“What are you so happy about?” Konrad asked miserably through chattering teeth. Quidditch class was over, and the three boys were on the ground reapplying the waterproofing spells on their coats before returning the castle for Potions.
“What?” Dieter hadn’t realised that he was still grinning quite widely, which was unusual, considering that howling winds and numbingly cold rain together was not normally the kind of weather that buoyed spirits. “Oh, I’m just glad that class is over,” he lied.
Neither Ernst nor Konrad contested that.
“Heydrich! Can you come here for a moment?” Professor Adlersflügel yelled. Dieter froze. The icy wind that had so far failed to affect Dieter suddenly struck with full force. Did he see me attack Karkaroff? Dieter thought, mind racing and heart pounding. Nobody had seen him! He was sure of it. Or at least he had been. Had he?
As calmly as he could, Dieter walked back to the professor, and his friends dutifully waited. Dieter’s expression betrayed worry, but the Quidditch instructor merely thought the boy was cold.
“Can you do me a favour?” Professor Adlersflügel asked unexpectedly. “I made a count of the students when undoing the colour-change charms at the end of class and came up one short. Can you make a count of the students in your Potion’s class and come back and tell me your total? I need to know whether somebody just forgot to check in or is genuinely missing.”
“Of course, sir,” Dieter said, relieved.
“Thank you. And if Kirsch gives you any trouble for missing class, tell her to talk to me. Now get moving.”
Dieter hurried back to his shivering and hunched-over friends. At Dieter’s insistence, they decided to walk up Cardiac Slope instead of flying. For what seemed like ages, they slogged up the wet flagstones, which were at least shielded from the cold wind by the thick forest to either side. Dieter didn’t mind the difficult ascent. His mind had been elsewhere. He had gotten his revenge, and after that brief scare with Adlersflügel, he had gotten away with it. Karkaroff must have crashed somewhere (hopefully in the lake), and the thought of his great enemy wet, cold, and preferably injured was intoxicating. The only thing that tarnished these glorious thoughts was the fact that Karkaroff’s suffering would have to be cut short by the Quidditch instructor’s errand.
Still, Dieter could drag things out by walking slowly. He wasn’t in a rush.
They were very late to Potions class, but so was everyone else. Professor Kirsch accepted everyone’s excuses about bad weather without question, and wrote down instructions for a simple boil-cure potion on the board.
Dieter already knew one of the seats would be missing, but he dutifully counted students anyway. He froze when he looked at the back row.
Karkaroff was at his desk. There were no bruises on his face. His hair was neither soaking wet nor unkempt. His robes were not torn.
Dieter’s first conclusion was that Karkaroff had an alarmingly quick recovery time, but then a horrible thought occurred. He quickly re-scanned the classroom and noticed that one of the desks in the front row was empty.
His mind drowned in complete, utter dread. This cannot be happening, Dieter thought desperately, trying to convince himself that everything was all right. This cannot be happening…
It had.
Without thinking, and ignoring the gasps of surprise, Dieter got up, grabbed his broom, and bolted out the door. Faster than he thought was possible (not that he was thinking), he was outside, and without hesitation he mounted his broom and plunged into the storm.
The elements did his best to kill him. Icy, stinging wind seemed to pierce straight through him, and screamed into his ears. His eyes stung in the wind, and he could barely see anything through the endless barrage of rain. Dieter didn’t notice.
He barely managed to stay on his broom, but he somehow found himself over a forest before he realised it. Dieter struggled to stop, but fighting the wind was a losing battle. He whipped his head around, searching frantically, but he couldn’t see Durmstrang castle anywhere.
The unceasing gale kept shoving and shoving. Black forms appeared not just below, but also in front of him.
And those black forms were trees. UP! Dieter’s mind screamed. He gripped his broom as tightly has his numb hands could manage as he fought for altitude. The tops of pines smacked into Dieter, but failed to knock him down.
What finally did knock Dieter down was the side of the mountain. He lost his fight for control over his broom, and the wind threw him into damp bushes on the slope. Branches crunched, and not just under his body. Some branches snapped against his face, and almost as if from malicious intent, one sought out his left eye socket.
