Chapter Two
Viktor's first memory was of his parents arguing, his father's low voice rolling over his mother's clarion clear alto. At some point Kosta, his beloved brother, scooped him up and took him far away from the sizzling anger to a place where only the powder blue sky and the swoop and twist of the broom mattered. The feeling of weightlessness, of complete and utter freedom, still felt like nothing else he had ever experienced. So many years later, his brother's rare laughter after he had imperiously demanded "Faster, Kosta!" still rang in his ears as he straddled his Firebolt on the pitch.
"Clara told me we were getting a new Healer," Pyotr mentioned casually as he, Alexei, and Viktor did warm up laps and stretching exercises. "An apprentice." His dark eyes glittered as he paused for a moment for dramatic effect, then finished delivering his news with relish. "She's English."
"Maina! An English girl?" Alexei repeated incredulously, shaking his head in amazement. The sun caught and highlighted the undertone of auburn streaks in his friend's dark hair as the wind ruffled it. "Are you sure Clara heard right?"
Pyotr drew back in mock offense, placing a large hand over his heart as the other casually gripped his gleaming yet scarred bat. "Are you questioning my sources?"
"No, I'm questioning your source's sources," Alexei corrected.
"It has to be true," Pyotr insisted. "You know how Clara and Krasmira get when they drink together."
Viktor nodded thoughtfully. It was true. Both the Chaser and the Healer had the tendency to spill any and all secrets when they'd had a bit too much Firewhiskey, which was why he never told either of them anything of importance no matter how much they, especially Clara, badgered him. Krasmira was usually too busy being her usual...charming...self to bother him. "What is she doing here?" he asked curiously. "It doesn't make sense. Shouldn't she be working with the English team?"
"She's probably old and spotty," Alexei said forlornly. "You know how the English get as they age. Hunched and wrinklier than a Banitsa." He shuddered, his own smooth, young skin glowing in the warm sunlight.
"Actually, I heard from Clara who already talked to Krasmira that the girl is quite pretty."
Pyotr shrugged. "And as for why, who knows? And honestly, who cares?"
"How has Clara had time to talk to Krasmira?" Alexei demanded. "It's barely half nine, and Islov has been yelling at her since she got here!"
"Do I look like her keeper?" Pyotr shot back. "Look, I'm just saying what I've heard. I was thinking I would go check her out later today and see what she's like."
"You, Clara, and Krasmira are the worst bunch of gossips I've ever met," Alexei said, shaking his head. "You have to know everything."
It was true. Despite the National Team only having banded together a year before, drawing players from most of the Bulgarian League teams and recalling players on other international teams, Pyotr and Clara seemed to know everything about anyone on the team. Sometimes Viktor wondered if they had informants whose only purpose was to gather information on their fellow players scattered throughout Bulgaria.
"If I didn't know everything that was going on, both of you would be completely out of the loop. You should be thanking me, not judging me." The Beater sniffed and hit the flat of his bat against his thigh. "I am the lifeblood of this team. I am the best -"
"Beater in all of Bulgaria and the man who carries this team to victory," Alexei recited dully, echoing their friend's familiar refrain while Viktor, unimpressed, simply folded his arms and stared at Pyotr with an arched brow.
Pytor nodded, nose stuck up in the air. "Precisely. Thank you."
"Whatever you need to tell yourself to fall asleep at night, Vulchanov." Alexei rolled his eyes, exchanging a long-suffering look with Viktor before returning to Pyotr. "So what, you're just going to walk in and stare at her? You know Krasmira would hex you if you went in without a reason."
"I'm not a complete idiot," Pyotr replied, swinging the tail end of his broom around and good-naturedly knocking Alexei's with it. Alexei rolled with the hit, peeling down and away before beginning his own loop, shaking a fist at Pyotr as he blew past them.
"What do you think, Viktor?" Pyotr asked him directly, expression interested. "Curious about the new girl? She's probably a fan of yours. Maybe she'll ask for an autograph." He wiggled his eyebrows, implying something else altogether.
The thought of having to deal with one of his fans every single day while he worked on his craft made his stomach curdle. Surely Islov and Lazarov would have vetted that out when hiring staff for the team. It went without saying that the vast majority of people who worked with Quidditch teams tended to love the sport - Krasmira was no exception - but they had to have weeded out the truly zealous types. It would do no good for the team to be surrounded by groupies that spent more time panting after players than doing their jobs.
