Whatever Will Be, Will Be

Chapter Ten: Too Late

Viktor's POV

Damn stupid competition! I thought with tight fists. Pointless! Eternal glory… There is no reason for me to be here! Not when she isn't! I can't find either of them; they aren't in sight anywhere. Her friends, they are here, as well as his… but they aren't! They haven't been since this stupid thing began! Karkaroff not letting us leave is just ridiculous! Moral support… THEY ARE FACING DRAGON'S! How much any-support could one give for such an insane task?

I promised to always protect her, and I can't do that sitting on my ass watching a stupid competition! Eternal glory… was there any other reason for it? Three extremely dangerous tasks… there are other ways to be eternally glorified! Not risk your life before your life has even begun; in school still! Who came up with this tournament anyway? Some brainless good-for nothing bum? A person who tried and tried to become noticed, and went to the extremity of risking his life just to do so? Did he then deem it a good idea to have school-aged barley-legal kids to do it?

Hermione could be in danger! And all I am doing is watching a ridiculous task be preformed three times over… Damn this! Whatever kind of trouble I'll get in for leaving will be nothing compared to how I will feel if anything has happened to her…

"Viktor!" Karkaroff boomed. "I ordered you to all stay! Vhere do you think you are going? I vill not be disobeyed! Show honor to your school and classmates, stay!"

"It is just the first task, there vill be others." I told him flatly as I turned and made my way towards the steps.

"Get back here!" I heard him call. "Now!"

I ignored him and bounded quickly down the sturdy wooden steps at the back of the stand and wished as I slid my hand down the rough railing that I had done this earlier. And if not earlier, than not at all. I shouldn't have even gone to the first task without having first made sure she would be there… I knew it was a record, through no fault of her own, for her to show up late or not at all to things he deemed pointless.

After we had kissed we had fallen asleep together, and the next morning she promised me she would leave him. She needed to do it for herself, and she wouldn't back down this time. And I trusted her ability to do that. I trusted her. But I still had not seen her.

Or him.

I stepped through the hollow doorway and looked out onto nothing but grass, dirt, trees, twigs, bushes… nothing but nature. But I could feel her. I knew it was weird to be able to sense her, but I couldn't help it. It wasn't like I had trained myself to do it like a stalker; I had just had it since the World Cup. If it hadn't been for that… that bludger would have hit her, and I wouldn't have been able to find her later that night, either.

Just when I was about to call it quits and say I was having false feelings and look somewhere else, in the castle maybe, I saw something. And I knew without detail that it was her.

I took off quickly towards her; running as fast as I could, which was to say the least: like the wind.

When I got to her I fumed. The earth beneath her was sloppy and had lines in it going in every direction. Her jeans were dusted in thin dirt and her hair was wild and her jacket sloppily around her. She was trembling and there was blood beneath her head; bite marks and bruises on her neck, her legs uncontrollably shaking.

I dropped to my knees beside her and she looked up at me with red eyes and tear stained cheeks. I placed my hand gently onto her stomach.

"Viktor…"

TBC

AN: Next up, well... I don't think I have to say who's POV it will be in...