CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

THE APOCALYPSE, THAT WAS what it felt, it seemed, lay on my dark horizon. My thoughts weren't scrambled though, they weren't fragmented, or rushing about my senses at the speed of light. I knew what I had to do, I knew how I wanted this day to go, and I knew I would make it bend to my will—regardless of the measures I would have to take for it to be so.

'You blend in. Hide your magic as you did with the Dementors—just don't stand out in front of them,' Aurelius' words pushed up front in my head.

I had inquired of Les dorés from him, hoping—wishing that perhaps he'd know more of their relationship with heuristics so that I may extricate myself from the Ilvermorny guest's line of vision. Why would he though? Barebone had been a puppet, puppets don't acquire things by themselves unless they were being fed it. It was clear, that if Grindelwald had any knowledge of the matter, he hadn't fed his head acolyte accordingly.

Aurelius didn't know, and so he had given advice blindly, like a chess move in the dark, not quite thought over at all. I had despised it, and irritation had bustled through my veins. Regardless, I felt bound to follow through, for I had no bright ideas of my own.

Time had clearly passed at Ilvermorny when I returned, parting ways with the former Credence Barebone, not knowing where he was going. He had talked of assisting me, to whatever length that entailed, I had no clue. But somehow, I was sure of his discretion, and that really was all I required of him.

I had been gone for no more than an hour, judging by Bridgette Monet's casual stroll outside of the bathroom and into the room with a toothbrush between her lips, and of course, by the clock that hung in our dorm.

"Dominique," She exclaimed at the sight of me, all spruced up in my sky blue uniform with the small remnants of dirt from the forest long abandoned, courtesy of the winds in my journey.

She looked as though she had tossed and turned all night, and I no doubt looked as though I had invented the sleep that had evaded her. It was a benefit really, having your composure just so that your interior did not coincide with your exterior. A benefit and a curse, for who really wants to look all put together every hour of the clock when in reality their walls were collapsing inside?

"You were out? Mais pourquoi?" She continued, the toothbrush held away in her hand as she looked at me with wide eyes. "Did you not hear Agilbert Fontaine last night? You can't just leave castle grounds and jeopardize our mission before it has even begun."

Our mission. I bit back the urge to scoff. This was my mission, and Bridgette merely fancied herself along for the ride. So did Krum, though his ambitions were far greater than hers. Or at least, he had ambitions, unlike her.

Perhaps, he wanted to be crowned something, upon the retrieval of The Elder Wand and after handing it over to the government. Perhaps, he was in front of his mirror in his dorm right now, practicing his speech for the moment, buff arms flexing muscles at his own smug reflection. The jest didn't sit right inside me. For some reason, I still couldn't picture a haughty Krum, thriving under all the glory and attention. His first impression on me had still lasted, and I found that expressively irritating.

"J'avais des choses à régler," I spoke dismissively, making my way over to a drawer in our vanity, before realizing I had put my incompetent wand on my person already.

"What things? Oh, like looking for Maximillian?"

My eyes darted towards her, anger filling up my chest and almost choking me. She looked frustrated, standing there in her pajamas, delicate features contorted into hard positions, eyes focusing intently on me. My own anger floated away as I wondered what she had to be furious about.

My head tilted slightly as I recalled our conversation with Elias last night. So, even after all she had said in my supposed defense, she assumed like Elias. She assumed I didn't care that a student was missing, or that he was one of our own. Would she be wrong? Had Maximillian Toussaint even crossed my mind when he should have? I swallowed a lump in my throat. I didn't think Toussaint had even crossed my path at Beauxbatons more than twelve times in the past two years combined, let alone my mind in the past couple of hours.

"Look," Bridgette sighed when I turned away, regret lacing through her tone. "I know The Elder Wand is essential to get. Avec la façon dont les choses sont.. perhaps we should delay this."

My eyes turned towards her sharply, my mind itching with frustrated curiosity at her thought process behind those words.

"Voldemort is back," She uttered, hastily trying to back up her argument. "And with Maximillian missing and Les dorés at Ilvermorny, you have to admit this is not the right time to be leaving."

"Wow," I let out slowly, frustration melting right into something thicker. "Vous changez de direction comme le vent. You were bent on going today, last night. You insisted that I would find a way."

"I did," She huffed, running a hand through her tangled morning hair. "But I've thought about it since and regardless of what way you find, it will be very dangerous."

