Alexei's fall had shaken the team. They hadn't had a severe injury like that in awhile, where one of them fell unconscious in the course of the match. The victory had felt good but not quite as sweet since one of their own had been deeply injured, and the team's solemnity after the game reflected that, both during the presser and in the locker room. After briefly running the presser, Viktor escaped to check on Alexei, glad to have the opportunity to check on his friend.

He got there just in time to overhear Granger's reaction to healing Alexei, which left him feeling somewhat winded and humbled. His estimation of her had risen steadily as he watched her help Krasmira from his position at the doorway where he had stopped. Her complete, unwavering focus and unflinching willingness to do whatever it took to help Alexei impressed him, but it had been the awe and newborn passion in her voice when he'd overheard them talking about healing that had really shifted his perception of her from an annoying nuisance to a person that seemed worth knowing.

He knew the passion she felt. He had felt it too, the first time he had caught a snitch.

The fact that her passion manifested in healing, the most selfless discipline he knew of, made him wonder exactly who she was. Surely someone with a passion like that was more than a cool, unflappable girl with a tendency to be in the wrong places or to say the wrong thing.

That, combined with the barely masked fear that her mistake yesterday could cost her his job caused him to step forward and intervene, and thankfully it was quickly resolved. However, it had led to the two of them being left alone together for the first time since the incident by the riverbank, and he shifted his weight as he tried to figure out what to do. Should he say something and try and patch things up, or make his excuses and leave?

Granger took the issue right out of his hands as she said, "I really am sorry about yesterday." The toe of her sensible trainer dug into the floor somewhat bashfully. "I didn't even know that I was making a mistake." She looked straight into his eyes, held out her hand, and quirked a little smile. "Could we perhaps start again? I feel as though we've had one incident after another."

He looked at her hand for a moment before reaching out and clasping it firmly. It wrapped around his, the grip tight and dry before she dropped it. "I'm Viktor," he told her, and felt his lips curl a little. "I like to play Quidditch."

She laughed at the complete understatement, her eyes lighting up. "I'm Hermione. I like to read." And with that, the tension between them somehow completely melted away.

"So you're finished here?" he asked, waving at the medical bay, and she nodded. "Where are you going now? You're too young to be in an unfamiliar country by yourself."

Shooting him a look, she responded, "Like you're that much older than me?"

He flushed, but stubbornly stood his ground. "I'm almost eighteen, and I've been doing this for almost a year now. I'm familiar with Quidditch stadiums and their ins and outs. Madam Lazarov said you'll be going back tonight?"

They fell into step together and they headed towards the exit. "Yes, but the issue is that I've got to find my guardian, Magellan. Um, Magellan Quickfoot," she said hastily, as if it were important that Viktor know his full name. "He should be around here somewhere…" Absently, she tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear, and she bit her lip. "He didn't really mention when or where he'd meet up with me, only that he'd find me."

She had said her guardian, not her parents, Viktor noted, and filed that thought away, right next to he sounds irresponsible and unorganized. "He didn't? I'm on my way to my family tent, and I can help you look for him on the way. If we don't find him, you're welcome to spend the night and Portkey back with us." Maika would be over the moon to meet a girl he brought back (not that it was like that, of course) and it would entertain her. Anything that brought light to her days made him happy, and he felt a sense of rightness in him. Yes, this would be an excellent solution.

Briefly, she reached out and touched his arm. "That's really quite nice of you, Viktor," she said earnestly as they walked out the doors, "but I'm sure I'll be okay. Magellan will—"

"Will what, hm?" A mild tenor voice asked. They both stopped and turned in the opposite direction they'd been heading, and stopped at the sight of a man leaning indolently against the wall in absolutely immaculate Pureblood summer attire.

"Magellan?" Hermione asked, surprised, and quickly moved towards him. "How did you get back here by yourself? It's restricted!"

Viktor didn't know what he expected Hermione's guardian to look like but had some nebulous idea of someone with equally curly hair that had a similarly intense yet slightly bookish air. It wasn't anything close to the reality that was currently leaning against the wall.

