[june mp] lose you twice [maja]

News had reached Elias at the British Ministry the week before that Durmstrang had been put on lockdown by the Headmistress. Although the measure was supposed to be for the safety of the students and staff while the issues between the Koldovstoretz transfers and the existing student body were resolved, Elias had the feeling that the Russian Ministry wasn't entirely in control of the situation. He had tried not to worry and done his best to remind himself that this situation wasn't exactly the same as it had been at Hogwarts a few months prior. This was temporary and reversible, and a protective measure, not a cage.

His feelings changed quickly when news of an escalating situation reached him. He was visiting the Russian Ministry for a meeting with the German representatives there when word got out that the Russian officials patroling the grounds had heard signs of a disturbance within the school. The time had come to interfere with the school's lockdown, and Elias was among the first to volunteer. He had stayed behind plenty of times in the past when things had gotten bad, excusing himself from conflicts and letting others deal with problems for him. He wasn't willing to make the same mistake this time. If a fight broke out and he wasn't there to look out for his brother, he couldn't forgive himself.

Not willing to miss the chance to help, Elias had scribbled a note to Maja urging her to meet him straight away in Belushya Guba and warning her that Jürgen's safety might be at stake. He apparated with a small group of other officials -- aurors, diplomats from the different Durmstrang areas, members of the Department of Education -- into the Kardinaya Sud. As the other officials hurried up to the school, Elias stayed behind, promising that he would follow behind as quickly as possible.

Though it had been quite some time since he had visited the town, Elias hardly felt nostalgic. The return was not for a happy occasion; he was here to ensure that his brother and the other students were safe, not to take a walk down memory lane. Elias began pacing back and forth in front of the statue in the square, glancing down at this watch every time he turned to retrace his steps, watching the seconds tick by. He could bear to wait only ten minutes more before following after the other German officials who had gone to investigate the disturbance. As much as he wanted Maja by his side, there was no guarantee she had received his note, and he had hope that she would be able to meet up with their group if she came later. He could only spare so much time before joining the rest of the interference team.

“ALL STUDENTS WILL REPORT TO THE GRAND HALL IMMEDIATELY. NO EXCEPTIONS!”

The female voice echoed over the town, and Elias jumped at the sudden sound. He was forced to grab the base of the statue to steady himself, having nearly tripped as he scrambled to make sense of the disruption in the evening quiet. Clearly, things at the school were escalating. Did this mean the Ministry had already forced their way into the school? The small group that had been sent to respond to the disturbance was hardly enough to take over the school, especially if the staff members from Koldovstoretz were resistant. He immediately chastised himself for jumping to the conclusion that the new faculty were the ones responsible for everything that had been going wrong at his alma mater over the past year. What he needed was just to get up to the school and see for himself how bad the situation was so that he could either assure himself that everything was fine, or do his part to set things right. But where was Maja?

@Maja Dörfler

Maja had been uncharacteristically restless all day.

The Klyk Vampira alumna must have been up and down from her desk a hundred times – and there were still several hours left in the workday. She had offered to run nearly every errand her supervisor needed, not out of wanting to show-up her co-workers (who were, in Maja’s opinion, coincidentally quite lazy) but because she was having the most difficult time remaining still long enough to get her desk-work done. Maja was self-aware enough to realize there was no sense in fighting it, so she had endeavored to keep as physically busy as possible today until the restlessness passed.

Her subconsciously-frayed nerves were not completely unfounded, she knew. It was no secret that tensions at Durmstrang had reached an all-time high after months of discontent had made the transition to outright hostility. The current Headmistress – a professor from Koldovstoretz – had placed the entire school on lockdown in response to the Russian Ministry’s investigation. A clear indication that matters were proceeding just flawlessly.
Maja felt a surge of white-hot anger at the thought of her youngest sibling being subjected to this sort of environment. She remembered all too well what it had been like – in her own fourth year, incidentally – the last time the Russian Ministry had gotten involved at Durmstrang. Lessons were interrupted, students interrogated, mail searched, an even stricter curfew enforced, uniform and bed checks, tighter restrictions on visiting Primorsk… and all of that had culminated in the relocation of Durmstrang from Kaliningrad to Novaya Zemlya that summer. Was that history destined to repeat itself in so short a time? She couldn’t be sure; but she did know that she wanted her brother far out of range. Father had been working increasingly long hours, trying to negotiate with the Russian Ministry and offer aid, and she knew Elias had been as well.

