Chapter 1
Viktor Krum had just been preparing for a well-deserved night's sleep, when the first screams echoed in the distance. He and his teammates tumbled out of bed as they rushed out of the tent to see what was going on.
The screams grew louder, and coloured lights shot across the sky like rockets. Viktor and his teammates watched as people ran for their lives, some occasionally falling from accidents, or getting hit by a spell. Cloaked figures wearing masks ran about, gleefully adding fuel to the chaotic fire.
Suddenly, a red-coloured light flashed past Viktor, followed by a cry of pain. One of his teammates, Nikolai, had fallen to the ground, grasping his right arm in agony – a bone-breaking hex. Death Eaters were attacking the athletes' campsite.
Viktor was forced to ignore Nikolai's screams as a volley of spells began to unfurl. He cast spell after spell, not caring which were borderline-illegal or not. Killing Curses and other lethal spells were now being thrown, and to the seeker's outright horror and outrage, he'd seen at least one player, Bulgarian and Irish, getting hit by these deadly curses and having the life snuffed out of them.
Viktor didn't know how long he fought, but a combination of tired muscles from a hard-played Quidditch match that had no time to recover, plus literally fighting for one's life, meant exhaustion was upon him relatively quickly. He now had three of those damned bastards throwing spells at him. In his current state, Viktor was on the defensive, conjuring shields to protect himself, or rolling out of the way of spells.
One thought flashed across his mind. He was going to die tonight. He would never play Quidditch again, finish his education, or even see his family again. But… he did manage to catch the snitch for his country, so he could, at least, take comfort in that as he laid his last breath, as he ducked to avoid what turned out to be a blood-boiling curse…
"Krum! Stay down!"
A loud voice suddenly put the brakes on his hopeless thoughts. Viktor couldn't help but stay down (not that he didn't want to, he was exhausted after all) as the same voice shouted an incantation, three times.
"Diffindo!"
There were green flashes, splattering sounds, and cries of pain. Viktor looked up. He saw the same three Death Eaters, the ones who nearly finished him off, sprawled on the ground. One was missing his wand hand and the source of the cries, another had been scalped and lay twitching on the ground; and the third unmoving, lifeless on the grass in a pool of blood. If it wasn't for the exhaustion, the seeker was sure he would have vomited.
Footsteps rushed towards him. A pair of jeans-clad legs and trainers came into his field of vision.
"Hang on, we're getting out of here."
Viktor said nothing as he allowed himself to be lifted off from the ground, his arm draped over a pair of shoulders. He didn't notice that the remaining Death Eaters who had attacked the players' camp had fled, leaving the dead and wounded behind. His teammates never did cross his mind either, survival instincts clouding all superficial (in comparison) emotions.
He only felt his legs barely walking, as he and his rescuer trekked through the burning campsites, screams and the occasional spell punctuating the night. Viktor vaguely registered that they had entered the woods surrounding the campsites. The blurry, dimly-lit outlines of trees, branches and roots filed past his vision as they travelled deeper, away from the screams and chaos.
Viktor felt them come to a stop. His arm was lifted from his rescuer's shoulders, and he was held steady. He was gently lowered against the base of a tree, as the stranger spoke again.
"Lie still, I think you're dehydrated."
'Vell…I vas about to get a glass of vater before things vent to hell…' Viktor couldn't help but think.
The stranger conjured up a glass from a nearby pebble, and filled it with an aguamenti spell. They brought the glass to Viktor's parched lips, and tilted it slightly to let the seeker drink slowly. Once he had finished the water, the glass was banished, and his rescuer set about healing the scratches, cuts and bruises that he sustained from the battle earlier.
"I don't know much about healing spells, so this will have to do for a while," they said, as multiple Episkey spells were applied to the injuries.
"You saving me vas more than enough mister…um…"
At this, his rescuer's face came into view, thanks to his vision clearing up from the rest and the water. Messy, raven hair, sparkling emerald-green eyes behind round wire-frame glasses…and a small lightning-bolt scar on his forehead.