Dieter hadn’t felt the numbness of his body or the shivering going down to his bones, but he certainly felt the branch going into his eye. That was what complete agony felt like. He screamed, thrashed, and disentangled himself from the bush. He immediately lost balance and landed painfully on the uneven, wet rock.
Dieter swore at the bush and called it every horrible word he knew. He kept his hurt eye closed and clutched at it with his hands. It was warm and wet. Using his remaining good eye, he looked around and discovered he had no idea where he was.
He sobbed and shook, afraid and hating himself. I’m lost! I’m blind! I’m going to die! part of his barely functioning mind despaired. How could you be so STUPID? screamed the other half. Fool! FOOL! That was some rescue!
Get up, said a small voice at the back of his mind.
The worst part was knowing that he wasn’t alone in suffering. Somewhere out there was another student. Where? Dieter had no idea. His victim could have landed to his death in the forest. He could have drowned in the lake, or been impaled on a castle roof. The thought made Dieter sick to his stomach.
How could I?
Idiot!
Murderer!
Get up, the voice said again.
He didn’t mean to. He never expected it to happen. He never wanted it to happen. Why couldn’t it have been KARKAROFF? Because of Dieter’s mistake, he had hurt or possibly even killed another student! Dieter was starting to feel how wet and cold he really was.
GET. UP.
But there was a chance. A small chance that whoever he had attacked was battered and bruised, but still alive. All was not lost. He had to cling onto that hope.
Suddenly, Dieter knew what he had to do. He wiped his face to remove the tears, but it was a useless gesture against the rain. Still holding his wounded eye, Dieter groped for his broom with his free hand. It would be futile to try to fly against the storm, but the Volksbesen would make an adequate walking stick in a pinch.
He tried tracking back and forth to widen his search, but the terrain funnelled him into a steep ravine. While the tiny stream that cascaded down the mountain could not make anything wetter than the rain could, the rocks near the flowing water were coated in moss and very slippery. The dangerous journey downhill was almost as terrifying as his barely-restrained fear that he had someone else’s blood on his hands.
Sometime time later, the grade became shallower, and the ravine widened. The brush and moss gave way to small trees, and at the base of one sapling by the stream was a dark red shape. Dieter stumbled, and just barely managed to keep his balance. Disbelieving and heart pounding, he scrambled down.
It was indeed a human figure in Quidditch gear, and the temporarily green robes had reverted to their natural red. The figure was on his stomach, unmoving. Compounding Dieter’s horror, the boy’s face was lying in the stream “ the nose was just under the frigid water.
“No, no… please. Please don’t be dead…” Dieter said shakily.
As quickly as he could without slipping and falling himself, Dieter hurried down to the body. He pulled the boy out of the water and flipped him onto his back.
Dieter froze briefly in shock. The boy was not a boy, but a girl. She had shoulder-length black hair and a thin face. Her head was bloodied where she must have hit a rock, and her face sported some cuts and sickeningly purple bruises. Dieter recognised her as Sille, the girl he duelled against in the semi-final of Professor Schmidt’s competition. A girl, Dieter thought gravely. I hurt a GIRL! With great force of will, he pushed that thought to the back of his head so it could be dreaded over at a less dire time.
He put his index and middle finger to her neck and found the carotid artery. “Please… please…”
Beat.
Beat.
Beat.
There was little time for relief, since Dieter soon noticed that Sille’s chest wasn’t moving as it should. Stay calm. he told himself. CALM! He furiously tried to remember the first aid he had learned in the Deutsche Jungvolk. Then, miraculously, everything clicked. Dieter turned Sille on her stomach again with her head downhill, so gravity would let water inside drain out. Next, he laid her on the flattest surface he could find and tilted her head back to keep the windpipe open. Dieter took a deep breath, pressed his lips to hers, and blew.
Wait five seconds. Another breath. Five seconds. Breath. Five seconds. Breath. Repeat…
Dieter barely heard Sille’s weak, sputtering cough over the pounding rain, but it was the most beautiful sound in the world. She was unconscious, but alive. An enormous weight had been lifted off of Dieter’s chest. He was filled with a warm sense of relief that made him feel, if only for a moment, not so cold and wet.