She shouldn’t really have been surprised, then, when she returned to her desk (after perhaps the fiftieth errand, though this one had proven rather lengthy) to find a hastily-scribbled note in exceptionally familiar handwriting – but her mouth had gone bone-dry all the same, and she had needed to read it several times before she actually processed its significance. Her stomach contracted involuntarily.
Maja whirled around to question her co-worker across the aisle as to when the note had been left, but he was – unsurprisingly, damn him – nowhere to be found. Her mind whirred. How long had she been gone? Thirty minutes? An hour? Biting back a squeal of frustration, Maja clutched the note in her left hand and strode briskly to her supervisor’s office, rapping lightly but urgently on the office door. Liesel Müller was a reasonable woman… surely, she would have no qualms with giving her leave to go. Especially with how helpful Maja had been today. Though, hopefully, the older woman wouldn’t perceive this as premeditated in that light…

The nineteen-year-old clasped her hands firmly behind her back, so their trembling wouldn’t betray just how uneasy she was. The door opened, and Maja was bidden to enter.
“Guten tag, Frau Müller,” she began courteously, but jumped directly to the point. “Apologies for the interruption, but I’ve just had a note from my brother, Elias – family emergency. May I be excused? I’d be happy to pick up the missed hours later this week as compensation.” She spoke clearly but quickly, hoping to convey urgency but at the same time quell the rising panic in her chest. Maja could see the letters spelled out before her, plain as day: “His safety may be at stake”
Her pulse jumped wildly in her throat; frankly, she would have been astonished if Frau Müller could not see it. Fortunately, the older woman offered sympathetic assent and ushered her off without asking further questions; gracefully, Maja took her leave and all but sprinted down the hallway, skirts flying (and suddenly grateful that her damned co-worker was nowhere in sight to witness such disarray), and collected herself just long enough to visualize the village before leaving her cubicle behind with a loud CRACK.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The first thing Maja processed upon her successful Apparation was quite a lot of shouting, and the thunder of footsteps akin to a small herd of stampeding hippogriffs. She had appeared in a part of the town she hadn’t frequented, and it took her an agonizing few moments to orient herself. Cursing her hastiness, the German witch brushed aside the loose pieces of hair that had escaped her formerly-perfectly-coiffed bun and hurried towards the castle. She had arrived perhaps thirty seconds too late to hear the Headmistress’s announcement reverberate throughout the town.

On first glance, she felt almost relieved – the school wasn’t in flames, like she’d heard had been the case at the British school Hogwarts back in September. Bile rose in her throat, but she swallowed aggressively to combat it. No time for that, now. Then her heart took its opportunity to take up residence in a place it shouldn’t be as she recognized a familiar form a ways up the path.
“Elias!” she called out, gathering her skirts – why had she decided to wear a skirt today, of all days?! – and hightailing it towards her brother’s retreating form. Maja was no athlete, but today adrenaline fueled her, and she caught him up more quickly than she’d anticipated.

“What’s happened?” Her pale blue-gray eyes were bright with adrenaline and fury. “Bring me up to speed.”

He couldn't wait any longer. Heads were beginning to pop out of windows in the neighboring houses, faces alarmed or curious at the disturbance in the otherwise quiet night. Desperate as he was to have his sister's support in his quest to ensure his younger brother was safe, the truth was that Elias had no idea if she had received his note or if she would be able to come at all. Maybe she would have decided that she could be of better service by going home and notifying their parents, or trying to update some of the other German ministry officials. Elias moved away from the fountain, and started toward the path that led to the school, hoping he would be able to catch up before anything worse happened.

At the sound of his name, he turned back, a moment of relief hitting him as he saw his youngest sister quickly approaching. "Maja!" he responded at once, pausing to wait for her to catch up but not holding still. He was bouncing slightly but anxiously on the balls of his feet, willing her to join him quickly. Where had she been coming from? Had he written the wrong meeting point in his haste to take off with the others? "We're not sure," he replied urgently once she was near enough to hear.

Without waiting for her response, Elias moved toward the road again. There was barely a pause before he continued in rapid German, his dark robes billowing out behind him as he sped along the dark path. "There were reports about an hour ago of a disturbance near the doors. What happened is anyone's guess -- a fight? Another death?" His stomach tightened at the thought, but then again, it had been a muggleborn last time. There was no reason for his pureblood brother to be in danger. As soon as the thought occurred to him, he cringed at his own selfishness. His brother's life didn't matter more than that poor student's had.

