PART TWO: Half The World Away

End of July 1995

Viktor's feet had barely landed on the soft grass around the Orangery before he was rushing off around the back to his parent's manor house. His mother would have chastised him for running so fast, so soon after apparating, but thankfully, Sofiya was out, attending a committee meeting, and Viktor didn't have to worry about being observed from the balcony off her prefered sitting room.

As he pushed through the back door, the entrance he had always preferred to use since childhood, Viktor dropped his kit bag to the floor and headed for the main staircase. On Tuesdays, he trained all day but the practice was split into two separate sessions, and he didn't have long before the afternoon drills began. Viktor wouldn't usually have bothered coming home in between, but he had forgotten paperwork he would need later, and after the effort he had put into completing his set task, he did not want to show up empty-handed.

Viktor was nearly panting by the time he got to the top of the stairs. This kind of unplanned dash would be a hell of a lot easier once he got his own place, closer to the grounds, meaning he wouldn't have to put his body through the stress of apparition on top of training. But for right now, Viktor didn't have time to look. His mother was still hesitant to let him go at all, and he would have no hope of convincing her to agree if the place he selected was deemed unfit for purpose.

Viktor's first few weeks after returning from Hogwarts had been consumed by adjusting to his new life, and the people that he now saw day to day. The regimented nature of his schooling had prepared him in many ways, but it was still a dramatic change, and he was keen to show how willing he was to adapt and learn. After all, he had been offered a hefty salary to play for Vstra, one that the club was no doubt stretched to provide, he would need to show he could be worth it. As well as ensuring his parent's support remained behind him pursuing a sporting career and not something more academic. He may have been working for years to get to this point, but the hard work wasn't over yet. Not by a long shot.

Finally, Viktor made it to his suite of rooms and smiled at the owl that was recuperating on the slimline perch in front of the open window in his study. His post had been deposited on a silver tray in a neat stack, made up of three letters. The topmost one was from Hermione. Viktor smiled wryly at the owl who tilted his head in reply. His habit of preferring her letters over any others had apparently been picked up by his avian companion, hence her notes placement. Viktor almost opened the missive there and then, he was so eager to hear anything from her, but he made himself wait. Though his fingers itched to go ahead anyway. Viktor, happily, knew from experience that it would feel better to wait till later once he had finished training when he had the time to properly relax and saver it. Hermione's letters were invariably long and laden with detail, they weren't the sort you could or should rush.

Picking up the other letters, Viktor dropped into his wide office chair and reluctantly placed Hermione's latest message on his desk. But before he could open any, his door slammed open, and a large dog skidded into sight.

"Milenka," Viktor laughed as she bounded toward him, resting her large head in his lap and pressing against his thigh until he started to pet her.

Milenka had been brought for him as a pet when he was fourteen, and Viktor had loved her instantly. They were both awkward and not entirely in control of their limbs will running about and a young, shy, Viktor had taken great comfort in how Milenka had grown in grace and agility as she aged.

He'd had another dog when he was younger, a beautiful greyhound that Viktor had loved deeply, she had died when he was six, and at the time Viktor had sworn he would never have another, with the willful determination of a child. Until his mother had brought home the adorable white and tan Akita puppy that he hadn't been able to resist.

"What has you all worked up?" Viktor inquired as he petted Milenka under her chin. His dog jumped up, placing her forearms in his lap and glanced towards his desk and the letter resting there. Viktor smiled. "You'll meet her soon girl, I promise."

Once Milenka was placated, Viktor opened the next letter. It was from Harry, the latest in a long line of notes he had received from Potter since the summer holidays had begun. His letters from Harry had become progressively longer, and sadly, more bitter, as the weeks had gone on, and as Harry had still yet to hear from Hermione or Weasely.

Each time he corresponded with the young Potter scion, Viktor remembered Hermione's first letter. Almost immediately after he had given her his address before getting on the ship, Viktor had been making silent bets with himself over how long he would have to wait to hear from her, or, on bad days, whether he would hear from her at all. In the end, Hermione had sent the first note before he had been home a week. Viktor had been delighted. Her letter was full of all of her news from home; her dad's continued failed attempts at a vegetable patch and her mother's equally disastrous exploits in the kitchen. There was something tremendously comforting in the triviality of the information she chose to share with him, Hermione was letting him into her life without a filter. There was nothing in her letter that was designed to entice him, and yet he was beguiled, just because of how open she had been.

