Free time was rare. Magda had been training all summer holiday, and she was not the only one. The word holiday was hardly applicable; gone were Augusts of leisurely swims and extra hours of sleep and loitering in the kitchen while her mother made waffles. Swimming meant training, her grandfather, the headmaster, loathed late sleepers, and if they’d had waffles at any point during the summer, they were not made by Magda’s parents. Even she was not immune to those little human wants-- another five minutes’ rest or a moment of missing her mum, wondering if they might go shopping next summer, after she’d graduated. Wondering if it would be the same.

This summer was not about the last few precious weeks, that glorious stretch between terms, where one might spend one’s time doing something simply because. She was used to training with her grandfather, used to busy schedules, summer or winter, but it was nice now and then to have a breath for the sake of breathing.

Closing a book, she set it on the cushions beneath the cabin window, and slipped her wand from its holster. She slipped into the corridor, the door closing by magic behind her-- to open it, one had to cast a silent charm. Though the cabins on this level were reserved for the Oberteil ranks, Magda walked a mere ten meters before turning and finding a Zufrieden-- who had been a Dreg only this past April-- fretting about one of the doors. When he spotted Magdalena, his mouth opened, as if he anticipated a blow and could somehow soften it.

Magda gave him only a brief, cat-eyed stare. Wand in hand, the Oberteil left the younger student to his own devices and whisked past several more cabins, head held high, light brown hair swishing in a ponytail. If she weren’t intent on using her break for herself, she would have been obliged to scold some peer’s second-rate henchmen for forgetting how to open a door. Silent judgement would do its work for now, keep the boy on edge... and out of the Oberteils.

She took another turn, coming to a stop in front of a handsome, heavy door. She held her wand up to its wood, murmuring something-- a password or confirmation of some sort-- until it opened before her. The Oberteil common room was much more capacious than any of the student cabins, and ideal for conspiring breaks between studying, practicing, and trying to disarm her grandfather before the start of September.

Aliya was curled up on one of the rather large lounge chairs in the Durmstrang common room, her robes wrapped snugly around her and thoroughly engrossed in a Slither Girls novel. First glance would have one assuming that the young Grumman read the book solely for entertainment purposes. Ever the romantic idealist, that certain could be one reason she did so. But Aliya was also a tactician and a strategist and she had taken up reading the series not long after their group arrived after talking to a group of Hogwart's students. They jokingly mentioned how the depiction of student life at their counterpart school was quite realistic. No matter how many years had gone by since the authoress had attended the UK School, some things never changed.

Aliya looked up from her place in the novel when Magdelena Eisenberg entered the room. Immediately Aliya felt a little sheepish for her reading material that she had chosen, as she wasn't sure if Magda would see it as frivilous indulgence.

Being the Headmaster's kin made the other Oberteil hard to read for Aliya, even if she too came from a family well known and respected in the halls of their school. Aliya found herself liking Magdalena immensely, but at times she wasn't sure if the girl she was interacting with was the real, true version of herself. Perhaps in a school like Durmstrang, it was hard to be who one wanted to be, much less know who that was.

After a moment of silence, Aliya offered the other girl a friendly smile. "Good Morning, Magda. Sleep well?"

Magdalena’s astutely roaming eyes swept the room over and landed on Aliya, who, for the moment, was the only occupant besides the Eisenberg girl. Magda let her shoulders soften the tiniest, most indiscernible fraction. Her blasé-but-purposeful visage became a subdued smile, muted at first, and then a little smirk-like... though not insincere, simply Magdalena-ish.

“Like a kitten...” She fixed her wand into her trousers and promenaded toward the warmly-coiled Aliya. If Magdalena was cold and unyielding, Aliya was amiable, prudent. They fit each other well, nonetheless, and had been close since the peak of girlhood, that careful brink of eleven, twelve, the founding years of friendship in a place like Durmstrang.

Magda sunk into the seat beside her friend, straightening into the cushions at her back. “You?” She asked, turning toward her fellow Oberteil, eyes not missing the book, or its title printed in the top margin. “Practicing your English?” She asked in the tongue that was oft used in Durmstrang. There was a slight, albeit playful witchiness to her tone; she had seen the books before, but had never read them herself. She supposed it was a good study in Wizarding British colloquialism and pop culture... but Magda would have read it at night, alone. “What does it say about the forest? Any... rites of passage we should know about?”

She had been curious since their arrival, and conversations with her grandfather had only sparked the interest.

