The weekly flying lessons remained a fixture throughout Yuuri's second and third years. He and Victor became close friends, and they were often to be found studying together with a group of either Ravenclaws or Slytherins. Victor met and liked Phichit, Leo and Guang Hong; they met and liked Victor's Slytherin year-mates.
Yuuri proved a very talented flier after all, making the team halfway through his third year in the unexpected position of Beater. Though Yuuri hadn't shot up in height the way that Leo and Phichit had, he was nonetheless very sturdy, and he had a pinpoint precision with the bludgers that won Ravenclaw a few matches (though not against Slytherin; with Victor as their seeker, they remained the undisputed champions).
At the end of Yuuri's third year, Victor graduated, and Yuuri cried after the ceremony, realising that this was the end of their time together. Phichit found him, and held him tightly until he stopped sobbing. He whispered to Yuuri as they sat on the cold stone bench of a window seat, with a distant view of the lake, that the people that are meant to be in our lives will find their way back, no matter how far away they have to wander to do so.
Before leaving, as they stood on Platform 9 ¾ together for the last time, Victor drew Yuuri to one side.
"Will you write to me?" he asked, his voice serious. Victor was now tall, graceful, fully grown into himself. His silver hair had, to the shock and dismay of most of the population of Hogwarts, been cut short earlier that year, one lock drooping elegantly across his high forehead. Yuuri, still short, though far taller than he had been when they met, had to tilt his face to look up at him.
"Of course," he replied teasingly, "How else will I keep up with the inside gossip of the Russian National Team?" Victor had, confirming the rumours, been signed as the seeker of the Russian national quidditch side. It was a stellar beginning to his career, and no one doubted that he would achieve great things, but Victor had confessed to Yuuri one summer evening during their lessons that the pressure scared him stiff.
Victor laughed, but Yuuri heard a slightly off note in his voice. Reaching out a hand (and how his first year self would have fainted to even attempt it!) he gripped Victor's wrist, staring intently into his eyes. "Victor," he said, now matching the seriousness of his tone, "You have been the best friend to me anyone could ask for. Of course I'll write to you. I'll miss you, and I'll miss our lessons. I'll even," Here he shuddered melodramatically, "Come and visit you one holiday, if they let you touch the ground for that long, despite the ungodly temperatures you'll be flying in."
Victor smiled, and his eyes seemed overbright, though Yuuri thought it must just be a trick of the light. He pulled Yuuri into a tight hug, holding him close for a few moments, then stepping away. "I'll want regular updates, you know," he said, his voice returned to its usual light, sing-song cadences. "At least weekly. And you'd better not get into too much trouble without me there. Also," and Victor held his palm against his forehead in an elegantly distressed pose, "Now that I am no longer captain, you have my official permission to beat Slytherin at Quidditch. Just don't do it too soundly, or it'll look like I didn't teach them anything."
Yuuri laughed, and spotted his parents through the steam. He pulled Victor into another brief hug, and promised solemnly that not only would he write weekly, he would beat Slytherin by the smallest margin of points he could manage.
And then Yuuri was gone, disappearing into the steam, pursued by Victor's laugh.
The next year felt off balance to Yuuri, missing as it was the comforting routine of flying lessons he had become used to. Eventually, he got used to replacing them with team practices, though he missed Victor and his friends terribly. Phichit, Leo and Guang Hong missed them too; they had become close in the last few years, and now they all felt the loss.
Yuuri had chosen, along with the other three, Ancient Runes and Arithmancy as his elective subjects. These added considerably to his workload, and as his fourth year progressed, Yuuri found Quidditch and studying and time with his friends blurring into a whirl of sound and colour, time sprinting past as though it had a deadline. He found time, though, to write to Victor; their letters settled into a weekly routine. Yuuri would pass on the news at Hogwarts and his own personal stories, and post it every Friday night. By Monday, he would have a reply, Victor's enormous tawny owl Apollo becoming a common sight in the Ravenclaw common room. Victor wrote of Russia, his feelings of belonging but not quite fitting in to the place he had been born but had never lived; luckily his parents had insisted on speaking Russian at home since he was born in an attempt to preserve their national identity, or he would be even more at sea.