Then, about halfway through the second page, Hermione had mentioned an unexpected and strange letter she had received from Headmaster Dumbledore at the start of the summer holiday. In it, he had opened with some dry pleasantries before forbidding herself and Weasley from writing to Harry at all, for the entirety of the summer. Though she only gave mention to the incident over a couple of paragraphs, Viktor knew Hermione well enough to realise that the prohibition was weighing heavy on her heart. It wasn't hard to understand why. In some of their conversations while at Hogwarts, Hermione had alluded to Harry's Muggle relations being… difficult. Potter had been less circumspect in his own words, and Viktor marvelled at the Hogwarts Headmaster's apparent shortsightedness.

Viktor had decided to do something if only to know that he could eventually unburden Hermione from the weight she was carrying around. He began sending 'care packages' similar in nature to those he had received from his mother during his first few years of schooling; cakes, nice drinks, the occasional magazine or cut out an article he thought Potter might enjoy. As time went on, it was apparent that although the boxes were incredibly welcome, Harry was more grateful for the correspondence with the magical world than anything else. The realisation made Viktor pity him all the more, something he was sure Potter would resent him for, so he made sure never to let any of it leak into his tone while writing.

He was sure that Potter was receiving more than his boxes in any case. Viktor had mentioned the situation to Filip and Mikhail, and they had instantly resolved to take up the mantle and send along some things themselves. Though all of their lives post-school had become more unpredictable and ten times busier, they had vowed to meet up once or twice a week. It was a time that Viktor looked forward to, almost as much as when he received Hermione's letters. He imagined Mikhail would send sensible things in the post, books and academic journals that Harry would probably look at for a couple of moments before tossing aside, and it was frankly terrifying to imagine what Filip had already sent so Viktor concentrated on his own offerings.

At first, Viktor had assumed that by sending letters and packages in Hermione's place he would be solving a problem for her, but he realised now that he had been foolish in his presumption. In Potter's mind, Viktor's letters didn't excuse the lack of those from his best friends, and Viktor knew, however much he didn't wish to encourage Harry's despondency, that his feelings were justifiably hurt.

Viktor didn't want to tell Potter that Hermione had been forbidden from contacting him, but only because Hermione had said that it was an express secret. That didn't help him when he could feel Harry's resentment leaking off the page letter after letter. The protective part of Viktor, that sought to shield Hermione from all the evils of the world, wanted to yell at Potter, to verbally shake him into realising that Hermione would never be the type of witch to idly forget a friend because she was 'far too busy' or had 'far more important friends now' as Potter had implied. Even if Viktor hadn't known the truth, or had been in Potter's shoes, he would never expect that of her. Yet, the more rational, more objective part of him knew that what Potter had experienced at the end of the school year had to have been clouding his judgement and actions. Cedric's death had cast a grim shadow over them all, and no one more so than Harry.

Viktor had wanted to tell Hermione that he was sending packages; he reasoned that if he couldn't unburden Potter, he might at least be able to ease her mind, but when Viktor raised it with his father, he advised against it. Grigor had said that they could not be sure that Hermione's mail was not being monitored, in case she went against Dumbledore's wishes. They could already infer that Harry's wasn't, despite what Hermione had feared, Viktor would never have been able to send so many notes if it had.

Even thinking of all of the pointless subterfuge made Viktor incredulous as well as angry. For a while, he believed his father might have been being paranoid, but then again he had to concede that it wouldn't have surprised him at all if Karkaroff had been accused of the same. Viktor's former Headmaster had been more than capable of acting under his own counsel if he believed he was upholding a 'greater good' therefore it was very plausible that Dumbledore would do the same.

Viktor placed Harry's letter down to answer later and sped read through the last note, a short missive from his manager. But thoughts of his old headmaster continued to prod at him, however fruitless such thoughts were. All they knew was that Igor Karkaroff was still on the run, and that much had only been gleaned from the scant reporting in the papers. The Durmstrang Insitute had made no official comment other than to hire a new headmaster, which, as his mother had commented, said more than any press release could have ever done. The new appointment didn't affect Viktor, now that he was not going back, but it felt so ominously final.

