Weeks went past. And snow had begun covering the ground like a blanket. Halloween was just around the corner and the spirit had already begun filling the school.
Pumpkins lined the corridors, and skeletons walked around trying to scared the students.
Linus and Sigrun was sitting in the dinner hall, eating his pumpkin soup which he had already gotten tired of. Sigrun sat in front of him reading her text books while eating.
"Can you do the protonus charm?" she asked out of the blue. Her eyes lifted to look at him.
He thought for a moment, he had actually never done it so he had no idea. The bases of the spell was to have a very fond memory, it's basically Turing happiness into a spell. He had no problem with the curse spells but he didn't know if he could do it.
"I don't actually know." He answered simply.
Sigrun raised an eyebrow. "You? The Linus Gray who duels seventh years doesn't know if he can do the protonus?" she asked,
Linus just looked at her and shrugged his shoulders. But before they could continue discussing it, Erik walked into the hall and approached them. he stood next to Linus without sitting down.
"hey guys, Niko is in the infirmary." He said casually while waiting for the twos reaction to the news.
They two sitting both stopped eating at the same time and just looked at Erik.
Linus set his spoon down slowly, the surface of the pumpkin soup rippling once before going still. Sigrun closed her book with deliberate care, fingers resting on the cover as she looked up at Erik.
"…why," she asked calmly, which somehow made it sound far more serious.
Erik scratched the back of his neck. "he asked a sixth year girl on a date."
Linus and Sigrun gave each other a look of knowing where this was going. "let me quess she had a boyfriend." Sigrun asked almost annoyed.
He just nodded in response.
or a second, neither of them said anything.
Then Linus leaned back in his chair and sighed. "Of course he did."
Sigrun pinched the bridge of her nose. "We talked about this. We literally talked about this last week."
Erik shrugged, entirely unapologetic. "He said it was fate."
Linus snorted. "Niko thinks everything is fate if the girl smiles at him."
"He didn't even ask if she was single, did he," Sigrun muttered as she pushed her book aside and stood up.
"Nope," Erik said cheerfully. "Went straight for the dramatic speech. Apparently included a compliment about her eyes and her 'warrior spirit.'"
Linus and Sigrun stood up and the three of them began walking to the infirmary together. On their way they saw several skeletons walking in a line trying their best to scare the trio, to little effect but it was funny.
The infirmary was warm but a little boring, only beds and cabinets filled with potions and books. The one in charge of the infirmary, madam Ek didn't even look up from what she was doing when they entered. "he's alive, loud but alive."
"shame" Sigrun said in response.
"I can hear you!" Niko shouted from the end of the hall.
Sigrun smiled as the approached. "I know you did."
Linus stood at the end of the bed and crossed his arms.
Niko smiled. "Linus, good to see you" he said with a fake smile.
Linus raised an eyebrow. "That smile tells me you learned nothing."
Niko clutched his chest dramatically. "I learned that love is pain."
"You learned that fists hurt," Sigrun corrected, peering down at the glowing bandage around his arm. "And that sixth years do not appreciate surprise declarations."
Erik leaned against the bedpost, grinning. "On the bright side, you are consistent."
Madam Ek finally looked up from her notes, eyes sharp. "If you are done encouraging him, he is not to leave this bed until morning. And if he does, I will personally make sure he regrets it."
"Yes maam," Niko said instantly, far too quickly.
They stayed a while longer, long enough for the initial worry to fade into familiar teasing. Linus adjusted the blanket at the edge of the bed, a quiet habit he never commented on. Niko noticed but wisely said nothing.
When they left the infirmary, the corridors felt warmer than before. Snow pressed gently against the tall windows, and enchanted pumpkins drifted lazily near the ceiling, humming old northern songs slightly off tune.
Back in the common room, the fire was roaring. Someone had enchanted the flames to burn a deep blue for the season, and the room smelled faintly of pine and spice. Students were scattered everywhere. Some studied. Some argued over a board game that involved small animated wolves. Others simply lounged on the rugs, boots kicked off, talking about nothing important at all.
Linus dropped into his usual chair near the fire, stretching his legs out as Sigrun took the seat across from him.
Sigrun tucked one leg beneath her, warming her hands on her mug as she watched the flames dance. "You know," she said lightly, "if Niko survives the year without proposing to at least three more people, I will consider that personal growth."
Linus huffed a quiet laugh. "Optimistic."
Erik dropped onto the rug between them, back against the chair, eyes half closed. "He is already planning his recovery speech. Something about destiny and scars."
"Of course he is," Sigrun said. "Near death experiences always make him poetic."
Across the room, someone had started tuning an old stringed instrument. The notes came out rough at first, then settled into something slow and steady, a song that felt like winter itself. Snow ticked softly against the windows, the sound almost lost beneath the low murmur of voices.
Linus leaned back, letting the warmth seep into his shoulders. This was the part of Durmstrang he never talked about. Not the duels or the harsh lessons or the cold discipline. This. Evenings by the fire. Friends close enough to tease and close enough to worry.
"you're thinking about something again, I can see it on you" Sigrun said.
Linus opened his eyes to look at her. "I'm always thinking."
"Yes, but not like this. you're thinking about doing something." She sounded a little worried, worried about him doing something stupid.