Viktor's eyes widened.
"You're…Harry Potter."
Viktor might have only been a young boy when Lord Voldemort was vanquished, but the stories of the boy who ended the evilest Dark Lord since Gellert Grindenwald had spread to even the borders of his native Bulgaria. He remembered seeing his parents and other adults raise their goblets to Potter in celebration and relief. He had seen books of the famous boy, slaying murderous beasts, single-handedly capturing criminals, and saving the innocent from the hands of evil. Even when he attended Durmstrang, it was not uncommon for him to overhear female students swooning over Potter (when they were not swooning over him), fantasizing about marrying the kid and their subsequent life in domestic bliss. Potter was even the subject of their first year Dark Arts lesson.
From everything he had seen and heard in his seventeen years of life, Viktor had expected a lot of things from the Boy-Who-Lived.
"Dear Merlin, not you too?"
Viktor blinked. That…he did not expect. He expected Potter to act all high and mighty from being recognised. After all, when was it that a celebrity seeker recognised you on your first meeting? Viktor expected prideful preening, cocky remarks, and all-round holier-than-thou attitude. An exasperated sigh and a look of disbelief was the last thing he thought would come from the saviour of the wizarding world.
"…vhat?"
Potter, who had turned to the side to shake his head, turned back towards him, a questioning look piercing his emerald-green eyes.
"Before anything else, please tell me you aren't going to start shaking my hand until my arm drops off, or bombard me with praises and well-wishes, or worse, try to curry favours from me?"
Viktor's confusion grew, alongside a tiny bit of annoyance. Just what was Potter going on about?
"…no?"
Potter visibly relaxed, "Oh thank Merlin for that."
The seeker raised an eyebrow, as the bespectacled raven-haired boy shifted over and leaned back against the tree beside him with a sigh.
"…vhy?"
Potter was silent for a second, "Krum…have you ever had a moment where you wished you were just a regular person, with no celebrity status and nothing hanging over your head?"
Viktor wasn't quite sure what was going on. Barely minutes before, he had been fighting for his life, he had been rescued – by Harry Potter, of all people – and now, he was about to have a deep, insightful conversation with him. How events had led up to this moment, he didn't know.
But Potter was expecting an answer, so Viktor gave him one, "There are times, vhy do you ask?"
Potter replied, staring off into the woods, "I never wanted this, being the "Boy-Who-Lived". How can they expect a one-year-old baby to kill a Dark Lord? It was my mother's sacrifice that ended him. But no one sees that, they all think I somehow had some god-like power that blasted Voldemort's body to pieces. And just because their lives were now safe, I became their go-to place for all the answers in the world, expecting me to deliver what they want."
Viktor stayed silent, as the bespectacled boy continued his rant, pulling his knees into his chest, "I just want to be a regular bloke. I just want a family, people who love me unconditionally, and not only when it benefits them or keeps their sorry arses on. I don't want fame, or fortune. I just want my own life, and not have others determine it."
The Bulgarian seeker, obviously, didn't know how to react. They had only just met, but already Potter was spilling out his woes into the open. Also, this Potter looked so…vulnerable, and lost; nothing like the brave man who finished off three Death Eaters. Inwardly though, he agreed with Potter, to some extent.
"Vell…I obviously cannot compare vith you, but I get vhat you mean. Being a celebrity is not easy, especially vith people's expectations."
Potter snorted, "But at least you earned your fame. You worked hard and persevered. Me? I'm famous because of my mother's sacrifice. I couldn't do anything at all, it was only my mother's love that saved me. I was not some powerful wizard who delivered the final blow. I was only a baby; why can't no one see that? And besides, you only have to worry about your education and Quidditch, if Voldemort rises again, the whole of the wizarding world will expect me to finish him off again. Can they expect a fourteen-year-old to do something almost no one else can?"