Magda stretched a little and looked to the back of the door, securely shut, before continuing. “I've been told the Slytherins aren’t completely useless...” She mentioned, ever so nonchalantly and I-would-never-ish. Clearly she was talking about a certain persuasion of Slytherin. She gestured to the book. It wasn’t as if it was gospel. But if there was one person Magda didn’t mind running rumors and questions by, it was Aliya.

Aliya's worrying over what Magda might think of her reading subsided and when Magda joined her on the couch, the young Grumman snuggled up close to her in an affectionate, friendly way. "I didn't sleep very well, I admit," she told her friend. "I think I have too much on my mind."

Aliya waved to book between them and her eyes sparkled a bit. "English? I suppose. More or less studying these people," she explained, referring to their tournament hosts. Her expression became pensive and dark before she added, "But they are not as exciting as I think they want us to believe."

Magda's mention of the forest intrigued Aliya. "No, I don't think I remember reading anything about that," she replied. "But then, I haven't exactly been looking for that." She frowned. "Should I have? What is there?"

The questions came in Aliya's usual sweetly innocent manner. To some it could be an endearing quality and to others, surely it was quite exasperating. But Aliya had no concept that it was odd in any way.

The mention of the Slytherins had her forgetting about the forest amost immediately. Though she was one of the nicer and less ruthless of her Durmstrang counterparts, even Aliya was excitable over gossip. "Oh? I hear that they have an unofficial hierarchy amongst their popular girls." She paused dramatically, her eyes wide. "I think Fyetka's cousin is one of several girls who are fighting to be the....best of them?"

Sitting close enough to Aliya to conspire, Magdalena tilted her head just barely, curious. They all seemed to have a lot racing through their minds of late (and always, being upperclassmen at the most demanding school in Wizarding Europe); Magda wondered whether Aliya’s sleep-depriving thoughts had more to do with the tournament, or the inner workings of the Durmstrang elite. Or a dash of both... it did seem inevitable they would tangle, and sooner rather than later.

The pretext of brushing up on English language skills was quickly abandoned, and Magda dove candidly into her real inquiries-- just as Aliya confessed what she’d expected to hear. The series might have been daydream fodder for thirteen-year-old girls and their lonely mothers (and perhaps the wayward, desperate boy looking for tips), but there were also niches that could be explored and exploited, things which translated with almost comic clarity to the real world... or so Magda assumed, as she had never read the books herself and had no plans to do so. But that was what such fiction was usually for. “They’re compensating,” she repeated, recalling her initial  appraisal upon surfacing on the black lake. “But for what...” There was almost a hum to her voice; she smiled again, this time baring her teeth a little. Magda’s smiles were rare, but Aliya was no stranger to them.

She stretched out her legs, looking straight ahead to the tops of her knees, over them, toward the door, still. Her face sobered, lips parted.

“Grandfather says the forest is not so dangerous as they claim. There are acromantulas, centaurs. I remember mentions of werewolves in our Wizarding Britain history section.” She glanced at Aliya again. “There are no mentions of direwolves in the papers. Yet.” Magda had plans for the forest. Rumor had it Harry Potter had summoned the dead there, the last mention of the Resurrection Stone in recent history. She kept that bit to herself, for now. “If they’re going to call it the Forbidden Forest, it should at least be entertaining.”

"Oh? I hear that they have an unofficial hierarchy amongst their popular girls."

“I heard it, too. They wouldn’t know what to do with themselves if they didn’t climb each other’s backs like a deck of cards.” And if that sort of political acrobatics happened at Durmstrang, Magda would be the first to highlight the differences. At Durmstrang, it was more dangerous, more autonomous. A queen didn’t need a court to reign fierce-- thought it helped. And the professors encouraged merciless scales to the top.

"I think Fyetka's cousin is one of several girls who are fighting to be the....best of them?"

Being Fyetka’s cousin might be the girl’s saving grace. Magda knew better than to insult strong blood. Even if it had been watered down by mild winters and talking hats which determined one’s identity. “I didn’t know he had British family,” she acknowledged. “Maybe she’ll be one of the less useless ones.”

On the subject of Fyetka... “I heard a couple of girls talking about him yesterday.” The foreign ‘invasion’ seemed to be the hot topic on everyone’s tongues. “One poor thing tripped and skinned both knees.” A swish of her wand had done the job: an invisible wire in the door frame of a dress shop made the girl quickly forget about the heart-racing profile of the Oberteil.

She was surprised she hadn't come across Lyov making a tool fool of himself in front of such leeches. Thinking of her classmate made the back of her hand prickle. She tightened her grip on her wand.

