Hermione sagged into the familiar, itchy but not unpleasant, bench seat and let the chaos of the train carriage wash over her. Though they had spent a large portion of the Summer together, something about their return to Hogwarts always made her ragtag collection of friends giddy. It was as if the chatter, trunks and steam made them momentarily believe that they had just remet on the platform.
Harry was pressed up against the far side of the compartment, looking out of the window and trying to pretend he wasn't interested in his surroundings. Ron was next to him, and Ginny and Luna flanked Hermione. The later was attempting, for the third time in as many minutes, to convince them of the multiple usages for x-ray specs. Luna remained undeterred no matter how many times Ron insisted that the issue wasn't what you could do with them, but if they existed at all. Ginny was sulking.
As they were now approaching the outskirts of London, it was a safe bet that no one else would be joining their carriage. Hermione was grateful. It was a relief to be able to settle with her thoughts and not to have to force herself to be polite to strangers, or worse, vague acquiesces.
Neville had poked his head around the door for a few seconds as they pulled away from the station. But he only stopped long enough to say hello and to rib Ron about Chudley Canon's lack of signings over the break. Ron had turned red, and Neville had retreated to find Dean. Hermione had felt guilt tinged relief that the Quidditch talk had ended, and not for her usual reasons.
She understood from the more sports-focused members of the Order that Viktor's signing had been a huge deal, and as such, she knew it would be talked about at school. People had known they were… close last year, it wouldn't take long for someone to ask what she knew, desperate for either the gossip or the inside sporting track. Hermione found she wanted to be selfish with her memories for a while longer. While she still could.
Ginny turned a page of the magazine she was reading with a little too much force and a huff that was too loud to be believable. Hermione rolled her eyes. Ginny had been borrowing Harry's bad mood crown for the last couple of days, and Hermione was determined not to be drawn into speaking about it.
Ginny had been in a snit since Fleur had arrived at headquarters. Hermione thought it was ridiculous to be jealous of someone like Fleur, who was clearly smitten with Bill Weasley and had no interest in Harry outside of wishing to express her gratitude. And yet, Hermione didn't chastise Ginny for her frosty behaviour. Hermione had endured her own upfront and personal encounters with the green-eyed monster over the previous year, and in the main, those had been caused by girls that just followed Viktor around. She couldn't imagine how vicious the creature inside of her would have become if one of them had been kissing him on the face and calling him incredible, gifted and selfless in her line of sight. Hermione wasn't proud of it, but that didn't mean it stopped.
Hermione had been surprised at Ginny's jealousy; her friend always seemed so confident, and yet, Harry was her one real area of weakness. Nobody likes to feel romantically uncertain. Conversely, the fact that Hermione was the jealous type hadn't been much of a revelation, even as a child she hadn't shared well. She hoped she managed to keep it in check; the rationality of thought she relied upon for her studies often evaded her in matters of the heart, and Hermione knew the distance between them was unlikely to help. That said, Viktor had gone out of his way to reassure her whenever possible. Hermione reminded herself, whenever she felt it was needed, that he was not deserving of her mistrust.
Hermione had assumed that Ginny's irrational, though perhaps understandable, jealousy would have passed and that she would go back to her usual sunny, sarky, stabby self. Unfortunately, Hermione had managed to piss her off inadvertently, and so the bad mood continued.
On the day before their departure, she and Ginny had been sat in the library, whiling away the last of their relative freedom before dinner, when Sirius and Harry had entered and perched by the fireplace. Hermione had thought nothing of it at first, after all the room was big enough to accommodate them and an army of more people, however, Sirius' voice had easily carried. It wasn't long before it became clear that they had tried to sequester themselves to have a private talk about girls.
Hermione assumed that Sirius had taken it upon himself to raise this subject, thinking that it would have been a cold day in hell before Harry would have brought it up himself. While it was comforting that Sirius took some of his parental role to heart, Hermione was a bit cross with him at first for his frivolous choice of topic. Then she remembered that just the possibility of a boy liking her had sent her into a tailspin that lasted an entire school year (and beyond), and her mental vitriol diminished significantly.
The trouble was herself and Ginny were unintentionally hidden amongst the stacks and Hermione had no intention of listening to something that could have potentially embarrassed both men. She had wanted to announce themselves immediately and had gotten on her feet to do so, but Ginny had held her back. After an all but silent tussle, Hermione had somehow gotten the advantage and had furiously walked towards the door, thankfully before Sirius' tongue had run away from him.
