towards the girl, who in her naïve senselessness was assuming she was privy to any conversation he wanted to have with Harry, when in reality she was fucking not.

No one was fucking privy to anything Krum said to Harry, but Zubair and the other guys. That was how he wanted it to remain.

The girl stifled a shocked gasp as she jumped at his outburst, before pivoting and scurrying off.

"She's my friend," Harry offered with slight dismay as he watched her scurry off in her humiliation.

"I didn't say she wasn't," Viktor's jaw tightened. "I didn't say that Black, The Weasleys or anyone else in this resistance wasn't your friend, Harry. I didn't say any of that shit. But me? Some of your friends are not my friends, and they'll never be."

Harry shut his eyes briefly, a grief marring his face that stemmed from the empathy the boy had shown on multiple occasions to Viktor. An empathy that only he and Zubair, and the other guys showed—except of course Gabriel Chevrolet, for the French wizard would undoubtedly have a hard time even defining empathy to a public audience.

"I've told you multiple times," Viktor continued, his ebony eyes piercing into Harry's gaze. "I'm only here because of you. I only fucking joined this shit because of you. Chevrolet, Elias, Wood and Benji may or may not have joined regardless. But me, Zubair—"

He broke off to glance at Dimitrova who nodded in stern confirmation.

"We're both here in the first place because of you. We never asked to join this resistance, and we wouldn't have died without it, I assure you that."

"Yes," Harry exhaled, "I know, and I'm so thankful for it."

Viktor turned his face away, his jaw tight. "I don't want your gratitude."

"Krum—"

"I only want these fuckers to leave me alone," Viktor broke Harry's protest mid speech. "I want them to stop telling me what to fucking do."

"Having a tantrum, are we?"

A sly voice infiltrated the conversation, and Gabriel Chevrolet—the dark skinned French wizard with golden studs in his ears blinking against his form—stepped from out of a corner door in the hallway, grinning, it was the library room of the house.

Behind him, from the door he had left open, out followed the figures of Elias Dupont, Lucas Benjamin and Oliver Wood, all the three guys sturdy on their feet and in their gait—except of course Dupont, who always held a certain manner of elite French breeding in the way that he walked and talked, always gripping a dusted book under his arm that he studied thematically from, and Lucas Benjamin—the American posh boy—who held the free spirited-ness of a back bencher instead of the year seven headboy and straight grades student he had been at Ilvermorny two years ago.

Viktor Krum often marveled at how they had all come to be stuck together, being from stark different backgrounds as they all were. The guys were the only phenomenon that the resistance had not created, for Krum had known them for far longer than that—far longer than Sirius Black's measly efforts to assemble a movement together.

He tried to trace it back often times when he couldn't sleep at nights.

Zubair he had known since his first year at The Durmstrangs Academy. Elias Dupont—the fair skinned French wizard with his sharp eye and keen intellect—and Gabriel Chevrolet, both of them he and Zubair had met at Ilvermorny at the start of the ill-fated Huntlock Tournament two years ago. Ilvermorny was where he had met Oliver Wood—the Hogwarts Quidditch team keeper and captain—too, and of course Benji, the Ilvermorny year seven headboy had been met and befriended in the same phase.

Though Chevrolet, Wood, and Dupont hadn't exactly been befriended like Benji had been, it was just their circumstances that had labelled them all so.

There used to be more of them, back when they had all first met and circled each other's orbits like broken satellites, hating each other's guts at times and other times merely tolerating.

There had been more of them.

Viktor's eyes sharpened in an ache as he thought of the girls then. Three girls had been part of this unorthodox group assembled way before Sirius Black had taken on the role. Three girls weaved in between this group of guys, threaded in between them like planets—their presences tying them all together and making it unforgivable to tear apart.

But all three of them had gone, and one them was her. One of them had created a chasm and torn Krum apart from the inside. One of them had butchered him while he still lived.

"Chevrolet," Zubair acknowledged the French wizard. Two years, and things between the two of them were still raw to touch, though an understanding had still wafted over the uneven ground.

"Behave, Chevrolet," Elias Dupont muttered, sharply eyeing his former class mate. Both of them Beauxbatons students, knowing each other for how long? Since year one? Though their temperament with each other was anything but sweet.

Chevrolet scoffed, not bothering to reply to the reprimand.

"You guys okay?" Lucan Benjamin chimed in, raising a brow as tufts of his curly blonde hair fell over his forehead, his eyes peaking through his curly stands.

Out of all of them, it was Benji perhaps who looked as though he was still eighteen, though they had all been eighteen two years ago. He still had that elation to him, that light in his eyes and skip in his step. He looked like he fully agreed with life and it agreed back with him, even though the world around him was going to hell.

All of them had left their schools two years ago—having had a year still more to graduate, deciding collectively not to ever go back. There had been many contributing reasons, for one, death eaters had taken over all of the wizarding schools and the former headmasters and mistresses had all been executed. For two, they had all sworn to protect Harry Potter and become an obstacle in the path of Voldemort—preventing him from taking the entirety of the world in his grasp.

A humble motive perhaps, but it grew tense and heavier day by day. Because the resistance had three horcruxes in their possession, and the prospect of getting their hands on all of the remaining ones and destroying Voldemort entirely, was a throbbing and desperate possibility.

