A Walk by the Lakeside
Hermione Granger woke up early on the Saturday following the second task of the Triwizard Tournament.
Having nothing better to do, she decided to go down to the Grand Hall for breakfast. There were only a few people down there when she arrived.
Professors McGonagall, Sprout and Sinistra were sitting at the staff table, a few Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws huddled in groups at their own tables, five or six Gryffindors were near the top of their table and a group of Durmstrangs were settled over at the Slytherin table.
With a tingling feeling in her stomach, Hermione noticed Viktor was among them.
His trademark scowl disappeared for a moment as he smiled across the Great Hall at her and she smiled back as she sat down at the Gryffindor table, pulling cereal, milk and pumpkin juice towards her.
By the time Hermione had finished her breakfast the Great Hall was beginning to fill up, although there was no sign of Harry or Ron appearing yet.
Across the Hall, the Durmstrangs rose from the Slytherin table, talking in Bulgarian to each other.
Most of them started in a group towards the Entrance Hall but Viktor made his way over to the Gryffindor table to where Hermione was sitting.
"Hallo Herm-own-ninny" he said, with a smile quite untypical of him.
"Good morning Viktor" Hermione said.
Krum scuffed his foot along the floor. "I vas vondering… if… maybe… vood you like to go for a valk around the lake?"
He sounded so nervous, even though he was four years older than her and an international Quidditch star and a Triwizard champion and Hermione found it endearing.
"I'd love to" she said and rose from the bench, to a relieved smile from Viktor.
Suddenly she was quite glad Harry and Ron weren't there, as Ron would probably be glowering at Krum in a very hostile manner and Harry trying very hard to calm him down, without success.
Viktor nervously took her hand as they left the Great Hall and Hermione, in an effort to assure him that it was all right, squeezed his fingers gently.
As he led her around the lake where the Durmstrang ship was anchored, Hermione noticed a few of Krum's friends down by the shore.
They were taking turns to shoot tongues of flame from their wands, which got progressively higher and higher.
As Krum and Hermione watched, one boy shot up a fifty-foot flame and another, with a blur of wand movement, made it take the shape of a flaming hawk, which took off into the sky and perched on the topmast of the ship without burning it before disappearing.
Hermione watched in open-mouthed awe this incredible display of magic. Krum turned and grinned as he saw her. "Do you like our little tricks?" he asked, mischievously.
"Wow." Hermione breathed. She had never seen anyone in Hogwarts perform magic like that. It was so powerful and yet, so beautiful.
"Vood you like me to teach you?" Krum asked. "It is simple enough magic. You just need to focus and I think you are very good at that, no?"
Hermione blushed at his praise but pulled out her wand. Viktor also produced his.
"Look" he said. "Exardescere!" The tongue of flame shot from his wand. "Now you try," he said to Hermione.
Hermione pointed her wand upwards and outwards and said "Exardescere!"
Flames did leap from her wand although they were much shorter than Viktor's had been.
"You are very good" Viktor said, sounding surprised and delighted. "I could not do that my first time."
Hermione once again blushed at the compliment but had a very happy grin on her face all the same.
"I am thinking maybe you could learn how to change its shape?"
Hermione nodded. "Yes please" she said fervently.
Viktor chuckled a little at her eagerness. "Yes. Now ven the fire comes from your vand, you do this" he made a flowing wave in the air with his wand.
"And think very hard about vat you vant it to change into. Try this." He made the flowing pass in the air again.
Hermione tried very hard to copy Krum's movements. He gently put his right hand over hers and corrected her slightly.
"Good. Do you vant to try the whole thing now?"
Hermione nodded. "Excardescere!" she shouted and flames came leaping from her wand. She made the pass in the air with it and focused very hard on the image in her mind.
When she looked up a fiery rose in full bloom hung in the air above her and Viktor. Her breath caught in her throat as she looked at it.
It was so beautiful and she had made it. She let out a sigh as it disappeared.
"That vas beautiful." Krum's quiet voice came from behind her. "You are the best vitch I have ever met, Hermione Granger."
Hermione looked at him in surprise. "You said my name right!"
"Did I?" Krum looked abashed and pleased at the same time. "Try it again." Hermione said. "Herm own nee," he said slowly.
Hermione laughed. "Almost right. I suppose it was the magic of the moment."
"Yes." Krum agreed, hastily, causing Hermione to smile again. A brisk wind caused Hermione to shiver and reminded her that it was only February.
"Are you cold?" Viktor asked.
Without waiting for an answer, he unfastened his heavy fur cloak and settled it around Hermione's shoulders.
"Thank you, but won't you be cold?"
Viktor shook his head. "No. Vere I come from it is much colder. I am too hot in that cloak but Karkaroff always makes me vear it, he says I vill catch cold."
"Everybody catches cold sometimes."
Viktor crossed his arms over his chest. "Not according to Karkaroff. Quidditch players should be immune to everything ordinary he says."
"He says that?"
"No. But that is what he thinks. It is not hard to see."
Krum's friends looked up from where they were clustered around the lakeshore and saw Hermione draped in Krum's cloak.
They nudged each other and pointed and shouted something at Krum in Bulgarian.
