Viktor was mulling over Nevana's response to the runic inscription when he realized this preoccupation had caused him to miss something that the rest of the team was attempting to discuss without drawing Islov's notice. It wasn't until Pyotr sent him a significant look, including a crazy eyebrow waggle and unintelligibly mouthed words, that Viktor remembered that today's pre-match physical wasn't just any normal physical—it was a physical with The Girl.
That was how he had started thinking of her, after all: Clara, Pyotr, Alexei, and even Vasily had spoken of her with varying levels of approval, squealing (Clara), and/or innuendo (Pyotr). The reactions from the team as they came out of the infirmary and rejoined practice made him curious to see her. It was like the celebrities had become the fans of one inconsequential girl.
It made him intensely curious, so when it was his turn he was more willing than usual.
Lev Zograf passed him on his way out. "Nice girl. Smart," was all the taciturn Keeper said.
Him, too? Viktor narrowed his eyes. They'd have to either canonize her soon, given the way they were talking, or fire her to get the players more focused on what they were there to do: play Quidditch.
He saw The Girl as soon as he walked in. Her back was to him, her official robes spelling out her name in English before flashing to Cyrillic. Hermione Granger. What an impossible name to be saddled with, he thought, and likely even more impossible to say. It was so...English. He would surely stumble if asked to say it aloud.
She was very diminutive for someone with such an...impressive name; she would barely come to his shoulders, he noted, and her hair was a particular shade of brown that he was hard-pressed to describe, the entire mass pulled back into a braid with a few rebellious curls springing free.
Something about it struck a chord. He had seen her, and that striking hair in particular, before, but where?
And then she turned around, and he felt scalding heat, rapidly followed by freezing cold, run down the entire length of his body. Any lingering thoughts of rune fled his mind as he breathed in shock and disbelief, "You."
She gave a tight-lipped smile and the same little wave she had given him by the river. "Yes," she said in that strangely accented Bulgarian, which he now knew to be English. "It's me. Hello, Mr Krum."
Krasmira looked between the two of them with an arched brow but said nothing, a speculative gleam in those sharp eyes of hers. She had been looking at The Girl—Miss Granger—with appraising eyes, likely to see her reaction to him, Viktor assumed, but because of his reaction to her, she had switched focus, like a shark smelling blood in the water.
And Merlin help him, he was likely as not going to give it to her, given his propensity to lose his capacity for intelligent speech when truly flustered, which thankfully, happened rarely.
Unfortunately, this was one of those times. "You're not a fan," he said rather stupidly, pointing out the obvious.
Crisply, she nodded. "Indeed, not."
Oh, Merlin. He felt as though he were about to expire from sheer embarrassment. "I am...I thought…"
She lifted and dropped her shoulders in a small shrug, her expression not unkind but not precisely nonjudgmental, either. "I suppose I can see why you were confused," she commented, one eyebrow arched, "what with the burgundy robes and all, but next time you run across someone minding their own business, perhaps don't jump to conclusions, hm?"
He nodded several times, feeling his throat tighten. Merlin's balls but he was a fool. The accent alone should have tipped him off, not to mention she had literally been sitting there reading a book and eating a sandwich.
"I apologize," he said stiffly, and gave a regimental bow, his arms straight at his sides as he bent at the waist before clicking his heels together. "It was simply that—and the river—you looked—" he fumbled, not even knowing what to say. He could almost feel his mother's wrath bearing down on him from home, echoes of 'Krums are always, always polite, Viktor!' ringing in his ears.
"I take it you know each other?" Madam Lazarov said after watching a dull flush creep up his face with an arched brow.
"Yes." The girl turned to face her master. "We had the...pleasure of meeting each other by the river on my first day during the lunch break. It seemed we both had the brilliant idea of going there to relax, but he mistook me for a fan and reprimanded me for trespassing."
Krasmira's eyes widened marginally, but she refrained from making one of her whiplike comments that would have drawn blood. He stifled a groan, knowing that if she was refraining now, he would certainly be getting an earful from everyone else she was surely going to tell as soon as possible. Damn harpy, he thought uncharitably. He could feel his ears burning in embarrassment.