Aliya listened to her friend give her assessment of the book, and ultimately, the Tournament that was ahead against the other schools. But of particular interest to them were the students from Hogwarts because they seemed to be divided even amongst themselves. Without even saying as much to each other, both girls were likely already considering how best to exploit that. For one thing that Durmstrang could boast about was being very united in their goals here and whether one was from the Dregs (who were not in attendence) to the Zufreiden to the Oberteils, they all wanted to win. And often they were not concerned how they accomplished that but merely that it happened.

The mentio of the dangerous forest caused Aliya to smirk. She and her classmates were also no strangers to heavily wooded areas full of dangerous creatures. Though she herself spent most of her time in St. Petersburg, she often visited Siberia to see her cousin. And Tyen Manor and its surrounding areas were far scarier than anything she could imagine being here.

Aliya glanced at Magda and thought the Danish witch had similar areas in her Scandanavian homeland that allowed her the same confidence. Quietly, she murmured, "Maybe that is their attempt to have an advantage in some of the challenges though?"

She shrugged and then turned back to the talk of the home school's inner heirarchy. Aliya cleared her throat. "Perhaps they are compensating because they do not know who their new leader really is. "Melanthe has another cousin who went here last year. She was the one at the top before she left. Melanthe says that she didn't have much competition, but it's different this year. There are so many. Imagine what happens when more than one girl wants to be at the top..."

Aliya wasn't oblivious to Durmstrang's own little version of a female monarchy. Among the Oberteil, there were a small number of girls who tended the rule the school, so to speak. Easily Magda and Aliya could be counted among them. But they weren't fighting amongst each other to be The One. Aliya did not want to be at the top, despite the common knowledge that Melanthe had been so during her time at the school. The younger Grumman was happy to step aside and play a supporting role to someone like Magda.

The conversation shifted with the mention of Fyetka. "Yes, I don't really know the full story as to why his cousin came here instead of going to school with us. But it may have had to do with Taras going away to Azkaban." Instinctively, Aliya's voice had lowered to a whisper, even as the two of them were alone. She didn't want gossip about Fyetka's family to be spread because even if it might hurt his cousin, who in this context was their enemy, it might also hurt Fyetka. And she never wanted to do that.

Aliya's face darkened immediately when Magda mentioned other girls talking about Fyetka. Usually Aliya was quite the amiable and sunny witch, but she even she had her flaws. And jealously was one of them. Of course, she would never admit that openly. Instead, she would tell others that she was simply protective of her betrothed.

Hearing Magda tell the story of what had happened to the foreign girl, she could tell that it wasn't an accident. Aliya reached over to clasp her friend's hand and leaned in to kiss her cheek. "Spasiba. You are a doll." Then, after a moment of silence, the Russian witch ducked her eyes and quietly confided. "I don't know what is wrong with me these days. I get so worried that something will hapen and Fyetka and I won't be together anymore. It is silly, isn't it?"

“You would think our being at their school would be an advantage enough,” she noted dryly. But then, it was advantage for the other schools, too. Hogwarts had the leisure of getting overly comfortable. Magda was the sort who kept her ears perked, even when she looked blase enough to walk through a room on fire and not change her expression. Her fingers traced over the wood of her wand in her opposite hand, and Magda, for a moment, was lost in thought.

Aliya raised a fair point. The students here were preoccupied with finding a leader... and probably tearing down that person when they achieved the goal. They were catty, would probably get on well with the girls from Beauxbatons if they took a five-minute reprieve to stop whispering about them. Magda knew she was someone teetering near the top of the political ladder; she did not have such low self-esteem as to bicker about it. If it came to it, she would act. With her wand.

There was also something to be said for Aliya’s numerous connections to the school. That she had arrived with this information was quite advantageous to the Oberteils. Aurely Maras and Magda’s own grandfather would encourage their heartfelt exploitation. Magda would have to thank Melanthe for her insight.

“Whoever gets there had better enjoy her throne while it lasts.” There was a hint of humor now. Thrones. That was what these girls wanted. It was what Magda would casually take from them.

The word Azkaban made Magdalena ponder, but she glossed over it when she spoke. “Unfortunate.”

The expression Aliya wore was not unknown to Magdalena, though certainly it was not so common in the diplomatic Russian as it was in some of the other students in their strata. Still, Aliya was an exceptionally capable witch, and surely there was a vindictive side to her; one did not grow up Grumman without a touch of something darker.

Magdalena paused for a moment, looking to the fire before settling her gaze back on Aliya. “Aliya, you are bound to each other and he knows what a good thing he has. He would be a fool to try anything. These girls are twelve a sickle.” Common. “If something happens... he will regret it, I’m sure.” The words were not spoken with compassion for a hypothetically mistaken Fyetka; rather, they suggested something else. A promise of what an Oberteil girl could do.