"Of course it will," I snapped, frustration ebbing away at me again, needles prodding at my patience. "Nobody said it wouldn't be."

I didn't want her to come in the first place, and after consistent persistence, she had the audacity to dance around this? Like I had begged for her company, or agreement, to start with?

"I know but I just—," She broke off, sighing, and I turned away.

I heard her call out my name, but I closed the dorm room door behind me, cutting her voice out. I had no right to be furious, I know, yet there was something vicious about people giving others hope of company to rely on, only to attempt to back away at the last minute.

I made my way down the tower stairs, and found myself in the common room. A few Durmstrangs were up, four of the early birds—or rather, beasts—stood together in a group conversing about something in thick Bulgarian. Their voices lowered as I stepped in, eyes darting towards me and their exchanges with each other transforming into hushed whispers. They were now talking about me, and I felt the old familiar self consciousness seep into my form.

Pushing away at the feeling, I started to make my way out of the common room, finding myself in the hallway that connected the east wing to the rest of Ilvermorny.

It was strange, how Agilbert Fontaine had positioned us at the furthest corner of the castle. Only Beauxbatons and the Durmstrangs, while the Hogwarts students occupied dorms adjacent to Ilvermorny dorms. At least, I figured so, since there was no other wing of the castle as detached as the eastern one. It was almost as if our contribution to the Huntlock was welcomed halfheartedly, as though they wanted us at a distance. I stopped myself, reining in my speculations before they ventured too far.

In a trice then, a cluster of rushed footsteps sounded in my periphery and my elbow was roughly grabbed. My back slammed against the cold brick wall of the castle hallway as I was yanked with force and I winced, opening my eyes to Viktor Krum's anthracite orbs bearing their sharp teeth into my silver gray ones.

My back hurt from the impact, and I felt a wave rumble upwards to the back of my neck. The anger that had become my natural response to such a Krum stimuli didn't come to me suddenly at the sight of his face so close to mine.

Last night flashed in my head, I had pulled him close, touching our foreheads like we were lovers reunited. The memory replaced the pain in my back with hot embarrassment and anxiety.

"I suppose your thick head doesn't retain information anymore," I forced the words out, pushing past my anxiety. "I told you not to stop me like this again."

Krum's tight jaw twitched, his stoic expression slowly melting away to amusement.

"You said no such thing."

"Intelligent guys can take a hint," I retorted, yanking my elbow away but failing to step away as his form stood like a statue hovering close—closing my escape with his broad body.

"And I assume you're not one of them."

"Maybe," He let out, a sudden grin taking over his lips. "But you like me just the same."

I stilled, embarrassment recoiling my confidence again as I caught onto his reference, for our little moment last night—regardless of the fact that it was for technical reasons—was still fresh in my own mind. 

"You're delusional," I glanced away briefly, breaking eye contact. "Don't tell me your obsession with Gregorovitch brought this on. Did he used to tuck you in at night?"

Frustration marred his features before they loosened into a chuckle, lips parting as he exhaled.

Curiosity ebbed at me slightly. What, had he taken up some sort of a pledge this morning to not let my retorts rile him up?

"Your move last night has everybody thinking we're dating," Krum addressed the situation head on, though his displeasure about the observation was nowhere in sight on his face.

"Fuck that," He added, "They probably assumed we were dating as soon as you so publicly claimed I followed you to Germany to bring you back."

A flash of recognition in my head brought me Yordanka Hristova's face—her fury and the words we had exchanged.

"Perhaps it is you, who is obsessed with me, принцеса."

There was that Bulgarian word again, printsesa. Princess. I hated the sound of it in his language—or perhaps the way he said it. I hated the smug look on his tight face when he spoke it. I hated it on his tongue.

"Get bent," I snapped, my frustration finally breaking through the embarrassment and dominating my form once again.

"I have not yet stooped so low as to dote on the likes of you, Krum."

"Besides, I am cursed, am I not?" It was my turn to be smug as I quoted his words. I tilted my head pretentiously.

"Trust me, you shouldn't want anyone like me on your back."

"Maybe I don't want anyone like you on my back," His eyes darkened as he stepped closer, confining me tighter into barely any space.

"Maybe I want you, up front."

I blinked, my resolve breaking as I searched for the contempt on his face—or even a slither of his dark sarcasm, but I found none.

