The Triwizard Exchange

Chapter I, Capes and Rabbits

"I mean, it is probably faster than the muggle train, at least," the Ravenclaw across from him noted for the umpteenth time. Unsurprisingly, such comments did not make the ride go any faster.

"Not a muggle plane," Scorpius countered under his breath.

"Come again?" she asked, all three of the other students in the car now looking at him.

"Nothing," Scorpius quickly amended, his voice as un-sullen as possible.

At the beginning of the summer, he had had such high hopes. His O.W.L. scores were in, qualifying him for one of the two prized Hufflepuff spots for the exchange. His mother worked in the Department of International Magic Cooperation. He'd even taken summer courses in French for Merlin's sake.

And yet, here he was, on a train to Durmstrang. While Melrose Midgen was off batting her eyelashes at scrawny Swiss boys.

"Rose, which country is Sarajevo in again?" the Slytherin asked the Ravenclaw.

"Bosnia-Herzegovina," Scorpius and the girl answered at the same time. She flashed him a smile. As annoyed at he was at the situation, he knew better than to take it out on the only three other Hogwarts students he'd be interacting with until at least Christmas. So, he smiled back.

The others seemed to view this as Scorpius 'opening up' (quiet is often confused for shy), and he seemed to hold their attention now.

"I wish they'd just tell us which country the school is actually in," the Gryffindor said a little wistfully, "But I guess it's nice to be super secure." Honestly, the few times they'd worked together in Herbology over the years, Anita Darwiffle had never struck him as Gryffindor's best and brightest, but he supposed she must've scored well on her O.W.L.s if she was there with them. She was also very personable, notably less headstrong and overbearing than many of the others in their year. So maybe the Triwizard Cup had decided she was the least likely to spark some kind of international conflict. Fair game.

The Slytherin, Albus, had tapped his map, the larger European map fading back into his complimentary copy of the Durmstrang map. It was a pretty vague map-probably because, you know, secrets-but it pointed to a massive campus and humble facilities.

"It's nice they're near the water," Anita noted lightly. Scorpius remembered that she was involved with some sort of merpeople study group, so maybe that cross-cultural experience had worked in her favor as well.

"We're near the water," Albus said a little ruefully, glancing out the window. The train came to a grinding halt and the back of Scorpius's head slammed against the cushion, his hand reflexively and uselessly at his wand, as the Slytherin across from him crashed onto his lap.

Albus quickly scrambled backwards, onto the floor and then back onto his seat. His freckled face was quickly turning red, and with it any annoyance Scorpius might've felt dissipated.

"Sorry," the boy mumbled. Scorpius shrugged it off, and turned to face the door, as they heard the noise of the latch being lifted.

"Hello students, I'm Violeta. I will be your senior student mentor." After hearing the introduction, Scorpius almost immediately forgot it. What had she said her name was?

He hastily stood and offered his hand anyway, which the girl took firmly before looking to the other three students to get up as well.

He hadn't thought to introduce himself, but having had an extra second to compose themselves, each of his fellow Hogwarts students did so in turn.

"I'm Scorpius," he added with an apologetic smile.

"Yes, I would think," Violeta replied matter-of-factly. Scorpius could only guess at her figure, as she was already wearing her massive fur cape, but her prominent jaw and concave cheeks brought to mind a slightness of frame he hadn't really pictured in Durmstrang students. He realized, as he was thinking it, that this was probably some sort of prejudice, but he'd always pictured them all as exceptionally burly and weathered.

He realized a second too late that he was sort of staring. His two female companions were looking at him with something like suspicion, and he realized that Violeta must be very pretty, her round, grey eyes offset by the deep brown of her ponytail.

Violeta seemed to have come to the conclusion that he was a bit slow. "Because the other have introduced themselves, so that would be leaving you," she explained, eyebrows raised.

"Right," Scorpius said with a nod, deciding it was more forgivable to seem stupid than superficial.

"Anyway, you'll be coming with me," Violeta said. "Get your things." With that she stepped back out of the doorframe to wait in the corridor for them.

Scorpius felt a little at a loss without Pyr, his owl, but students weren't permitted to bring their own owls to Durmstrang. They were allowed rodent companions, however, so his father had insisted on buying him a mouse. He gathered his trunk and fastened his own fur cape, stepping out of the cabin after Anita.

As they waited for the others, Scorpius watched them through the window, weary of catching Violeta's attention again. He smiled to himself as the Ravenclaw helped the Slytherin into his cape. They were two members of an exceedingly large and famous family back at Hogwarts, the children of war heros. He got along well enough with his own cousins, but they were significantly younger than him, and he admired the easy companionship the various Weasleys seemed to share.

Once they were all in the hall, Violeta addressed them again.