"So long as she doesn't bother me, and she can heal well enough, I don't care. I'm here to play." And revise. If he wanted to get Izklyuchitelens on the MLOK at the end of his seventh year, he had to keep revising.* He'd already been contacted by several Quidditch teams that wanted to scout him to play after he graduated, but Quidditch wasn't a permanent career, no matter how he wished it was. If he wanted to pursue the path of a Weather Wizard to help the Krum holdings and tenants prosper as he planned, he had to be the best of the best academically. Weather Masters did not accept any apprentice that came along, and his skill with Quidditch likely wouldn't do him any good on the application.
His academic future weighed on him, as if he didn't already have enough to worry about. The fate of Bulgaria's pride also rested on his shoulders, and he could not let his teammates down after they had let him, the youngest by nearly five years, on the team. He was in the middle of the Quidditch World Cup qualifiers, for Merlin's sake. Academics shouldn't even be on his mind, let alone some new girl that could potentially affect the dynamics of the team.
"'I'm here to play'," Pyotr mocked. He shook his head in mock disappointment. "So much fame, and you're wasting it all. All you do is play and read, play and read. Don't you ever want to have fun?"
Eyebrow arched, Viktor replied, "I do have fun." And he did. He enjoyed learning about complex Charms and the plants native to Bulgaria. Both things were directly applicable to his future, and to the people he was responsible for ensuring prospered. While he enjoyed learning for the sake of learning, he had a duty not only to the family but also to those loyal to the family, and he would not fail them just because of sheer sloth.
Pyotr snorted. "Not that kind of fun, Krum. Life isn't just all Quidditch and books, you know. You should go out on the town with us more often. You're missing out."
"I would take all the girls from you if I did," Viktor taunted.
Pytor rolled his eyes. "You think you could," he replied, and then affected a high-pitched voice, gushing, "Oh, Viktor, you're just so strong and handsome. Can I feel your biceps? Can I have your autograph? Can I have your firstborn child?"
Viktor grimaced. It wasn't inaccurate. "That is why I prefer to stay home and let you handle the attention. I don't like it, and you do."
Pyotr shrugged. "I do enjoy the perks of being one of seven of the most beloved athletes in Bulgaria. What's not to love? Free food, good press, lovely women pressing up against you and offering to 'sooth my aches' after a long game...it's heaven." He shuddered in mock ecstasy.
Viktor chuckled, shaking his head in disbelief, but Pyotr wasn't alone in basking in the fame. Many professional players enjoyed the fame as much, if not more, than Pyotr did, who, for all his talk, was fairly tame in his off-the-pitch behaviour (compared to other players he knew) and spent a lot of his spare time practicing or spending time with his sister. In fact, the Bulgarian team was quite tame and tended to keep out of the spotlight, which suited Viktor just fine.
While he knew he wasn't fit for the public eye - did not, in fact, want, the attention - he needed Quidditch. He needed the feeling of flying to ever-dizzying heights so he could escape from the things that shackled him to the earth, to the feelings of fire and flame and pain. Without it, he would fall, and it would break fragile things that made up his very identity. Without Quidditch, Viktor would be a pale shadow of the man he hoped to be.
He shrugged and smirked at Pytor's antics. "You enjoy yourself enough for the both of us, moyat priyatel." He changed the subject. "Do you think Islov will make us do suicides today?"
They both looked over at Boris Islov, who was yelling at Lev Zograf as the Keeper yelled back and gesticulated wildly. Islov crossed his arms and Zograf kicked the air before returning back to the middle goal, body lined with anger.
"Maybe he'll forget because he's so busy yelling at Zograf for his foul during the game," Pyotr said hopefully. Then, like he had heard them discussing it, Islov's voice thundered through the pitch, aided by a Sonorous.
"One hundred and twenty laps at full speed! Thirty kneeling on the handle. Forty standing. Thirty kneeling. Twenty doing pair jumps - except you, Krum. Last twenty you do Wronskis."
Both Pyotr and Viktor paled. Islov was on the warpath, clearly unhappy that they'd won the game against the Spaniards by such a slim margin three days prior, and he was determined to fix whatever weaknesses they had by wringing it out of the one step at a time.