Victor was doing well, his rise as meteoric as predicted. By the time Yuuri's fifth year had arrived, merchandise with Victor's face on it had become very popular internationally, even popping up at Hogwarts. Yuuri teased him about it, saying that soon he would be the only one in Hogwarts not wearing Victor's face on some article of clothing; Victor retaliated by sending Yuuri an enormous Russian team jersey with 'Nikiforov' in big, glittery letters on the back, an animated picture of Victor winking splashed across the front, with an accompanying letter saying that now he had no excuse. Though Yuuri had groaned disgustedly, he hadn't thrown the jersey away.
At the end of fifth year, the OWLs arrived, and with them a mass outbreak of poor sleep, poorer diet, and absolutely abysmal fights over the rarer books in the library. Ravenclaws in particular were prone to sudden uncontrollable panic, with Leo being the first to set something on fire accidentally from clutching his wand too hard from anxiety whilst reading.
The exams caused even Phichit to lose his perpetually sunny demeanour, and it was even rumoured that he had only been the second person to hear about the dramatic getting together of seventh years Sara Crispino and Mila Babicheva.
But, by the second week of June, they had done all but one of the exams, with only History of Magic left. Victor's weekly letter to Yuuri wished him luck, and said that he wouldn't be able to see him that summer as they had both wanted, because his team was going on a tour of Eastern Europe, and as the star seeker Victor would have to be present for all of it.
Yuuri was saddened, but not surprised; Nikiforov had become a household name, after Russia had won the World Cup the year before, with Victor catching the snitch after just seventy-nine minutes. He had put the letter in the drawer were he kept all Victor's letters, and picked up his textbook again, wondering whether the goblins had specifically chosen their names to be easily interchangeable and therefore impossible to learn.
By the next afternoon, they were finally free. When Yuuri put his pen down at the end of his History of Magic exam, he felt as though three thousand pounds had fallen off his shoulders. The fifth years emerged, blinking, into the sunlight outside, and immediately headed for the lake, flopping down on the grass as though unable to stand for another second.
Leo lay down face first in the sweet smelling grass, and Guang Hong used his back as a pillow, dipping his feet in the cool water of the Black Lake. Phichit wrapped an arm around Yuuri's waist and pulled him down, lying with his head on Yuuri's shoulder and his arm around his shoulders as he groaned loudly and impressively.
"I'll never recover," he moaned, "I'm ruined. My skin is not glowing. My smile had lost its brilliancy. My hair is dull and-" Guang Hong, in the absence of the traditional cushion, kicked the water of the lake and flicked his wand, sending a rope of it directly into Phichit's mouth, which was open mid-soliloquy. Phichit spluttered, outraged, but clearly deciding discretion was the better part of valour, let this instance slide. Instead, he lay back down and shook his sopping hair into Yuuri's face.
Yuuri, who had never felt so content or comfortable, couldn't even muster the energy to gasp in shock. The four friends lay there, feeling the tension in their shoulders drain out of them into the ground, and the warmth of the sun on their library-pale skin.
That summer, Yuuri visited Leo in America, and then they both travelled to Thailand to stay with Phichit, with Guang Hong joining them after a few days. Yuuri's letters to Victor were full of new words and sights, and he included a moving photograph of himself sitting, grinning, on a beach of white sand, with Phichit sunning himself next to him and Leo and Guang Hong in the background of the picture throwing a beach ball between them. Victor replied that it looked idyllic, and that he sent his love to everyone there; he himself was working harder than ever, gearing up for the next Quidditch season, which started in September.
The four friends returned to Hogwarts for their sixth year tanned, happy and closer than ever. Phichit had been made a prefect, and Yuuri, to his immense surprise, had been made Quidditch captain.
When he wrote to Victor with the news, he received an enormous parcel the next day, containing a complete set of brand new Quidditch armour and a top of the range beaters bat; along with it was a letter from Victor, overflowing with pride and reminiscing about the frightened first year who had catapulted off his broom and landed in a pile of dirty robes. Yuuri, his throat tight with emotion, had written back that as he remembered it, a kind fifth year had taken pity on that pathetic first year, and that he wouldn't be anywhere near the team without Victor's help and guidance.