Krum shouted back, before taking Hermione's hand once more and walking with her until they were out of sight.
"What did you say to them?"
"I told them to… how vood you say… bugger off."
Hermione stifled giggles. "Why?" she asked. "What were they saying?"
Krum hesitated for a minute before answering. "For me to kiss you."
"Oh." Pinkness bloomed faintly on Hermione's cheeks.
Viktor took a deep breath, as if to gather his courage, before speaking again.
"Vood you like me to?"
"What?"
Viktor turned suddenly to face Hermione, stopping her in her tracks. She bumped straight into him. He didn't seem to notice.
She noticed though. There was less than an inch of space between them. She had to look up to meet his eyes.
His voice was suddenly very gentle and tender. "Kiss you," he said softly. Hermione felt like she couldn't breathe. "I… ah…I…" she stuttered.
Then Viktor's fingers found her chin. They were slightly callused from (presumably) gripping the handle of his broomstick but to her they felt soft and gentle.
He bent his head towards her and his fingers carefully guided her to him, until their lips met perfectly in the middle.
Hermione was sure her heart had stopped beating. Viktor Krum was kissing her.
His lips were soft where they touched hers. Suddenly, by pure instinct, Hermione slid her arms around Viktor's neck and kissed him back, harder. His hands found her waist and he drew her closer against him.
She had no notion of how long they had been kissing. It could have been mere seconds or minutes, hours, days, even years.
There was no time, only the sweet sensation of his mouth pressed up against hers. It seemed like it had been eternity when they finally pulled away and yet Hermione knew she could easily have gone on kissing him for another eternity.
They looked back down at the lake and there the Durmstrangs had made the fire take on the shape of Hermione and Krum, hanging in midair, kissing.
Both the eighteen-year-old Bulgarian international Quidditch star and the fourteen year-old English Muggle-born blushed furiously.
But Viktor's hand linked with Hermione's as he walked her back to the castle and he never did ask for his cloak back.
Twenty-one year-old Hermione Granger sighed as she folded a cloak made of matted fur and put it back in the small cupboard behind her desk in the Auror Headquarters of the Ministry of Magic.
There was a timid knock on her door and a quiet voice sounded that Hermione knew belonged to Natalie McDonald, the receptionist.
"Miss Granger? Minister Potter thought you might like to meet our newest Auror."
Hermione felt slightly annoyed. Why would Harry send the newbies to her? It was always Ron who dealt with the babies.
Nevertheless, it would be rude to send them away. "Come in." she called.
A very familiar face appeared around the door, followed by the six-foot frame of a very familiar, muscled, Bulgarian Quidditch player. Hermione almost threw herself out of her chair.
"Viktor!" she cried.
The Bulgarian picked her up and swung her as best he could in the cramped space of her office.
She wrapped her arms tightly around him as he put her down.
She assaulted him with half a dozen questions at once. "What are you doing here? How did you get here? Are you staying? What's been happening to you? Why is she saying you're an Auror?"
Viktor effectually stopped the flow of questions by capturing Hermione's lips with her own. She went limp in his arms when he pulled away. Still the same spark. Even after all these years.
Viktor attempted to answer her question one at a time. "First of all" he said. "I am very glad to see you Herm own nee. And to answer your questions: I am here to be an Auror. I came by broom. I am staying, at least for a good time. Many things have been happening to me. And your receptionist calls me an Auror because I am vun."
Hermione noticed with a smile that Viktor's accent hadn't deserted him in the least over the years. "But why are you an Auror Viktor? What about your Quidditch?"
Viktor's eyes darkened slightly. "I am an Auror because of something that happened to me. The Death Eaters killed both of my parents."
Hermione touched his shoulder in sympathy. She too had lost her parents to the Death Eaters. She supposed it was partly the reason she had become an Auror.
Even now, two years after Voldemort's downfall the Wizarding World was struggling to recuperate from the destruction he had caused.
"I'm sorry, Viktor" Hermione said gently. "The Death Eaters killed my parents too."
Krum nodded with an effort. "Ve are in the same boat. I vant to stop other peoples parents being killed. That is vy I became an Auror. I came to vurk in England, where the most damage is."
Hermione felt slightly disappointed for some reason. "Is that the only reason?" she asked, surprised at her own boldness.
Viktor surprised her by taking her hand. "No." he said. "Most of all, I came to England to be vith you." He drew her into his arms once more and kissed her tenderly.
"I love you, Hermione." Hermione felt as if she was drowning once more, the exact same feeling as when she had received her first kiss, from Viktor, by the lake at Hogwarts.
"I love you Viktor."
On the spur of the moment, Hermione pulled out of Viktor's arms and walked over to her cupboard. She produced a neatly folded fur cloak and offered it to Krum.
"Here" she said. "I never gave you your cloak back." Viktor took the cloak and shook it out. He then swung it around Hermione's shoulders.
It fit her much better than it had at fourteen. The hem was no longer trailing along the ground. Viktor stood back to admire her. "You keep it," he said. "It looks much better on you than me."
Hermione threw herself into Viktor's arms for another kiss, fur cloak and all.