Letter 16: Victor Krum to Hermione Granger, 4th February 1998

A/N: For simplicity’s sake, titles of books, journals etc are underlined and emphases are italicised. In reviving the old tradition of epistolary novels, I understand the plot may be a little slow, laborious and difficult to follow. Some might consider it AU and a little OOC.

In order not to weary the reader’s patience, a number of letters from the series of correspondences have been suppressed; those only have been given which appeared necessary to a complete understanding of the events in this group. For the same reason, some letters from the actors in the events of this drama have also been suppressed.

Proestigium or What the Seasons may Bring

Letter 16: Victor Krum to Hermione Granger, 4th February 1998

Victor Krum

284, Makarios Avenue

Cy-3720 Sophia,

Bulgaria

February 4, 1998

Hello Hermione,

I received your long message on the Krum doll communication link. Sorry it took so long to answer. We have been training hard for some of the local matches. The Quidditch season has just opened after all and we have had a bad season last year. Hopefully, we will do better this year after much more training. You do not like the game, so I will say no more about it.

Have you heard the rumour? There are rumours swinging around that the end is near for wizards everywhere. The rumours also say that Voldemort wants to strip all the wizards everywhere of their powers so that he will be the most powerful one. Bulgaria and Eastern Europe has many strange things happening. Magical creatures are dying in very large numbers and the Ministries here do not know why. Do you think this has anything to do with Voldemort, do you? Can you imagine us having no magic? We could not be able to play Quidditch or do the things like we usually do.

I have bad and frightening news. Karkaroff’s body has been found in Bavaria. His body was badly decomposing but was identified as him after the forensic wizards ran a few tests on the corpse. The reports also say that he died of the multiple avada kedavra curses. The pictures in the newspapers show that he had the glowing green Death Eater marks on his chest and back. Durmstrang is not very upset because he was a very poor Headmaster. The muggles would say that he had low EQ and I agree. That does not mean he deserved to die a horrible death. No one deserves that even if they are annoying, overbearing and self-important pricks. Sorry I said that. I go out with the boys from the team and use language like that always. I sometimes forget that I must not say such things in front of ladies.

Anyhow, it surprised me that you could not find anything substantial on this Dr Arsenius Jigger in Britain. Does not your school or your country’s wizarding libraries have any non-British records? This is not a complaint, so do not get angry, Hermione. I do not know why you are interested in finding about Arsenius Jigger, but I will help you. I remember that your Magical Drafts book was full of underlining and notes by the margin. I also remember that you think very highly of him and had wanted to write to him. It certainly took you long enough to pick up the quill.

It is clear that Arsenius Jigger did not study at Durmstrang. What I know about him comes from extracts behind journals where they write the author’s profiles and all that. There is a very nice one published in the Russian Alchemy journal that Irina found for me, called Nomos. I will give you a translation. It says, “Arsenius Jigger is a mysterious figure in academic circles. It is speculated that he was born sometime after the Second World War, as he has studied with the students of many early 19th thinkers. Since many of his references hail from Cambridge, Wittenberg, Innsbruck and La Sorbonne, it is highly likely that he had obtained his D.Mag.A from one of these institutions. Unfortunately, the editors have yet to uncover any documents related to Dr Jigger. The above institutions have declined to comment. Dr Jigger, however, is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Alchemy at the University of York’s School of Magical Arts. The reclusive Dr Jigger never delivers his lecture series in person. He presents his yearly 16 lectures via the temporus sonus charm. It has been recorded that a student’s memory was completely erased in 1992 because he had sought to trace the elusive spell caster. Dr Jigger has published extensively in the fields of Potions Research and Alchemy; most notable is his standard introductory textbook Magical Drafts and Potions.”

I do not know if this helps, Hermione, as this is all I can find. I do not know what your interest in the old man is, but I do not like him because you like an old man better than your old friend, Victor? Just joking, eh? If you need anything else, talk to the Krum doll.

Best,

Victor

Footnotes

Proestigium is Latin for illusion. Ironically, the English word Prestige derives from it.

D.Mag.A. stands for Doctor Magicorum Artium. In this story, it is the wizarding equivalent of a PhD.

The letter structure and style of this letter may leave some fuming. Let me stress that Victor Krum’s first language is not English. He does not write or speak English as well as native speakers.

EQ stands for emotional quotient.

If someone can teach me how to include table (that I've used in microsoft word) into this thing that i can put up here, I would be most grateful. I have a table with words inside the cells, very much like statistical figures, that I am contemplating releasing with one of the letters. Help would be appreciated.