He lifted the Sille onto his shoulders in a fireman's carry. She was small and lean-framed, but still a bit heavier than the fully loaded packs he had used on campouts. Dieter had no real idea of how far he had to walk to get back to Durmstrang, but at least his impromptu walking stick would help make the journey possible. With his left hand holding onto Sille and the right supporting himself with his broom, he had nothing to keep pressure on his eye to help stem the bleeding. It couldn’t be helped.
He slowly made his way down the mountain and into the forest, which blocked some of the wind and rain. Concentrating on nothing but his heading and footing, Dieter soon lost track of the time.
It was darker when Dieter heard something strange. He wanted to dismiss it as the wind whistling through the trees and the rustling of thousands of branches, but that wasn’t what he heard. What he heard, or what he thought he heard, was a high, cackling laugh.
Dieter stopped and looked around him. There was nothing to see but swaying underbrush and trees. There was nothing out of the ordinary to hear either.
He continued walking, and walking. With each step, his feet felt sore and his joints ached. Dieter pressed on nonetheless. At least the terrain was levelling out.
He heard the laugh again, and Dieter almost dropped Sille in shock. His mind wasn’t imagining things. He had heard it, twice, and the tone of that laugh deeply disturbed him. It sounded predatory, not amusing.
Tentatively, Dieter resumed carrying Sille through the forest, but he hadn’t even taken his second step when he spied a sudden movement in the corner of his good eye. As he walked, the movement followed him, and it was shifting position behind Dieter’s left, where he couldn’t see owing to his injured eye.
Dieter was being hunted.
As if answering that very thought, the high-pitched voice chirped, “Oh, come, thou dear child! Oh come thou with me! For many a game I will play there with thee.”
Whatever was following him had a very sick idea of fun. Dieter felt a shiver that had nothing to do with his frigid, damp clothes. He could feel his heart beat madly, as if it was a trapped animal in a cage. Don’t answer it. Stay calm. Stay calm… He had two options. He chose to run for it.
He walked as quickly as he could manage without tripping over stones or tree roots. It was not fast enough. Whatever creature or person was pursuing Dieter easily kept pace, and by the rustle and its voice, it was coming closer. “Wilt go, then, dear child, wilt go with me there? My daughters shall tend thee with sisterly care. My daughters by night on the dance floor you lead, They'll cradle and rock thee, and sing thee to sleep.”
The sooner Dieter made it out of the forest, the sooner he could escape his pursuer. But it was a vain struggle. The voice and rustling grew louder.
Twigs snapped, and feet pounded the dirt. Dieter realised just in time that he had fled as far as he could go, and now had to make his stand. He turned around.
“Aaarrggh!” Dieter screamed. Needle-sharp teeth sank through his wet trousers and into his leg. He was pushed to the ground, and Sille landed somewhere behind him with a crunch. Dieter managed to kick himself free. Wincing in pain, he limped upright, and held his broom like a club and faced his attacker.
The creature snarled. It was the size of a young child, but everything about the creature was disturbingly inhuman. Naked green skin clung to bones, joints, and ribs. It crept on all four long, emaciated limbs, and its fingers and toes ended in dirty claws. A tangled bundle of antlers crowned its head instead of hair, and it had a long, pointed nose that looked sharp enough to be a weapon in itself. But the most nightmarish part of the creature was its large, round eyes. They were blank and glowed yellow, and they stared.
It scrabbled towards Dieter, but he swung the tail end of his broom to ward him off. The creature cackled and scurried around into Dieter’s blind spot to his left. “I love thee, I'm charm'd by thy beauty, dear boy. And if thou aren't willing, then force I'll employ!”
“I can see that! STAY AWAY FROM ME!” Dieter shouted, braver than he felt.
The creature laughed, out of sight. It was circling around Dieter, and he had to keep turning to keep him in sight of his good eye. “My beautiful child, hear thee my fair deal. For thy freedom, the maiden shall be my meal.”