But twenty Feints in a row? Surreptitiously, he cast an anti-nausea charm on himself. The sheer velocity at which he dove at the ground before pulling up so steeply usually caused his stomach to feel as if he'd left it behind, but he could handle it - if he were to do it one time instead of twenty. Doing it twenty times without pause would make him toss up his breakfast if he wasn't careful.
Next to him, Pyotr choked out a laugh. "Don't want to share your breakfast with us, then?" He pursed his lips thoughtfully for a moment. "Yeah, even precious wonderboy Seeker wouldn't get sent to Krasmira just for that. Good call."
He spelled his bat with a sticking charm so it wouldn't get away from him during the pair jumps, when they had to jump from their broom to another of their team's while going full speed, before brightening at a sudden thought.
"Hey, what if I hit Alexei on accident," his tone indicated otherwise, "while we did pair jumps? I could probably get us both hurt enough to get sent to Krasmira, especially since he makes us practice pair jumps ten metres off the ground." Doing so any higher, Viktor knew, could cause permanent and lasting damage if one of the players missed catching the broom, and the probability was much higher for Pyotr and Ivan, the other Beater, since they only had one free hand.
"You're crazy," Viktor said flatly, crossing his arms. "You'd risk getting seriously injured just to see a girl?"
Pyotr looked at him like he was the crazy one. "Yeah. Besides, she works with Krasmira. Maybe she'd heal me right up. Better yet, maybe she'd kiss me better, too." His tone turned lascivious, and Viktor shot a look skyward as if pleading for patience. Pyotr was the biggest womanizer he knew. The man simply loved women and wasn't afraid to use his fame to get them.
"You're insane," Viktor repeated, "but it could work. I still can't believe you'd risk the rest of the season to see this girl, though." He wouldn't risk a chance at playing for any girl in the world.
It was Pyotr's turn to look at Viktor like he was crazy. "Viktor, we employ the best Healer in the sport, and even though Yura's gone now to the Swedes, we've got the new girl. Krasmira wouldn't take just anyone on, you know that. Between the two of them, I'm not worried in the slightest. Besides," he said, sobering up, "I wouldn't jeopardize this team for anything. We will win this year. For us, but more importantly, for Bulgaria."
Viktor nodded, determination running through his veins. "For Bulgaria," he echoed.
With that, they nodded at each other and lined up with the other players, all of them making last second equipment adjustments as Islov stared them down with gimlet grey eyes. "We have two week until the match with Morocco," he said, his broom perpendicular to the players'. "Two measly weeks to whip you sorry bunch into shape. We were sloppy against the Brazilians because we got tired. Even if the match takes six hours - no, ten hours! - I want to see agility. I want to see energy. I want to see clean lines when you fly, no matter the conditions!"
His voice cracked against them like a whip before it softened ominously, and Viktor found himself leaning forward on his broom along with the rest of his mates as Islov continued, "I am going to tire you out until you wished you were dead, and only then will we begin our practice match. Anyone who I deem is not giving their all will have to do an additional set of punishments at the end of practice. I expect the best from you because Bulgaria expects the best of you. Do I make myself clear?"
"Da!" The team snapped back.
He surveyed them all for a long moment, sun-weathered face carved with lines. "Very well," he said at last, ascending a few metres before putting on his own goggles in preparation to fly at the maximum thirty metres per hour alongside his own players. If there was one complaint Viktor didn't have about Islov, it was that he was a lazy coach.
"On my mark…" he called, and Viktor shifted into position low over his broom, hands curving around the wood handle he knew as well as his wand. The pitch was deadly quiet for a moment, even the wind anticipating Islov's call, and Viktor tensed. "Go!"
Galvanized, he shot off, the sting of wind against his unprotected skin all-too-familiar, and settled in for doing what he did best. His mind cleared of anything else but the task at hand, and he didn't think of the mysterious English girl again.
Translations:
Maina = an exclamation. Basically like "You don't say!" or something like that. It's not really super translatable. (According to Google)
Moya priyatel = my friend
Notes:
* "Is on the MLOK": This is as close as I could get to NEWTS. The MLOK is Slovenian for newt, and in the official HP Slovenian translation is Mimoriadna Legálna Odborná Kategória (Extraordinary Legal Professional Category). Why Slovenian, you ask? Because it's the most similar language to Bulgarian that I could find on the Harry Potter fandom wiki that had a translation. The I stands for izklyuchitelen, which is a literal translation of Outstanding. I tried.