The chances of seeing Mia of all people in the middle of the Square while she was hauling a load of books out of the bookstore seemed astronomically low to him, and yet, there she stood, her hands and knees visibly scraped from where she'd fallen. "Viktor!" she greeted, steadfastly ignoring what had just occurred, "how good to see you!"
"It's good to see you as well," he returned graciously, his response just as stilted as her flustered opening had been. "I'm sorry for knocking you down like that. I wasn't looking where I was going."
She waved it aside. "Don't worry about it at all."
He nodded his head, and they both stood there in silence for a long, uncomfortable moment, unsure what to say to each other.
Clearly reaching for something to say, she queried, "Are you ready for the scrimmage game tomorrow? I heard that Islov is bringing in one of the teams that lost in the qualifiers for you all to practice against."
"As ready as I can be," he replied, a bit relieved to be on familiar ground. "There's only so much I can do to prepare. Each snitch is different, so I focus mainly on doing a lot of practice runs with different snitches and agility training."
She tilted her head, intrigued. "How is each snitch different?"
Hm...He pursed his mouth, trying to think of the best way to describe it. "The easiest way to explain it is that they have a different personality. Some go faster than others. Some prefer to shoot high and go low, while others go more left and right. The hover time also varies."
"So they're all unique, then, even in how they move?"
"Da. It's impossible to predict how they'll act, but I hope that if I have enough exposure to different movement patterns, I'll at least have some way to anticipate what they'll do just from experience."
"It's almost like Arithmancy," she mused. "Calculations, predictions, that sort of thing."
Enthused, he replied, "Precisely! It is an excellent comparison. Of course, I may be biased, because it's one of my favorite subjects, just behind Charms and Herbology." He grinned, and she smiled back.
"I've only just started Arithmancy classes," she confided, "since I'll only be going into my fourth year, but it was my favorite class last year."
Only in fourth year? He frowned. "How can you be an apprentice if you're so young? You're what, thirteen, if you're going into fourth year?" But she didn't look thirteen...she looked older than that, the baby fat on her face thinning out, her body developed more than a girl that had just hit puberty should be.
"Almost fifteen," she corrected without further explanation. "My Headmaster—Dumbledore, at Hogwarts?" she added, and he nodded, indicating he had heard of him. "Well, he, and maybe Madam Pomfrey, our Healer at school, knew Madam Lazarov, and asked her if I could apprentice since I had expressed interest in it. I can't believe I'm actually here sometimes," she said with a laugh, shaking her head. "It's a bit unbelievable, really. She's such an incredible Healer. Her treatises on the properties of lacewing in Healing potions is already a bit of a legend, and the research she's doing now is fascinating, though she really doesn't talk about it as much as I wish she would."
Her enthusiasm was contagious. "She is something else," he allowed, "though don't let her personality fool you. She's one of the biggest gossips around."
Hermione stopped short, looking at him in disbelief. "No."
He nodded. "One of the worst," he confirmed. "Clara and Pyotr, too, but those two are competitive about it."
She smiled and shook her head, hefting her books higher in her arms as they walked. The sight of her doing so completely distracted him. "Let me carry those for you," he offered.
She bit her lip. "I can carry them. I'm strong."
"I know that," he told her, exasperated, "but you're smaller than me, so it's easier for me to carry them. Besides, my mother would kill me if I didn't, and it's highly probable that someone is going to see this and tell her that I wasn't doing my duty." It wasn't completely untrue—his mother would kill him, but—the probability of someone telling Milena that her son was being unchivalrous wasn't that high.
He wanted to, though, that was the crux of the matter. She was clearly used to lugging books around, considering the comfortable way she had stacked them and then nestled them in her arms, but he could see the hard edges cutting into her pale skin and knew he could bear the load more easily. "Please," he added quietly. "I want to."
Looking at him out of the corner of her eyes, she made a considering face and finally relented, transferring the pile into his arms. "Thank you," she relented, a slight blush dusting her cheeks. "They were heavy. But I could have carried them!" she hurried to add, bound and determined to establish her independence, though she'd already said it before.
He chose to ignore it. "You're welcome," he returned. "What are they all about?"
"No," she started to shake her head, then stopped, and amended, "well, one of them. The rest of them are various books on healing, and one is about Bulgaria and its culture." An uncharacteristically shy look in his direction, then a further explanation: "I haven't seen a lot of the country, and I don't really know much about it, you see. I...like knowing things." She said the last in a low tone, almost as if it were something to be embarrassed about.