"I see," she said in a significant tone a long moment later, turning absolutely judgmental eyes on him. "Well, then, l suppose it must please you to know that this is not a fan but my assistant, Miss Granger. She will be assisting me in today's physical and all future ones as well."
He stepped forward, took her hand, and bowed over it. "It is a pleasure to formally meet you, Miss Granger," he murmured. "I look forward to working with you."
"And I, you," she returned with a small smile. "Now that we properly know each other."
"Yes, well," he coughed, "I suppose I should strip?"
Her eyes widened, and he realized how that sounded. "I meant - I meant for the exam! Strip for the exam!" He cleared his throat uncomfortably and reached up to rub at his neck.
Krasmira was openly smirking by this time, and she motioned for him to get on with it. Jerkily, he pulled his Quidditch robes off over his head and then the thin shirt underneath, folding both out of habit before placing them on the bed and sitting next to them, his back slightly hunched and hands fisted in his lap. He shifted uncomfortably, feeling the weight of her eyes on him. He wasn't normally prone to bouts of self-consciousness, but after the way they had gotten off on such awkward footing, and how she looked at him, with those cool, knowing eyes, he couldn't help it.
"What's first?" Krasmira asked Miss Granger.
"A basic scan to achieve a baseline reading of the entire system," she replied promptly. "It will detect any abnormalities and display synchronous readings for as long as the spell is maintained."
The Healer nodded. "Demonstrate the wandwork, if you please, then once I give approval, cast it."
Miss Granger bit her lip for a brief moment, the only sign of nerves he had seen from her thus far, then cast the spell on him a moment later after displaying what he assumed - and hoped - was flawless wandwork.
"Maintain it while I ask the battery of questions," Krasmira instructed, and Miss Granger nodded, looking alert despite her split attention, although her skin between her brows furrowed slightly in concentration.
Quickly, Kramira ran down the familiar list of questions he could almost answer in his sleep. Any new injuries? No. Anything to report? No. How was his energy? Fine. Was the abdominal tear giving him any issues? No, although he did feel a slight bit weaker on the left, where the regrown muscle was, than on his right.
Krasmira nodded. "It's to be expected, given that the potion and spellwork can only do so much. The body is having to stimulate the rest of the growth itself, but it should mostly have finished by now." She made him lie down and cast a quick spell over his abdomen, looking critically at the readings.
"It appears mostly normal, although the growth isn't as far along as I would like. Abdominal muscle regrowth is fairly complicated due to how many things each muscle is attached to; it takes time to rebuild those connections not only to other muscles but also to other things such as ligaments. I'm going to give you another Strengthening potion to take before bed tonight and do some quick work to encourage the muscle to grow. Do you have any questions? Does that make sense to you?"
He nodded. "I truly don't think it's a big deal, but with the game tomorrow…I don't want to endanger the game simply because of my pride."
Krasmira gave him a rare look of approval. "Good boy," she said approvingly. "Now, I'll be right back - the Potion's in the back room. Oh, and Miss Granger?" she looked at her apprentice. "Keep the spell up."
The furrow between her brow deepening slightly, Hermione replied, "Yes, Madam."
Krasmira disappeared between the curtains, leaving the two of them alone. There was an extended silence as he looked down at his hands and she stood there. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see his readings from the scan floating next to him.
He looked up at her, his curiosity overriding his natural reticence. "Is it hard?"
"Hm?" He tilted his head at the readings. "Ah. It's not too hard," she replied after a moment of consideration. "Only that it takes some of my attention. The spell itself isn't particularly draining or difficult — it's only the multitasking that I would have to do while maintaining it that worries me. I think that's why she's getting me used to doing it now, so it becomes second nature."
He wasn't an expert on Healing spells, but he knew most of them used a fair amount of magic at any one time. To be expected to maintain one while preparing and casting others was impressive, indeed, especially since she was young and hadn't grown into her full magical abilities yet. That Krasmira trusted Miss Granger's spellwork enough to believe the scan showed that the Healer had a high estimation of her abilities.
"That makes sense." Viktor stared up at the ceiling. He wished he could sit up to have this conversation, but he knew from past experience that Krasmira would be irritated if he so much as twitched while she was gone.
She nodded, and they lapsed into another awkward silence. He watched her shift her weight from foot to foot and bite her lip as she glanced at him.