The day after he had returned home, following his successful voyage back to the frozen north, Viktor was summoned to his father's study and asked to relate all he had seen and heard regarding Karkaroff during his final year at school. His father had offered no comment or any explanations when Viktor had finished, he merely thanked his son for his careful recollections and sent him on his way to finish his unpacking. Since then they had never spoken about it again. Viktor had begun to suspect that his father, along with a few of his associates, were looking for Karkaroff. A few maps and scant lines of communication left out on Grigor's study table had indicated that he was tracking something but when Viktor had inquired about it, in a carefully neutral tone, his father had rapidly changed the subject. All he would be pressed to communicate was that 'war was not the concern of children'.

Suddenly realising the time, Viktor ran into his bedroom and went straight to his dresser to pull out a clean pair of socks and a jersey before searching through his desk for papers he had stashed the night before, pushing a stack of old articles out of the way. His parents had begun having the British papers delivered since he had been away, and Viktor cut out the odd bit here and there to keep. His mother had said they had begun deliveries to stay abreast of the current affairs of the country Viktor was living in, and yet, even though he was now back, they still kept up their subscriptions. Viktor was unused to his parents remaining tight-lipped about anything, and again, he had his suspicions, but Viktor knew when to keep his mouth shut, and at least he didn't have to start ordering it himself. Every cloud.

Viktor wasn't sure why he was keeping the random trappings from The Daily Prophet, the publication could barely call itself a newspaper, and it certainly didn't have anything in the way of facts to report following the end of the TriWizard Tournament. The British Ministry was maintaining that nothing was happening, and the principle paper was happy to go along with the official line. Despite Potter having appeared out of nowhere, covered in blood, and carrying a dead student. At first, Viktor had suspected that his own steadfast belief in the truth of the events stemmed from the fact that he had been present. Viktor had first-hand information, he had been in the Hospital Wing, had an Unforgivable cast on him. But he soon realised that he was incorrect. It appeared that his kin had no trouble believing that Britain's Dark Lord had risen again, despite what their own population might have readily accepted. Viktor had heard whispers at training and mutterings while he was in town. The Bulgarian people it seemed, were more open than most. Viktor's Grandfather told him that their country's past had made Bulgarian's a cautious people, and had told him stories of how their beloved cities and towns had changed when Grindelwald's rose to power and the Muggle war had resulted in the German occupation of their lands.

Standing, Viktor finally located his papers, and along with the additional kit he had hastily snatched, he headed back down the stairs. He was desperate for a shower but knew there was little point. He would be filthy again in an hour anyway.

Viktor caught the aggressively thrown Quaffle in the centre of his gloved right hand and sent the ball hurtling on to another of his teammates in a matter of seconds. The brief reprieve, as he sped along to his next position, gave him a much-needed chance to stretch out his fingers, hopefully, he would have time enough to help stimulate the blood flow. It was a mild, summers day, but at the speeds they regularly flew at, training gave the impression it was ten degrees lower, and Viktor often left the pitch with stiff joints and frozen fingers.

Viktor smoothly reached the other end of the pitch and completed the practised play again, only with two different partners this time. Once the manoeuvre was successfully executed, he shot into the other direction, ready collide with his next grouping. They continued simple drills like this for hours, changing formation and discipline every twenty minutes or so. Viktor was not the only new player who had joined over the summer, and their coach was keen to get the Vultures working together seamlessly before the new season. In practice, this ambition meant training, training and more training and it had started almost as soon as he had arrived back in his home country after his departure from Hogwarts.

Viktor swooped up into the air to intercept a ball that had been sent wide and knocked it forward onto the team's captain, who nodded once, acknowledging his effort, before continuing the play. Viktor tried not to let his elation show. He believed in hard work, in proving himself and he could readily admit to being apprehensive before he joined the team. Viktor had seen himself as more than a potential player the first day he walked through the gates, he had been a fan of the Vstra Vultures since childhood, and there was more than one of his personal heroes currently on the teamsheet. While he had been playing Quidditch professionally for some years, so far he had never done full-time, and though his record was exemplary, Viktor had always felt he had it easy. The pressure was lessened for him as he was still at school, it lowered people's expectations, not that Viktor had ever let it lower is own.

As it turned out, his transition into the team had not been as difficult as Viktor had feared, and while some of the older players were clearly a little resentful of the 'young pretender' most were glad of the acquisition. An international name meant greater ticket sales and better sponsorship deals, which in the end should be of benefit to all of them.