Sirius had laughed when he saw them both, though Harry had looked pointedly at the floor. He had invited them to pull up a chair to hear some of the 'finer points of his experience' and Hermione had practically bolted in response. Sirius had shouted something after her, but thankfully she'd had far too much blood rushing to her cheeks to hear it.
Ginny had been incensed though she couldn't articulate her reasons well. After a series of false starts and burning cheeked glances, Hermione pieced together that Ginny had wanted to see if Harry would mention anyone in particular during his discussion. The look of near pity Hermione had not been able to hide had sent the redhead storming off in an embarrassed rage.
Hermione had wanted to comfort Ginny by explaining some of her discomforts, to even the playing field, but she found she was no more eloquent than Ginny on that particular occasion.
While she knew she that for the most part she had gotten out of the room to save Harry's feelings, Hermione had been driven to her feet by the knowledge that the should-have-been-private conversation was going to allude to sex. The subject was as weird coming from Sirius as it would have been from a parent and god only knew Hermione never wanted to have the sex talk with her dad. But it was more than that that caused her discomfort. It was because over the Summer she had been thinking about… that stuff, for the first time. Not thinking about it with a view to doing any of it…. At least not anytime soon. It was just that now it all seemed like less of an abstract concept than it had before, especially now that she had a boyfriend, one that was older and living in the real world.
Hermione tried not to imagine how much experience Viktor might have had, and she certainly didn't need tales from Sirius' school days to help her paint in a picture that she didn't have the correct outline for. She resolved that she would speak to Viktor about it when she felt more ready to face the answers, whenever that would be.
The train sped up as it moved through open countryside, and Luna moved on from extolling the apparently myriad virtues of x-ray specs to the religious ideologies of Pixies. Harry was eventually coaxed out his self imposed solitude and Hermione ordered a sausage roll from the trolley that Ron ate half of. After a bizarre Summer, things were going back to normal.
After the conversation died down, Hermione pulled out a book, content to sit back and watch her friends as the carriage lulled her into a state of near-sleep.
Harry's hair stuck up at odd angles, even more so than usual, and Hermione remembered Sirius' fond goodbye to him at the station. The one time convict had run his tattooed fingers through Harry's hair, almost roughly. He had said it was payback for all of those petting sessions he had endured as 'Snuffles'. To Hermione, it had looked like two people with insufficient experience of physical affection trying to offer each other something and going about it in the only way they knew how.
It was almost painful to watch them try to be so positive in the face of their newest separation. Hermione had noticed more than one Order member with a faraway look when confronted with the harsh reality of what Harry and Sirius were both being deprived of - of what they had been deprived of for such a long time.
Hermione worried about Sirius. She worried about Harry too obviously, but he was within reach, physically if not always mentally. Sirius had argued with Moody that morning, which in itself was nothing unusual but the volatility and aggression of his replies had startled her. She had put it down to the stress of them all leaving which was probably accurate, but what would that mean now that another bout of involuntary isolation was about to begin? Would he eat without Mrs Weasley there to force him? Would he leave his room without Harry as a motivator? Would he laugh without Remus? Would he fight his way out of his melancholy without them there? Would he take risks?
Hermione was amazed at her capacity of forgiveness, for still caring about Sirius despite the number of cat puns he had made over the previous days. Looking back, it had probably been an awful idea to throw him such a piece of information. A man like Sirius Black hardly needed encouragement to say the word 'pussy' as many times as he could get away with it. Hermione had almost banged her head on the dinner table after he began to meow every time she spoke.
In the end, faced with his confusion at her and Sirius' behaviour, she had clued Harry into her confession. Seemingly her friend had needed no further explanation as to why she might have shared something she had always threatened them on pain of death never to reveal. Though Hermione had not planned it as such, Harry had thawed out more after her revelation, and she was glad of it.
Hermione had included the story in her last letter to Viktor; she had been determined to get one final exchange between them before she headed back to school. She would rather have never mentioned it again, but as there was a good chance he could now be told by someone else she decided to get in their first. At least that way she could control the narrative. She remembered reading somewhere that the ability to laugh at yourself was supposed to be attractive. Hermione hoped it wasn't truly the case as it was an area in which she was sorely lacking.
Viktor had written back that he imagined she had been 'cute'. Hermione had looked in a mirror at the time; she hadn't been. She would never know if he had laughed initially, she was determined never to mention it again.