“NO! Go away!” Dieter answered ineffectively, to the creature’s great amusement. The standoff lengthened, but suddenly the creature lunged. It dodged Dieter’s makeshift club, and darted straight for Sille. Cackling, it seized her by an ankle and dragged her away from Dieter with unnatural strength.
He pursued and caught up to the creature, but it suddenly tackled him down, and leaped back to drag its prey further away. Dieter launched himself after the creature again, and whipped out his wand. NOW you remember your wand, idiot! What kind of wizard are you? a part of his mind scolded. Dieter banished the thought in his fury and took aim. “Mordax!” he yelled.
The jet of red light struck the creature, causing it to hiss in pain and let go of Sille. It twisted to face Dieter and snarled defiantly.
“Mordax!” Dieter yelled again, but the creature dodged the hex. He didn’t see the creature snatch up and throw a pebble with its claws, but he certainly felt the small stone glance painfully off his skull.
Dieter screamed, wounded and enraged. He slashed his wand through the rain and thundered, “DIE! BURN “ IN “ HELL “ AND “ DIE!”
He didn’t say any spells. He couldn’t think of any spells either. But, somehow, sparks and fireballs shot out of his wand with each slash and each word. They struck the creature like hammer blows, and left angry red boils on its skin. The creature howled. It bolted into the undergrowth and disappeared.
Dieter’s leg’s trembled, and then gave way. He laboriously dragged himself over the sodden forest floor to where Sille lay. “Are you “ all right?” he panted.
It was a stupid question to ask an unconscious person, and Dieter knew he shouldn’t have asked the moment he said it. But the girl’s eyelids twitched and her head turned to him, ever so slightly.
Dieter collapsed, and all went black.
He was lying on something soft. Something that supported him so gently and effortlessly that it felt like there was nothing under him at all. A cloud?
A glow beyond his shut eyelids embraced his face with its warmth. All was peaceful.
Then a foolish thought emerged.
His family had stopped attending church when he five. He supposed he believed in God, but he had no relationship with the Lord Almighty. He couldn’t remember the last time he prayed.
So why was Dieter in heaven?
He hadn’t done anything worthy of salvation. If there were any cosmic scales of justice, they would have collapsed under the weight of his sin. Especially after what he had just done.
He had hurt a girl. He had almost killed a girl. That was the greatest sin and dishonour a man could possibly commit. His father had made sure that Dieter knew that. He had learned that shameful and painful lesson five years ago. If his father knew he had hurt a lady again “ a completely innocent lady, and with injuries of this magnitude “ he was sure father would flay him alive.
He stirred uncomfortably at the thought of his reserved place in hell, if such a place existed. That confused him even more about his current status.
Slowly and with great effort, he opened his eye. He wasn’t in heaven. The cloud he was lying on was merely an exceedingly comfortable bed, and God was Fräuline Fertig. She was busy doing something out of sight.
Dieter tried to move his head to look around the Infirmary, but he almost exhausted himself doing so. He gave up and blinked a few times, and noticed that only one side of his face responded. He should have known. Now that he put his mind to it, those felt like bandages wrapped around his head to cover his left eye socket.
Look at the bright side. If you lose that eye, you could look like a pirate! he thought stupidly. The more rational part of his brain was not amused.
He stared at the ceiling for some time before Fräuline Fertig noticed he was awake. “Ah, Master Heydrich. How nice of you to be up today. I was going to force feed you in your sleep, but I suppose I could give you something solid to eat. Let me help you sit up…”
Once his back was upright against a small mound of pillows, the school nurse banished a bowl of porridge and summoned something a bit more appetising. Dieter didn’t realise until then how hungry he actually was. He wolfed down some sausages and black bread with jam. Even the disgusting turnip tea tasted delicious. He felt much better after eating.
“Now, I know you’re going to ask me about your eye “ don’t touch it!” Fräuline Fertig said, snatching Dieter’s hand out of the way. “As I was saying, your eye will be fine as long as you leave it alone. Thankfully, the puncture was shallow and I managed to fix up the worst of the damage, but you have to give it the time it needs to heal, which could be at most a week. So if you have an itch, live with it.”