Viktor Krum shook his head in frustration then, as though he had dominated and finally pushed back a battle happening in his mind. He didn't want a response from me at that, I could tell. He had just wanted to say the words, perhaps feel how they would sound out loud—or how they would make him feel. A test project, as though he was back in his third year, trying complex spells in class at The Durmstrangs Institute for the first time. A mediocre attempt, and then he would move on.

The Bulgarian seeker shifted on his feet, eyes darting everywhere else but to me, as the skin on his neck reddened. Then reaffirming the tightness in his jaw, he steeled himself to look at me again.

Mon Dieu, had that really been a confession? For him to be bothered such so by having spoken it?

"Oliver Wood, huh?" Krum broke through my thoughts, his tone changing to that of the familiar contempt. Directed at me or the student he had spoken of, I couldn't tell.

"You two fucking around now? What would he think if he knew—"

"Shut up," I burst in, cutting him off. I had had enough of his antics.

The Durmstrang's brows narrowed at my outburst, but his eyes remained intense still.

"Do you seriously have nothing else to ask me?" I cried, disbelief coating my tone. "Dominique, who is Gregorovitch with? How could you show me what you did last night? Dominique, when are we leaving for Nurmengard? When can I bring Dimitrova around and terrorize you into submitting with my baseless yet monstrous threats?"

His brows furrowed some more, and the disbelief in my tone reflected on his face.

"Do I really have to ask those things?" Krum relaxed his features and then slowly raised a hand, making it approach my face.

I looked at him, my eyes firm and fierce, refusing to let him have an effect on me. He couldn't and I wouldn't let him.

His fingers hovered an inch away from my cheek, where a dark strand of my hair rested. Then thinking better of it and without contact, he retrieved his hand and lifted it upwards to rest on the wall beside my head.

"I hate you, Viktor Krum," I let out then, fury writhing inside me. Reluctant to use my own magic here, I pulled out my wand and decided to take a chance on it.

Before I could speak the wand spell that was brimming in my mind—something to maybe rip him away from me or birth a grisly toad stuck deep the thick of his throat, Krum gripped my wand holding hand and yanked me close, twisting my arm effortlessly behind my back as my chest came in contact with his.

"That is what keeps fucking with my head," He breathed, as though he was not speaking to me anymore, as though we both were no longer the people we were before.

But we were. We were the same we had been before, and vastly different from each other. No amount of presumption could alter that.

"I hate you as well," Krum added, his eyes dropping to the birthmark beside my right eye, and then to my lips before he met my eyes again. "But why then do I keep being dragged towards you?"

I tilted my head slightly, his eyes had darkened some more somehow, and I couldn't fathom how pools of ebony can deepen like that.

"Like a moth to a flame," The Durmstrang spoke, his tone had thickened, a voice draped in depth being forced to whisper—as though he didn't even want me to hear what he was saying, let alone anybody else.

"Like a fool to a plague," He finished, his face inching closer.

Anxiously, I turned my face slowly away, and his nose brushed against my cheek as I did so. That slight contact alone made the hair at the back of my neck stand up.

I met his eyes again, forcing every bit of the treacherous feelings bubbling inside me away.

"Peut-être sommes-nous tous. Papillons de nuit, flammes, fléaux et fous."

His brow twitched as he shut his eyes tight at my words, as though despite not having any French, he had understood exactly what I had said.

Perhaps we are all. Moths, flames, plagues and fools.

"Seeing you cozying up with that Hogwarts boy," Krum started then, as though I hadn't spoken. "Fuck, that was infuriating."

I swallowed a lump in my throat. What are we doing? My arm was still twisted at my back, the Bulgarian seeker's grip iron as he held me in place. In a few more hours perhaps, I would be face to face with the man who had been the real plague in my life. And perhaps, just perhaps, he would kill me at the spot, or drain me of everything I had, like Aurelius Dumbledore feared. So here and now, what the fuck was I doing? What the hell was I letting Viktor Krum do to me?

"I wanted to wring his neck," The Durmstrang continued, letting out a shaky breath. "I've never wanted to do that before for a girl. No fucking consequences came to my head, Dominique, it was just me with my hand around his neck, fingers tightening and tightening."

"Viktor stop," I managed, my chest constricting. I had no time for this, no space for whatever this was. I felt suffocated, and him holding me forcefully in place was not helping.

