Year One — Chapter 6: The Forge and the Flame
Durmstrang's professors were not given to praise. Approval here was measured in silence, in the absence of correction, in the simple allowance to continue. Yet by winter's depth, Ivar found himself summoned again and again, not to be reprimanded, but to be tested.
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The Professors
Professor Makarov brought him to the dueling chamber late one evening, when the other students were long abed. "Again," the man barked, hurling a hex designed to shatter bone.
Ivar answered without hesitation, wand flashing in a silent counterspell that dissolved the curse into a crackle of harmless sparks.
"Again."
This time, Makarov's spell carried a layered rune — two incantations fused, meant to slip through standard shields. Ivar adjusted, not with brute force but with battle transfiguration: the flagstones at his feet surged upward into a jagged wall, absorbing the blast before crumbling back into rubble.
Makarov's scarred mouth tugged into something like a smile. "You learn fast. Faster than I expected. Perhaps faster than is comfortable."
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Professor Volkov, master of rituals, watched him in the firelit chamber where the walls bled with old chalk lines. "Repeat the Peverell sequence," he instructed.
Ivar drew the runes cleanly, his voice steady in Latin, then Russian, then Old Norse. When the circle flared, Volkov tilted his head. "You switch languages as if they are weapons in a belt. Why?"
"Because words are power," Ivar answered. "And no war is fought with only one blade."
Volkov studied him for a long moment. "You were not taught this here. Who taught you?"
"My blood," Ivar said simply.
The professor's eyes narrowed, but he said no more.
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The Friends
For all the professors' testing, it was in the mess hall that Ivar's other strength began to show.
Jannik leaned back, balancing his chair on two legs, smirk wide. "You know, for someone who terrifies half the school, you're not bad company."
Ivar smirked back. "That's because you're clever enough not to challenge me."
Klara snorted into her mug. "Don't flatter him. He'd challenge you if he thought he could win. He just knows he can't."
"Yet," Jannik said, though the grin took the sting from the word.
Their banter became habit. Klara's blunt honesty, Jannik's reckless humor, Ivar's cool wit — together they carved a space in Durmstrang's cold stone halls that felt almost warm. He was still the prodigy, the heir, the one with whispers trailing behind him… but with them, he could laugh. He could be extroverted, charming, even disarming.
And in return, they anchored him. Klara's discipline. Jannik's daring. Both saw him not as destiny, not as heir, but as friend.
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The Balance
One night, Klara found him in the ritual chamber, runes flickering faintly around him. She didn't interrupt. She just leaned against the wall, watching.
"You don't sleep much," she said finally.
"Sleep is for when you're done becoming," Ivar replied, not opening his eyes.
"You talk like an old man."
"I talk like someone who knows what's coming."
Her scarred knuckles tapped against stone. "Then whatever's coming, we'll face it with you. You're not as alone as you think."
For a moment, the words cracked through his cold composure. He opened his eyes, green fire glinting in the low light, and studied her face. There was no fear there. No calculation. Only loyalty.
He inclined his head. "Then stand close. When the storm comes, you'll need to."
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The Professors Again
By year's end, the reports circulating among Durmstrang's staff read less like evaluations and more like warnings.
Malfoy is already operating at graduate level in charms, runes, and ritual studies.
He learns too fast. Watch him.
He carries himself like a peer. Dangerous, but… promising.
Headmaster Karkaroff read them all, fingers steepled beneath his chin. His lips curved into the faintest of smiles.
"The boy is a forge," he murmured. "And the world will be his flame."
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⚡ End of Chapter 6
Would you like Chapter 7 to show Ivar's first brush with real danger — a ritual that nearly kills him but awakens his Peverell "death-touch" more fully — or focus on the politics of being Heir Black and Malfoy, where word of his growing reputation reaches Britain and Lucius/Narcissa begin to maneuver around it?