“A week?” Dieter complained. He was not excited about the prospects of a week in the Infirmary. “But you’ve been able to mend bones in hours.”
“The human eye,” Fräuline Fertig said impatiently, “is a very complex and delicate organ. Bones are child’s play in comparison. So was the Erkling bite. I need you to drink this.”
She presented a cone-shaped vial filled with a simmering pink liquid. Dieter looked at it doubtfully, but dutifully drank it. He sputtered and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “Bleargh. What was that for?”
“Your flu, of course. Don’t forget that you were soaked to the bone out there in the cold! Luckily, the potion does a very job of handling the symptoms.”
Dieter’s eyelid began to droop.
“Oh, and it knocks you out too…” the nurse said distantly.
“Wait, I have one more question Fräuline Fertig. Whu-what happened to S“”
Dieter fell asleep.
He wasn’t in heaven. He was in the forest again. He was alone, running through the undergrowth, which tugged at his robes and tried to slow him down. He couldn’t slow down, not with the rustling noise behind him. He tried to go faster, but the rustle kept coming closer. Dieter’s leg’s screamed in protest, and his lungs soon thereafter called a general strike. He stopped, panting, and supported himself against a tree.
“Don’t you want to come with me, dear boy?” the rustle in the bushes invited. “For you, my child, I have many a toy.”
Dieter turned towards the voice. He reached into his pockets. Nothing was there. It was hopeless. He had no wand to fight with, so he had to run. But his legs were too tired and he was rooted on the spot.
The undergrowth parted. Out came long, slender green limbs with claws. Then a greasy black head perched atop an emaciated body.
“Hello Mudblood,” Igor Karkaroff cackled. “Now let’s PLAY!”
“NO!” Dieter yelled with renewed courage.
Dieter was in a panzer.
“FIRE!” he bellowed.
BAM! The cannon roared and spat a great tongue of flame. The shell went clean through Karkaroff and exploded against the tree behind him. “FIRE! FIRE!” Dieter shouted again and again. More cannon shells and machine gun bullets slammed into the Slav, who collapsed into a smouldering heap.
Dieter pumped his fist into the air, then leaped out of the turret and onto the ground. “HAHA! Victory is mine!” he jeered triumphantly. He walked over to Karkaroff’s corpse and kicked it onto its back.
It wasn’t Karkaroff. It wasn’t the hideous green creature from the forest either.
It was Sille. She was covered in blood, and stared at him blankly.
“AAARRGH!”
Dieter jumped, quite literally in his bed. His legs jerked and he hit his head on the headboard. “Ow!”
It was dark, and a little moonlight came in through the tall windows. Dieter was breathing heavily, and he discovered that his throat felt scratchy. He hoped to find a jug of water on his bedside table, but he spied something else in his search.
Sille was sleeping in the bed to his left. He wouldn’t have seen her if he hadn’t rolled himself over onto his side. She sported swaths of bandages on what skin he could see in the moonlight.
Horrible thoughts convulsed through his head. He was terrified. How could he have been so stupid? Instead of clobbering Karkaroff like he had supposed to, he had hurt and very nearly killed an innocent bystander, and a girl, no less. And it had to be a girl he barely knew, not one who annoyed him like Gerta. If it had to be a girl, why couldn’t it have been her?
Dieter knew he was doomed just for contemplating such thoughts. Stupid! Stupid! Dieter wanted to curl up and whimper. And that was what he did.
He didn’t remember going back to a restless sleep when he woke again in the morning. Sille was still asleep.
Dieter slowly and solemnly ate his breakfast. He was sure it would be his last at Durmstrang “ he had to be properly conscious when they expelled him. Even the greatest punishment a school could give did not seem adequate for his crime.
Fräuline Fertig went in and out of the Infirmary from time to time, taking care of patients and fetching more medical supplies. Dieter wasn’t aware of how much time had passed when the oak double doors opened again.
In came not the nurse with her cart of potions, but Deputy Rector Theoderich Odoaker wearing crimson robes and a serious expression.
Dieter’s heart sank.