He was starting to get out of breath as they moved along the path, the urgency of it all combined with their fast pace enough to make his heart race. "And then just a moment ago, there was an announcement from the school. It echoed all the way out to where I was waiting -- did you hear it? I don't know who it was, a woman calling all the students to the Grand Hall. There's a group just ahead of us who might know more, I sent them ahead -- " he was talking without pausing, worried that he wouldn't have long to catch Maja up before the situation would develop further. As the school came into view, Elias looked down at her, wondering whether she was prepared for whatever might be coming. "This might come to a fight."

The instant that Maja had reached him, Elias had set off again, his long legs allowing him to cover ground quickly. While her own legs were also quite long, she was also hindered by long skirts and low-heeled shoes.
‘Remind me to wear only robes to work from now on… no matter how much I like a damned skirt,’ she thought crossly as she hurried up the path after her elder brother. A pace behind him, she had nearly missed his murmured reply altogether. A thousand questions sprang to her tongue at once, but she bit it hard to suppress them. Elias wouldn’t withhold information from her; she didn’t bother to press him.

Fortunately she didn’t need to wait long before he began to disclose everything he knew up to the present moment. At the word ‘death,’ the bottom temporarily dropped out of her stomach. Frankly, she was quite surprised that the merger hadn’t been discontinued or the school closed after that incident. She herself had fielded some of the angry mail that had come in, despite the fact that her country’s office had precious little to do with Durmstrang, Koldovstoretz, or magical education in general.

Elias told her about the moments-ago announcement, and the German witch hissed angrily under her breath.
“No, I didn’t hear – must have just missed it.”
The pair fell silent for a moment as they crested the small slope and rounded a final bend, bringing into view the second home that she and her brother had both known for seven years. Maja and Elias were side-by-side now, and she felt rather than saw him glance over at her.
“This might come to a fight.”
She was acutely aware of the sensation of blood draining from her face at that – but was fairly confident she wouldn’t faint. Automatically, she slipped her hand into her pocket and gripped her Australian Blackwood wand tightly, her small mouth set in a grim line.

“So be it, then.”

Curse Breaking and Illusions had been two of her best subjects in school, she had been more than passable with Defense & Dueling, and she had done reasonably well with her Trial of Thirteen challenge just prior to graduation last term – surely, she was competent enough to be of use?

“Did you send word to Mother and Father?” Maja asked abruptly, out of genuine concern as well as with the dual intent to distract herself from the thought of a physical brawl. “I didn’t even think to… I saw your note and came straightway. Doubtless Father already knows by now, in any case. Word travels fast…” Maja trailed off, falling silent as they closed the gap between themselves and the group up ahead that Elias had mention, who were stopped just outside the official gated entrance to the grounds.

“What—?”

But before she could formulate the rest of her question, and almighty BANG! sounded from inside the castle, closely followed by screams and the sound of breaking glass, splintering wood, and falling stone. Maja recoiled sharply, her mouth forming a perfect “O” of shock. Her vision swam as the blood once again exited her head in a most uncouth manner, leaving her to more seriously consider whether or not she might faint. A surge of adrenaline brought her around before the black spots could overtake her, however, and she was suddenly aware of a flurry of movement and shouts from the group up ahead. They were trying to blast through the gates, but wards surrounding the castle were deflecting all attempts. Reflexively, she gripped her brother’s arm hard, fingers digging into his forearm with enough force to turn her knuckles white. This seemed to ground her, though, and she released him with a slight gasp of awareness.

Rephrasing her initial question, she turned to him, eyes wide and wary but clear.
“What now?”

Her response was sure, but Elias couldn't help but feel a flicker of doubt. One sibling was almost certainly in danger already, trapped inside the school with some kind of explosion or fight continuing inside even as they approached. Had it been wrong of him to bring his sister into danger, too? She was only just out of school, and not in a profession that required her to keep her dueling skills up to scratch. Mention of their parents increased his hesitation: what would they say if they learned of his transgression, the way he was putting Maja in danger, perhaps unnecessarily?

"No," he replied after a moment, and slowed his pace for the first time since arriving. He reached his hand out to touch her arm, making sure he had her attention. "Maja, maybe you ought to go back to Hannover and warn them. They might be able to send some more people along." That was the safest option, it seemed. Maja could still be of use, but in a non-combative way. He didn't want to dawdle longer, not when he had already let the rest of his group run ahead. She ought to disapparate at once. Elias was on the verge of telling her this when another sound shook the grounds.

