He
held the letter in his hands, golden parchment with dark scarlet
ink, and willed his fingers to stop shaking. It was like this every
time- the trepidation, the eagerness, the hope wrapped in despair.
And
yet when they came, he dropped everything and spent minutes just
caressing the envelope. The knap was rough under his fingers, or
maybe it was his fingers that were rough. Too much time outside
in bad weather, clutching a broom through flying gloves. Too much
time being what everyone wanted him to be, what they thought they
saw.
Perhaps
that’s why he was first drawn to her: she didn’t see
him as others did. They saw Viktor Krum, amazing Quidditch player.
She didn’t. At first he’d thought it was because her
eyes were too full of Harry Potter, amazing Quidditch player and
wunderkind. But as he watched her from beneath dark eyelashes, he
saw what she didn’t see.
It
was then that he knew she was his salvation, his hope in bushy hair.
She could be his out, bookish Hermione Granger, his way to a new
life.
Oh,
he loved Quidditch; that was a certainty. He also appreciated the
life it afforded him. Durmstrang had surrounded him with wealth
and privilege, none of it his own. His name was well respected,
but with a house full of sisters and only his father’s social
servant’s income, he had no illusions. So he took his ticket
out, and let them think what they will.
Durmstrang.
Dark Arts. Supporters of racial purity and the superiority of wizarding-kind.
And
he did nothing to dispel it.
But
Hermione was something he’d never encountered before, so he
reached out with hands he hoped were still and calm, and despite
an initial hesitation, she’d enveloped his long fingers in
warm palms. She asked him why, face bright with tentative curiosity;
he’d muttered some answer that might have been in Bulgarian
or Goblin or something equally as strange, but whatever it was,
she seemed to accept it. She blinked, measured him with those brilliant
brown eyes and found him worthy.
At
the dance she’d been glorious, not at all what he’d
expected. Viktor had not asked her because she was beautiful or
sexy or a prize to be won, but when she’d appeared he knew
how wrong he’d been. If she could look beyond his skin to
say yes, he should have looked a bit harder to see through the costume
she wrapped around her slender shoulders.
She
was a dancing vision of ethereal grace, so different from the bookworm
hunched over stacks of texts in the library. With her smooth hand
grasped in his, traipsing only somewhat clumsily around the dance
floor, Viktor knew this barely hoped for happenstance would be his
undoing.
When
he was around her, he could not be the Durmstrang Quidditch Wonder
Viktor, he could only be himself. When he read her letters, the
hope and eagerness could no longer be contained, and he wanted so
much more than was his due. He wanted to tell the courting Death
Eaters that he was no-one’s meat. He wanted to tell his family
that he would protect them without resorting to selling his soul.
He wanted to sweep in to Hermione’s bedroom on his broomstick,
cradle her up in his arms, and never be seen again.
But
Viktor was also a reasonable man, and he knew his limitations.
So
he filled his letters back with simple things, tales of the everyday
life of a world famous Quidditch star. He trusted she’d understand
what he was trying to say, how he called out for help. He trusted
her to know enough not to say anything to anyone else.
He
slipped his finger under the flap of the envelope, relishing the
scratch of parchment, and tugged it open. Her letter unfolded into
his lap, took a deep breath, and began to read.
~Fin~
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