Magical Hogwarts

 It had never been so obvious to Zhenya as it was now, at the beginning of term, that a few of her friends from Durmstrang were actually older than she was. A lot of people she had spent her little free time with had graduated and had not returned to Durmstrang this year. Of course the two people she missed most were her brother Rodion and her ex boyfriend Conrad.

However, there were also others whose company she had learned to appreciate. Somehow the students of Durmstrang all seemed so young to her now that she was a seventh year herself and that also included her younger siblings and cousins.

Therefore, she was glad that Linnéa was still living in Sweden and they had agreed to catch up at the first opportunity in Döttrar Vik. It was a miracle that going into the village was not on the list of things that were forbidden this year.

Coming straight from her artistic flying training, Zhenya was wearing a black sweater over her dark blue training catsuit, pink and black sneakers and a black woollen coat as she hurried into the village to meet her friend. Her cheeks were reddened as she stepped into the café they had chosen for their meeting and her eyes lit up when she saw that Linnéa had already arrived.

“Hey,” she said breathlessly as she approached the older girl. “I hope you haven’t been waiting for long. I’m coming straight from the pitch.”

@Linnea Holmstrom

In a way, it was nice to be back in the vicinity of the Durmstrang grounds; like an anchor of sorts, for the piece of her that had felt adrift these past few months. That wasn’t to say she was struggling to settle into the real world; while it hadn’t been a seamless transition, Linnéa did feel that her office and coworkers were a good fit. But when she’d been in school, she’d had her sights so far into the future that she hadn’t quite considered the sense of… comfort, she supposed, that came with the familiar routine of the school term.

She was looking forward to catching up with Zhenya today. The witches had become more friendly over the past year or so especially (despite their differing opinions on broomstick sports), and Linnéa found she enjoyed the younger Krov’s company.

Secondarily, Linnéa was burning with curiosity regarding the swirling rumors of major strict reform this year were true. Her two younger siblings – Mikael and Birgitta – were still there; Linnéa had heard from them, albeit indirectly, but both did have a flair for dramatics so it was often difficult to uncover the extent of the truth in most emotionally-charged scenarios that involved one or both of them.

Seeing her friend on the approach, Linnéa lifted a hand in greeting; then fluttered her fingers dismissively at Zhenya’s sort-of apology.
“No, not at all. Just reminiscing,” she replied, with a flash of a soft smile. “How are things? Training going alright?”

The Swedish witch still wasn’t completely sold on Artistic Flying as a whole; but it mattered quite a lot to the younger girl, and so Linnéa did make an effort to be a supportive friend.

 Zhenya smiled at her friend as she sank down on a chair. “I’m glad,” she said, truly relieved that Linnéa hadn’t been waiting or at least hadn’t been impatiently waiting. It sounded as though Linnéa looked back at her time at Durmstrang with positive feelings and Zhenya didn’t believe that she’d feel the same once she’d graduate. School wasn’t exactly her favourite place. She often just felt stupid and inadequate which clearly weren’t positive feelings.

Linnéa asked how training was going and Zhenya grimaced, wondering if her friend was aware of her recent results at artistic flying competitions. She hadn’t been at her best and coming home from the world championships without a medal had been pretty awful, especially considering who won the title.

“Training is going okay,” she said after a while. “The season wasn’t a good one for me though and… well, the next one will probably be even harder.” She was referring to transferring to the senior competitions after graduation. Usually recent graduates barely stood a chance in their first senior season as they had to juggle both training and school in their preparation time while the older competitors were usually full time athletes.

“At least the training conditions at Durmstrang have improved a little.” She shrugged. Linnéa had probably heard that there was no Quidditch this year and, knowing the other girl’s opinion on the different broomstick sports, she assumed that Linnéa didn’t approve of that. For Zhenya the early morning drills, the monitored food and the extra time on the pitch meant that she could get in reasonably good shape for the summer competitions. However, she knew that she also needed to prepare for her N.E.W.T.s and that was much harder for her than intensive training on her broom.

"How have you been? How's adult life?" She knew that Linnéa would probably want to hear more about Durmstrang but Zhenya was curious about Linnéa's news, too, and wanted to hear how she was settling into the Ministry and her adult life.
 

‘Uh-oh… maybe not so well,’ Linnéa thought when Zhenya grimaced. She nodded slowly as her friend elaborated a bit more.

