Key words: Viktor Krum Hermione Granger Millicent Bulstrode

Disclaimer: JK Rowling (and those lucky companies that she has bestowed the rights upon, including, but not limited to, Bloomsbury, Scholastic, and Warner Brothers) owns the characters and most of the setting, although I've manipulated things a bit.

Author's notes: For the most part, I like Hermione. However, Emma-Watson-Hermione really grates on my nerves. The negative aspect of the Hermione of this storey was inspired by her.

I am purposefully chopping this up into bite-sized chapters. I find it easier to work out plot blocks in little bits, so I will hopefully be able to post more often.

The import of the title is not evident in this first chapter (it does NOT refer to Hermione). In Chapter 2's author notes I'll post the poem, and, hopefully, the reference will become obvious.

Shall I Compare Thee to a Shakespearean Sonnet . . . 130?

Ch. 1

Hermione had been different. She was one of the few girls who did not pursue him, did not fawn over him, did not simper at his every comment. She could look him in the eyes without blushing and engage him in a lively debate about Nikola Indjov. She did not mimic his maladroit mispronunciations and ungainly gait to invidious, sniggering companions when she did not see him in the shadows.

Yes, Hermione had been different, yet too much the same. She never mocked his lack of poise, but she made him feel clumsy, oafish, and awkward. The long, slim lines of her body drew admiring gazes from other wizards, but he could not fathom their attraction.

Viktor Krum was a man–a man of strong passions and fierce love, but he had to restrain them for fear he might injure the fragile wisp of a girl. Hermione had a courageous heart and a strong mind, but her delicate constitution condemned her. She would not survive his world. With great regret he had told her this, nearly a year after their first stumbling conversation in Hogwarts' library. She, too, had recognised the dissimilitude between them, and–ever practical–had accepted the termination of their relationship as lamentable, but inevitable.

***

A little more than a year after relinquishing his monopoly on Hermione's favours, he had flouted a personal invitation from Voldemort in favour of Quidditch practice, so the Dark Lord had ensured that Viktor would not play Quidditch again. Two Death Eaters had greeted him with dubious hospitality in his study that night, leaving him with shattered knuckles and both knees wrenched irreparably out of kilter. As his mangled hands prevented him from wielding his wand properly, he had managed to clamp it between his wrists long enough to Apparate to the nearest hospital. (Subsequently, he was chided time and again for almost splinching himself, although no one was able to propose any other way he could have reached the hospital.) Utilising both magic and Muggle techniques, the doctors repaired Viktor's hands passably well but were unable to extricate all of the strands of Dark magic that had been expertly entangled in the tendons and ligaments of his knees. These painful, permanent residues incapacitated him to such an extent that he could barely hobble, much less mount a broomstick.

When it became apparent that Viktor could no longer fly, the Vratsa Vultures regretfully dismissed him, knowing that they had lost their only hope of being internationally competitive anytime in the near future. Andrei Vasiliev, the team's captain and unofficial financial manager, offered Viktor a desk job as an assistant to the Vultures' public relations director, but pride prevented him from accepting that well-intentioned, yet thoroughly abasing handout. Besides, it would have been too frustrating to watch his former teammates swoop and soar while his own body shackled him more securely to the stands than any of the iron fetters in his father's dungeon could have.

Despite his awkwardness, or perhaps, in part, because of it, Viktor was a fiercely proud, intensely reserved, publicly undemonstrative person. Thus, he shared his anger and grief with no one: not his parents, his (now former) teammates, nor the few schoolmates that had valiantly endured his brooding mien even after the forced proximity of classes no longer compelled them to. Upon arriving home from the uncomfortably polite meeting with Vasiliev, Viktor had Apparated to a secluded outcropping on the slopes of Moussala with his Velox XV. His carefully veiled fury erupted as he smashed the broom against the unyielding crag. Determined to finish the job, he did not notice the splinters driving into his hands nor the rocks abrading his palms as he battered the pieces of his once impeccably maintained broom into kindling. A vicious Incendio completed the destruction.

When the reports of his injury and subsequent dismissal reached the papers, Quidditch fans from around the world mourned the loss of such talent, but after a few days of eluding rabid reporters, Viktor was mostly forgotten by the world, his country, and, to a certain extent, family. Even Hermione's infrequent, politely friendly letters gradually ceased. He plummeted from the heady heights of fame to the despondent depths of anonymity.

As a crippled, former athlete at the age of 20, schooled at an institution whose reputation for diablerie preceded its alumnae everywhere they went, Viktor did not expect that finding employment would be easy, particularly during the recession that had resulted from Voldemort's increasingly audacious, increasingly international displays of power. For as long as he could remember, the option of becoming an Auror–should he fail at Quidditch–had immured itself in the deepest recesses of his mind. No one else was aware of this desire, as his family, instructors, and teammates simply had not acknowledged failure as a possibility for Viktor. Now that Quidditch no longer occupied his waking hours, the idea asserted itself authoritatively and refused to be dismissed, despite Viktor's vigorous misgivings. As soon as he could prepare the necessary documents, he departed for the Offensive Department of the Bulgarian Ministry of Magic in Sofia. Viktor's hopes quickly withered as the Russian wizard who examined applications condescendingly explained that an Auror needed two qualities: able-bodiedness and dedication to the eradication of Dark magic, neither of which could be reasonably attributed to him.

His assistance having been rejected by his own country, Viktor applied for British Indeterminate Visitor papers. He vaguely remembered from a conversation with Hermione (so long ago, it seemed) that the underground forces in Great Britain were more tolerant of non-conventional aid than any government agency in the world, since they could not afford to refuse any shred of talent or offer of support, however meagre it may be.