He thought about how to respond to this, in truth he was just thinking about asking the potion master Arkadi for permission to brew a felix felicis potion or liquid luck. It required a lot of material, and a lot of time. he didn't have enough time with the other classes so he wanted the potion class to start the process. The full brew time was up to six months, Linus had the idea that with his special cauldron he could get that down to five or even four months.
"it nothing really." he responded to Sigrun.
Erik who sat on the floor looked up at the two but didn't say anything.
Night fell over the school, but Linus was still sitting in the common room looking at the roaring fire. He was reading a letter from Astrid regarding different statuses on businesses and other house stuff. And like usual now, nothing had been seen nor heard about the fake Veilborn group. The search for them had gone ice cold, even with the assistance of the Veilborn group he was part of. Linus had Written letters to the Speaker of the group who he once visited but hadn't gotten any response. This is what he learned normal behavior according to the French Veilborn knight Lyra.
But he was getting restless, but he still remembered that he shouldn't do anything to much until he finished school.
'still a while to go' he thought as he stood up and walked towards his dorm in quiet.
The next day in the morning was potions with professor Arkadi.
Linus was already standing at the professors desk right after he had told the other students to start brewing sleeping draught potions.
"What do you want Gray?" he asked while looking into the stack of papers on his desk.
"I want to brew liquid luck professor." He said plainly.
Arkadi stopped grading and took of his glasses before looking up at the student. "You are more than aware of the process I assume" he paused for a bit. "Alright you can do it, but I wont help you, if you succeed you pass without having to do anything else."
The task was hard because if he failed it would mean he won't pass this year's potion. But Linus felt confident, he had studied the process multiple times from his family potion book.
So he started, the cauldron of Nordic ice hummed as he began.
Ingredients went in and made the mix turn colors and thickness change. This would be a slow process, one that would need his full attention over the next months.
Arkadi watched as Linus began and was annoyed by his own curiosity for wanting to watch how to would go. He had made the potion several times himself and knew the danger of making it. Arkadi had trust in that the student could make it, Linus wasn't a novice like the rest in here, he was borderline potion master already at the age of almost fourteen.
The class ended and Linus left after everyone had left making sure his potion was stable for the next 24 hours.
He walked out of the classroom heading to the next one. And this became his life, looking over the potion whenever he could and was allowed too. Stirring the cauldron, adding ingredients, repeated over and over.
Halloween passed and Christmas started with decorations in the common room. Some of the students had gone out and found a big Christmas tree that barley fit in the middle of the room. They had to cut of the top so it would fit.
The girls later decorated it and presents slowly filled the bottom.
One of the trainings hall was empty apart from Linus who was training his spells. He didn't really need to, but he thought he was growing lazy and needed to shake up the body a little.
He was holding his wand throwing spells left and right at different dummies, he could use wandless magic, but he still felt that the wand help him get more intensity into the spells.
"Bombarda" he said throwing the spell at one of the dummies making it split into pieces.
Steps behind him made his mind snap back into reality.
"I've never understood how you are this good at duels and spells" a male voice came from behind.
Linus knew that voice. "Professor Volkov, what brings you here at this time?" he didn't turn around to face the professor, instead he kept throwing ice spells at the dummies.
Professor Volkov didn't stop until he stood next to Linus.
"Well I wanted to ask something." He started, his voice made it sound like something serious was about to come. "what do you know about the Dark lord Grindelwald?"
The question made Linus stop shooting spells, not because it was a bad question. He was just surprised that it would come up now of all times.
"I know a little, not much." Linus answered while turning to look at the professor.
The professor held out a book to him. "He had a lot interesting ideas about the wizard world and how it should work."
Linus took the book, it had no name or anything just a black leather binding.
"give it a read and tell me what you think about it" he said and turned to leave.
Linus looked down at the book and opened the first page. 'this could be interesting' he thought as he read the first lines. He put the book down and kept shooting spells for a bit.
That evening he sat in his favorite armchair near the fireplace and read the book.
The fireplace crackled softly from time to time but he barley noticed, he was to dragged into the book. The voices around him disappeared and he was in full focus mode.
Grindelwald wrote about not wanting wizards to hide anymore, a world where magic was on top and ruled over the ones who didn't have magic. He was disappointed that we had to hide our existence. Grindelwald also had this idea that every wizards life was important and not just the purebloods, the thing that made one important was the fact that you were a wizard or witch not just blood.
He was also afraid of the muggles advanced technologies and was afraid that one day they would use them on the magical world and exterminate them.
This idea should sound crazy, it basically speaks about making sure that wizards are the leaders. But Linus didn't think it was a bad idea. Sure I could definitely be done in another way but the idea is there. He kept reading and reading, losing track of time and the people around him.
Grindelwald did not write like a madman here. There were no grand declarations, no shouting proclamations of conquest. The words were careful. Thoughtful. Almost gentle in places.
Magic is not a gift meant to be hidden, he wrote. To hide it is to deny what we are.
He was a man who knew that he needed to say his words carefully to win people to his side. What he also learnt from this book was that him and Dumbledore seemed to have been very good friends at some point but later had a falling out.
He closed the book after many hours of reading, he has read the full book.
The fire crackled again as he took a deep breath and looked into it.
'I want to meet him' he thought as he stood up and entered his room.