"What Dark curse gave you the mark on your chest?" She motioned at the star-shaped mark a few shades darker than his skin.
The room was dark, the dim winter light filtering into a lone window. The lot of them stood in two rows facing each other. Friedrich stood across from him, the white lines around his mouth betraying his stress. "Begin!" Evgeni barked, and Friedrich raised his wand. Viktor stood still, hands at his sides and back straight, desperately wishing he could go for his wand, but he couldn't. Not this time.
His jaw clenched, and he looked away for a moment. "Do not ask that question to me or to anyone else on the team." His experience definitely was not the worst of them all, and it was something that wasn't discussed among them all, even though they all saw the marks on each other's bodies when they changed in the locker room. It was an unspoken code that was upheld at all times, and now this girl expected him to bare a deeply personal moment to her to fulfill her curiosity, when he wouldn't even tell his mother?
She licked her lips. "But shouldn't I know? As someone who is now partially responsible for your care?"
She dared to press him on something as sensitive as this? "It is not something to be discussed."
"But Madam Lazarov has a note—"
"Enough." The force of the word halted Hermione mid-sentence, and she looked at him with wide eyes. "Healers know when to press and when not to. You clearly have much to learn, little girl." He stood, fluidly shrugging back into his kit with fast, economical movements as a sudden rage born out of fear of the memories consumed him. He needed to get out. He needed to fly.
"I'm sorry," Hermione ventured after a moment, her voice uncertain, as he slipped his flying robes on and sealed them shut with his wand. "I simply thought that it was something I should know."
His dark eyes met hers for one piercing moment. "You thought wrong." With that, he swept out, pulling his gloves on. He didn't want to be in the room with her for one more moment.
"The exam wasn't over!" she called after him, almost desperately, but he didn't respond.
By the time he retrieved his broom, he was almost frantic to get into the sky, to fly away high and escape the memories threatening to weigh him down. He could feel the grasping tendrils of darkness grabbing at him, but he didn't want to return there, to that day, to the days that followed, when they had all had what innocence they still possessed stripped from them.
He spiralled up high into the sky, reaching for the clouds as his face was bathed by the sun, and spent hours doing grueling drills by himself as far above ground as possible, the stadium looking more like a toy model than a reality. When at last he came down, his mind exhausted from concentration, his body limp like a rag, practice was winding down.
Islov looked at him with an appraising eye. "You threaten your quality of play tomorrow, Viktor."
He stiffened but responded evenly, "I will be fine for the game."
"You pushed yourself to the limit today."
"Not past it." Viktor met Islov's eyes squarely. "I will be fine."
"Don't do it again, lest I be forced to play Vladislov in your stead."
He bristled at the threat. "I'm leagues beyond Vladislov, and you know it."
Islov folded his arms. "Be as that may, if you're not at one hundred percent because of your own idiocy, it may be better to play him than you, since his reflexes will be faster and his turns sharper. This is the World Cup, boy. Any mistakes this far in could be fatal to the team, and you, running out of the physical because some pretty little girl upset you and flying away on your broom, could endanger it all. Now go home and relax. In case you missed it, we have a game tomorrow."
Viktor flinched. "Yes sir." He tucked his lips between his teeth, his grip tight on his broom, and walked off the pitch.
"I saw Islov give you a dressing down." Pyotr sidled up to him, an eyebrow arched. "Not as bad as it could be, though. He didn't even yell, and he only crossed his arms near the end, which is when you know it's bad. But what the hell, Viktor!" Pyotr slapped him on the side of the head. "You know we've got a game tomorrow! I know you're all worked up over the English girl — and I mean, really, who isn't? — but you can't get in a twist over her now. Wait until tomorrow evening."
"This coming from the man who had a bet with Clara about who could get the most information about her the fastest?" Viktor looked at him in disbelief. "Don't even try it. And I'm not 'all worked up' over her," he continued, using inverted quotes. "At least not the way you're saying."
Pytor smirked. "Oh? So you're not going to tell me she isn't pretty? I mean, that wild hair of hers! And her eyes! Not to mention that pale perfect English skin, and her accent." He waggled a brow. "She's much too young for any of us, that's clear…except for you, my friend." His idiot friend clapped a hand on his shoulder, looking far too cheerful for his own good.