How could we come to this? How could he come to this? After searching through my memories forcefully, after calling me a bitch and deeming me cursed for my magic—looking at me as though I was filth and threatening to hand me over to dementors. How could such strong hatred be overcome like this? Or was this nothing more than a cruel jest, intended to prod in my brain and catch me off my guard?

"Stop what?" Krum's voice dropped to that breathy tone again, as though he was thirsty for something he didn't know how to consume. 

"You can't—," I swallowed. "You can't say such things." 

Why was I stumbling? Whatever he said or went on to say, it shouldn't matter to me. I was so bent on the fact that it wouldn't, but now? Now I felt as though every word he spoke had a tendency to alter my chemistry in ways I couldn't rearrange again. And that was so terrifying.

"Why?" The Bulgarian seeker husked, eyes half closed as he leaned in closer. His breath fanned my face, his nose dipping next to mine as his lips ventured too close to mine. 

"You think only Wood can impress you with his vinyls? Or do you just hold yourself like that?" 

His lips brushed against mine as he spoke, and a shiver cascaded down my back at the contact, my knees going weak as I forced myself against crumbling to the ground. 

I blinked, meeting his eyes slowly. "Hold myself like what?" 

The words leaving my mouth made my lips brush against his again, mainly because he was so close, he spared me no room to think, to breathe, to speak. 

"Like this fucking world isn't good enough for you," His look hardened, but he didn't move away. "Like you think nobody is good enough for you." 

My lips parted. Did I hold myself like that? Is that what I portrayed, or is that what he assumed? How different were those two perceptions really? 

This world didn't want me. I was just a witch hiding under a fake last name because I was too terrified of the consequences that would come with revealing myself. The people around me would cease to hold any sort of respect for me once they found out, I knew that, I believed that. Even Madame Maxime, she knew of my connection to Grindelwald, and she held no respect for me. You'd just have to look at the way she addressed me, like a Cornish pixie in a cage she threw an insect to. 

So no, it wasn't that the world wasn't good enough for me, or it's people. It was me who wasn't good enough for them. 

"You've got it so wrong," I managed, a hitch in my voice. 

"Then show it to me," Viktor Krum responded, not missing a beat. "Open up to me. When all this is over, I want you to myself. I want to know you, I want to know of everything that makes and breaks you." 

When all this is over. I shuddered. Will it be over? Voldemort was back. I had seen his pale, mutated carcass of a human face in Aurelius Dumbledore's memory. He had looked right at me. He was alive, breathing, his mind a dark, gruesome place—perhaps more so than it had ever been before.

"So that you can do what, with the knowing?" I asked, "You will ask, and when I won't answer, you will take it just the same." 

Krum exhaled. "You'll never forgive me for it, will you?" 

My eyes ached suddenly, thinking of the moment he had mercilessly torn open my mind and sifted through it without my consent, in Germany—or wherever he had apparated us at that point. The agony of it was still fresh in my memory, the blinding pain I had felt wasn't something easy to forget. And it wasn't just the pain, it was the humiliation, and the utter helplessness that came with being searched like that. It made you feel like a marionette, with your strings being tugged every which way. 

"You are a thief, Viktor Krum," I breathed slowly. "A cruel thief." 

If he hadn't, he wouldn't now know of The Elder Wand, or my plans to go to Nurmengard. He wouldn't know anything and I would have no one else with me, except for perhaps, Aurelius Dumbledore. That reality would've been easier to deal with, it would've been less terrifying for reasons I couldn't name. 

"I may be," The Durmstrang swallowed tightly, his Adam's apple bobbing on his throat as he met my eyes. His irises had guilt in them, but not regret, and that wasn't good enough for me. I wanted his regret.

"It was a godforsaken moment of weakness. I won't justify it," His eyes dropped to my birthmark again briefly. "But I'll make it up to you." 

"How?" It seemed a ridiculous concept, Viktor Krum making it up to me for anything. 

"By making sure nobody ever touches you, like that, or in any other way again," He uttered, jaw tight.

My throat constricted, heart pounding like a hammer against my ribs. And all I could think was, you don't do that. You don't hurt someone willingly and then continue to do so in ways smaller and discreet, and then come forward to make a claim like this. That wasn't how it worked. 

"Let go of me," I let out, tugging on my now numb arm and trying to break free. "I need to be anywhere but here right now."

"I think we established that you can't get rid of me," The intensity in his eyes flickered like a candle flame under a strong wind.

