AN: Written for the Oneshot Wars! My prompts were "Kindness is in our power, even when affection is not" "shame" "scribble" "money" and "frantic."
It was a Sunday in late March when the first letter arrived. Viktor had spent the entire morning out in the Quidditch pitch, flying lap after lap, circling high and then diving so low his fingers skimmed the dewy grass.
By the time he returned to the house, sweaty and exhausted, he was ready to lie on the couch and do nothing- until his afternoon practice, that is. Truth be told, Viktor had very little to do with his time. He ate, he slept, he practiced, and he played. It wasn't as though an internationally famous Quidditch player could be expected to have hobbies.
He headed down the skinny, twisting hallway, not bothering to wipe the mud off of his feet before trudging across the carpets, and discovered that a single envelope was lying before his front door. He frowned. Why would an owl have left it there? He supposed it could have come through the mail slot on his front door, but he'd never received Muggle mail before.
Shrugging, he grabbed the envelope and flopped onto the couch so that he could examine it better. Without bothering to read the address, he tore it open and pulled out a thin piece of pale-pink stationery.
Dear Parvati, it read.
Viktor frowned. Parvati?
He kept reading.
Can you believe this weather we've been having? All the rain is amazing, don't you think? Everyone's been saying that it's going to interfere with Quidditch conditions for the World Cup, but I think it will just make everything more fun. I enjoy watching the players suffer.
Viktor blinked.
Anyways, thanks for your letter, darling. I really appreciated all the sour candies. You should've seen me when I realized what they were. I basically sat on my bed for an entire hour, eating sour snails and getting the sugar all over my face. I'm not even joking. I ate them all in one sitting. It was disgusting. I have no regrets.
Thanks for asking about Sneepers! She's doing quite well. Stupid owl ate a few of the sour snails herself and got a bit sick, but she's all better now.
As for H (I refuse to write that moron's name) well, that's over. Done. Nil. I mean, really, cheating once is one thing, but doing it twice and then sending me an owl instead of just telling me… that's excessively cruel, don't you think? But it doesn't matter. I'm over it.
Anyways, what have you been up to lately? Give me all the juicy details!
Lots of love,
-R.
Viktor stared at her letter for another moment before turning over the envelope. A bit belatedly, he realized that the letter was not, in fact, addressed to him. It just had Parvati P and and an address scrawled on the front. There was a return address, but the sender had not signed with their full name- just R, like the end of the letter.
Obviously, the letter wasn't intended for him. But what was he supposed to do about it now? After all, he'd already read the thing.
Stupid, he thought, mentally berating himself.
In the end, he decided that writing a response was the best he could do. He managed to locate a sheet of notebook paper somewhere and sat down again to scribble out a messy response. When he was finished, his note read:
Dear R-
I have to apologize- your letter arrived at my house and I did not realize that it was not intended for me until I had already read it. I will send your letter along to the correct address, and I apologize again for my error.
If you do not mind me adding, what that "H" did is very cruel. Kindness is in our power, even when affection is not- he did not need to be unkind in that way.
-V.
He read it over twice before stuffing it into an envelope. He was a bit uncertain about his English, as he'd never been very good at it, but in the end he decided that there was nothing to be done. He wrote down the address, addressed it to R, and sent it on its way, assuming that would be the end of things.
But four days later, he got a reply.
Dear V,
Well, hello, then! Don't worry about it. I don't especially care that you've read my letter- it's not like there was anything important about it.
As for H… that is a nice way of putting it. But as I said before, I'm over it.
I'm trying to get this letter written before I go to bed tonight, but it's very difficult with Sneepers fluttering around my head and pecking me. Honestly, that owl is just ridiculous.
Anyways… thanks for letting me know about the letter!
-R.
Viktor read the letter twice. Then he read it a third time.
Then he wrote a reply.
It didn't take long for the letters to fall into his usual routine. They arrived roughly every four or five day, always by Muggle post, which Viktor thought was strange but didn't question. Unlike the rest of his usual routine, however, the letters excited him- he was both nervous and happy whenever he received one.
Writing to R became astonishingly easy for him. He found that it was easy to tell her everything, even the most painful memories of his childhood, like the days his father had called him stupid over and over again as he struggled to learn his sums in math.
Well, no one cares about math, anyways, R wrote in response.
As time went on, Viktor began to suspect that he was closer to R than anyone else in his life, even though She didn't know his true identity, and he didn't know hers. Somehow, that made telling her the truth about things much easier.
R didn't know that V was an internationally famous Quidditch player. R didn't know that V was proclaimed the master of the Wronksi Feint. What R did know was that V liked his tea with lots of sugar, disliked most animals, and felt alone most of the time. R knew how much V hated being called stupid. R understood him.
