The sun rose over Europe, illuminating one side of Viktor Krum’s face and making the frost on his broomstick glitter. He squinted at the position of the sun and muttered, “Too far south.”
As he adjusted his flight path, Viktor wondered aloud, “Dare I put another Accelerating Charm on my broom?”
It was a heavy question: any additional charms to accentuate flight began to affect the broom’s performance, not to mention the fact that it was illegal “ especially for a Quidditch player like Viktor. But he was in a hurry, and he’d already been flying for three hours.
The reason for his urgency lay safely in his pocket. It was a letter from Hermione, sent by urgent long-distance owl the previous evening.
Dear Viktor, it read, I’m sure by now you’ve heard all about Dumbledore’s death. I wish you could have made it to the funeral, it was lovely.
Things have become a struggle for me lately. There’s so little hope, and I’m so despairing, but I have to be strong for Harry. It’s such a burden I might crumble . . . but I have to be a support to him. He’s our only hope. I can only wish that it’s enough to keep me waking up every morning.
Oh, silly me, I didn’t mean to tell you all that. It’s just hard. . . . I’m writing to inform you that we’re headed to Germany soon to go . . . do some things I can’t disclose in case of interception. But be aware that you won’t be hearing from me for a while. I won’t be safe, of course, but I’ll have my boys to look after me.
I hope that we’ll meet again someday.
Love, Hermione
PS: I hope your game goes well.
The Bulgarian Quidditch team was playing Germany that day, ironically enough, but Viktor had made his (rather incomprehensible) excuses and taken off for England instead. It was clear Hermione was suffering from severe depression and distress“her normally neat handwriting was shaky and she’d even crossed out a few spelling mistakes. But most alarming to Viktor was the inadvertent paragraph that she hadn’t bothered to erase.
“I will be a bulwark for her,” Viktor resolved. “I will be her support so she can be strong for Harry; she cannot crumble; she must wake up with hope in her heart.” He shook his head at the thought of those two boys protecting her. “I will keep her safe.”
At long last, the spires of Hogwarts Castle pierced the mist, and Viktor began his descent. He felt a weak ripple of a spell as he came down, but at least no anti-intruder jinxes.
All of a sudden, Minerva McGonagall was shouting at him and running out on the lawn in a rather undignified fashion.
“Oh! It’s Viktor Krum! What on earth are you doing here? Hold on . . . what color were Hermione’s dress robes?”
“Err . . . a sort of light blue, I am thinking?” Viktor tried to get off his broom and found himself so frozen that he could barely grasp his wand. “I am sorry, Professor, but I haff had a long flight and I just vont to know vare Herm-own-ninny is.”
“Hermione? Oh, she’s taking a Portkey to Germany in about five to ten minutes.”
Viktor gasped, as he tried to melt himself off his seat (it was more painful than he’d been expecting), “But I must go with her!”
The Headmistress raised an eyebrow. After a bit of thought”he’d flown all the way from Bulgaria, after all, it must be something important ” she said, “Come to my office. You can Floo to Grimmauld Place from there.”
“Thank you,” Viktor murmured, wincing as the rest of his body began to thaw in the summer sunshine.
“It’s Number 12, Grimmauld Place,” McGonagall said shortly after, handing him a pinch of Floo powder. “Good luck.”
Viktor said the required address and began whirling through the fireplace, trying not to be sick. He landed face first in a dismal parlor. Across the room, Harry was looking at his watch and counting down, “Five . . . four . . .”
“No,” Viktor gasped. Hermione looked up, eyes widening and brightening. With impossible speed, considering his four hours or so on a broomstick, Viktor bounded across the room and put his finger to the Portkey“a locket, for some reason“just as Harry whispered, “One.”
Ten seconds later, Viktor Krum crawled slightly away from everyone else and was promptly sick “ three methods of magical transportation in less than ten minutes had turned his stomach. When he was through and had cleaned himself up, he sat up to the stares of the Trio.
“Hello,” Viktor said, trying to smile.
“What are you doing here?” Ron asked, putting a protective arm around Hermione. “What do you want?”
Hermione seemed speechless, and Harry was simply staring accusingly, so Viktor addressed himself to Ron, who was sending him what would most appropriately be labeled a look of death.
“Er, vell, I . . . you see . . . I got a letter from Herm-own-ninny, and . . . vell . . .” Viktor needed to do something with his hands, so he did the first thing that came to mind and conjured a red rose, which he then began turning nervously around his fingers. “Vell, you see . . . look, can I just talk to Herm-own-ninny for a minute?”
“It’s okay, Ron,” she said quietly, putting her hand on his arm. Viktor’s eyes snapped to it immediately, as well as noting again Ron’s hand on Hermione’s shoulder. Suddenly he felt like a fool.
“Herm-own-ninny, I vos just vorried. In your letter you seemed so vulnerable, so in need of my support, I “ I dropped everything to come. Now . . . now I vonder if I should haff stayed and played my Quidditch game instead.” He offered the rose to her in defeat.
“Oh, Viktor!” Hermione cried, leaving Ron and running to his side to help him up. With a look she banished both Harry and Ron elsewhere and plucked the rose from Viktor’s hand.
“I . . . I do need you,” she admitted quietly.
“Vot? No, Herm-own-ninny, I vos stupid, you haff your boys to look after you, you need, no, you don’t need me to be your bulwark. I should go.”
“No, Viktor, listen to me.” Her eyes, which had been so dull earlier that morning “ from tears unshed the previous night, from despair winning the battle against hope “ were bright as she looked at her friend. “Ron just doesn’t understand: he’s struggling just as much as Harry. He doesn’t realize that while I care enough to help him through, I need help too.” Her brow furrowed. “But I can’t believe you skipped your Quidditch game for this. I would have gotten over it, you know.”
“Really? Herm-own-ninny, I saw your eyes as you stood there with your boys. You looked . . . oh, almost suicidal, I vood say.”
Hermione snorted. “Hardly. No, I think it would be good to have you. I’ve been longing for intelligent conversation lately and, since Ron doesn’t often go for that and Harry’s too busy brooding about the world on his shoulders, I’m counting on you.” She fingered a petal of the rose thoughtfully. “I think you will be able to help us in our cause. I know you can be trusted with this mission of Harry’s. Maybe I’ll “ Oh, you’re bleeding!”
Viktor traced Hermione’s gaze to the side of his face, where he felt the blood, warmed up after being in the freezing atmosphere for a night, beginning to trickle down his face. “Oh, this? It is nothing. It vos silly, how it happened.”
“I think I can guess,” Hermione smiled, touching a place on her face where Madam Pomfrey had applied her Healing to a similar gash. “Some owls just don’t like to be kissed on the beak.”
Viktor smiled in surprise. “You remembered! I thought that you vood have stopped that by now, our silly little vay to be in each other’s hearts . . . ve vere young, then, you know?”
“Mm-hmm,” Hermione replied absently, waving her wand over his face in an attempt to heal it. “I’m glad you’re here, Viktor. Ron will get used to it, and I think Harry will be glad of the help. Come, let’s tell them of the new addition to our group.”
And she put her hand in his, and even though it had been years since they’d touched, their fingers meshed as perfectly now as they had then, and Viktor couldn’t help but smile.
A/N: Many thanks go to skulblaka for looking over this!