Vacation's End

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*3rd Person POV Northern Scandinavia*

In the harsh snowy lands laid a large sprawling castle covered by powerful magic wards. A man with blonde hair, piercing green eyes, and a handsome face could be seen casually stepping towards the castle. Shadows seemed to leak from his dark cloak dying the white snow black.

The large doors to the castle swung open revealing ten wizards and witches with their wands drawn and fierce faces. The leader of the wizards stepped forward with a harsh gaze as his short dark beard whipped in the wind.

"Who are you?" He paused for a second before continuing "State your business and how you reached this place."

A large toothy grin spread on the handsome blonde man's face, "Igor Karkaroff… Truly a man loyal to a fault… Bring me to him, I have an offer he can't resist." Through the hair hanging over the mysterious man's eyes, Karkaroff could see the brightly glowing green eyes, the sign of a truly powerful wizard.

The professors behind Karkaroff began to mutter to themselves "I do not know who you speak of. Who are you?"

"Headmaster, we need to capture this intruder, we must find out how he found the whereabouts of Durmstrang." A professor stepped closer to say trying to be quiet enough for the stranger not to hear.

The headmaster's brows narrow as he casts a spell without hesitation. The shadow-clad man merely held up a hand towards the red beam and seemingly crushed it. The professors flinched at the sight while Karkaroff slowly lowered his wand with wide eyes.

The still smiling cloaked man's eyes gazed over the professor who made the suggestion. His raised hand moved to point at him before it tightened into a ball. Confusion washed over the professors before they saw their alchemy professor was laying on the snow-coved ground holding his throat.

Their confusion was quickly cleared up as shadows poured from the man's mouth and eyes. Their eyes move back to the mysterious man who is now only a foot away from Karkaroff. He falls backward onto the show the piercing eyes meet his.

"Kehahaha. Quite the show, I'm glad I took this trip today. Who knew Voldemort would surround himself with such interesting characters."

The mysterious man stood above Karkaroff with an extended hand that seemingly leaked shadows.

Karkaroff's eyes looked at the hand perturbed before looking back at his eyes "What are you?"

The smile dropped from his face with his eyes turning serious for a moment. The snowstorm seemed to halt as a soul-shaking voice entered the minds of those around.

"D̷͎͗E̵͉͒A̷̘̅T̵̢͊Ḣ̴̘"

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*Soren POV*

Last night's sleep was pretty nice knowing we will be heading back to Hogwarts is nice. I actually enjoy Hogwarts, homework sucks but my friends make it fun. Also, it feels nice that someone now knows some of my secrets, I'm not certain that I can trust everyone fully but I will find out soon I guess.

Walking into the hallway I see a few older students are already packing bags with their doors open. Harry and Ron's door is obviously still closed so I walk down to Hermione's. Hermione's door is open and her roommate is seemingly missing. Hermione is packing a bag trying to fit in her Christmas presents.

I knock on the doorframe getting her attention "Good morning."

She gives me a small smile "Good morning Soren, are they boys up yet?"

I smirk as her phrasing makes it sound as if they were our kids "No, a bunch of lazy ungrateful brats."

Hermione rolls her eyes understanding my joke "Please, I would never have such unruly children."

I shrug "Fair enough. Where did your friend go?"

"She went to pick up her friend who is staying in the Three Broomsticks. It's not like I was going to sit with her on the ride back anyway. I have you guys after all."

"Aw, does that mean you care about us?" I ask in an exaggerated fashion.

She lets out a long sigh as she finally manages to fit all her stuff in her bag "Sadly I do."

I hold my heart in an exaggerated fashion "Wait a moment, I must inform the others."

She holds out a hand about to say something but I am already marching down the hall to Ron and Harry's room. I knock on the door a few times, with a smirk I turn to see an annoyed Hermione walking towards me.

I knock harder trying to get someone to open the door faster. Ron opens the door with a dreadfully tired face, he is staring at me with an annoyed face.

"Please, not again."

I just smile "Don't worry I have big news." His gaze tells me he doesn't believe me.

"I got Hermione to admit she l-" before I can finish my sentence Hermione's hand is covering my mouth.

I pull away and look at her offended "What? You admitted so easily now you don't want me to repeat it?"

Her glare tells me it's about time to stop playing. "Fine fine."

"Oh, yer already awake are ye'?" I hear Hagrid's voice come from behind me.

I turn around to face him with a small smile "Morning Hagrid."

He gives me a smile and nods "Good thing yer awake. We'll be leavin' in thirty minutes so get yer stuff ready."

I turn to the dead tired Ron with an apologetic smile "You heard the man. Get ready. Perhaps you two should go to bed earlier, seems like that would solve a lot of your problems."

He grunts but seemingly agrees with me as he walks back inside without closing the door. He walks over to Harry to shake him awake as Hagrid walks off to inform the other students.

I push the door open a bit more to reveal more of the room and nearly take a step back in disgust. Clothes are tossed around the room cluttering the floor and it looks like day-old food is on the floor next to Ron's bed.

"Uh, you guys should hurry up. It may take a while to clean all this up." Harry slowly gets up as he looks at Hermione and me at the door.

"Are we leaving?" He asks as he stretches and yawns.

"In thirty minutes," Hermione answers.

Looking at the room then back at Hermione, "You wanna grab breakfast before we leave?" I ask as an excuse to leave.

She nods at my proposal, "Yeah, the gruel is better than this."

I pause for a moment before I nod, "Let's go." Hemione and I make our quick escape as I shut the door to their room.

We are lucky, today's breakfast special is beans and toast. IT IS LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO MESS UP BEANS AND TOAST RIGHT???

Aberforth is behind the bar wiping a mug with a dirty rag as a house-elf brings us our food.

I give the small elf a smile "Thank you."

The small elf nods with a shy smile as she backs away. I notice Hermione is looking at the elf with a sorry gaze as she walks back into the kitchen. I ignore it as I pull my plate close to me. I confirm that this is indeed beans on toast, and it looks fairly normal.

"Well, at least today's food looks edible right?" I ask Hermione who seems to snap out of her thoughts.

Hermione looks at her plate with an odd face, "Soren. These are chickpeas, not beans."

I don't believe her at first since I've never seen chickpeas before so I take a large bite. Sure enough, it takes nothing like the beans I know, it isn't bad but the flavors do not go well together.

I slowly put the slice of toast on the plate again with a straight face. "I'm so glad we are leaving today."

Hagrid eventually comes down to join us and wait for the rest of the students. The carriages are already here and some students have already chosen carriages. Hermione leaves to drop off her stuff while Hagrid and I wait for Ron and Harry. At this point, their sleeping habits are becoming annoying, but I suppose they are kids.

Just like class, they come down running with their stuff with only two minutes to spare. We are on break so I'm sure they weren't planning on waking up early the entire time.

On the way back to Hogwarts Ron told me that he was up so late because he was testing out the wand. Apparently last night he was able to cast spells he had never been able to do before. Perhaps his old wand was holding him back?