In Viktor's favour was that most of the Vstra players had done some time on the national squad, and as such Viktor had met a great number of them before. It also helped that it had gone down exceptionally well in Bulgaria that Viktor had chosen to stick to a local team, rather than accept a more prestigious - and as the papers suggested, a more lucrative - offer from another country within a more established league.

Finally, after what felt like days of toing and froing in the air, their coach blew his whistle, signalling the players to drop to the ground and get the final feedback of the week before they were sent home.

-/-/-/-

Viktor turned on the lightly rusted showerhead directly in front of him and let the stuttering flow of water pulse against his tired muscles. He was battered, bruised and so tired he could hardly keep his eyes open. But apart from all that he was utterly in love with his new life, and he hadn't even started playing matches yet.

As he turned up the spray to the hottest setting it would go to - barely above lukewarm - a distant rumbling of voices and calls warned him that the relative peace he had was not destined to last. Viktor had been the first to run off after their coach dismissed them, he was keen to get sorted and get out, and it seemed that the others had the same idea. It wasn't long before the confined shower room was full of boisterous noise, playful shoving and teasing about each others 'performance', both on and off the field.

Though dated, the Vstra showers were thankfully, a little more luxurious than others Viktor had suffered through since he began playing, though that didn't say a great deal. The fact that the locker room was fully proofed against the elements and capable of washing twenty or so at once was no small feat in Quidditch circles. What he would never get, however, was private cubicles. Washing was on mass or not at all. The locker room was invariably noisy, smelly and a little debauched. Well, as much as it could be when the only occupants were incredibly driven sporting professionals.

Viktor was used to it, what with his experiences of Quidditch and at school with hundreds of other growing boys, but he couldn't help but imagine what Hermione would think of it or, to wonder whether she thought of him and what he was doing at all outside of her writing letters. Though, it was probably best not to dwell on what she would think of him, in a room full of other players, naked and wet. And it was definitely best not to think of her at such a time either!

Viktor suppressed his smile and jammed his hand against the shower start button again, cursing whoever thought three minutes was an appropriate time for the charm to run.

"Hey Krum, are you coming out with us tonight?"

Viktor turned in the direction of Dragomir Bakalov, one of the team's Beaters, who was standing on the far right of him, flanked by a couple of Chasers who were all jeering each other on.

"No, thank you," Viktor responded, vigorously rubbing shampoo into his damp hair. "I have an appointment."

"I'm sure you do," Dragomir quipped with a lewd hand gesture and a wide grin. "What's her name, this appointment of yours?"

"It's nothing like that," Viktor replied with an unaffected shrug - the best way to get him to drop it was not to rise to the taunts - Dragomir scoffed.

"Right, right, the 'Bulgarian Bon Bon'," Dragomir paused to allow the uproarious laughter to die down and Viktor swore for the umpteenth time that he would get back at Rita Skeeter. "The beloved new member of our ranks is forgoing end of the week drinks with the best team in the country," all of the men in the shower room cheered at once, "and its nothing to do with a woman, pull the other one, Krum!"

Viktor laughed but shook his head. He was well used to Dragomir buy now. He had known what to expect after all. Bakalov had made a name for himself over the last few years as something of a homegrown lothario in the local papers, known to have a different woman on his arm every weekend, and yet the articles never derided him. Despite his actions, he was a gregarious and charming personality, the people loved him and so did the press. Viktor was sure that the journalists that wrote about the infamous Beater were half in love with him themselves, and that was why they could never bring themselves to utter a word against him. For himself, Viktor rather liked Dragomir. Teams often operated better when there was a man among their number that took to rounding up the troops for drinks and the like, it was good for morale. It worked even better, in Viktor's experience when that man was not the captain of the squad. Captains need to be respected and even slightly feared, and that was easier to foster when he wasn't the one slipping extra drinks into your hand on a Friday night.

"Next time, Krum," Dragomir said pointedly as he left the shower and Viktor nodded, it would do him good to get out with the team, get to know them a bit more as people, even if it was just to help him anticipate their reactions on the pitch.

But not tonight.

About an hour after Dragomir had finally given up Viktor as a lost cause, Viktor pushed open the door to a little cafe in the suburbs - far from the bright lights and music of the main town - and nodded to an elegant looking witch behind the counter. He wondered what the rest of the team would think if they could see what he was up to instead of sinking drinks with them.