Yuuri captained Ravenclaw to their first win in fifteen years that summer, his final sixth year match coinciding with Victor's second successful catch at the World Cup. They wrote to each other with long, blow-by-blow accounts of each match, and replied with equally long analysis of the other's account, with suggestions for improvements to manoeuvres and playing style.
Phichit cried when the Quidditch cup was awarded, and Leo and Guang Hong started a chant of "Yuuri! Yuuri!" which was soon taken up by the whole stadium, and Yuuri, blushing furiously, had lifted the cup above his head, feeling as though this moment contained more happiness than any one life ought to.
Seventh year arrived in a blur of books, careers consultation, and panic. Yuuri hadn't seriously considered what he wanted to do after Hogwarts yet. Phichit already had an offer to work at Madam Malkins, his flair for design winning him the position of junior designer. Leo was considering being a curse breaker for Gringotts, and Guang Hong was set on becoming a healer.
Yuuri, however, couldn't think of what he wanted to do, and Victor wrote to him and assured him that he was talented enough to go pro at Quidditch. Yuuri knew that it was an option, but… Somehow, deep down, he knew he wasn't going to go down that route. He loved Quidditch, but he had seen the ugly side of it in the reports Victor gave him of cold mornings, freezing nights, twelve hour practices and bruises that even magic couldn't make disappear entirely.
Yuuri pondered his choices, until one day he was reading the news at breakfast, and a small advertisement caught his eye.
'Wanted: The Daily Prophet seeks an ambitious, articulate Quidditch enthusiast to join their reporting staff in the Sporting section. Apply by return owl to Mr George Perry. Salary negotiable by experience'.
A few weeks later, Yuuri received an owl from Mr Perry, informing him that they would be delighted if he would start a few weeks after his graduation. The letter arrived the same day that Guang Hong got his acceptance from St. Mungos informing him that as of September he would be an apprentice Healer, NEWTs permitting, and that night the four friends celebrated in their dormitory with butterbeer and the cake that Yuuri's mother had sent him by way of congratulations. Victor's letter about the news was effusive; he was delighted for Yuuri, and even more ecstatic that his Quidditch prowess wouldn't go to waste, as he could use his excellent eye for technical skill in his reporting. Yuuri sent him back a letter in the form of a mock newspaper article, with the headline 'Breaking! Ravenclaw Quidditch Captain Still Infinitely Grateful for Support and Friendship of International Star Victor Nikiforov!'. When Victor got the letter, he replied by affectionately calling Yuuri a sentimental idiot, but he nonetheless had the letter framed and hung it above his desk.
The two final hurdles that remained to Yuuri, with the question of his career out of the way, were his NEWTs and the Quidditch final. His exams had lost something of their terror, partly due to the fact that his OWLs had been stellar and he had survived them after all, but also partly due to the fact that he didn't need any particular results to qualify for his new job. Guang Hong, on the other hand, had to fulfil very stringent requirements to be accepted on to the Apprentice Healer Course, and his skin had taken on the grey tone of the perpetually-under-slept. Phichit had eventually resorted to giving him a sleeping potion, and glaring in silence until Guang Hong relented (having caught sight of his reflection) and drank it.
The exams were approaching closer, closer…and then they were over, the ordeal finished, the final academic hurdle jumped. Yuuri thought that he had done well, and now he just had to cross his fingers and wait for results.
The Quidditch final that year was against Gryffindor, the house of Lions having put up a strong showing. Slytherin, to Victor's disgust, had lost in their second match so badly that they had been put out of the running altogether, no matter what their subsequent scores; their Keeper had taken a bludger to the head three minutes in, and it had been open season for Hufflepuff on the goalposts.