Magellan was a tall, lean man with a deceptively lazy pose and straw blond hair tied back in a fashionable queue. His eyes, though, were those of a killer, holding the ability to pin you in place with a single look. Viktor has seen eyes like that before. He knew to engage with someone who looked like and gave off an air of such intensity was to ask for trouble. His hand suddenly itched for his wand, but he didn't palm it, the weight of it against his forearm in its sheath reassuring enough.

"So you're the bloke that so upset my Hermione yesterday, hm?" The man asked in opening, ignoring Hermione's question. He straightened and slid a hand into one perfectly tailored pocket, his stance completely self assured. "Oh, and good match, by the way." It was said as an afterthought, as if winning the match that allowed them to proceed to the quarterfinals simply wasn't high on his list of things to think about.

He supposed the lack of enthusiasm for Quidditch really was something that ran in the family, given that Hermione hadn't even congratulated him and she worked for the team. "Thank you. I'm Viktor Krum," he said, extending his hand.

The man didn't take it, instead continuing to stare at him with that unnerving gaze. "A Krum? How...interesting. I suppose I see it," he said obliquely, then seemed to snap out of it, his gaze sharpening. "Look, boy, I don't know what game it is you think you're playing with Hermione, but you had best stop it. She's had a hard enough time of it as it is."

"Magellan," Hermione hissed, going bright red in between one breath and the next. "Stop it."

"Sir, I assure you, I'm not playing any games," Viktor responded, somewhat baffled and a bit irked at his assumptions. "It's true we may have gotten off on the wrong foot, and she may have made a mistake yesterday, but I would count us as even enough to let bygones be bygones. We both made mistakes, but I'd like to move past them." His words were meant for them both, and even though he was looking at Magellan as he said them, he could see Hermione visibly relax, though the hand she placed on Magellan's arm was tight enough that her fingers were white.

"I'd like that very much, Viktor," she replied quickly before Quickfoot could get a word in edgewise. "Now, I think it's best we get home since it's been a rather long day, and I'm exhausted. I'm sure you are too, Magellan, so we're going to go now. Have a good evening!"

With that rather inelegant parting, she fairly dragged her guardian down the hall, already hissing something at him and reaching up to flick his cheek. The undignified noise that followed echoed down the hall, and his rather imposing impression lessened quite a bit as the more diminutive girl gave him a low-voiced tongue-lashing that lasted even as they turned the corner.

Well, he thought to himself, that was quite interesting indeed. The two were an unusual pairing. Truthfully, he couldn't quite see the familial relationship between the two given they looked and acted almost nothing alike, but there was some kind of bond there. He just couldn't define it, although it was clear Quickfoot was protective of Hermione.

Despite the late hour, most of the team was still in the visiting team's locker room when he arrived to gather his flying equipment and duffle bag. They weren't going to leave until they had visited Alexei, or at the very least gotten word of his condition. The only reason Viktor had been able to visit first was because he'd slipped away from the presser, a technique he was close to perfecting.

"Well?" Vasily demanded as soon as Viktor set foot in the room. "How is he? What did Krasmira say?"

Five sets of eyes trained on him expectantly. "He's fine," Viktor told them all. Clara let out a breath, Vasily clapped Pyotr on the back, and Ivan, never wordy, gave a sharp nod and clenched his hand in victory. "He's not healed," he cautioned, "but Krasmira says he'll be fine."

"Of course he will," Zogrof said dismissively. "We've got Krasmira on our side, after all." Around the room, the team nodded in agreement.

"And," Viktor felt compelled to add, "we've now got Miss Granger, as well."

"The apprentice?" Vasily asked. "What does she have to do with it?"

Quickly, Viktor outlined both what he'd seen the first time he'd gone and the conversation between the two he'd overheard the last time. Pytor let out a low whistle. "So she's good, is she? That little scrap of a thing helped save our best Chaser! Well, I'll be damned. Would've thought she'd faint right there."