"Yeah," Viktor Krum let out with an irritation in his tone. "Doing just great."

"You let Black get to you," Oliver Wood spoke up then, his brown hair messy on his head as folded his arms across his chest and met Krum's eyes. "He's terrified you both will just pick up and leave—cripple any chance this resistance has—yet you let him get to you."

"He won't be getting to anyone if we just knock him out," Gabriel suggested. "As you said, Krum, the man's a burden on this resistance. He sits on his ass and doesn't do shit around here."

"No," Harry Potter spoke up then, narrowing his eyes in alarm as his eyes met Viktor's. "Nobody touches Sirius."

"Oh no," Chevrolet hastened with mock reserve. "Of course not, that's for you."

Elias exhaled at the remark towards Harry, not finding anything else to say to Chevrolet's filthy jest.

"Let's focus on other things, shall we?" Lucas probed, glancing in between both Krum and Dimitrova, desperately trying to veer away the clustered frustration in between all of them. "Did you guys make sure the safehouse we left won't lead to us? No signs, or anything that can be traced back?"

"Yeah, it's all set to be a dead end," Zubair spoke, "Though they haven't yet come to check."

Dimitrova had left a charm there that Elias Dupont had suggested, a discreet charm that would notify of any presence in the abandoned safehouse, to Zubair. That way they'll know if it was being searched for any signs of the resistance.

"They will," Viktor affirmed, eyes hard in determination, "And when they do, we need to be there, watching them look for us."

It had been fervently agreed upon in between them all—and even reluctantly submitted to by Sirius Black—that while the resistance prepared to fight for the still standing independent countries that called for their help, and raid death eater territories for supplies and weapons whenever necessary, active search for the remaining horcruxes will be undertaken by Viktor, Zubair and the rest of the guys.

It was an acknowledged truth that the horcruxes, being eight in total, were divided readily. Three the resistance had in their possession, including Harry Potter's own soul, while four were in possession of death eaters and maybe Voldemort himself. Harry had destroyed one horcrux years ago, and that was only one less thing on everyone's minds at present.

The only way to find the four horcruxes they were looking for—even though they weren't sure yet as what objects these horcruxes presented themselves—was to have the death eaters themselves lead them to the things.

"Do you need all of us to go?" Benjamin let out, somewhat hesitantly.

Lucas knew that they couldn't all leave the resistance at once, even for a short while. Things here needed to be monitored. If Sirius Black, ambitious as he was—though he had the same intentions against Voldemort as the rest of them—was given free reign, he would make plans and force the resistance on raids that would fruitlessly suck out their strength. And any one or two of the guys needed to be present here to deter him from such a decision.

Viktor glanced at all of the guys, his eyes firm in theirs.

"Me, Zubair, Wood, and Chevrolet are going," He let out then, looking in between Elias Dupont and Lucas Benjamin. "You both will stay here and keep Black on a leash."

"What about me?" Harry Potter chimed in, irritated that he had been forgotten.

Viktor looked at the boy blankly. "You stay, Potter. You don't enter into this question. You stay at the safehouse."

"No," The boy shook his head defiantly. "Look, I can come this time. Maybe if we see her—I can—"

The boy broke off, his voice cracking with emotion as his eyes glassed up. Viktor felt his own throat clog up with bitter emotion, and he felt angry that Harry had brought such a thing up again.

If we see her, he can.. what? Convince her? Force her? Persuade her to come back?

Potter had harbored this hope even back when he was a prisoner at the Malfoy Manor. Even when the skin at his back had been torn through to bone with the extent of his torture when he had been the only one of them caught after death eaters had raided their camp in Northern Ireland the day after she had left them, two years ago.

He had been convinced he could make a difference if only he saw her. But he never did. She never made an appearance.

And why would she? She was Voldemort's greatest weapon. She had carved half of the world out for him, cut it into slices and spread it all on a plate for him to pick and choose and devour. She had chosen her path, and she had betrayed all of them. She had betrayed the world. She had betrayed even her great uncle, who had preferred to die by her hand only because he despised Voldemort. She had betrayed Potter.

She had betrayed Viktor Krum. And he had never wanted anything or anyone as much as he had wanted her.

There were those in the resistance who claimed to have seen her on the battlefield when fighting for one country or the other, but Viktor Krum himself hadn't seen her. Neither had any of the guys. She remained an apparition those in the resistance claimed to see when they were delirious and losing life, blood seeping out from their wounds as they welcomed death.

She remained a fucking apparition for Viktor Krum for two years. Voldemort would never bring her willfully out when he could use her heuristics even from behind the fight.

"No," Viktor Krum let out, his tone hard as Potter shrunk slightly back with the force of it. "You are not coming Harry. I will not risk your safety for anyone."

He looked at the other guys, all of them seemingly altered as the mention of her—though her name had long become personally taboo for them to speak—was brought up. She had been in all their lives in different ways, though she had never been to them what she had been once to Viktor Krum.

"Zubair, Chevrolet and Wood. Pack up what you want, we're leaving in twenty minutes."

With that, Krum pivoted on his heels and stormed off, walking out of the hall towards the main door of the house, opening it and slamming it shut behind him as he let himself wash in the early morning light if only for a few minutes before they left to spy on their abandoned safehouse with the intention of tracking the death eaters who come by to inspect it.