"Why are you ashamed about your need to know things?" he asked, truly baffled. "I am the same way. I need to know why, always, about everything. It drove maika crazy, but she always answered."
Mia—he couldn't stop calling her that ever since Clara had declared that as long as she was in Bulgaria, she was not the English Hermione but rather the Bulgarian Mia—twisted her hands together in the absence of anything to grab hold of. "I...well. At school, you see, I'm not exactly popular," she admitted after a long moment. "I get teased for being a know-it-all. It's not a bad thing, I know, but sometimes it just hurts. I didn't really have any friends at the beginning until my two best friends saved me from a troll."
"A troll?" he repeated, incredulous, and her nod this time was firmer, her response a bit more confident now that they weren't talking about her social status at school. To think he had gotten distracted from that, though, would be a mistake. He hadn't forgotten at all, and silently revised his opinion of Hogwarts downwards. Schools that didn't encourage knowledge didn't really deserve to be schools at all.
Laughing, she responded, "Yes, a troll!" and proceeded to outline the episode. This led to him sharing the time he, Friedrich, Sacha, and Maksim had accidentally run afoul of a scream of topielacs, the souls of those who had drowned, in their third year, and had to fight their way out. By the time he had finished relating the tale, they had walked back from the Square and come to a tee that branched off onto a smaller road.
"My house is that way. Mia tilted her head in that direction. "Um, would you...do you want to come for dinner? Neither I or Magellan are particularly inspired cooks, but if average food is acceptable, you're welcome to join us."
He paused, taken aback at the invitation. "I would like that," he assented slowly, finding that, yes, he truly would like to very much indeed. She was smart and dryly funny in a way that had him laughing awhile after the joke had been told, and she seemed interested in knowing him, Viktor, rather than Viktor Krum, Quidditch star. There hadn't been any coy mentions of bloodlines, or sly remarks about her availability, or mentions about his marks at school or prowess on the pitch. Instead, she asked questions about Bulgaria and topielacs, eyes gleaming bright with interest.
Yes, he would very much enjoy having dinner with her. More than that, he would very much like to be her friend. How interesting that things could change so quickly given the right series of events, he thought wryly on their interactions over the past few weeks.
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Well," she said, looking fairly surprised that he had accepted her invitation, "that's settled, then. This way." She set off down the road and he followed her quite a ways down it until they came to a pleasant brick house with a low fence in front and a large garden exploding with color on the far side.
In short order, Mia had him ensconced in the living room, disappearing upstairs with the promise she'd only be a moment. "Magellan has been sick since last night," she explained, "and I want to check on him."
Reflexively, he stood up from his seat on the comfortable couch. "I can leave," he offered, his good manners ingrained in him. "I don't want to impose."
Holding up a hand, she shook her head. "No, no. Really, it's fine. And besides, I invited you. I got so caught up talking to you that I….actually, I quite forgot for a moment that he was ill." Looking abashed, she said, "Let me just make sure that he has everything he needs."
With a quick glance back at him and a small nibble on her lower lip, she disappeared, feet lightly pattering up the staircase. He heard a door open and close, and then there was silence.
He took the time to examine the living room. For all that it was clearly not their permanent home, he could still spy two distinct personalities scattered throughout the room, from one pair of loafers set next to a pair of beige flats by the door. There were several small piles of books scattered over various surfaces, while a large satchel leaned against the small loveseat. A pale yellow quilt was neatly folded on a wooden chair next to the fireplace, and a small bunch of flowers—likely from the side garden he had seen—in a slightly chipped blue vase sat on the coffee table.
The only thing missing was photos, but considering his parents' house had only one or two in the public spaces. He had a variety in his living room, a private space, but in the public areas it was similarly barren. He didn't owe anyone any more insight into his life than he decided to give, especially considering how much they already scrutinized his every move.
Mia's light pattering steps heralded her return, and he looked over at her as she drew up next to him, slightly breathless. "Is he all right, then?" He asked more out of politeness than true curiosity.
Her nod was quick. "Much better than he was last night, thank Merlin," she said fervently. "I don't know what I would've done if he hadn't started improving. I don't even know where the nearest hospital is, which, really I should. It's not like I could just floo to St Mungo's."
"Vaptzarov Etka," he supplied, taken aback at just exactly how adrift she was here. Not even knowing the name of the hospital? And it wasn't as if she had a network of friends or family she could call on to get instant help, either.
She quirked a smile at him, pushing an errant strand of hair behind her ear. "Thanks. I'll definitely make a note of it."
A thought occurred to him. "Is that why you were out of sorts today?"