The match was long, dragging on for five hours. Yuuri was anxious, beating the bludgers a little more fiercely than was necessary; in the end, Ravenclaw won, thanks to a spectacular race to the snitch, which was cut short when Yuuri managed to aim a bludger directly at the broom of the Gryffindor seeker. The girl had gone spinning into the grass, where the cushioning charms had saved both her and her broom, and Ravenclaw had won the cup for the second year in a row.
The party in the common room that night lasted until the small hours, with even the older years joining in the giddy excitement of the younger years. When Yuuri eventually collapsed into bed, he could still see the stadium in front of him, still hear the roar of the crowd, and he wondered if this was how Victor felt every time he won a match.
A few weeks after the match, there was the graduation ceremony, and Yuuri lined up with his friends to receive his certificate and the handshake of the Headmistress. It was a bright morning, and his parents were visible in the crowd, their beaming smiles filling Yuuri with warmth. At the moment he received his diploma, he heard the Ravenclaw quidditch team cheering, and then it spread to the whole house, until every Ravenclaw present was on their feet and making as much noise as they humanly could. Yuuri, still an easy blusher, went bright red and waved, walking off the stage with the noise ringing in his ears and tears in his eyes.
Phichit grasped his hand, and Leo and Guang Hong a shoulder each, and they stood there together, united, waiting for the end of the ceremony.
A few weeks later, Yuuri and Phichit finally finished moving all their things into their new flat, and stood surveying their new kingdom. They were sharing the upper floor of an old house off Diagon Alley, and Leo and Guang Hong had the floor below them, which was as perfect as they could have hoped for. Yuuri was starting his new job in a few days, and Phichit was starting the next morning, and was already brimming with plans for how he would change the fashion landscape of wizarding Britain, dragging them kicking and screaming into the twenty first century. Yuuri was just hoping to survive past his first week. Victor, in one of his weekly letters, had assured him that he would, and that he believed Yuuri would be the editor within minutes. Though Yuuri knew he was exaggerating for his benefit, Victor's confidence in him burned like a small hot coal in his mind throughout his first weeks in his job.
The flat had high ceilings, was painted a very pale blue, and was covered in mementos that Phichit had artfully placed on the shelves that took up one wall of the living room. There were things from Thailand, and China, and America, and even a small crystal from Yuuri's town of Helgasport. Above the fireplace, there was a framed photograph of the four friends on their graduation day, eyes alight with happiness, throwing their pointed hats into the air with carefree abandon.
The months passed. Every night, Leo and Guang Hong would come up to Yuuri and Phichit's flat, or they would go down to Leo and Guang Hong's, to eat dinner together and discuss their days. They had been mostly successful in their attempts at living alone, with Yuuri proving the most adept cook among them, and Leo the best at mixing drinks.
Guang Hong's apprenticeship was going well so far. He had been allowed, he told them proudly one day, to remove the venomous tentacula teeth embedded in a man's leg all by himself! The others were in equal parts baffled and disgusted, but they hid it well, and enthused over that certainty the Guang Hong would one day have a ward named after him.
Leo was enjoying his curse-breaking course so far, but he was looking forward to what he called 'the exciting stuff', which involved explosions and ancient curses, and which would be off limits for another year.
Phichit was already bemoaning the trammelling of his artistic talent, having not (as it transpired) been allowed to redesign the entire shop and collection of robes on his first day as a junior designer. However, his designs had proved very popular among the younger customers, and he was gradually gaining in responsibility.
As for Yuuri, he had taken to journalism like…well, initially like a duck to a tar pit. He had found the transition from the forgiving and academic atmosphere of Hogwarts to the fast paced and slightly brutal atmosphere of the Daily Prophet difficult, and he had begun to fear he had made a terrible mistake.
Slowly, though, he had grasped his duties; he was initially only allowed to report on lower level matches, involving regional teams, until he proved himself unusually talented at conveying the fast-paced action of a match in his articles. Then, he had been allowed to report on the higher level matches, and now he had been informed that he was trusted enough to cover the World Cup, this year held in Scotland for the first time in many years.
This news was the best that Yuuri had had in a long time. It meant, as he excitedly wrote to Victor that evening, that they would be able to see each other for the first time since Victor had graduated! The Russian team were coming to England to train for a month prior to the World Cup, due to the proximity to Scotland and the milder weather; and after that, Yuuri would be on site at all times, reporting on all the matches.