Seemingly wishing to return the favour or maybe lessen her embarrassment, Viktor included a story of his own. In the third year, he and Mikhail had supposedly ended up stuck together as a result of an accidentally exploding adhesive they had been using to fortify the greenhouses. The solution had taken two days to dissolve the connection, and so while they waited for it to take effect, they were forced to walk around the castle hand in hand. According to Viktor's account, their fellow students had taken to throwing flowers at them to celebrate their 'betrothal'. Viktor was still entirely sure Filip had orchestrated that.
As they began the second hour of their journey, Hermione awkwardly met Ron's eye, and they excused themselves to go to join the Prefect's meeting with as little fanfare as possible. Harry had said nothing when his two best friends had received their badges, though Hermione had been unable to hide her surprise, managing to piss off Harry and Ron at the same time.
"Who do you reckon will be the Prefects for the other houses?" Ron asked as they stalked down the corridor. Hermione grimaced, she had a good idea, but she was afraid of vocalising it in case it came true. "Hey," Ron said, catching her expression and elbowing her gently. "It won't be that bad."
It was.
Viktor shifted the ridiculously large box in his hands and tried to ignore the twinging discomfort growing in his shoulder. The gnawing, hollow sensation started at the top of his arm and went all the way down to his middle finger, threatening to make him drop all he was carrying, and pissing him off. For once the injury wasn't from training, or rather, it wasn't from the drills.
There had been a bit of roughhousing in the dressing room of late, nothing he wasn't used to, and to be expected as tensions continued to run high ahead of the start of the season. On this particular occasion, Viktor had been distracted by looking for something in his gym bag, and he hadn't prepared for two of his teammates to collide with him. Neither had seen him as they had been too focused on trying to get the better of each other, and he had been sent flying back into one of the benches. Viktor had landed hard, and he'd been grateful for the extra bulk he had been working to gain for protecting him from more severe injury.
Once Viktor had gotten to his feet, he had managed to more than return the favour. But as soon as it had all died down, his teammates were back to singing songs about his distraction again. They hadn't believed him when he explained he had been looking for missing sock. The rest of the Vultures had been relentless in mocking him since he had taken unexpected leave to follow Hermione to England. They seemed to talk of nothing other than how the papers would 'eat it up' when they found out. He'd also had the misfortune of missing an 'easy' pass in the first training session after his return and Dragomir had quickly branded him lovesick. He'd also called Hermione' diminutive'. Viktor was almost tempted to tell her to see how quickly she could get to Bulgaria to set him straight.
But apart from the expected ribbing, Viktor felt he had gotten off lightly. According to the gossip, when one of the Beaters had started dating a model, all of the other players had come to training with pictures of her latest cover printed on their t-shirts. Some of the older players even had kind words of encouragement when there were fewer people around. After all, few people would understand a long-distance relationship better than his teammates. Some of them lived in the same house as their partners, and yet they were hardly ever home, because of the endless travelling.
Viktor finally got clear of the front door and placed the box on the ground next to the others and gave himself a moment to massage his fingers. He supposed he could have levitated them, but this close to his first match - as a critical, and expensive signing for his new squad - he wouldn't let himself avoid the potential cardio benefits of hauling them up the stairs. In any case, there were only four or more to go, and then he could rest.
Viktor walked across the large, so neutral it was bland living space, over to the floor to ceiling window that looked out across the city. It was impressive, even in the afternoon. He imagined it would be more so at night. He could see the stadium in the distance. It was close enough not to feel like he was living there but near enough to be able to run there in the mornings if he wanted. It was perfect.
Viktor reached inside his pocket and placed his key on the coffee table, one of the few bits of furniture he currently had. His father had told him it wouldn't feel real until he used his own key to open the door, and he was right. He finally had his own place.
Viktor had reflected on Hermione's words while she had been househunting with him, and he knew she had been right, a homely house wasn't the place for him, yet. Without the welcome distraction of her presence, Viktor had been able to focus on a couple of subsequent tours and had finally found the right apartment.
His parent's had not been happy. While his mother was more openly disappointed he had found something so soon, it had been clear from his father's expression that he was also upset, though he had chosen to at least attempt to mask it with his evident pride.
As it turned out, his mother had been marginally appeased by Viktor's insistence that she could decorate the entire place without his input. His father was brought around by a thorough reading of all the contractual paperwork, which he found to be to his satisfaction.