"Out of sorts?"
"You weren't quite yourself today." During their walk, he had seen fleeting moments where she had had a pensive mein, and her fiery personality had been somewhat diminished.
She huffed a laugh. "As if you know me well enough to say that." He arched a brow at the somewhat acerbic, albeit true statement as she continued, "Yes, that's why. I was worried about him, but he insisted I go to work and go pick up my books anyways. Daft man," she shook her head affectionately. "Doesn't do well with hovering—which I wasn't, but he says I was."
The defensive note in her voice made him swallow a smile that unexpectedly sprang to his lips. "Has he always been a bad patient?"
"Well—I, hm, yes," she stammered, a slow flush creeping over her cheeks. "I think so, but S-Magellan can be dramatic, so I can never tell how bad he's actually feeling. Yesterday he did actually pass out, so it seemed fairly bad. I'm not quite sure about his pain tolerance, though."
She certainly thought a lot of things about her guardian, but she seemed less than certain, which was curious in and of itself. He was hesitant to pry, however. A girl and a lone male guardian raised several questions that he had no place in asking, considering how short their acquaintance was.
"My brother is normally very contained, but when he gets ill, he turns into a complete child," he shared, thinking of Kosta demanding thing after thing from the house elves, especially Enzo. "He's so needy."
"So you have siblings?" she asked, and then added, almost as an afterthought, "I have to put dinner on. You can come into the kitchen if you'd like. There's a nice table that looks over the garden you can sit at, if you'd like."
That casually, she invited him into a purely familial space. A little taken aback at the casual intimacy, he followed her into the kitchen as he confirmed, "Yes, just Kosta. He's older than me by a little more than six years. And you?"
Mia shook her head, curls flying around her head as she began summoning various ingredients and implements from around the kitchen. "It's just me," she said with a little half shrug, "but I'm used to it, and I'd be sad if my brother or sister turned out muggle instead of magical like I did, since I wouldn't get to see them very often."
Absently, he rubbed the back of his neck, feeling fine hairs prickle against his palm. "You're muggleborn?"
She chopped somewhat viciously at the tomato in front of her. "Is that a problem?"
"No," he answered quickly, a palm coming up to stave off any forthcoming attack. "I was just curious." It did explain her invitation into the kitchen, however, and he relaxed a little, knowing she wasn't as likely to be trying to send some kind of signal he would have to brush off.
Sighing, she stopped chopping and looked over at him, a wry look on her face. "Sorry. I'm a bit...sensitive about it. Some people at school have been, well, let's just say they haven't been exactly welcoming."
A large contingent of Durmstrang would think along the same lines, he thought, watching her dump some kind of meat—he guessed chicken—into a skillet while waving pasta into a pot of boiling water with her wand. They thought that muggles were inferior, that they would never come to the same caliber as those from wizarding families. And not only those from Durmstrang thought this, he knew. It was a society-wide issue, one that apparently also held sway even in England. He supposed that wizarding societies across the world weren't all so different, though the Americans and Africans were generally more accepting than others.
Quidditch had easily disabused him of the notion. Some of the finest players he flew with, and against, were muggleborns. It was hard to say that a certain subset of people were inferior when they had regularly handed your arse to you on the pitch. Besides, Zograf, and Alexei for that matter, would have hexed him blind if he had ever so much as thought it. He mentioned as much to Hermione (omitting the thought that Zograf would leave him a quivering heap), and watched her brows furrow thoughtfully.
"I hadn't thought of the impact Quidditch might have on issues like that," she said slowly. In front of her, the meat steamed on the skillet, and she added a sauce to it, setting the contents to a slow stir with a wave of her wand. "Really, I hadn't given much thought to Quidditch at all before I came here. One of my friends is the Seeker for our house at Hogwarts, so I've gone to the games and watched his games, but I...well, I thought it was rather a waste of my time, if I'll be honest."
Her bald statement made him further warm towards her. Her honesty made her refreshing, and the fact that she wasn't afraid to say she didn't know much about the sport he had dedicated most of his life to and didn't care to know much made him respect her. "It's a sport with surprising depth," he offered, and she nodded.
"I can see that now that I've been here for a bit. Watching you all practice day in and out has certainly been eye-opening to the complexities of the sport, and…" she hesitated, biting down on her lip before adding, "Madam Lazarov has a playbook that I've leafed through when I've had a moment."
"A what?" he asked, taken aback.
Hermione nodded, a small smile growing into a larger one at the dumbfounded expression on his face. "A playbook. I think… I think she might have made it herself, but I don't know. Is she allowed one on her own?"