The letter he had received from Victor in reply had spat glitter at him when he opened it, making Yuuri laugh as soon as he had got the worst of it out of his mouth. Victor was ecstatic; never one to hold back when happy, he had written four pages to Yuuri containing nothing but delight at their imminent reunion, and suggesting a date and a time for them to meet in London when Victor arrived for training. Yuuri quickly replied with an enthusiastic yes, including a glitter charm of his own for revenge.
Yuuri continued to work hard at his job, the time flying by, gradually feeling as though he knew what he was meant to be doing. His editor loved his work, and he had nothing but positive feedback from what his editor ominously called 'The Higher Ups' ('it makes them sound like gods', Phichit had commented over breakfast one morning, 'which they most assuredly are not. Also, you're not wearing that to work, for the last time').
Finally, it was the Monday of the week in which Victor would later arrive. Yuuri had seen Victor's face hundreds of times in just the preceding week, in the newsroom; he was world-renowned, beloved by all, a household name and a living legend. But to Yuuri, he would always be Victor, the Slytherin team captain, who had been the first person to show him the beauty and freedom of flight, and who had been one of his closest friends ever since.
He wondered if Victor had changed much, and whether Victor would think he had. Yuuri had filled out considerably, though he was not as tall as Victor; he had retained his beater's build, whereas Victor had the long, willowy limbs of a born Seeker. They were due to meet that Thursday evening at seven-thirty (and even the time and day, thought Yuuri, was appropriate; how many times had he met Victor at that exact moment before?) at a restaurant round the corner from Yuuri's flat.
Victor had written to say how excited he was to see Yuuri again, to speak face to face after so many hundreds of thousands of words written between them over the years, and Yuuri knew that Victor would be glad to see Phichit and the others as well.
Thursday dawned, bright and clear, and Yuuri found it difficult to focus all day at his desk, eventually leaving early to go home and change. Phichit (as he had taken to doing most days) had left out one of his new creations on Yuuri's bed, and as Yuuri slid the midnight blue silk robe which fit his lithe frame beautifully over his head, he thought that Phichit had really found his calling.
Yuuri paced for an hour or so, unaccountably nervous, and then decided to get to the restaurant early, to make sure he could see Victor before Victor saw him.
He stepped out of his front door, and wound his way through the ancient alley to the restaurant, hidden on a small side street, its dark green door and wide windows twinkling brightly in the early evening.
Yuuri gave his name, and slid into the booth that he had reserved, facing the door and waiting.
It was twenty minutes before he heard the sound of the door open, and he looked up to see Victor's face, so painfully familiar, so loved and so missed, in front of him at last.
Victor looked around, searching for Yuuri, and his eyes initially slid over the attractive man in the dark blue robe. When he couldn't find the small dark haired figure he was looking for, he searched again; and found that the man in the blue robe had stood, a smile on his face and tears in his eyes.
Victor stood stock still, as though struck over the head.
"Yuuri?" he half whispered, taking in the lithe figure, the dark eyes and slim face, the mop of dark hair unchanged since the age of eleven, still untameable and wild. And then, "Yuuri!" he cried, sprinting across the distance between them, hurling himself into Yuuri's arms.
They held each other tightly for what seemed like a lifetime. So many years had passed, so many letters had been written across continents that separated them, but the basic fact of the connection between them remained unchanged by distance or years. Victor was shocked to feel hard muscle beneath his arms, and Yuuri was overwhelmed by Victor's nearness, the sudden reality of the moment.
They finally separated, Victor not letting go of Yuuri's shoulders, and Yuuri not letting go of Victor's waist.
"Shall we?" Yuuri said, his voice husky with emotion, gesturing towards the booth, and they both let go with a brilliant smile, sliding into the green leather seats, their knees touching under the low table.
"Oh, Yuuri," said Victor, and Yuuri felt an inexplicable thrill race through him at the sound of his name. "We have a lot to catch up on."