Lowly, Viktor said, "She asked about the mark on my chest." He didn't have to say which one he was talking about.
Pyotr sobered up almost instantly, his wide smile morphing into a slight frown. "Ah. I see." He paused for a moment in thought, fingers coming up to stroke his lightly bearded chin. "Well, she is English," he commented, "and she is Krasmira's apprentice as well. Perhaps they do it differently in England, and she didn't know better?"
It was plausible, he supposed, but he wasn't in the mood to excuse it, considering how her actions affected his playing. "She should have known better," he growled. "And she pushed when I told her I wouldn't discuss it."
Pyotr made a thoughtful noise. He knew how private Viktor was, almost to the point of obsessiveness. "I'm certain you told her how it is here?"
"I did," he confirmed.
"Then she knows now, and won't do it again." He shrugged the entire matter off. "Besides, a little birdy told me that you're the one who insulted her and called her a fan first, so really the scales are all balanced now, no?"
Startled and instantly mortified at Pyotr somehow knowing that fact, Viktor transferred his glare from the handle of his broomstick to Pyotr. "How in Merlin's name did you find that out?"
Pyrotr's laugh was gleeful. "I don't divulge my sources, you know that."
"This is going to haunt me forever, isn't it?" Viktor sighed and looked down at his broom again, tracing the grain with a finger.
"Not forever, per se," Pyotr replied. "Only, say, mostly forever. Don't worry," he soothed. "You'll likely do something else equivalently moronic the next time you see her if this is how the first two interactions have gone, so I'll have something else new to hold over your head. You really are excellent entertainment."
In response, Viktor held up his middle finger and made his way to the locker room to grab his things, Pyotr's laugh following him.
When he hit the entrance to the locker room, Krasmira was waiting for him. "Viktor," she said, toe tapping against the stone floor. "Care to tell me why you walked out of my infirmary in the middle of my exam, and why I had to deal with an incessantly apologizing assistant for the next several hours?"
He stifled a groan of dismay, feeling somehow less like a Quidditch star and more like a delinquent school child, but his expression must have betrayed his feelings, because she narrowed her eyes at him. "I leave for five minutes to check on a potion, and when I return you've stormed off. Honestly." She sniffed. "This is why I refused to work at schools. Children are far too dramatic."
He refrained from pointing out that she had chosen to work with Quidditch players instead, who, in his opinion, were often worse than his classmates at school, and instead said, very appropriately, "I apologize, Madam Lazarov."
"You had better damn well apologize," she sniffed again. "I had to look at Miss Granger's positively odious expression of terror all afternoon. She thought I was going to send her back to England right then and there." She smoothed an invisible crease in her robes. "Those English. So fragile in their sensibilities."
She was that upset? Inwardly, he frowned. Well, she should have known better than to ask what she had, but surely she would have known that Krasmira wouldn't have fired her just for making him upset. Although it was just her first week, he thought with the beginning stirrings of his unfortunately stubborn conscience. How could she have known better?
Krasmira, meanwhile, had impatiently begun walking towards the infirmary, not even bothering to see if he was following her. "I sent her home when Islov dismissed you all," she mentioned offhandedly. "I couldn't take it any longer. She was upsetting my research."
More like the girl was upsetting Krasmira, he thought. For all that she was a gossiping harpy, she didn't do too well experiencing the wide variety of feelings that humans felt in close quarters, with the exception of a few people. It was one of the reasons she preferred to focus on research, which Quidditch allowed her to do in relative peace. Players were injured relatively infrequently and necessitated little care day-to-day, but she needed to be there in the case they were injured, as they then required both immediate and extensive medical care.
Well, he thought prosaically, at least he wouldn't have to see her again today. That, at least, was a good thing.
"I think we might do an extended physical," Krasmira said as they arrived. If he could see her face, he was sure she would be smirking. "After all, you did do rather...extensive exercises today. What if you injured something and haven't warmed down enough to realize it?"
He thought longingly of the ice bath and Firewhisky awaiting him at home. Bracingly, he replied, "I'm certain you know best."
"Of course I do." She motioned for a curtain to pull aside and then turned to him, her lips slightly curled at the edges, lending her a sinister look that didn't bode well for him. "Now strip."