     The next morning came, bringing with it dark thunderclouds and heavy rainfall. Viktor, who had been kept awake nearly all night by thoughts of what would lie ahead, submitting his name for the Tournament, and what he would do if he was chosen, had gotten up early, and was now pacing up and down his small, dim room. He tried to work off some of his restless energy by walking back and forth, by doing pushups, and then by just lying on his bed staring at the ceiling, but nothing seemed to help. Finally, a knock on his door told him that it was time to return to Hogwarts Castle. He grabbed a quill and a slip of parchment, and hurriedly wrote Viktor Krum- Durmstrang before walking out and joining the rest of his fellow students on the deck of the ship.
     When they reached Great Hall for breakfast, the students mulling around began staring openly at Viktor.
     "It's him!" he heard them whisper. "Look! It's Viktor Krum!"
     He also heard several badly-stifled giggles, but he ignored them all. He wolfed down his food, eager to be the first from his school to submit his name to the Goblet of Fire. Then, the door to the Great Hall opened again, and Viktor looked to see the pretty girl he had seen the night before enter, again walking next to Harry Potter and the other boy. He paused, looking over the top of his partly raised goblet, and watched the three of them sitting down at the table opposite his. Now that he had more time to look at her, he realized that she was very young; she couldn't have been older than sixteen.
     That doesn't matter, he thought, and he decided that he would have to ask one of the other students with the same red lining on their robes what her name was.
     The opportunity came much sooner than he had anticipated, when there was a tap on his shoulder, and a high-pitched "Excuse me..." from behind him.
     Viktor turned to see a very small boy with mousy-colored hair standing there, holding a piece of parchment and a quill in his quaking hands.
     "Excuse me...Mister Krum..." he said, excitement and nervousness reflected in his wide eyes. Viktor noticed, with a slight jolt in his stomach, the lion on the front of his scarlet-lined robes.  "I was w-wondering if...if you could sign this for me. My dad loves sports, and he'd be really pleased that I met you, Mister Krum..."
     Viktor nodded, and then stood, towering over the boy. He took the quill and parchment, and signed his name in slanted writing, before handing them back.
     "Vot is your name?" he asked.
     "Collin...C-collin Creevy, sir."
     "Collin, vould you tell me something?" When the boy nodded, he continued, pointing at Harry Potter. "That boy over there...vith the black hair and glasses. Who is that?"
     "Oh," said Collin, looking, if possible, even more excited. "That's Harry Potter, a friend of mine. He's in my house...Gryffindor." He pointed to the lion on his chest.
     "And who are the boy and girl sitting next to him? His friends?"
     "Oh them. They're always with him. Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger."
     Viktor's brain jammed. What was her name? That was the question that he was dying to ask, because he felt sure he had misheard Collin, and didn't know how he would ever talk to her if he couldn't even pronounce her name.  He was certain it had been the most beautiful name he had ever heard, but...Collin had said it so quickly.
     "Thank you," was all he could manage.
     "Thank you, sir," said Collin, and then he darted away through the crowd.
     Viktor did not sit down to finish his food, but walked away down the row between the tables, out of the Great Hall, and began wandering the corridors, not paying any attention to where he was going.
     Hermyown? he thought to himself, trying to figure out what the boy Collin had said. Hermanee? Hermowine? Out of all the different things he could come up with, none of them sounded remotely correct, or nearly pretty enough. He felt like such an idiot, and knew that she would wholeheartedly agree with him if he tried to call her something awful like Herm-ninny.
     Throughout the morning, while Viktor wandered the halls, whiling away the time before he could submit his name for the Tournament, more than a few people came up to him to get his autograph, to tell him that they were his biggest fan, to giggle at him, or, in the case of one very odd girl, to pester him about such bizzare creatures that supposedly ran rampant in Bulgaria as the Blibbering Humdinger, or the Wrakspurt. By the time she had finally left him alone, Viktor had decided that if all of the students at Hogwarts were as ridiculous as the ones he had met, then perhaps he didn't want to talk to the girl with the unpronouncable name, after all.
         *           *            *
'Fight! Fight! Fight!'
     The sounds of some kind of commotion were erupting from inside the Great Hall, where the Goblet was kept.  Viktor stood outside the door for several seconds, feeling the pounding of his heart against his ribs, trying to focus. After taking a deep breath, he placed his hand on the door, and swung it open.
     Before him, he saw the Goblet--the first obstacle he had overcome in order to regain what he had lost by failing to win the World Cup.
     Bulgaria...the losers...
     The phrase again echoed in his mind, but he pushed it aside—it would not be the same this time.  Scowling at the Goblet, he marched forwards.  The crowd of students, who had been shouting moments before, were silent, and they parted in front of him.  Viktor thought that this was strange since this was the first time that the students hadn't swarmed him when they noticed him, but he put them out of his mind as he stalked forward.  He stepped through the smoky age-line, and at last came to the wooden cup, reached up, and dropped the parchment into the blue flames.
     And it was done.  Now all he had to do was wait. He took another deep breath to calm himself, and then he turned to walk away. As he did this, his gaze dropped to someone sitting on one of the benches. It was her.  The pretty Gryffindor girl with the impossible name.  Their eyes met, and in the moment before he turned away from her and began walking back out of the Hall, he saw her give him a slight smile, with curiosity filling her eyes.
     They had only looked into each other's eyes for a second, but he suddenly felt a fire brighter and hotter than the flame in the Goblet burning inside his chest.  Now that he had seen her more closely, he could see that she was not pretty—she was beautiful.  But she was also different, somehow, from all the others, and it took him all the way until he had gotten back to his ship that he realized why.
     While everyone else had been standing, cheering on the fight, she had been sitting on the bench, a book in her lap. Though this was a small thing, to Viktor it was all the difference in the world. She couldn't possibly be a ridiculous fool like so many of the rest of them, and now he knew again that, whether or not he knew her name, he had to speak to her.
A Midwinter Night's Dream by winters_tale
Chapter Endnotes: "My life is brilliant, My love is pure.
I saw an angel, Of that I'm sure.
You're beautiful. You're beautiful.
You're beautiful, it's true.
I saw you face in a crowded place,
And I don't know what to do,
'Cause I'll never be with you."
~James Blunt, "You're Beautiful"