I cried out in frustration then, the need of being lowkey evaporating like mist in face of my desperation. "Why won't you just let go of me?"

"Didn't you hear what she said?"

A third voice enveloped our senses then, catching our attention as we whipped our heads towards the person who had spoken.

Oliver Wood stood in our line of vision, his Hogwarts robes pristine as his gaze rounded up and narrowed on Viktor Krum. I flinched with the embarrassment of being spotted in the state that I was in with the Durmstrang. I wondered suddenly with anxiety of how much the outsider had heard. But I realized then that he wouldn't have been standing there long, and Krum hadn't really talked much about anything else.

The Bulgarian seeker let go of my arm and turned to face Wood, a smug grin etched with frustration spreading on the former's face. I rubbed my wrist, quickly tucking my wand back on my person, in my knee high socks, before the new addition to this party could spot it. It was supposed to be broken, I had publicly announced it to be so, and it was.

"Showing up everywhere, are we, Wood?"

"Everywhere you act up?" Wood blurted. "Then yeah, I'll be glad to."

"It's alright, Oliver," I heard myself speaking, offering the Hogwarts boy a smile before shooting the Durmstrang at my side a discreet glare.

At least, I tried to muster a glare. My heart was still erratic in my chest, his words hot and demanding in my head, swarming my thoughts like Dementors in the morning sky outside. 

Viktor grinned in face of my look, before turning to set his attention on the intruder again.

"You looking for a fight, Wood? You should know you don't stand a fucking chance by now."

A fight for what? A chance for what? 

"Viktor," I spoke out, bearing all my fury and warning in that one word. "Drop it."

Then composing myself, I exhaled slowly, finding his eyes again. "Find me at six."

With that being said, I offered Oliver Wood one last smile and pivoted, heading out of the hallway and leaving the two of them there. 

─── ☾ ───

The sun had set in its due course, painting the sky a cacophony of orange and red—the last of its blood tainting the horizon before it awoke for another day. 

The two classes for the day had passed me by in a blur. I couldn't focus on anything the professors spoke of, yet I had been still able to maintain the farce that I was listening. I hadn't conversed with Bridgette again, though I had caught her looking at me during the classes, reluctant to approach me. Viktor Krum, I had avoided, though he seemingly was attempting an opposite feat, by the way his mouth quirked up when I caught his eyes. 

I didn't know what to feel, looking at either of them. Perhaps, I didn't know what to feel in general. With the night approaching fast and Nurmengard calling my name—half of my mind had gone numb to emotions other than those of fear and reluctance. 

As I stood, gripping the balustrade of our dorm room balcony tight, my eyes fixed on the faint figures of the dementors still traipsing the now night sky, I felt the familiar ache in my eyes build up again. Before I knew it, a tear had fallen boldly down my cheek as I wiped at it with the back of my hand. 

When all this is over. 

I couldn't see it over now. Not unless the world found a way to let me live still, once my connection to Grindelwald and my heuristics, both were revealed. Not unless my great uncle was truly silenced and barred. Not unless someone found a way to send Voldemort back to the dead, powerless to resurrect himself again. It all wouldn't be over until then, and it seemed as though I was the only one, at present, who saw that. 

The clock had struck six ten minutes ago, and I stood alone still, wondering where all those who claimed to be by my side for the sake of it, and the ones who wanted to reel in a little of the glory of retrieving The Elder Wand, were. I had only told one of them to find me at six. I had wanted to tell Bridgette too, for strangely, though I hadn't wanted her to come, the idea of having her for at least part of the journey, hadn't been entirely frustrating to think about. Perhaps I intended to use her, to be my sense of familiarity before facing someone who had long since ceased to be so. And perhaps, regardless of being oblivious to all that I would face, she knew that. 

Suddenly, the dorm door in the far distance behind me opened and footsteps sounded in, basking the quite of our room with urgency and hidden motives. The door closed after an interval and I heard the footsteps all approach and come to a halt behind me. 

I didn't know whether to be angry or relieved that they had all shown up. I didn't want either of them to come, it was true. Yet, I needed the relief. I needed to cling to it, despite how scarce and fleeting of an emotion or feeling it was. 

