Author's note 1: Here's my first attempt at a holiday-theme one-shot (this one being Valentine's Day), and first one-shot in this series to feature Harry being paired with an original character! Hope you enjoy it.
[OC] Viktoriya Krum
It was breakfast time at Hogwarts on Valentine's Day 1995. This year, so far, was no better than the previous three years since Harry Potter (a fourteen-year-old Gryffindor wizard with emerald-green eyes, untidy black hair, and full-moon glasses) due to being placed in the spotlight once more, thus another year of being put in harm's way because of the goblet of fire spewing his name out on Halloween. Ron abandoned him despite everything they'd been through, in which the final straw happened at the Yule Ball when the jealous redhead accused Hermione of 'fraternizing' with the enemy. Ron was a hypocrite for that because he tried asking Fleur Delacour (the Beauxbatons champion) to be his date, but ran away before receiving an answer. Hermione was being hypocritical for keeping the secret of attending the ball with Viktor Krum (the Durmstrang champion) as his date.
'Why did I even bother that night?' thought Harry, as he found himself revisiting the memory of his night at the Yule Ball.
Ron and Hermione went off on yet another bickering war and they tried pressuring Harry to take sides. Due to that, Harry was regretting his decision to forgive Ron for his abandoning him (especially since the apology was not even close to being a heartfelt one). It also resulted in Harry getting second thoughts about his friendship with Hermione, especially with her hypocritical behaviour in the days preceding the Yule Ball. Harry went to the ball with Padma Patil (a indian Ravenclaw girl in his year) while Ron went with her twin sister, Parvati (who was in Gryffindor).
Harry tried asking his crush, Cho Chang (a fifth year asian Ravenclaw girl), to be his date. But she reluctantly turned it down due to having already accepted to go with Cedric Diggory (a sixth-year Hufflepuff who was the true Hogwarts champion). Then Cho suggested that Harry go with Padma as a way of making it up to him. Harry even tried to help Ron by suggesting he ask Parvati, but Ron ignored her the whole time and just stared at Hermione dancing with Viktor in pure jealousy. That insensitive act resulted in Parvati storming out of the Great Hall in tears. When Ron and Hermione tried pressuring Harry into taking sides for the umpteenth time, he finally snapped and went off on a tirade loud enough to render the school speechless in utter shock, since they all witnessed Harry declaring his friendship with Ron and Hermione over. Padma sensed that and led Harry over to a more secluded area and met up with Neville Longbottom and his date, Luna Lovegood (a third year petite Ravenclaw girl with navy dirty-blonde hair, paste-white skin, and pale-silvery eyes).
Harry snapped back to reality as the memory ended. Even though they enjoyed their time at the Yule Ball, Harry and Padma decided to just stay friends. Harry still didn't quite understand girls even when Hermione was still one of his best friends (since she never bothered to help Harry out with that matter). With Harry's friendship with her and Ron over, Neville became his best mate. Once everyone was in the Great Hall, the school's house elves started going around delivering Valentine's cards to students and teachers. Naturally, Harry got a countless number of Valentine's cards in envelopes and at least 75% of them were all flashy with decorations. He had the intuition that those came from his fangirls )or rather fangirls of the Boy-Who-Lived). Then he came across one that was a generic dark-red colour. Intrigued, Harry tore the envelope open and pulled the card out. It was also a dark-red colour, but it had a hungarian horntail on the front. Then Harry opened the card to read it (in black letters), which said:
Happy Valentine's Day Harry,
Excellent job on outflying the hungarian horntail at the first task, your flying on the firebolt was totally epic. Don't let your haters get you down, they're just jealous that you can do something they won't bother trying themselves. Your friends will always have your back, since they know the real you.
Yours Sincerely,
Viktoriya Krum
'Wow!' thought Harry once he finished reading the card, clearly impressed. 'This is a rare moment for me, getting a card from someone who isn't interested in my Boy-Who-Lived fame. I wonder if she is Viktor's sister?'
"Harry, what're you gonna do with all the flashy ones?" asked Fred and George Weasley, in their twin talk.
"I have no idea," said Harry. "Since I can't come up with anything."
"Why don't you give them to us," Fred and George advised. "Then we, Angelina, Alicia and Katie can look over them and check for any hidden spells or potions."
"You don't have to do that." assured Harry.
"But it's our duty, Harry," said Fred and George simultaneously. "We've seen you as our surrogate little brother ever since you joined our house team."
Harry nodded his head to show that he understood and gave the flashy envelopes to Fred and George. They even advised Harry to give them any more should Harry receive any Valentine's cards (or at least the flashy and more decorated ones) throughout the day. Harry pocketed the card from this Niktoriya Krum for the time being.
"Neville," Harry started asking his new best mate. "Do you know if Viktor Krum has a sister? The card I put in my pocket was from a girl named Viktoriya Krum."
"Probably," Neville guessed. "There was a girl who was walking right beside him when the Durmstrang students arrived. So maybe that girl must be who sent you the card you put away."
"Yeah, maybe." said Harry.
Breakfast continued uneventfully and pretty soon, it was time for everyone to return to their common rooms to get their stuff and head off to lessons. Harry put the card from Viktoriya under his pillow before grabbing his school bag and heading off to his first class of the day.