Slowly he shook his head. "No, she's not. Unless...well, she could have convinced Clara to give her one. The two of them are thick as thieves."
It was Mia's turn to be surprised, and she turned to shoot him an incredulous look as she drained the pasta and mixed it in with the contents in the skillet. "Clara?"
He leaned forward and set his forearms on his thighs, hands clasped between his legs. "Unexpected, isn't it?" He smirked. "It seems unlikely, I know, but I've never seen two more different people get along as well as they do."
Mia made a considering face down at the skillet. "I suppose so. Well, no, I take it back. I'm friends with Ron, and he and I couldn't possibly be any more different."
"The friend on the Quidditch team?"
"No, that's Harry. Ron's our other best friend. They're the ones who rescued me from the troll. Didn't I say their names?"
He replied in the negative, and she shrugged. "Well, that's them. They're my best friends—mostly my only friends, really, aside from a few others." Setting the two plates on the table, she asked, "Something to drink? I don't have much aside from water and lemonade since I'm not old enough to drink, but I think Magellan keeps something around the house."
"Just water, thank you. I typically don't drink during the season." She nodded and filled two glasses, coming back and sitting down across from him.
"I know it's not much," she said with a self-conscious look, "but it's what I had been planning on making before I knew I'd be having company. I made a lot extra since I figured you ate a lot, what with exercising all day."
He looked down at the plate of food and thought he could have eaten it all and easily half more. "It looks delicious," he assured her.
"I hope it is," she replied fervently. "I haven't had much chance to practice my cooking, since Dad cooks when I'm at home and the house elves cook at school."
The fact that she could cook at all impressed him. He lived alone but would have starved if it weren't for Mippy, who had come with him when he'd moved out of Krum Manor at the end of fifth year when he'd started with the National Team.
"I'm sure it's wonderful," he assured her, and took a large mouthful to prove it.
"Well, isn't this cozy," a voice drawled from the doorway, and Viktor, with a mouthful of whatever absolutely ridiculously delicious food Hermione had made, turned to face the newcomer, his free hand dropping to the wand holstered at his side.
"Merlin, it's good to see you up! How are you feeling?" Mia exclaimed, hurrying past him even as Viktor was trying to figure out who the man was. She embraced him in a quick but heartfelt hug, and Vitkor was confused to see her guardian—Quickfoot—stiffen before he relaxed and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Oh! I'm so sorry!" she rushed out suddenly, releasing him like he had caught on fire. "I wasn't thinking. Did I hurt you?"
He laughed. "I'm feeling much better now," he reassured her, "in no small part due to you and your rather miraculous healing skills."
She brushed it aside like it was so much nothing, and Viktor thought it interesting to see how she reacted to praise. She'd barely heard it, too busy barreling forward to register it. Or, he thought, seeing the glint in her eyes, perhaps she was pleased but chose not to make a big scene out of it.
"How are the ribs?" she asked, throwing up a scan he'd seen her struggle with before with ease and frowning as she looked at it.
Quickfoot flicked a sidelong glance his way. "They're fine, Hermione. Could we perhaps have this little conversation later?" he asked pointedly, nodding his head at Viktor.
And just like that, the confident, reassured girl transformed back into a young, uncertain one. "Of course. I was just worried," she muttered, ducking her head before facing Viktor and apologizing. "I'm rather sorry about my rudeness. I tend to get focused on things, sometimes."
He smiled at that. It was something he could relate to easily. "I can understand that. Put a Charms text or a Snitch in front of me, and I'm completely dedicated to it."
"Good Godric," her guardian muttered as he went to the cool box. "Two bookworms in the house. Moony, where are you when I need you?"
Mia choked on a laugh at Quickfoot's comment—perhaps an inside joke?—and her smile brightened further as she fairly bubbled with sudden enthusiasm, "Speaking of books, want to see where I like to read? We've got this mad garden outside. It's beautiful. There's a couple benches under this tree that make it perfect."
Viktor nodded. He'd hardly seen anyone look so thrilled about a spot to read before in his life. If it was as good as her food, he'd be amply rewarded by that alone, let alone the chance to spend a minute or more with the bright, vivacious witch. She was turning out to be better company than he'd had in some time. As he followed her out into the late afternoon sunlight, he thought about what a pleasant, and unexpected surprise she was turning out to be.
Yes, he thought, as she turned with an eager expression and gestured at a plain, unremarkable bench sitting underneath the sweeping shade of a tree, very pleasant indeed.