He stepped closer to her instinctively, one hand shooting to pull out his wand while the other searched for Maja. She found him first, gripping him tightly. Elias didn't move but narrowed his eyes as he scanned the dark grounds, trying to find the source of the commotion. Was this another explosion from inside the castle, a product of whatever the students or staff were attempting inside? After a moment he concluded that, this time at least, it seemed to be a result of the response team's efforts to break in.

Maja seemed determined to continue, and there was no time to argue now. He would just have to be ready to keep them both safe, that was all. "Let's go," he told her quietly, trying to breathe normally as he dashed toward the scene. He couldn't afford to let his heart race any faster than it already was. As they approached, Elias called ahead, trying to pause the attempts of the Russian wizards.

"Hominum revelio!" His wand was pointed at the fallen stone wall before them as he cast the spell, praying silently that nothing would come back. After a moment, Elias released the breath he had been holding. "No one there, luckily. We can't destroy the school," he said tensely to one of the men standing about. "There could be students on the other side of the wall trying to get out." He looked down at Maja, hoping she might have a better plan. "Anythign a little less destructive we can try?"

She was silent for a moment, considering his suggestion. Then her reply came with a firmness that surprised even her, before she’d even been fully cognizant of the fact that she had decided to speak.

“No.”
Maja slowed her pace to match Elias’s, looking him directly in the eye for a long moment before refocusing her attention up ahead and lengthening her stride again.
“I'm staying. If Father doesn’t know by now… well, there’s something seriously wrong with our government,” she added dryly. “If you know, he most certainly does. We’re already here. And it’s just one deranged woman, after all.”

A sudden ripple of uncertainty passed through her, and Maja resisted the urge to slide her gaze sideways to her brother’s face.
‘…right?’ she wanted to add. It wasn’t like the woman had a whole army behind her… at least, Maja hoped not. From the reports she’d been hearing, it seemed as though Vulchanova was acting on her own. With any luck, the situation hadn’t changed.

A small knot of tension in her shoulders loosened at her brother’s quiet agreement and adjusted her grip on her wand ever so slightly. She clenched her jaw, trying to maintain some semblance of focus in her racing mind. Curse Breaking had been one of her better subjects in school: now she rifled frantically through the mental pages of spells and counter-spells that they’d learned, hoping that at least one of the ones she could remember would prove useful. There were likely professional Curse Breakers already on-site, but still…

Raising her wand, Maja closed her eyes, probing lightly with the stream of murmured incantations she had committed to memory so long ago. Once she started speaking, they came easily, coming back to her in a flood of remembrance. The last time she had said the words was a year ago, minutes away from the final task standing between her and graduation. In the heat of the moment, it felt like a lifetime ago.
She knew in the pit of her stomach that much older, much more powerful enchantments protected Durmstrang than anything she would have been taught in school – but she had to try.

She was startled out of her focus when a strangled cheer went up from the knot of people beside her, and at the same instant she felt the castle sigh heavily as the tingling presence of the magical barrier suddenly vanished. They were through!

Relief surged through her and she turned to Elias, a triumphant gleam in her eye – though she was almost certain she hadn’t in any way contributed to the success of the counter-enchantments, it wouldn’t hurt to channel that in preparation for the next steps.

A sudden thought occurred to her then, and she placed a hand on Elias’s arm to attract his attention. It wasn’t a great plan, but it might be of some use…
“I'm going to carve a hole in the side of the Grand Hall – not blast one open,” she added quickly, remembering what Elias had said just a moment ago, “but dig. If they’re trapped in the Grand Hall, they’ll be sitting ducks. If we open exit points on the side, they won’t need to escape out the back – in plain view of the dais, where the miserable wretch is likely perched. Come on.”

Her mind felt oddly disconnected from her body. Maja was vaguely aware of her feet pounding the rocky ground, skirts flying around her legs and threatening to trip her, the growing stitch in her side, the June air tearing through her lungs with each ragged inhalation; but she felt inexplicably light. She had a single-minded focus, with no other conscious thought that she was even remotely aware of. She didn’t even look to see if Elias was following.

What she hadn’t considered was the possibility that the Headmistress could see them coming, if she cared to look.