Clara glared at him. "Why, because she's a girl?"

"No," he replied slowly, as if she were an idiot, "because she's English."

Clara paused, considering, then gave a shrug as if to say, fair enough.

"We all owe her, if she helped heal Alexei." This from Vasily, who was one of the more honourable men on the team, though if you looked at the trail of broken hearts he left behind, you wouldn't know it. Once his loyalty was given, though, he was an unshakable ally.

"I agree," Clara said instantly, a wide smile blooming on her face in place of the glare she'd be directing at Pyotr only moments before as she glanced first at Vasily and then at Viktor. "I propose we all take her out to lunch the day after tomorrow."

Lunch? Viktor's brows rose. A team lunch? It would be as good as declaring she was theirs and a member of the team to all and sundry. But she had helped save one of their own. It wasn't something to thumb their nose at.

Besides, it would give him a chance to get to know her a bit better, he hoped, in a setting where it wasn't just them two, since that always seemed to cause issues.

"I think it would be a good idea," he offered his own support, and everyone else followed suit. It was quickly agreed upon that they'd take her to Pavla's the next afternoon, where they went following every victory. It had become something of a tradition, and they were hesitant to break it.

One by one the players Portkeyed out back to Bulgaria, until it was just him and Vasily, who was packing up his bag slowly. The Beater was often the last one out of the locker room at games, as he had some sort of complicated post-game ritual he followed to the letter and was extremely superstitious about. Today, Viktor could see a familiar inward-facing anger on the man's expression. "Don't be too hard on yourself," Viktor told him, clapping him on the back. "You couldn't possibly have gotten to Alexei to beat off the Bludgers before they hit him. You were too far away."

"But I shouldn't have been," he replied morosely, hand coming up to rub at his neck. "I had thought that Achebe was going to hit one off toward Clara, so I was flying next to her, and instead she had been aiming for Alexei all along. But why both of them? I can't figure it out."

"And you probably won't." Viktor shrugged. "Who knows what they were thinking. Was it chance? Was it spite? They knew Alexei is the highest scoring player on the team, so maybe they strategized to take him out and waited until he had the Quaffle to make sure it was considered fair play. Wasting your time thinking about whys probably isn't going to help in this case. Let it go."

Vasily let out a long, drawn out sigh. "Yeah, you're right. I just can't stop thinking about it."

He looked at Vasily sympathetically, knowing Vasily's failure would haunt the man in the upcoming days. Just like the Beater, he was obsessive with his failures, too, turning things over and over in his mind to see how he could have done things differently to catch the snitch on occasions he had been outflown or outmanoeuvered. On those occasions, he preferred to be left alone, so he would extend the same courtesy to the older man.

"I'm going to get going, then," he told him, and Vasily grunted in acknowledgement as he began polishing his broom. "See you at practice the day after tomorrow."

"Later."

Unlike the rest of the players, Viktor stayed in Morocco, going to find his mother in the family tent pitched out on the rolling dunes just outside the stadium. She came to every game of his, insisted upon it, even though both he and Kosta urged her to do otherwise. He was particularly worried about her coming here; her constitution was far too fragile for such a hot environment as the one encountered here, but she had insisted, and Lady Krum was not one to be denied when she wanted things.

She looked tired when he saw her, her skin looking paler and more translucent than ever, but her smile was still full of life and her warm embrace as strong as ever when she hugged him tight, drawing back to cup his face. "You were amazing tonight, my wonderful son. Al-Azm never stood a chance against you. You flew circles around him!"

"Thank you, maika," he replied warmly, placing a hand over her own to keep it against his face before drawing it down and loosely placing it on his arm. "Come, let us sit. I'm positively exhausted." It was true, but he was far more interested in getting her seated and comfortable than in his own state of being. "Was the view from the box good? When I asked, they assured me it would be in the shade, and that there would be a protective barrier against the sand."