Viktor had told Hermione that he was going to make a purchase and she had been excited for him, delightfully so. She'd said that she couldn't wait to see it and Viktor had smiled to himself at her growing confidence, and her growing belief in them. He was keen for her to visit again and was banking on her being able to come for a more extended period over the Summer. He hoped she would feel comfortable coming to his new home, but he would stress that she could bring whomever she might like if that was her preference. Summer felt a long time away, but he had tried to convince himself not to hope for more. Viktor didn't imagine Hermione would be able to get there for Christmas, and Easter was likely to be too close to exams for her comfort.
He had posted her a letter that morning, hoping it would arrive at Hogwarts before she did, and included a copy of the floor plan he'd received from the estate agents. It wasn't the same as knowing what his flat looked like, but Viktor hoped it would help, it certainly helped him that he knew what Hogwarts was like. It was much easier to picture her there, wandering through the meandering grounds whenever the mood struck.
Viktor had hesitated, but in the end, he had also included a list of his match fixings for the coming season. He knew Hermione wasn't the biggest Quidditch fan in the world, but he supposed she would want to know where he was from week to week. At least he hoped.
Filip disturbed his reflections by walking through the door, holding a box of beers and wearing a broad grin. "Knock knock."
Viktor smiled and greeted his friend with a warm embrace. "Thanks for coming." He'd invited Filip over for the evening to help him settle the first wave of his stuff and to celebrate. Mikhail was off on a trip with his father, so would not be able to visit until the week after.
Filip walked over to the breakfast bar and set the beers on the table. "This is cool," he observed as he took in the surroundings. "When can I stay?"
"Whenever you like," Viktor replied, though it wasn't necessary, both Filip and Mikhail knew they were welcome anytime. Both had opted to stay at home for one further year. Mikhail wanted to start his mastery without worrying about anything else, and Filip wished to travel and do what he liked before adding a prohibiting expense to his life. Viktor imagined they would both take him up on his offer from time to time to get a taste of freedom. Boarding school might have been filled with pressure and rules, but it also meant living away from your parents for a large part of the year, it was a hard adjustment to make when you came home.
Filip poked his head around all of the doors that were accessible from the central, open-plan living space. "So, which one of these will be Hermione's room when she stays?" Viktor's indecision must have shown on his face as Filip laughed. "Hoping she'll stay in with you?"
Viktor stumbled. "Not for… yes, I was hoping she would share my room." Filip grinned, and Viktor rolled his eyes. "Just open the beer, would you? Then you can help me with the last of these boxes."
Filip gave him a causal salute, and the two of them hunted down the bottle opener. When that couldn't be found, they spent the best part of an hour trying out various spells to do the same job with a varying degree of success. You could get older, but you didn't necessarily have to grow up.
Four days after he had moved in, Viktor had managed to arrange things enough to have a proper functioning study available for his use. It was a strange feeling. Viktor had grown up revering his father's study, the room was a thing of understated beauty, and Viktor could remember looking up at his father sitting behind his desk as if it was the seat of all power in the universe. Viktor was the first in his family to live away from the family home, it was seen as something quite modern, though he would be expected to return home and take up the 'family seat' whenever his father desired it.
Viktor eyed the calender above him and the planner to his right. Despite having been impatient to finish school and shake off the shackles of its occasionally oppressive regime, Viktor had found many of the edicts that had been drilled into him, like the importance of routine, were a comfort even outside of the schoolroom. Now that he had settled into his new responsibilities he was setting aside Tuesday and Thursday nights, the only two weeknights he didn't have training or matches for the next month, to make sure he stayed up to date with his studies.
Though on that particular night, Viktor was struggling to complete the reading. He stretched away from his desk and rubbed his eyes, looking towards a small stack of glossy magazines on his sideboard and cursing himself as a masochist before he got up and retrieved them.
Viktor tried his best to ignore the sight of himself in various self-conscious poses and motivated by embarrassment he quickly found the article he was looking for. All in all, it was a reasonably basic report comprised of all the same vital statistics they used about him in everything, until midway through when they mentioned he was completing a mastery. That in itself was not an issue, numerous outlets had run with that information, but it was something about the tone that had made Viktor's stomach drop as soon as he had read it. It was an intuition that proved correct when the writer had gone on to labour the point that Viktor had chosen to complete the course over three years rather than the standard one and a half or two.
Viktor had opted to take a slower route to fit around Quidditch. He thought his further studies were immensely valuable, but while sport might have been a low ranking consideration to some, it was his actual job now. Even if he hadn't loved it as he did, he would have owed it to his employers, coaches and teammates to give it his best. But there it was again that slightly sneering condescension that seemed to scream he was lucky he had been gifted on a broom because who knows where he would have been without it.