Maja made a beeline for the middle of the Grand Hall and dove; for once heedless of the grass stains on her clothes and the uncomfortable sensation of a sharp rock digging into her left knee. Then the youngest Dörfler girl was on her hands and knees in the dirt, tracing an outline of an arch into the side of the Grand Hall large enough to admit someone crawling on all fours. Fortunately, the room was at ground level.
“Defodio.”
Trying to make a hole too large too fast would take more time, she had decided – she would start small, and widen them once she’d make a few good-sized apertures. And because the charm was designed to burrow through earth and stone, there was significantly less risk of inadvertently harming a student than something like the Reductor Curse or Confringo.

She worked quickly but methodically, the fear of losing her youngest brother a raging fire in her belly – far stronger than any selfish instinct she’d allowed to direct her before.

Intense relief mixed with fear and regret as Elias watched the cursebreakers heed his warning, but continue to work without his aid. His wand was lifted and at the ready, but he was stuck, not sure how to move forward without putting the residents at risk. His original dreams of being a cursebreaker had dissipated as he matured, but now he wasn't sure why: those were the skills he needed in a situation like this. What use was he to anyone, with his secure office at a cushy ministry job? All he knew how to do was fill out forms and give presentations. These were hardly the skills that came of use in the real world, and this was not the moment Elias would have liked to realize it.

Fortunately, Maja seemed to be better in a crisis, despite Elias' earlier fear that she might be the one most at risk. Her idea had caught on quickly, and a few of the closest Ministry members had started using the same curse to carve carefully away at the rock, hollowing out a small tunnel at the base of the castle. Still others were whispering strings of words in a language Elias couldn't understand; he could only hope they were working to push at the edges of the enchantments protecting the Great Hall from intruders. Having a well-defended castle was only a good idea, it seemed, when the castle kept unwanted visitors out. Keeping a rescue squad at bay was surely never the intention of the ancient spells.

The sounds from inside the wall were growing louder, but whether it was because they were getting closer to breaking through or because the scene inside was growing more catastrophic, Elias couldn't be sure. He was focused, standing beside his sister and thinking only of their youngest sibling, whom he might not see again if they were unsuccessful.

At last, at long last, the castle seemed to groan, and cracks began to widen to reveal the scene inside. Elias switched tactics at once, aiming his wand at the wall they had not intended to disturb and casting reinforcing charms as quickly as he could. Within a few moments, the combined efforts of spells widening the gap and enchantments reinforcing the archway had created a tunnel that looked passable. Despite his sense of overwhelming urgency, Elias took a moment to turn to Maja, resting his free hand on her shoulder.

"Be careful in there, Schatzi," he murmured, evoking the name he had used for his younger siblings when they were younger. He felt vulnerable, going into battle knowing he could lose not only one, but two siblings. But Elias was tired of standing back or running away, leaving others to protect those in need. He was ready to face anything now, if it meant looking out for the ones he loved.

[eli out!]
with credit to @Christine, who, as we all know, is the best ever

Maja felt rather than saw Elias’s solid presence beside her; heard the Curse Breakers murmuring in ancient tongues, filling her ears and her brain with an empty sort of buzzing noise as their voices washed over her. There was a time when she would have dropped everything to watch them work, to learn from them.

That time was not now.

Elias shifted, re-focusing his efforts. Maja kept doggedly at her task, widening her newly-forged channels bit by bit until she felt the stone beneath her wand give way, bringing with it new sounds: shouts and shattering glass and cracking wood. Before she recognized what was happening she was on her feet again; the knees of her skirts torn, her hands filthy, her usually-impeccable bun coming down around her face which was streaked with sweat and dust.

A warm weight materialized on her shoulder. Maja blinked, and looked up at her brother.
“Be careful in there, Schatzi.”
She offered him a weak smile in return – praying it didn’t look as feeble as it felt – and instinctively clasped her hand over his. This was the next step. They were going in.

For a wild moment Maja thought she might be sick; just like that she felt like she was right back in the Trial of Thirteen, fighting her way tooth and nail through each of her strengths and weaknesses and everything in between. She wasn’t cut out for the adrenaline, the grunt-work, the bold hero complex. And yet here she was, her nice work clothes filthy and sweat-dampened, a wild look in her eye and her stomach in knots with a combination of fear and exhilaration.

There were no Inferi here to close their rotting hands around her wrist. No dragons to fly.
Just an insane, living woman.

Swallowing hard, she adjusted her grip on her wand, roughly pushed her hair out of her face, and followed Elias into the semidarkness.

[[ Maja out! ]]