Sometimes I feel that there is no one in the world who actually knows me, he wrote to her.
I feel the same way, she wrote back. Well, except when it comes to you.
Months slipped by. Her letters were the only thing he could think about. Sometimes, he even dreamed about her at night. Of course, he didn't know what she looked like, but in his dreams, he knew that it was her. It was ridiculous, he knew, to think so much of someone he'd never even met- but he didn't seem able to stop. R was just so easy to talk to. She understood everything.
On day in mid-July, he wrote her a letter and ended it:
P.S. I hope this is not too forward, R, but perhaps you would like to meet some time? We could get drinks at that place you told me about, the one with all the silly decorations.
Love,
Viktor.
He sealed the envelope and sent it before he could change his mind.
Four days passed, and no letter arrived. Viktor told himself that it didn't mean anything. It was just taking her a while to respond, that was all.
Seven days, and still no response. Viktor began to feel frantic. Had he offended R? She did have a bit of a temper. Perhaps his message about wanting to meet her had been too forward.
Ten days. Nothing. He spent his entire day out on the Quidditch pitch.
Eleven days. Nothing.
Twelve days. Nothing.
Then, on the thirteenth day, he walked into his house and found a package, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string, sitting on his carpet.
Heart pounding, he snatched the package off of the ground. Written on the front of the paper, in R's messy handwriting, was his name and address. His hands shook as he tore into the paper.
To his surprise, what he pulled out of the packaging was a single glossy magazine. He frowned. Why on earth would R send him a magazine? They'd never talked about magazines before. He flipped it over so he could look at the front cover- and nearly dropped it on the floor.
The front cover of the magazine read, in bold, bright letters, The Skeeter Scoop of Viktor Krum: An Inside Look at the Internationally Famous Quidditch player. Below that was a picture of his own face, captioned Star reporter Rita Skeeter gives insight on the brooding celebrity- and the kindhearted man hidden beneath his brusque demeanor! Turn to page 6 for more details.
He rifled through the pages, certain passages written in bright purple ink jumping out at him.
"Though he may seem a bit thickheaded, Mr. Krum also has a deeper and more poetic side. 'Kindness is in our power, even when affection is not' he wrote to one heartbroken friend, about the unkindness of her ex-boyfriend. We at Skeeter Scoop can't help but "awww" over that sweeter side of the renowned celeb!"
"Surprisingly, being a star Quidditch player isn't all it's cracked up to be! 'Sometimes I feel that there is no one in the world who actually knows me,' the dashing Quidditch player confessed to me over tea, his obsidian eyes sparkling with tears. Poor thing. It must be hard being rich and famous, am I right?"
"Even more shocking is Krum's confession about his childhood. 'Quidditch is the only thing I've ever been good at,' he revealed. 'I always felt stupid in school- learning was very difficult for me.' What a tragic story! We at Skeeter Scoop would love to give the poor thing a big hug.
With a jolt, he realized that there was a thin white envelope pressed in between the pages. His stomach twisted as he unfolded the thin piece of paper and read:
Dear Viktor,
Surprise! I hope you love the article- I had such fun writing it, and of course corresponding with you was lovely. We all know that you can be a bit shy in interviews, so I thought a more anonymous correspondence might make you feel more comfortable. I hope it worked!
I'm sure you can understand that I really do need the money the article will bring in, otherwise I would offer you a small sum of it. You understand, don't you, doll? Of course you do. You really are a sweetheart- "kindness is in our power" and all that.
Anyways, it's been grand! My writing staff and I always took your letters with us when we went out to drinks on Fridays and formulated the best response. The first one was so difficult- we wanted to be sure you'd respond, but of course we couldn't address the letter to you… that would just take the romance out of it. It really was quite thrilling, and I think we did pretty well, don't you? I mean, you wanted to meet me! How hilarious is that? I'm sure you understand why we didn't respond to that message- at that point we felt that we had enough info to write a fabulous article. And boy, did we ever!
Of course, if you still want, I would be happy to meet up some time. We're doing an article on Miss Hermione Granger soon, and since you know her so well (wink, wink) your insight would be great! That cafe I told you about is totally made up, obviously, but we could meet somewhere else.
Thanks for everything, Vik! Happy reading!
Lots of love,
Rita Skeeter, or "R."
He read the letter twice, his stomach twisting even tighter with every word. It wasn't sadness he was feeling, he realized, or embarrassment, even.
It was shame.
Stupid, he thought. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He tore Rita's letter into tiny pieces and tossed them into the trash, the word stupid echoing in his mind, over and over again. When he was finished, he grabbed his broomstick and headed for the Quidditch pitch, his mind still burning with that one word.
Stupid.
Stupid.
Stupid.