Chapter 5
To her surprise, Hermione had little trouble finding both bookstores in the sleepy Bulgarian town of Izbor. It appeared to have been, at one time, a growing city, but somehow it never finished. There was a significant wizarding section with lots of shops left over from those days. She learned that the countryside around the town was mostly wizarding families, who came to do their shopping and socializing here.
Because she had found the bookstores so quickly, she decided to browse through them slowly, luxuriously, and have a bit of a vacation as well. She felt she'd earned a bit of relaxation.
She used her translating spells and got well acquainted with the shopkeepers. Her favorite bookshop had armchairs placed throughout, where she spent a lot of her time, selecting books. She'd truly found a wealth of knowledge in this little town.
Hermione was curled in one of these comfy seats one afternoon, when she got a shivery feeling, as if someone were watching her. She tried to ignore it, thinking it was probably just the shopkeeper; this shop never had many people in it. Who else would have an interest in these yellowed pages? She had met very few others in her life who shared this love.
After about ten minutes of that feeling, on and off, she stopped reading and looked around, searching for the intruder.
Unexpectedly, her eyes met dark, dark eyes—eyes she knew; eyes she'd once loved. Eyes she hadn't seen in years. A thousand memories, that she'd hidden deep inside when she chose Ron, rushed back into her mind and her heart.
He walked over to her, slowly. His hand reached for hers, and, as he always had, he brushed the back of it with his lips. He spoke slowly, enunciating clearly, as if he hadn't spoken English in quite a while. "It has been a very long time, Hermy-own-ninny."
She couldn't speak; she could only stare at him. A long moment later, she found her voice, and her smile. "Yes, Viktor, it certainly has."
She had been fifteen when she had fallen for him. He'd watched her in the library at Hogwarts; he'd asked her to the ball. Since their first conversation, she'd seen the sweet, shy boy he'd been then; not the worldly Quidditch player everyone seemed to think he was. In stolen moments in hidden hallways, they'd discovered love together, always careful, so careful, not to take things too far. She'd wondered what it would be like to be with him. In later years, when she'd been with Ron, she'd had to suppress thoughts of Viktor—that niggling curiosity of how it could have been.
She had been sixteen when she realized that the distance made a relationship very, very difficult for two people so young. She'd spent hours trying to write that letter, tears smearing the ink, her innocent heart breaking over her first love. She'd been at home when she wrote it; she'd spent two days in bed, crying, after the owl carried it away. Her mum had brought her tea and toast and held her while she cried. She still remembered what her mother had told her that night.
She'd sobbed, "I think it would have been easier not to have loved him, no matter what Tennyson thought."
Her mum had hugged her and said, "Think what you would have missed, though, besides the hurting. I think Tennyson was right. I know you can't unlove him, but you can love someone else too. Eventually, if it is meant to be, you'll find him again."
Her mother had been right; she had loved again. She'd fallen for Ron, goofy Ron, friendly Ron, happy Ron. But then she'd fallen out of love with grumpy Ron, finicky Ron, hateful Ron.
And now, here she was, in a coffee shop in Bulgaria, across the table from Viktor Krum. He was still sweet, although not nearly as shy. He was a gentleman and he was interested in her life and her new job. And yet, Hermione was married to another man.