For the Greater Good || Tom Riddle ||

Chapter Three: The North

WINTER 1948 - SCANDINAVIA

The dark wood room smelled of peppermint oil, cedar, and cold leather. A hearth was nestled in the corner, alight with magical flame, with an incredibly large rack of antlers hanging above the stone. Lamps made of red crystal hung overhead, and there was a large leather sofa in the middle of the room adorned in mink and polar bear furs. Paintings of nautical storms hung on the walls, along with the heads of magical beats bearing tooth and fang. Gold and silver accents on crimson wallpaper featured depictions of falcons, bones, waves, and wolves.

The man behind the counter was stern and pale. Mykew Gregorovitch had thick brown hair and a bushy beard with small plaits interwoven. He wore his shoulder-length hair in the style of the old folk, braided tight against his scalp. His clothes were a deep ebony, with silver geometric motifs of Nordic design.

She had not stepped foot in Gregorovitch Zauberstäbe in over a decade.

His shrewd eyes didn't even bother to look up as she entered. Customer service wasn't the product here. Even the thick brown wool coat she wore did nothing to ease the chill that went through her when his green eyes finally pierced her.

She briefly averted her gaze to the window, where she spotted a grove of tall pines. For a second, she smiled to herself, reminiscing on how she once thought the snow on the pine looked like sugar. Many Decembers had come and gone since then.

The Northern European's equivalent of Diagon Alley was located in a village called Vilra. Surrounded by Boreal Forest of pine, fir and birch, the town was a concoction of Medieval Scandinavian architecture and golden domes. Taverns sold stews and sour beers, meatballs and reindeer jerky, and stores offered clothes of red, silver, and white lined with fur and boots that went up to the knee to ward off the chill of snow.

Winter was harsh and unforgiving in this part of the world, but magical folk made the best of the daily darkness—it almost seemed as though it was the most natural state to enact the frivolity of daily life. During the season, it was not a rare sight for there to be pop-up markets in the middle of the town square, featuring everything from hides to delicate perfumes. Vendors would sell specialty lichen tea blends promised to cure all ailments and dried mushrooms for potions. Hawkers would sell narwhal blubber and glaciers in a bottle. On occasion, whenever the market wasn't open, a lucky child would manage to convince an adult to charm a giant game of wizard's chess—the distinguished pieces of ice sculptures sliding around on a frozen board as though it was polished marble. 

At night, which often felt eternal, there were operas and ballets and plays to attend and lavish lounges of crystal and gold crowded with witches and wizards dressed to the nines. Strong alcohol would fill diamond-like glasses, chilled in the snow and sweetened with preserved honeycomb imported from the south.

However, tonight appeared like it would be an even wilder atmosphere in Vilra.

The celebration of Sankta Lucia was upon the town. One of the few muggle holidays celebrated in the Northern wizarding world, the celebration was a mix of Christian traditions and Pagan folklore. It began with the tale of Lussi, a female being with evil traits often described to be part woman, part dragon. She was said to ride through the air with her followers, sending bolts of lightning and droplets of blood from the heavens, echoing much of the motif of the Wild Hunt found in other cultures.

She hadn't celebrated Sankta Lucia in a long, long time.

Between Lussi Night and Yule, it was said that trolls and evil spirits haunted the homes of the ill-protected. The tradition of Lussevaka – to stay awake through the treacherous night to guard oneself and the household against evil, found a modern form through throwing parties until daybreak.