She patted his face, laughing fondly. "My Vitya, always worrying so. The box was wonderful. I felt like I was flying with you! The sand was not an issue, which I'm thankful for, considering how much of it seemed to be flying around. It certainly was not as kind to you, hm?" Lightly, she touched his face, which was burned and a bit raw on his cheeks from the sun and the sand scouring it for three hours. He had never been more grateful for goggles in his entire flying career, though it was a close second to having them when flying through blizzards at school.

"It will heal up," he said dismissively, but when she made a face, promised, "I'll put some salve on it before I go to bed."

"Good boy. Speaking of injuries, how is Alexei doing?" Milena was fond of both Alexei and Pyotr, who had become somewhat regular guests at the manor for dinners ever since she had insisted on inviting her son's friends over.

"It was worse than that time I accidentally flew right into the hoop and fell, but Krasmira was able to patch him up. He should be fine within the week," Viktor told her, glossing over injuries as he always did. He picked up a carafe of water one of the house elves had thoughtfully placed nearby and poured himself a glass, taking a long drink.

"Excellent," Milena declared with satisfaction. "There isn't anything that woman can't fix, can she? I saw on the screen some girl helping her? A little brunette thing?"

Viktor shifted in his seat. "Ah. Yes. Miss Granger."

"Granger?" Milena questioned. "That's a foreign name, isn't it?"

He nodded. "She's English."

Her brows drew together. "What aren't you telling me, moya sin? Don't think I don't see that look on your face you get when you're hiding something."

He had a look? Merlin preserve him. "It's nothing, maika, I promise."

"Vitya."

"Fine." He blew out a breath and explained everything in as sparing detail as possible, saying that she had asked him something about a scar he had rather than the Dark mark. She didn't need to know that he had one. He couldn't explain it to her in a way that would leave her satisfied, and he didn't want her to launch a campaign of vengeance against Durmstrang as he knew she would—not out of loyalty to the school but out of concern that it would sap her strength. "And so we are taking her to Pavla's for lunch the day after tomorrow," he concluded, drawing his brief recitation to a close.

Milena, who had listened intently, sat back in her chair, one hand twisting a silver bracelet hanging from the other wrist. "I see," she said thoughtfully. "I like her. What? Don't make that face at me, young man. Anyone who can stand up to your admittedly grouchy and temperamental attitude is a welcome addition, in my opinion. Besides, the fact that she's both female and level-headed around you makes her a rare sort." A sly look. "Is she single?"

"Mother!" Viktor's protest was immediate.

Her eyes crinkled at the corners. "What?" she asked innocently. "I'm your mother. I have to ask."

"No. Just...no." He shook his head. "Don't you dare. She's just a girl. A different girl, that's true, but nobody special. She'll be gone before the summer is over, anyways."

Milena pursed her lips but said no more on the matter. He was thankful to have escaped her proclivity towards matchmaking, which had come out of nowhere recently. Privately, he thought that she worried about him after she had…

No. The thought did not bear thinking about.

He stood and downed the last of the water before bending over and kissing her cheek. "I'm turning in for the evening. Can I get you anything before you go? Perhaps charm your mattress to be softer? Get your medicines ready?"

She flapped a hand at him irritably. "Go to bed, Vitya. I am a witch who is perfectly capable of taking care of herself. Besides, I have the house elves to help me if I do need help—which I won't. Stop worrying!"

"Very well," he acceded to her wishes. "I shall see you in the morning. The Portkey lasts all day, so we can leave when you wish." It had taken a bit of wrangling to have such a long window, but this was one case where he felt no shame whatsoever in using his fame to get what he wished.

"Goodnight, my quiet boy."

"Goodnight, maika."