Viktor gazed at Potter meaningfully. Potter was right, even if he didn't exactly say it in the nicest way possible. His main worries in life were that of any other eighteen-year-old, alongside the added layer of maintaining his Seeker prowess. But Potter, he was carrying an entire world on his shoulders. People's lives depended on him. And he was only fourteen, for Merlin's sake. He should be having fun in school, getting good grades, and looking for the one he loves. Not killing or fighting for his life.
"Surely you have others to share your burden?"
"Sure, Ron and Hermione, but they can't be around forever. My schoolmates aren't much better, supporting me one moment, and ostracizing me the other like I had the plague. The Hogwarts professors don't seem to give two hoots, given I had to fight Voldemort at the back of a professor's head and a basilisk…"
Viktor's eyes widened, and his mouth fell open, "V-Vhat? You fought Voldemort? And a…a…a basilisk?"
"When I was eleven and twelve," Potter mumbled, obviously not proud of what he'd done.
Viktor was blown away. A young child, still wet behind the ears, not only faced Voldemort, and a basilisk, and he survived? Suddenly, Viktor's own worries seemed miniscule in comparison.
"Then there was hundred or so dementors that tried to suck the souls out of me and my godfather last year…"
Viktor was now well and truly floored. He had heard about dementors, and how only the Patronus charm could ward them off without sustaining major injury. To face a hundred of these dark monsters, and still survive…it was a miracle his mind hadn't short-circuited, he wasn't sure if he could handle anymore of Potter's death-defying escapades…if there were any more.
"I'm scared to think that if Ron and Hermione are gone, how am I supposed to carry on? I will have no one."
The fear was clear in Potter's eyes; Viktor could see that. It was also clear, that everything he had heard about the Boy-Who-Lived was complete hippogriff shit. Potter was not some fearless, adventurous hero who saved damsels in distress from dragons, or charged head-first into battle with monsters with nothing but a wand and sword as the books and hearsay made him out to be. He was just a regular boy, who had his own dreams and aspirations, which were certainly not fighting deadly beasts or homicidal megalomaniacs.
The more Viktor thought about it, the more he realized he and Potter were in the same boat, albeit the latter's circumstances were much more extreme. They had the expectations of a country on their shoulders, but for very different reasons. They were talked about, gossiped about, pointed at, no matter where they went. And, to Viktor was the most annoying, they were – at least, he assumed Harry was too – the subject of many a girl's love fantasies and gold-digging families who wanted to marry their daughters to them in order to gain prestige and fortune.
But Viktor understood the stark differences too. While he didn't have many friends, at least he had his teammates and his close-knit clique in Durmstrang. Potter had only two, and without a social safety-net to fall back into should they betray their friendship. Also, Viktor had his parents, Potter didn't.
"Then, vill you allow me to be your friend?"
Potter's head whipped around so fast he came close to whiplash.
"What?"
"Ve're both celebrities," Viktor explained, "Ve ought to look out for vone another, no?"
Potter's left eyebrow raised.
"There aren't many people ve can really see as our true friends," Viktor continued, "Everyvone vants our attention, just because of our titles, not ourselves. I just thought…perhaps also as thanks for saving me, that ve could be friends? I don't think ve could leave tonight after vhat happened not as friends. Ve did escape death, after all."
Viktor outstretched his hand at Potter. Potter gazed at the hand for a moment, before speaking again.
"Well, that is if you call me Harry."
Viktor let a rare smile grace his thin lips, "Call me Viktor then."
That night, as the aurors rounded up the remaining Death Eaters who hadn't died or apparated away, and more combed the woods for anyone who was still hiding, a friendship was forged between the Boy-Who-Lived and the Seeker of Bulgaria.
To Be Continued.
So sorry for not updating recently (or any of other stories), my schedule is getting busier and busier. But I really appreciate those of you who had taken the time to read this story.
I would like to give special thanks DeliaDee and Anathema Sicarie Black for their reviews and the encouragement to keep writing, which I intend to do so.
Feedback is greatly appreciated. Any flaming of any sort will not be tolerated.
- SilentGhostWriter2017