“Well… we have our moments, right? Good ones and… not so good.” Linnéa could think of a few Quidditch matches – and even a season or two – that hadn’t quite gone as planned. “At least you have a better idea of what to expect, right?”

“At least the training conditions at Durmstrang have improved a little.”

That caught her interest – but Zhenya didn’t elaborate, and instead asked her how adult life was going.

“Not bad,” she replied honestly with a half-smile. “Took some getting-used-to, but I’ll admit having a paycheck is nice. Most of my work is interesting – well, as long as I don’t get stuck cataloguing horrifically boring things the entire day – and my coworkers are at least halfway decent… so there’s that.”

Linnéa was hardly modest and did enjoy talking about herself perhaps more than the average person – but her personal curiosity was too great. She had to know.
“So… what’s going on up at the castle? You said the training conditions are improved – how so? I’ve heard all sorts of wild rumors through the grapevine…”

Zhenya knew that Linnéa had little interest in artistic flying (just like she was not interested in Quidditch herself) and didn’t feel like trying to make her friend understand her situation - at least not if Linnéa didn’t explicitly ask for it. It wasn’t going to make her feel better about herself to say out loud how she had disappointed her family’s expectations anyway.

“Ah, I see,” Zhenya said, wondering how it was to work in a job like Linnéa did. Her future seemed to be lined out for her already and it was nothing like the adult life that her friend described. She wouldn’t get a regular paycheck as a professional artistic flyer. She’d have to get good results, earn prize money and get booked for shows in order to make her living. Well, she could probably teach children. She could not make choreographies or anything, though. Zhenya never came up with ideas for her programs. When they discussed her options at the beginning of a season, she usually just said that she quite liked waltzes for her routines and, since she didn’t give much more input, her aunt usually choreographed a program that was very similar to the ones she had had in the past with just a few alterations and new moves.

“It sounds nice.” It didn’t really. Not to Zhenya anyway. The mere thought of an office job got her mind spinning. She felt certain that she wasn’t clever enough to be successful in such a field.

Linnéa wanted to talk about Durmstrang and Zhenya shrugged. The school was hardly her favourite topic of conversation.

“Well, they cancelled Quidditch. The artistic flying club is still allowed, though, so we get much more time on the pitch than we used to. There are early morning drills and the food is monitored. It feels a little like a training camp just with normal school lessons still going on and taking up most of the time…” If only they had cut down the normal lessons so she could actually train as much as she needed… Her next season would be the first in the senior circuit. In order to stand a chance there, Zhenya knew she had to train a lot harder than she could at school - even with the improved conditions.

“It sounds nice.”

Linnéa shrugged.
“Yeah it’s fine, for now. They promised me I’d be able to start going on field expeditions by the winter holidays which is what I really want to do, anyways, so I’m really just holding out for that.”

“They what?” she rejoined, aghast (though she’d heard her friend perfectly well). While it wasn’t unheard-of for Quidditch at Durmstrang to be disrupted, it was uncommon that it was canceled outright. She nodded slowly as Zhenya mentioned increased time on the pitch, then narrowed her eyes suspiciously: “Wait, the food is being monitored?!”
Her older brothers had told her stories about the endless rules, restrictions, and punishments when the school was in Kaliningrad, and she’d experienced Vulchanova’s madness in her Fourth Year – but she’d been under the impression that the move back to Luleå was supposed to signify the end of excessively stringent regulations and invasive government involvement, and the like.

“Wow. Did Yeshevsky say why? Your aunt hasn’t paid him off, has she?” she joked dryly.

“Field expeditions?” Zhenya had no idea what Linnéa could possibly mean by that, but it did sound like a way to get out of the office which to the student seemed like a good thing. An office job, no matter in which field, felt so intimidating and dull at the same time.

As Linnéa basically shot back all the information Zhenya had given her as a question, the artistic flyer nodded to confirm that her friend had got it all right.

“No, of course not. Our family values good sportsmanship.” Linnéa’s joke had totally gone over Zhenya’s head. “I’m not sure why it happened this way, but it was something about the house cup, I believe. Honestly, I don’t care much. For me it’s basically the best that could happen.”

Zhenya needed strictness and increased training times. However, she felt that even with the changed conditions she was still behind on her training and season preparation. It was no surprise, though, starting in the senior circuit after graduation was always tough and Zhenya felt that she had to choose between graduating and doing well in her first season among the professional senior athletes.