Chapter 20

"Hermione?" Viktor asked, knocking on his own bedroom door. "Are you dressed?"

"Yes, pretty much," she answered. That sounded rather ominous to him, but he opened the door and stepped inside, stopping short when he saw her.

"You do not haff on pants." His old Durmstrang shirt, soft, faded cotton from years of wear, hit her at upper thigh, barely covering her panties. Despite the icy shower he'd just gotten out of, he could feel his body reacting again.

"Sorry," she answered, smiling sheepishly, "but they didn't fit at all. I tried shrinking them, but I couldn't get them the right size."

"Is alright, so long as you do not try to seduce me anymore," he answered lightly. Her smile faded somewhat, and he realized her eyelashes were sticking together in clumps. "Haff you been crying?" he asked, moving to sit on the bed beside her.

She nodded slowly, and said softly, "Vitya, I'm so sorry I keep hurting you. I shouldn't have asked you tonight for…for what I did, not without being willing to give you the world."

He hugged her close to him. "It is ok, svetlina, I am strong man."

"Yes, you are, but you shouldn't always have to be. Would it be too hard if I stayed in here with you tonight? I just…I just want to talk to you, and feel you close to me."

"Something might be rather hard, but I think my emotions can handle it," he smirked.

"Viktor!" She laughed. "If I can't seduce you, you aren't allowed to seduce me, either!"

"Could I, love?" he asked softly, brushing a curl away from her cheek, cradling her face in his calloused hand. "If I vere to try, I mean. I keep asking you to stay, and I think sometimes you vant to, but you do not. Is there something about me that keeps you from leaving him? It is cliché, I know, but vhat does Veasley haff that I do not, besides you?"

Her face was so sad when he asked that, like the sun had fallen out of the sky. He wished he could wipe the hurt out of her eyes. He shouldn't have asked, but he wanted desperately to know. She moved in close to him and kissed him, a soft, gentle kiss on his lips, a kiss meant to reassure, not to arouse.

"Vitya, you have everything that he doesn't. I want badly, so badly to leave him, but…but I just can't. I want to be with you."

"Vhy can you not? Can not be your vows. Unless I am badly mistaken, you vere very eager to…how do you say? Eradicate all traces of the vows earlier."

She blushed pink for more reasons than just one, and then she sighed. "I hate to admit this to you, Viktor. Please, don't think poorly of me, but—"

"I doubt I could ever think poorly of you."

"Thank you, but Vitya…" her voice came out strangled. "I'm a coward."

He stroked her hair, not speaking, waiting for her to explain.

"I'm afraid to admit I failed at marriage. I'm too bloody stubborn to just admit it and call it quits. There, I told you." She was shaking slightly, crying again. Viktor moved, lying back on the bed, pulling her down to cradle her against him.

"I agree, svetlina, that you are stubborn as a pack of mules. Sometimes it is good thing, even if now, it is not."

"Vitya," she said through her quiet sobs, "how can you do this? How can you make me feel better even when what I'm doing hurts you?"

"I love you. That is how love vorks."

She smiled at him, with tears on her cheeks, and whispered very softly, "I love you, too."

He stroked her hair some more, liking how she felt in his arms, cuddled in his bed, and thought for something to say. "Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go."

"Is that a quote?"

He nodded. "Hermann Hesse, a German writer."

"Thank you, Vitya, for everything, for being here, for taking care of me, for loving me even though I don't deserve it. Thank you for defending me from Ron and for being so sweet to Ana."

"It is my pleasure, svetlina. Now, it is late. I haff practice tomorrow. Ve should sleep."

Viktor lifted the covers and they climbed underneath. He caught a glimpse under his shirt and the image was burned into his mind: she wasn't wearing anything under the shirt but some flimsy scrap of lace. He reached for her and she snuggled against his side. Soon, she was asleep, her breath tickling along the hair on his chest. Viktor was a damned masochist. He didn't sleep a wink that night; he was too immersed in the misery of arousal and the intense pleasure of Hermione's proximity.