When Hermione woke up, the weight of Viktor's gift still pressed against her hand, which meant she hadn't given the bloody thing back last night after all. "If I ever see him in person," she growled, "I'm going to chuck this at his big, stupid head."

"Um...Hermione?" Parvati asked hesitantly. "Are you okay?"

"And more importantly, who is he?" Lavender came up to the side of her bed, her eyes gleaming. "Are you seeing someone?"

"No!" Her reflexive shout made both of the girls step back, and she repeated in a more modulated tone, "No, I'm not. I'm just...frustrated. Is all. At a friend. I'm frustrated at a friend."

"Oh." Lavender looked unaccountably disappointed.

Unfortunately, Parvati looked vaguely interested. "What for?"

She couldn't very well say because the courting gift was incredibly idiotic and not the slightest bit well thought out. "Er," she thought for a moment, then grasped onto something that would get Parvati going, "he said that the use of stars on divination is antithetical and that they should be left to astronomers only."

Parvati looked as if she'd been mortally wounded. "He—he what?"

"I know," Hermione agreed with a malicious kind of glee.

"What an uneducated peasant," Lavender sniffed. "Clearly he hasn't had the good fortune of working with someone as exalted as Madam Trelawney or Madam Krum." The way she spoke their names was reminiscent of a worshipper at the altar of their god.

Parvati nodded, her dark hair slipping over her shoulders. "I mean—Madam Krum. Can you believe Professor Trelawney knew her and got her to come teach us while undertaking that vision quest? Truly, we don't deserve her."

Hermione was hard pressed to think of any sort of positive addition to the topic now that it was covering a subject she had begun to think of as complete hogwash. It also didn't help that Milena Krum, who was most certainly a true believer in the art, was also a meddling witch out to stalk Hermione.

Everywhere she looked, Milena Krum was there. In the Great Hall? Just walked in. Walking down the corridor? She had just turned the corner. In the library? What a coincidence! So was she!

Hermione was convinced Viktor's mother was stalking her. She just knew it, just like Professor Krum had just known that Hermione would get an E on her Transfiguration homework because the stupid tea leaves were in a muddled heap at the bottom of her tea cup.

If the woman could come up with random observations and mystical knowings, then so could Hermione. Ergo: stalking.

It was too much to be coincidence.

"Don't you dare laugh at me, Ronald Bilius Weasley," she hissed as the redhead snickered next to her.

"You won't even walk down the hall without that look on your face." He made an expression that resembled a terrified grindylow. "Is Professor Krum here?" He mimicked her. "Quick, let's go down the other hall so she doesn't see me! You're mental if you think a Professor is following you around, 'Mione. They don't do things like that."

"She is!" She insisted.

"If you say so," Harry said companionably. "It could be she has to do most of the same things you do. I've heard everyone has to eat, after all."

Ron's snickers became full out laughs at that, and Harry grinned.

Hermione hoisted her book bag higher on her shoulder. "I'm glad my problem is all fun and games to you two. We'll see who's laughing then when you ask me for help with your homework, hm?"

Ron's laughter abruptly stopped and he began to look a bit panicked himself. "Wait, you don't really mean that, do you?"

She didn't deign to respond, instead stalking off.

"Wait! Did you mean it?"

"Of course I did," she muttered. "Maybe I've got a good use for Viktor's gift after all: a projectile meant to be thrown at infantile boys."

The gift in question had, at first blush, been nothing to write home about. When she unwrapped it, she almost hadn't recognized what the strange, metal object was. It almost looked like the handle of an old bell or part of an ornately shaped table leg. However, it was flat on one end, and she realized as she turned the short piece of metal over in her hand that it was a seal made to be used with wax.

Her initial surprise and satisfaction with such a useful gift was cut short when she realized that the imprint was HK. At first, she had been blissfully confused by whatever the two initials could be, but Viktor's letter had helped clear that problem up extremely quickly.

My Dear Hermione,

I was very glad to finally learn your name, as it allowed me to piece together enough information about you to send you this letter proving that our connection is real and tangible, not something out of a dream.

Please let me formally introduce myself: my name is Viktor Krum, and I am your soulmate.

I know that this may seem like an ambitious claim, but as I mentioned before, my family has been given the gift of finding our sŭdbonosna zvezda, or fated star, during the Samhain in the year that we attain our majority. As I recently turned seventeen, I underwent the ritual, at which point I connected with you.

This connection, like it or not, will persist throughout our lives. I was very nervous to forge such a link with someone I most likely wouldn't know because I have witnessed both wild successes and heartbreaking failures. While I ultimately had no choice in the matter, I was pleasantly surprised when I met you that first night, and our subsequent meeting only convinced me that I would like to get to know you better.

I included a gift that I hope you might find useful at some point in the future, if things end up as I hope they do. Of course, that will be far, far in the future. Years in the future, far past when we're comfortably out of school. But I would be glad if you kept it as a symbol of my sincerity and the seriousness of my pursuit.

For now—friends?

Yours,

Viktor

The letter had sent her up one wall and down the other. She started at shocked, moved on to flabbergasted, paused for a minute on warm and pleasant, and finally arrived at incensed as she realized what he was implying in his last paragraph.

The wax seal was for when she was Hermione Krum.

"I'm thirteen years old!" She had yelled at the letter, crumpling it up and throwing it in the bin. "What kind of lunacy is this. Soulmates? Samhain? Marriage? I can't even decide what kind of quill I prefer and he's—he's—he's proposing! To me of all people!"

Needless to say, she had intended on giving him that stupid wax seal back as fast as she could, but since their dreamscape bridge connection thing apparently didn't include the exchange of material goods, she would simply have to settle for mailing it back. After all, it wasn't like she could just show up and give it to him.

Wait.

Thoughtfully, she weighed the wax seal in her hand and peered down the corridor, waiting to see the lean, well-dressed figure of Madam Krum skulking about as she swanned her way to wherever she was going.

It was time to go on a little walk and have an...accidental encounter. Given that Madam Krum seemed so fond of them, Hermione only thought it fair that she spring herself on the unsuspecting witch when she least expected it.

It was only fair, after all.

May the shenanigans continue!