章節 20: Chapter 19
Seeing our Quidditch players successfully thrashing the bears, I suppressed the urge to rub my hands together like some movie villain.
Getting most of our things back had significantly boosted the spirits of the once-disheartened team, including Karpishin, one of the Beaters. As a result, the bears, for whom this match was just another among many, and held no special significance, were openly baffled by their opponents' enthusiasm.
But we shouldn't rest on our laurels. After losing this match — which is quite likely — they'll face us in the next game with even more motivation. They'll definitely want to avenge this unexpected defeat.
"Adal, soon your face will start scaring people," came a voice from Ivan, who was sitting next to me.
Durmstrang also has a Quidditch stadium, but it's built in a much gloomier Gothic style, rather than the brightly colored one at Hogwarts or the elegantly light design at Beauxbatons. Instead of the four or five towers — I can't quite remember — like in the British school, here there are only two, but they are shaped like crescent moons and are positioned at the front and back of the stadium.
There are only three rows for students, naturally tiered by height, and an additional one for the professors. Though it's more of a comfortable box, like in other sports stadiums of the magical world.
"You're exaggerating," I finally deigned to reply. "If de Welt were bothered by it, too, then—"
"We wouldn't be sitting together!" declared the blonde girl to my left, nearly jumping out of her seat as our tank of a Beater took the bear Seeker out of the game with a Bludger. A solid hit, and with his strength... poor girl who got caught in the strike.
That said, Veronica Olkhovskaya isn't exactly small herself. On the contrary, she's quite... robust. She really should be a Beater, but unfortunately, the Brown Twins aren't going anywhere. Those two, of all people, are really big guys, each two meters wide.
"Are you really not going to be a Chaser next year?" Erika, who was sitting behind me, asked a few minutes later. "That would be an unusual... what do you call it... precedent."
"And do you think I have even the slightest desire to participate in this chaos?" I gestured around the stadium, where at that moment our Chasers were making a beeline for the bears' hoops, intending to widen the gap even further. Without Olkhovskaya on the field, they had a very good chance — an ideal one, I would even say.
"Alright, I'll give you that. But you mean to say you have no desire to beat Romanova's dogs?" Stadtfels asked, intrigued.
"Oh, magic, am I really going to stoop to doing it myself? I'm a spoiled dandy, quoting the elder of the Browns. My reputation doesn't allow for it," I joked, cracking my knuckles.
"And who cares about those domesticated animals? Pfft..." came a disdainful response amidst the noise that followed a Quaffle scoring through the hoop.
"Sister Erika, don't you know you're called Adalbert's pet wolf?" came a playful voice from Marta Faragone, sitting to the left of Erika with her ever-present friend Greta.
"The grey she-wolf, the grey she-wolf, growling at all, cowering from her master's whip, tail tucked, running at his feet..." Greta teased in surprisingly good Russian.
"Grrr..." the grey-haired girl growled, half-confirming the mocking rhyme. "I'll find that half-baked Schiller... mark my words," she promised darkly, pressing her palms firmly against the bench.
Amusing.
If Karpishin were here, he would have laughed in his typical manner, and after the match, we'd probably witness a brawl. Maybe without any special technique, but at Durmstrang, as in the entire magical world, it's still a memorable spectacle.
But oh, the trouble of organizing it, and making sure no one else finds out. Otherwise, the mocking from the other houses — especially the bears — would double. They'd start criticizing me for my unruly and barbaric underlings, and them for being just as uncivilized.
Do I really need all that? No, I don't. My, ahem, ambitious plans would only be hindered by it.
I glanced back.
And I must say, it was the right thing to do.
"Dear frauleins, let's not provoke our, erm, she-wolf. May I remind you that you are sitting quite close to the angry daughter of the Stadtfels family," I said, deliberately switching to a grandiloquent tone so that the Hungarians would understand more quickly. Oddly enough, it works on ordinary people.
"As you say!" the two friends responded almost simultaneously, followed by cheerful laughter.
"Looks like the grey she-wolf isn't the only one with a master... Ow!" de Welt, who had been listening closely to our conversation all this time, didn't get to finish her sentence. Unfortunately for her, Erika's hand was quite close to her hair. "Hey, that hurts!"
"If you know perfectly well how I am and how much this irritates me, why do you do it?!" the German girl hissed, leaning in.
"Ouch! Okay, okay, I get it!" de Welt quickly gave in when Stadtfels tugged her hair even harder.
"Tch." Erika let go of Valeri and exhaled in frustration. Then she suddenly went pale.
She finally got it.
"Kriemhild didn't see it, calm down. He's deep in conversation with Frau Catonane about, ahem, morals," I reassured her, glancing up with some interest. Though my seat in the front row was less than ideal for observation, it was worth it to watch the professors argue so passionately.
It wasn't their first quarrel, but it was always entertaining to watch.
The crux of their dispute was that our esteemed dean believed the lady dressed too openly and vulgarly, while the lady herself considered herself a paragon of modesty and Puritanism compared to the current generation. The dean vehemently disagreed, claiming that she was a bad influence on the students. The funniest part? Their families were equally ancient, so neither could assert authority over the other.
Kriemhild's superior age and accomplishments were offset by Catonane's overwhelming self-confidence and her numerous influential relatives.
Hmmm... and yet Edelfelt plans to take private lessons with her... I wonder how that will turn out. Probably with a lot of nagging from our dean. Oh no... it just hit me. When she ignores him — and Luvia and Catonane share the same level of arrogance — the dean will come to me as the second most important person in the House. What a disaster...
Well, private lessons won't start until winter, so there's still time to think. By now, Erika had relaxed, reassured that her inappropriate behavior hadn't been seen by the big boss, and one of her subordinates approached and whispered something to her.
"Tonight at 10:30, third floor, second left side corridor," she relayed to me in a now-serious tone.
"Hmm, why are they being so cautious?" I muttered to myself, diving into thought.
I had previously scheduled a meeting with the Unjoined about what had happened earlier today, but the location they chose was... odd, to say the least.
Unfortunately, the reason behind such a choice wasn't to quietly ambush us. If only it were that simple.
And once again, I'm left racking my brain over this. You'd think they're just foolish kids, scared and all that... but their leadership isn't particularly stupid. They failed today due to a misstep by their executors, not a flaw in the overall plan. After all, they did manage to steal unnoticed. Without a well-crafted plan, they wouldn't have managed even that.
Fine. The best way to deal with an unexpected move is with an unexpected move of your own. Therefore, the, heh, "delegation" I send will not be what the revolutionaries are expecting.
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