Slowly, I turned around to face them, my eyes taking in all their forms, presences, lives. Bridgette Monet managed a small smile at me, one that was weighed down by guilt. Viktor Krum stood firm, his hands loosely tucked in the pockets of his dark jeans, eyes reflecting the essence of every word he had spoken to me this morning in the hallway, and the ones he had spoken in his fury at instances before that. Zubair Dimitrova—well, the self proclaimed Casanova and heuristics expert looked merely curious to be there, braced for everything that would follow. 

They were all dressed casually, like me, having discarded their distinguishing uniforms and trading them in for warm jackets, boots, jeans and mufflers tied around their necks. The Austrian Alps, the snow on the ground there would be as indistinguishable there as the skies were here, but more full of wrath, pent up agony from captured wizards transformed into the white crisp ice that we would soon tread on. 

"Do you have everything you might need?" I asked them, my voice choked up as I managed the words out. "I suggest storage in extension pouches, if you have those. You can't carry stuff in the Alps, it will be arduous to do so."  

I had secured my own extension pouch on my person, all the things that I might need safely inside. What would they need, these people who had insisted they come along? 

"Yeah," Krum made a sound, nodding his head once as he cleared his throat, Dimitrova followed suit. "We have them." 

He spoke for himself and Dimitrova, which left Bridgette clearing her own throat. 

"I do too," She chimed in hesitantly. "I've also brought along some plans of the castle—Nurmengard—everything that simplifies the position of the cell. Everything I could find on it in the library, I mean." 

I blinked and nodded. "Thank you." 

The former Credence Barebone was already helping me with that. He would be aiding me in getting inside unnoticed. He had Grindelwald's cell nailed down, and he would be leading me directly to its door. Any doubt or confusion I may have had on that accord didn't occupy my mind anymore. How the former acolyte, living his life secluded from his former engagements and under the careful affection of his surviving uncle, Albus Dumbledore, had managed to secure himself such information, was beyond me. But I had no time to question it, and no strength to spare. 

But if I didn't have Aurelius' word, survival based only on the fact that Bridgette had managed to secure some articles from the Ilvermorny library was impossible as much as it was ridiculous. Surely, she could see that. 

But apparently, her belief—and that of Krum's and Dimitrova's—in my magic was palpable in the air around me. They may all have their opinions on it, but they trusted it enough to follow my lead like this, to leave everything behind and come with me. 

"So?" The Bulgarian seeker let out, catching my attention and holding it with his ebony eyes. There was a glint in them now, as though we shared something more than everything we had already been forced to share when he had intruded inside my mind. 

We did share something more now. Though I couldn't decide if sharing was the fitting word for it. Krum wanted things from me, and I didn't know how to give them, because I was scared how they would be used. It was just like The Elder Wand. I didn't want him to have it because I did not want it in the wizarding governments' hands, and that was just how he planned to use it and there was nothing I could say that would deter him. 

Perhaps he would do the same with my heart.

'I can hand you over to the fucking dementors right now.' 

'You will regret it if you don't do as I say. I can get you behind bars, Lavigne. I can ruin your fucking life with one word.'

His words throbbed in my head like a pulse, and my forehead ached slightly. No, Viktor Krum did not want my heart. Whatever it was that he wanted now from me, he will have to resort to his moments of weakness to get it. And when he does, I'll be there, ready to scorch his insides out with a flick of my wrist and a rune hot on my tongue before he could lift up his wand. 

"Are we doing this or what?" Krum continued, tilting his neck both sides and squaring his shoulders. 

"We are," I spoke softly, and then, shutting all thoughts out of my mind I summoned my runes, quickly drawing the required one in the air in front of me. 

This would hide my casting from the dementors, even after we left. They wouldn't be able to pick up the scent of my magic like they had the last time when I had traipsed to Germany and Krum had followed on my heels. I hoped it would work for Les dorés as well.

The former rune glowed a deep red as I drew another one, my fingers a bright blue as I formed the rune that would take us to the Austrian Alps and to Nurmengard. I felt their eyes on me, my companions, for however long and partial their journey would be, courtesy of Aurelius and the acolytes' distraction set up in their way. 

Their gazes were curious and intense in equal measure, but I found myself dwelling only on Viktor Krum's determined ones as our eyes met and my heart missed several beats. Instantly, the floor spun away from beneath our feet, and my eyes lost his orbs to darkness. 

***


A/N:
Hi, I hope you're having a beautiful day, and if not, I hope that happiness finds you so so soon. Just hang in there, you're so worthy. <3