The cafe was rather large but sparsely populated, though, given it was a Friday night that was perhaps understandable. On the other hand, the lack of customers could have been indicative of either poor menu or poor service, or maybe, both. Viktor hoped the later was not the case. Viktor had suggested meeting in this cafe, sight unseen, something he had sworn he would never do again following his disastrous experience on his and Hermione's first date at Madam Puddifoot's. Just the memory of the over perfumed air and chintzy fabrics from inside the Hogsmeade tea room made him shudder, though, Viktor supposed, the end result hadn't been so bad.

After scanning the room several times, he finally found who he was looking for, tucked inside an alcove with her head in a book. He hadn't recognised her at first, every time they had met before now she'd had her long dark hair pulled up into a ponytail that looked rather severe, today it was down and over one shoulder in a messy braid.

Viktor drew himself up to appear more confident than he felt and ordered a coffee as he walked through the scant customers, stopping in front of the older lady engrossed in a battered-looking text.

"Evelina," he called fairly loudly, knowing by now that it would take some effort to drag her away from where she had spirited away to in her mind.

The lady looked up, her brow pinching for a moment before she seemed to remember their appointment.

"Good evening, Viktor," she greeted firmly before gesturing to the chair opposite her, and he took his seat, removing his coat as he did so.

Something about the steely witch made Viktor want to fidget, he held himself firm - he was an adult for Merlin sake - but it was a close-run thing.

While the waitress brought over his coffee and asked Evelina if she could get her anything else, Viktor reached inside his training bag and pulled out the papers he'd had to shoot home earlier to retrieve and passed them over apprehensively. Evelina gave him a reproachful look as she noticed the crumples but took them out of his hands regardless. After a few cursory glances of the top two pages, during which time, exasperatedly, she made no comment, Evelina placed them on the table next to her before opening a book.

"Thank you Viktor, I will review them later, are you prepared for today?"

"Of course," Viktor replied immediately - just like he had been trained to while at school - studying the woman in front of him, his crisp manners seemed to please and amuse her in equal measure.

"Very good. Today we are going to look at English conversation structures preferred for formal and informal speech and how these differ from Bulgarian. After that, we will…"

Viktor listened attentively and followed the sections that were indicated in the book and several separate parchment sheets. These lessons had been set at a quick pace from the start, and he elated to find that he was almost following along in time this week.

When Viktor had returned to Durmstrang after a surprisingly uneventful sail, he had sought out the castles Transfiguration Master. Professor Kovachev had been a firm favourite of Viktor's ever since he had joined in the first year and he wanted to speak to him regarding his upcoming application for a mastery course as well as the professor's other specialisation, languages.

Professor Kovachez had seemed amused by Viktor's request for a tutor but had given the name Evelina Andreen regardless, and Viktor had not hesitated to contact her. Sometimes, while attending his lessons, Viktor wanted to shake himself for his former eagerness. Madam Andreen was strict, discerning and had incredibly high standards for her students and Viktor had fallen foul of her after his first tutorial after an exercise on greetings had gone particularly poorly.

Despite all that, Viktor continued to meet with her once every two weeks, as well as completing work she set in between. It was time he could ill afford, what with rigorous training and a looming mastery start date. But he studied as hard as he could. Obviously, his primary goal was to improve his English; while he may have gotten better after the previous school year, Viktor was hardly fluent, and he wanted Hermione to be able to see the improvements he had made when they met again. He could still remember her surprised face from when he had learnt to pronounce her name correctly.

But more than that, the lessons, although tough, gave Viktor a small sense of comfort that came from the acknowledgement that although they could not be together right now, he was still doing all he could to make time for Hermione in his life. Everything he knew about her already, everything he was learning from her letters, told him that she was worth it.

A/N: Hello lovely readers. Firstly, apologies for the huge delay in coming back to this story (or any story!). For those of you that don't know, I found out I was pregnant at the beginning of 2018, and that (on top of work and family stress) meant writing and fandom life had to take a back seat for a while. In September I had a healthy baby boy, and now I am largely recovered, although sleep deprived, and totally clueless but that is a whole other story. I want to thank all of you lovely readers for your supportive messages during my absence, I really appreciated every single one.

As well as coming back to write Part Two of this fic I have re-edited Part One. Not much will have changed, but I hope the writing is a little tighter, somewhere along the way I think about 10k was added (I just can't help myself!).

There was supposed to be a second part to this chapter from Hermione's POV, but the words just kept coming for these sections so that will be in the next chapter.

So, in short, I'm back. New update soon x