The next day, once he was sure his mother was comfortably ensconced at Krum estate and he was back in his own home in Bulgaria, he spent the majority of his day off studying spellwork and working on his summer assignments, both official and unofficial. He enjoyed it well enough, bending his mind and will towards it with unwavering focus. He devoted particular attention to Defense Against the Dark Arts and Dark Arts. Never again would he let himself be hit by an Unforgivable, not if he had anything to say against it. Some scoffed at the idea he would take both subjects, but to him, they were complementary and necessitated concurrent study. Besides, his father's side of the family had a Dark affinity, which naturally lent itself to the Dark Arts. It was stubborn to simply ignore the subject, which he could one day use down the line, simply due to bad experience and an unwillingness to even vaguely align himself with his father in any way, even one as tangential as this.

Quickly, he jotted down a note to Karkaroff and sent it off via owl, hoping it would stave off any aggressive messages couched in the form of a congratulatory letter on winning the match, and then settled in for the night, knowing that his body needed the rest for the next day—the day following their days off were always brutal.

He was right about it being rough; in fact, Islov was harder on them than ever. As soon as they got there, Islov took a piece of parchment out from the sleeve of his robe and unrolled it, going through the team's faults before starting in on their individual faults. Alexei, he intoned dangerously, would be told the same when he went to see him at the infirmary during lunch. And no, he told them in the same breath, they couldn't go see him during their water breaks or lunch breaks. They'd have to wait until after practice, assuming they made it to then.

They all fairly stumbled off their brooms at midday, and Clara pushed him on the back towards the infirmary. "Go get Mia."

He looked at her, askance. "Mia?"

"You know," she responded impatiently, flipping her braid over her shoulder with a toss of her head, "the little healer?"

"Yes, but her name isn't Mia. It's Her-mininny. Her-mow-nee. Her-miah-now."He stopped, perplexed, as his mouth fumbled her name repeatedly, getting progressively worse, even as his mind pronounced it perfectly.

Clara arched a brow. "Exactly. So, Mia. It's close enough to the middle part of her name, don't you think? And she looks a bit like Mia Zokov," she added as an afterthought, referencing a famous dramatist seen in the rags.

It wasn't anything close to the way the middle of her name was pronounced, and Mia Zokov was at least ten years older than Hermione, but once Clara was decided upon something she wouldn't be budged, so he simply sighed and headed toward the infirmary.

It was only when he spotted Islov in there huddled in conference with both Krasmira and Alexei that he realized Clara's ulterior motive in sending him. Islov's eyes should have burned holes in him for the sheer amount of malevolent power that was directed his way.

"Mr Krum?" Hermione emerged from one of the back rooms, wiping her hands on her robes. "Can I help you with something? Madam Lazarov is busy, but perhaps I can assist you."

Quickly, he nodded and stepped forward, eager to get out from under the three sets of eyes—one murderous, one vaguely curious, and one rabidly interested—that were watching them. "We want you to come to lunch with us. To Pavla's. The team always goes after a victory."

"Really?" Her face brightened, then fell. "But I...I'm really not part of the team, am I?"

He touched her shoulder lightly in reassurance. "Don't be silly. Of course you are. Besides, everyone wants to thank you for helping Alexei yesterday," he continued in a low voice, trying not to let the idiot in question overhear. He was damned prideful, that one, and would get his trousers in a twist. "Please come."

She hesitated, her hands twisting the material of her robes, and looked over at Krasmira, who gave a small motion of encouragement. "I suppose it would be all right," she said slowly.

"Excellent," he said immediately, and used the hand on her back to propel her out of the room. "We will Apparate there from the locker room. It's got an apparition point in the corner for us to use, and it's faster to get there than to go to the main entrance. Have you Side-Alonged before?"

Her brows furrowed. "No, I haven't," she replied. "In fact, I've no experience with Apparition at all. I've only ever used the floo and Portkeyed."

None at all? Well, in for a sickle, in for a galleon. It was too late to back out now. He hoped she wouldn't become sick. "You'll be fine," he told her encouragingly. "I've done it many times and I've been to Pavla's at least a hundred times before. You're perfectly safe with me."

Her eyes met his, caution warring with want. At last, she gave a tremulous smile and said somewhat bracingly, "All right, then. Let's do it."

Translations

1. Moya sin = my son

2. Maika = mother