"You'll follow me out to our assigned cabin," she nodded her head towards the door at the end of their train-car. "From there, we'll be transported to school grounds. As you are aware of, you will not be detailing this trip to your friends at home. Anyway, it would be removed from your letters. But it is good to avoid having things removed from your letters very much, or your letters might get lost."

Such advice could generally be seen as kind of threatening, but the girl stated it without much concern, simply repeating common knowledge. She paused, looking each of them over to make sure they were properly outfitted, then added, "Alright, follow me now."

Scorpius stepped off the car into about a quarter of a meter of snow. It was light, not damp and malleable, and seemed increasingly uneven as he walked through it.

"This is why you are required to be wearing boots," Violeta called back, specifically to him. He looked up to give some sign that, yes, he'd made the boot-snow connection, when something in front of Violeta caught his attention completely.

He wobbled a bit as he walked, no longer able to look down as he went. Before them stood one of a line of absolutely massive creatures. As they grew closer, a light brush of snow hit his cheek, kicked up by the creature's twitching tail. From what he could see of its rear quarters, it looked like a massive wildcat, with white-flecked grey fur and a tuft of black hair at the end of its tale.

Violeta made her way around the side and gestured quickly with her wand. A wooden box that looked like a carriage separated from its wheels descended down to the snow on a silver string from the animal's underbelly.

A door on the carriage swung open and Violeta motioned for them to get in. To their credit, none of his fellow Hogwarts students seemed to hesitate at all in getting in, though Scorpius did give a critical look to the silver string.

When they were all seated on the benches inside, luggage tucked beneath them, Violeta studied his face again. "Lions," she explained. "They fasten the carriages below because if we are on top of them, they forget that we are there, and sometimes they roll around in the snow. They are very gentle, but they do eat muggles sometimes, so it's good that we train them here."

"The school trains them?" Rose asked.

"Yes. There is a course that you can take in seventh year, where we train the lions. For each student, one lion. It is difficult to get into, but maybe since you're here for the Triwizard Exchange you can ask to sit into the class one or two times."

Rose seemed taken with this idea. It did sound pretty cool, but Scorpius had had enough trouble with Bowtruckles the year before, so he probably didn't quite qualify to be handling anything dragon-sized.

"Er, can I ask something?" Albus began uncertainly. Violeta nodded, so he continued. "So, I know Durmstrang is multilingual, will we be able to opt into any course, or just the English program?"

"I've been told you're core classes will be in the English department, which is very large. But for any other class you may desire to be taking, they will provide a language quill," she answered. "Do any of you speak any Slavic languages?"

"I took one summer of Russian," Anita volunteered.

Violeta seemed to brighten a little at this, steely eyes shining, and said something hurriedly in Russian. The Gryffindor seemed to slouch back a little, and mumbled a few broken words before adding, "Sorry, I didn't really get that far yet."

"It's fine, please, no need to be sorry," Violeta reassured her, but the light had gone again from her face.

Scorpius felt sort of guilty. On the one hand, the Triwizard Exchange had only been announced a year before, and he hadn't exactly planned on attending Durmstrang anyway. On the other hand, everyone at Durmstrang was learning English, and he was sure the Durmstrang student attending Hogwarts in his place wouldn't be needing a traductor quill.

The majority of the ride, which was surprisingly smooth considering the mode of transportation, was spent peppering Violeta with whatever questions about student life came to mind.

No, there weren't prefects.

Yes, the school provided owls.

Yes, they were legally required to accept muggleborns now, but it was considered very poor form to ask someone if they were muggleborn or not.

After about an hour, they seemed to have exhausted most of their questions. Violeta was perfectly pleasant, but didn't seem eager to make small talk, and the rest of them had known each other more or less since first year, so the cabin fell into a comfortable silence for a while.

Eventually, it was Albus who spoke again.

"Sorry, can I ask one more thing? I know this sounds ridiculous, but is there really-well, you know, the ghost rabbits?"

"Yes," Violeta replied evenly. "They're not allowed in the classrooms, but you will see them, yes."

"But animals can't…?" Anita sort of motioned vaguely with her hands. Scorpius figured she didn't want to disagree with Violeta, but found the idea of animal ghosts absurd.

Violeta looked at her, unbothered. "Animagus, only they died like that. A massacre in 1352," she explained. "They were a cult," she added hastily, as if to excuse the word massacre.

The students processed this news independently for a moment as Violeta turned to the square cut out of the carriage's wall that acted as a window.

"Oh," she murmured, "We're already here."

Soon the lulling of the cabin came to a halt and the door swung open once more. Scorpius set his luggage gently in the snow to look out at the great castle before them. It was shorter than Hogwarts, lacked its more spindly features. Different sections of the castle had angled roofs with small, square windows set evenly just below them. Several towers on the Western end of the castle had round, maybe Byzantine tops. The red-brown stone of the building looked warm and welcoming against the snow-patched grass, the surrounding mountains lending a feeling of security and magnitude.

"Sick," Albus muttered from beside him.

,S