Magical Hogwarts

June 2005

“I’ve told you everything I know, Afanasiy Kirillovich,” Aglaya said. “I would really appreciate it if you didn’t force me to repeat myself over and over again. I haven’t seen Polina anymore after our collision in April. I’ve been resting for a few days and when I picked up training again she was already missing.”

The investigators were at the artistic flying school, disrupting their normal routines for several weeks already and Aglaya couldn’t imagine that anyone still had anything worthwhile to share with them. While Aglaya’s irritation seemed predominant when the investigators interrogated her for the dozenth time and made her miss her training, the multiple time champion actually felt really uncomfortable knowing that she was privy to some information that none of the others had but which she could not share with anyone either.

Her stalker had admitted that he had killed Polina for her and it made Aglaya feel responsible and sick. She still didn’t have a clue who he was and she didn’t feel safe at all. Aglaya barely knew how many potion doses she took every day anymore. It was all spiralling out of control and while she knew it and wanted to regain control over her life, things just seemed to be getting worse and worse.

Afanasiy Kirillovich gave her that stare again that he had so often used to get people to talk. Aglaya avoided his gaze but stayed firmly by her story. She had been out of training for a while after her accident with Polina. It had taken her a couple weeks to get back to where she had been before the collision. Now she really needed every training session to prepare for the upcoming competitions but with the investigators around, it was hard to prepare properly.

“I’ve got to go,” Aglaya said, pushing herself up from the chair in the meeting room that the investigators were using for their interrogations.

She tried not to let him see how shaky she was as she left the room and once she closed the door behind herself she let out a sigh of relief. After checking that she was alone in the corridor, she pulled a vial out of her bag and downed its entire content. It was horrible that Polina had been killed. While she had threatened to kill the girl herself, she had never been serious about it. Just because the girl lacked talent and respect didn’t mean that she needed to get killed. The one thing that she had really deserved was to be thrown out of the artistic flying school.

As she checked the time, Aglaya realised that, once again, she had missed her practice session. She’d have to check with Aleksandra Viktorovna if she could train a little later instead, but she didn’t feel up to facing her coach just now. Therefore, she made her way into the cafeteria and ordered a cup of tea. She made her way towards her favourite table in the corner by the window and sat down. She needed to calm down and regain her composure.

@Rodion Shishkin

After Aglaya hadn't shown for her training session with his grandmother, she'd all but tracked him down and made him move his training session up by an hour and a half. Aleksandra hadn't been in a bad mood, but she'd made it clear that even her grandson's small attempts at humor weren't going to distract her from seeing one of her top athletes practice and practice well. Rodya had known that was likely how things would go, but it never stopped him from trying anyway.

Unlike some, the ex-Klyk didn't mind focused practice sessions all too much, it mostly meant that she gave him drills and maneuvers she wanted him to work on over and over again till she was satisfied that they were perfect down to the most minute of details. It made for relatively boring work, but aside from her few corrections and comments it meant he was free to be alone in his own head. He rarely felt like he was ever truly alone with how busy he was, and sharing a flat with Niko, but those moments tended to give him some semblance of his own time. Plus, the closer he was to perfect, the less his time was interrupted, and it was a great motivational tool to not get sloppy.

While Rodya wasn't superstitious to any great extent as an athlete, he did enjoy his routines, especially when it came to flying. So having investigators and police crawling around the flying school was not an ideal situation. People had started appearing in places that the public typically shouldn't be, and he didn't like it. It was unsettling, and it made him feel that much more like people were always watching him in one way or another. He didn't fault them for doing their jobs, Polina had been murdered and it only seemed right that they look into her death, he just wished that they would leave the school out of it.

Poking his head into the cafeteria, Rodya was surprised to see Aglaya there, and even more pleased that the place was decidedly empty otherwise, for the moment. "Can I join you?" He asked his cousin, not truly waiting for permission before he lowered himself into the seat across from her. He'd ordered a cappuccino, a rare treat for himself and was waiting for it to arrive.

"How are you managing?" He asked a moment later when it was clear the witch across from him was more pensive than usual. Rodion didn't want to pry, but anyone with a pair of eyes could see that the investigators had been interested in Aglaya since news of Polina's murder had come out, and it seemed like the decent thing to do. 

Aglaya was focusing on breathing calmly in and out when Rodya approached her table and decided to sit down. Admittedly he had been polite enough to ask if he could join her, but hadn’t really waited for a response. It didn’t matter anyway. She was in the public area of the artistic flying school. People were bound to be around and talk to her. The distraction might even be good or else she’d end up in a downward spiral again, thinking about Polina’s murder and her stalker’s confession.

Rodion asked her how she was managing and Aglaya stared at him for a moment, not saying anything. It took her a few seconds to realise that she hadn’t responded. “I’m sorry,” she said, grimacing a smile. “I’m…” She shrugged. She couldn’t even lie about it anymore. The dark circles around her eyes, the state of distraction and irritation that she displayed, it all gave away that she was not managing well.

“I’m trying to focus on what is important,” she told her younger cousin. Rodion knew little about what she was going through, but she felt certain the bits he knew were already enough to make him understand that things weren’t easy.

“I don’t know how many times Afanasiy Kirillovich wants to ask me the same questions,” she said, a pained expression spreading across her face. “I think they’re suspecting me when I definitely wasn’t even at the school when Polina disappeared.”

It was common knowledge that Polina had collided with Aglaya in a training session, some had even witnessed the crash, and that she had been in bed with a concussion for some time afterwards. Truth be told, she could still feel the aftermath of it in training sometimes. She hadn’t dared to try a backflip again yet, sometimes feeling dizzy even after completing simpler moves. Things seemed to be getting worse and worse and Aglaya was tired of fighting all the time. Whenever she had overcome an obstacle, an even bigger one seemed to build up in front of her.

“This all feels like a nightmare and I just want to wake up and everything to be as it used to be again,” she whispered, looking down at her cup of tea. “How are you doing, though? I hope the investigators are leaving you alone at least.”