Who Is She

The week following the beginning of first ever Triwizard Tournament with four champions was an interesting one for Viktor Krum. The forth champion of course had thrown everyone off balance and Karkaroff was fuming every time it was mentioned. There also was the issue of Krums' dreaded fan club, which had solidified faster than he had liked.

One day while attempting to hide from them, Viktor had seen the still unknown girl in the forest with the two boys she had been with the night of the feast. Oddly the trio weren't standing as close as they did before. In fact Viktor was puzzled to see the brown haired girl go between the two boys a few times, obviously upset before he finally heard her yell something about not being an owl and going back to the castle.

She passed by him without even seeing him and he thought that even if she was angry she was lovely. Her eyes and mouth were small in anger, but her cheeks were pink and her hair danced with every upset step. He also smiled when her heard her mutter about 'stupid idiotic emotionally constipated boys' as she passed by. He obviously wouldn't approach her then but enjoyed seeing this new side to the mystery girl. It had driven Viktor into a bad mood the next day to still not know who she was.

Luckily one of the other students from Durmstrang had actually been able to find out details about the brown haired witch a short time later. Vlad Smirnov had heard Pietro and Viktor one afternoon and offered to assist as his English was far better than Pietro's. The two were running out of ideas about how to find out about her, beyond walking up to her and asking. They were grateful for heir classmate's help.

Vlad was friendly with them due to the fact that several years ago they had banded together against the young idiot followers of Grindelvald; and he was sympathetic due to knowing how hard it was for Krum to make friends.

Within their short time at Hogwarts, Vlad had befriended a dark skinned boy called Zabini from Slytherin who had given up the girl's name one morning, as well as priming the conversation about her once he figured out it was subtly wanted.

At breakfast, Vlad simply inquired about a girl he often saw in the library with curly brown hair. Blaise put down his goblet and grabbed more bacon. "Ah, Granger you mean, yes, she's always there."

Draco then sneered and popped off, "Dirty, know-it-all, Mudblood," before eating his strawberry.

Blaise had been looking in the direction of the three Durmstrang students and saw their looks of triumph and decided to help a bit. Draco was a childhood friend, but recently he was getting annoying, and Blaise had caught on to the fact that not all of the visiting students were pure blood snobs.

"Word of warning blokes, don't try to ask for help with anything or she'll talk you ear off, unless you're in Slytherin; she just offers to hex us if we don't leave."

Vlad caught the sly wink his new friend gave and was not going to argue with getting easy info. "Know it all… she does not stay in the library because of poor grades then?"

Draco snorted and put down his fork; breakfast could wait if he had a free invitation to bash Granger. "Sadly no. The filth is the Gryffindor Golden Girl. Always showing off, and raising her hand despite the fact that after three full years of her, no teacher would ever think Granger could not know the answer to a bloody question."

Blaise spoke after this, happily giving info so that Draco would keep making himself look bad. "True, I think she could have actually sat her OWLs last year, despite just being a third year at the time, and she wouldn't have done half bad."

"Dream on Zabini. Besides, if she did that, who would give Potty and Weasel their answers in class and do their homework; they're beyond pathetic."

Vlad couldn't believe all this information, internally he laughed at how easy he was getting it while Viktor and Pietro had agonized but gotten nothing. "Potty, Weasel? Who are they, girlfriends?"

"Granger doesn't have a clue how to be a girl much less have any girlfriends," Draco sneered, not noticing Viktor's dark scowl at his words. Blaise did though, and he had just enough time before class to smooth things over.

"Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived and brought down You Know Who, and Ron Weasley, of the over fertile Weasley clan; there are four of the seven children going to Hogwarts right now. Those two are her mates. They befriended her first year after an incident with a troll. She's the brains of the trio, and it's hilarious to watch her harp on them about homework and exams, then watch said morons scramble after her for help last minute despite ignoring her beforehand."

He paused and added a semi-dramatic sigh while smiling. "Ah, so many laughs at their expense." Draco then darkly smirked in amusement as they both grabbed their bags for class since breakfast had disappeared.

Vlad smirked at Blaise, nodded his head in thanks, before looking at the other two smugly. They switched out of English as Vlad was the only one at least halfway fluent in it, "You owe me for this you know."

Pietro immediately smiled at the challenge. "Ha, he gave us most of it."

Vlad waited a moment with raised eyebrow then just stated, "Yes, but I simply asked for it."

As the other boy was grasping for a reply, a few remaining girls giggled and gushed at the deep foreign banter, despite not understanding a word of it.

Suddenly Viktor held out his hand. "True, thank you. Would you like some tickets for the Germany- Bulgaria match this summer? I remember you prefer Germany over Russia."

All smugness dropped from Vlad's face. He didn't really expect anything for this, he knew Viktor and was friendly with him, but still. "I – I was just kidding about you owing me, it got fun to watch him trick the Malfoy kid into talking about her, whoever she is."

Viktor nodded, but still held his offer, which was finally accepted after a few minutes when they had begun to go back down to the ship.

The rest of the day was lessons and attempting to avoid both Karkaroff, in which Viktor was successful, and his new fan club, which he failed to evade. On the bright side, he was finally able to go flying whenever he wanted after recovering his broom. That night, as he was flying, he recalled what he had learned over breakfast, piecing it together. 'She is very smart, and has two friends who are male, but no girlfriends. She is loyal, and obviously forgiving. She still sits with the boys even though they don't talk anymore. I wonder what the troll incident was that made them friends?'

As he enjoyed the isolation of nighttime above the clouds, he became determined to talk with her. Still smiling, he returned to the ship fully chilled from playing in the clouds, dodging phantom opponents, and enjoying the stillness of the wind that had filled his senses.

.o0o. 0.o.0 .o0o.

Over the next week, Viktor spent more time in the library, in an attempt to see her, and hopefully talk to her. Sadly, the other Hogwarts champion, who was her friend, was always with her. They were going over many books, and he didn't want to hear the younger boy laugh at his accent, despite how hard he had been working on his English.

However, he watched her and noticed many things. Things like how she would absentmindedly fight with her wildly beautiful hair at least a few times an hour, as it refused to stay tucked behind her ear; but he never saw her put it up to stay out of her way. She didn't change clothes once classes were over like some girls, and never really seemed to care about what she wore as long as it was neat. Once, while passing her table in the library, he caught her first name, but when he tried to say it to himself he winced at the effort.

Then Hermione and her friend stopped coming to the library altogether. Viktor took to watching both of them closely to see if they sat too close, if they held hands. He tried not to worry about it, but well, they were always together. In fact, if he hadn't heard that the red headed boy was best friends with them and that they were fighting, Viktor would not know they were two thirds of a trio - he would have thought they were dating.

Finally, she returned to the library, alone as well. He wanted to go talk to her, but she tended to glare at him. For a few days he didn't understand why until he heard the giggles behind him as she glared. 'It's not me she is upset at, it's the other girls.' He was both happy and upset at this, Viktor didn't like them any more than she did, but he really had problems escaping them. There were always at least six girls following him, and only one of him.

He noticed with amusement though that they didn't get too close to her, otherwise she would glare at them until they moved. Of course other students avoided her as well, and she always had the table to herself… well, herself and never less than ten books. He honestly admired how hard she worked, recalling the many times his own desk had been piled high with books and parchment as he worked on assignments. 'Maybe I can ask to sit with her, talk with her that way,' was the one thought that he didn't dismiss as overly optimistic daydreaming.