/Scene break|
It was Saturday and breakfast was over. It was a Hogsmeade weekend, but Harry opted not to take the main path to avoid fans of the Boy-Who-Lived (especially fangirls). So Harry took a different route to throw the fans off track. Along the way, he spotted the Black Lake and approached the shoreline. He spotted the mast that was the Durmstrang ship on the other side of the lake quite a distance away. For a minute, Harry thought about asking one of the students which girl was Viktoriya Krum, but reluctantly decided against it. The students of Durmstrang were all serious and had angry looks (or so, he thought). Plus, their headmaster, Igor Karkaroff appeared to be rather creepy with a no-nonsense demeanour. Harry pulled the card from Viktoriya out of his coat pocket and looked at it. He was almost tempted to trying to talk to one of the Durmstrang students and ask one of them about Viktoriya every time he looked at the card she sent him, but he felt his limbs stiffen due to not having interacted with foreign guests before and having no idea what to say.
"I'm happy to see that you saved the card I made for you!" said an enthusiastic voice coming from Harry's right somewhere.
Harry jumped in surprise and quickly turned his head to the right. He spotted the girl who he deduced was Viktoriya Krum and she had the same eye and hair colour as Viktor (dark-brown), fair-coloured skin, and her face had a resemblance to Viktor's (so Harry was slowly realizing that she was his sister). She was dressed in a black jacket, black jeans, and black leather boots. Her hair was in a low ponytail and she had on a t-shirt of some kind with some monogram on it, which Harry couldn't tell what kind because of the unzipped jacket only partially exposing it. Whether the shirt was short-sleeve or long-sleeve was also a mystery to Harry. Viktoriya was smiling at Harry, but he was rendered speechless because he had no idea what to say.
"Uh huh!" Harry finally responded after a minute or so of silence, nodding his head.
"What did you like best about the card?" asked Viktoriya.
"Th-The note you wrote," stated Harry. "Since there wasn't any reference to my Boy-Who-Lived fame. How'd you know that I hate it?!"
"Well, you never went around boasting about it," Viktoriya explained. "Sometimes I'd see you trying to get away from the spotlight by staying out of the public eye. There's, of course, some students who claim you enjoy your fame while ignoring the fact that you despise it."
"It's enough to make me wanna sink into the ground." said Harry, contempt dripping from his voice aimed at his haters.
"I'm sorry, I forgot proper introductions," said Viktoriya as she held a hand out. "I'm Viktoriya Krum."
"Nice to meet you, Viktoriya!" said Harry with a smile, as he shook her hand. "I'm Harry Potter."
He felt rather sheepish to say his name, since she already heard of him. Regardless, he was simply being polite by showing good manners. In other words, he was following Viktoriya's example with proper introductions. After all, there's a difference between someone as a celebrity and someone as a person.
"What're you doing here all alone, Harry?" asked Viktoriya.
"Just trying to avoid the Boy-Who-Lived fans, fangirls in particular," said Harry. "They'll likely bombard me with questions with anything to do with the Valentine's cards they sent me. Most of them were were all flashy had the best decorations imaginable in a futile attempt to intrigue me enough to give them a chance."
"I understand how you feel, Harry," said Viktoriya in sympathy. "My brother deals with quite a bit of it for being the seeker on the bulgarian international quidditch team. Due to that, I've been somewhat exposed to that. Viktor's fans have even tried to hook up with me, ignoring the fact that they see me as 'the best seeker in the world's sister' which drives me crazy. Some of the creepy ones who are closer to his age have tried it too, but I'm thirteen going-on fourteen, which is something they also ignore."
"Does Viktor hate his fame, too?" asked Harry.
"Yes, but he can tolerate it somewhat easily since he chose to join our country's internation team," Viktoriya explained. "He didn't do so for the recognition, but for the passion."
"That's something to admire," stated Harry. "Since some celebrities let their fame get to their heads to the point where they start treating other people like trash and go about boasting about their achievements."
"And the fact you refuse to do that is also something to admire," stated Viktoriya. "You just wish to go about minding your own business."
"Did all of your fellow students come here to support your brother, Viktoriya?" asked Harry, rather curiously.
"Yeah, as it's school spirit," said Viktoriya. "Headmaster Karkaroff is extremely strict about that rule and any of his students who break that rule will be severely punished. If you want to, Harry, you can call me Vikki."
"Okay, Vikki," said Harry. "Your headmaster does have some sort of no-nonsense look on his face. He also looks like the type to give severe punishments no matter how minor infractions are."
"Pretty much," Vikki confirmed. "Which is why not many Durmstrang students misbehave
"Would you like me to show you around?" Harry offered. "It'd be a great chance to get to know each other."
"Sure, Harry," said Vikki with a smile. "I'd like that. It'd help keep us distracted from fans."
And Harry started doing just that, showing Vikki around the grounds of Hogwarts. Harry also began thinking about maybe inviting her to lunch or maybe taking her to Honeydukes later on. Harry pocketed the card to ensure it wouldn't get lost (since he liked it more than the other ones he got). Things were going to be pretty interesting once Harry's newly acquired friendship with Vikki becomes known, but neither Harry nor Vikki cared, since they felt the need to mind their own business.
The End!
Author's note 2: I'm going to let you imagine the potential chaos that's bound to ensue once everyone finds out that Harry and Vikki befriended each other.