It was all there in black and white, though mainly in white. It was in the spaces between the words where you could pick up what was really being said. They thought he was an idiot, that some poor fool had agreed to teach him for his name and nothing else. It was congratulating him while laughing at him behind their hands, but in his line of sight, so he would see what they thought of him.
Viktor read it through one last time before he ripped out the page and threw it into the trash. He looked back at his notes, but he couldn't bring himself to do anything. Viktor knew that any tiny slip he made, anything he found difficult would snowball in his mind until he started to believe what he had read. It would pass, it always did, he just needed to get over it before he tried again. He rubbed his hands through his hair and pulled out a plain sheet of paper, resolving to send a letter to Fleur and ask how she was doing at Gringotts. He hoped better than him.
Hermione rolled her shoulders to relieve some of the tension of the day as she offered a weak goodnight to Lavender and Parvati who were on one side of their dorm room giggling. She blocked out the noise as best she could and disappeared behind the sanctuary of her four poster's thick curtains. She'd long ago worked out how to rig some decent lighting at the top part of her bed, so she wasn't entirely dependant on holding her wand while she read or studied, or did anything that would be easier with two hands.
Once she had put her standard silencing spell in place, Hermione forced out a large gust of air, as close as she would allow herself to a kind of primal scream before she threw herself back on the pillows.
Their first defence lesson had been a waking nightmare and one that kept getting worse as the minutes ticked by. Harry had managed to land himself into detention and put a target on his back all in one fell swoop, and Hermione didn't know what to say to get him to calm down and think about his actions. This wasn't the time to be pissing off the Ministry.
What Hermione hadn't wanted to raise, after Harry had once again shouted at all of them following the lesson, was that she was worried about the exams. Sure, it would hardly be unexpected for her to vocalise such a thing, but she knew they would think she was focusing on the wrong thing. But was she? Yes, she didn't want to get a blot on her otherwise stellar record, but surely defence was the point of everything that they were due to face. If they couldn't learn enough to pass their upcoming tests, then they certainly weren't going to be any use in a war. Hermione glanced at her defence book and lamented that its content was as dry as its pages and rubbed her head. It wasn't going to be enough.
A dulled thump at the side of her bed drew her attention to Dragon, who was stomping along her small sideboard and nudging the books he found there to the edge, before one by one they fell off and clattered to the floor. Hermione grinned as she realised they were all of her Bulgarian reference books. Dragon was not enjoying her distraction, and somehow he had deduced that Viktor was at the heart of it. Hermione felt the shimmering scales on his back before Dragon snorted in supplication and crept into her hand as a way of bridging his route to her bed, using her extended arm.
Dragon had not been on her lap more than a minute before Crookshanks disturbed the curtain around her and settled himself by her feet. He eyed the magically animated pet with a humourous mix of intrigue and disdain. Hermione wasn't sure how they were going to get on at first, but so far Crooks had only sought to give the tiny Dragon the cat equivalent of an eye roll and was never interested in him for more than a few seconds before he went back to whatever he had been doing before.
Once Dragon settled into the pillows behind her, Hermione pulled out her already filling up a planner and flicked through the crisp new pages until she found the match roster Viktor had sent her in his last letter.
Hermione had held off replying for a little while; now that she was back at Hogwarts, she found she actually had something to say and had therefore been taking a long time to draft her response. By now, Viktor would be travelling to France to the first of the friendly games he had scheduled for the season. She had so far resisted the urge to look up the small town he was headed to in one of the large atlases that were available in the library, but only because she already knew where the town was.
Hermione ran her fingers over the crammed list and marvelled at how many games he would have to play. She smoothed out the corner she had inadvertently crumbled earlier, and after a moment of deliberation, she placed it above her bed against the wall with a light sticking charm. Her roommates could think what they liked, and they could ask what they wanted. She didn't owe anyone any explanations, but she would give them if she chose, she wasn't going to hide him, not from anyone.
A/N: So, Year 5 begins in earnest! Unbelievably this fic is now edging very close to 2k reviews. To honour this monumental event, and as a thank you to everyone that has been following this story (and me generally) over the last few stop and start years, I will be taking prompts. I considered having a gift fic for the 2k reviewer, but that didn't seem fair. So, if anyone would like to submit any kind of prompt (pairing, inspiration, line etc.) to me over the next week or so (PM or in a review or on Tumblr), I will do my best to write short fics for all of them. I then intended to post them in a separate story on my profile.