The Gryffindor common room was quiet. The cold weather was drawing in, and most of the students had turned in early, eager to get under the warm bedding waiting for them in the dorms. For a Thursday night it was positively deserted, all except for the trio and a few other lingerers. The boys had gotten into a pretty heated chess match - if their intermittent, and increasingly ridiculous, 'trash talk' was anything to go by - and Hermione had ended up devouring a few more chapters than she had planned to in her newest textbook. Charm theory was incredibly interesting, whatever Ron might have had to say about it.
It was a perfect, sleepy school evening, at least it had been until Harry had stretched to move a piece from one edge of the board to the other and his sleeve had twisted and fallen back to his wrist.
Hermione almost dropped her book when she saw it. A year ago nothing would have stopped her. She would have allowed the hardback to clatter to her feet and grabbed Harry's hand before demanding an explanation. Everything was different now. The summer had taught her to tread lightly. It was an understatement to say it went against the grain.
Hermione sat back in her chair and moved the now-forgotten book to the side of her seat, as casually as she could manage with her admittedly robotic movements. She tried not to make eye contact with Ron; she knew he had seen it too; he had to have done. She needed a few moments to process her thoughts.
Harry has been careful, apparently more careful than Hermione had ever credited he could be, but she had seen it now.
'I must not tell lies.'
That the scarring was deep enough for Hermione to make out the words at such a distance was frightening. Despite everything they had been through together, somehow this was worse. She didn't have to ask how this had happened. She already knew.
Hermione felt hatred swell within her so fast and so brashly that she had to stifle a gasp. The fact that it was there in the first place, that it had seemingly been repeated often enough to scar was one thing. For Harry to have felt so defeated he kept it quiet was somehow worse. She would have considered that the choice of words was petty in the extreme if they weren't carved in her best friends hand. Hermione swore to herself then and there that she would get Umbridge back for this. However long it took.
She felt the skin of her cheek begin to burn, and Hermione knew she had no choice but to glance at Ron, finally. One quick look was all they needed to convey their shared worry and disgust. She could see everything she felt mirrored back in her friend's face. No, that was doing him a disservice. There was no doubt Ron was loyal, to a fault, but he wasn't thinking about the dark retribution Hermione was considering. He didn't have that in him. Ron was kind, and as Harry had so astutely pointed out to her before, she was far from it when it came to people she didn't like.
Hermione fingered the edge of her insubstantial jumper and weighed her options. Unfortunately, they were minimal. The fact was, given Harry's evident desire to keep this quiet, and her inability to let things go, this was always going to end in tension, especially now. She knew how dangerous challenging him was, while some of the torrents of emotion from the end of summer had mellowed, Harry was still unpredictable. But Hermione had never been a girl to keep her mouth shut about something that she deemed wrong. And if she didn't raise it now, she left it to Ron - for him to bluntly mention in the dorm - or some other inappropriately public place. It wasn't fair to let Ron shoulder the burden alone; they had agreed to be a team.
"Harry," she began softly, and he looked up from the chessboard, still holding a riggling knight between his fingers. As soon as their eyes met, they both knew what was on her mind.
"Leave it, Mione," he answered shortly, and he put his piece down with a lot more force than necessary.
Hermione stilled herself and shuffled to the edge of her seat. "How long has it been going on?" she asked and Harry grit his teeth in growing frustration.
"If I wanted help…" he began, but Hermione cut him off.
"How long, Harry?"
Harry stared blankly ahead as if considering his answer, or more likely, whether to give one. "Since the beginning," he admitted after a near minute of silence, "with the detentions."
"That's it, we are burning that old hag's office down," Ron exclaimed as he pushed the board away. For once not bothering with the gentle treatment he normally afforded his most prized possession.
"Have you told McGonagall?" Hermione asked.
"No," Harry said bluntly, clearly unhappy that he no longer had the game in front of him to act as a buffer between him and her unwelcome questions.
"Why not?" She pressed.
Ron continued as if the two of them were not having an increasingly awkward conversation over the top of his head. Likely deliberately. "... And breaking all of her stupid, ugly cat plates…"
"Because she can't do anything," Harry said bitterly.
"You don't know that," Hermione replied, though as soon as she said the words out loud she wasn't sure she believed them. Harry knew it too. His answering look was more of a grimace than a sneer and Hermione would have instantly preferred the later.
"I do," he offered more softly, with enough of a note of finality that Hermione knew not to push the issue. "None of them can do anything, that's why she's here in the first place."
Hermione swallowed and tried to switch gears, not that she was coming up with much. Her usual plan in arguments was to keep yelling her point of view until the other person acquiesced or she got frustrated and walked off.
"Have you spoken to Madame Pomfrey? Is there anything she can give you to make it better?"
Abruptly, Harry got to his feet and shook his head. "Look, Hermione, I don't need you to mother me over this-"
"I wasn't…"
"-You don't understand." With a final look to Ron which bade him not to follow, Harry trudged up the stairs towards the boy's dorms.
Hermione dropped her head into her hands but resisted the urge to scream in frustration. "Was that as bad as I think it was?"
Her hands muffled her words, but Ron had apparently heard well enough to decipher her meaning. "Yes and no," he offered quietly, still looking in the direction Harry had gone. "But… erm… I think we might have bigger problems."
Hermione propped her head up on her hands and eyed Ron witheringly. "Bigger than having a child-abusing sociopath in the school?"
"Yeah," Ron replied, and it was only the edge of fear in his voice that kept Hermione from huffing.
"What do you know, Ronald?"
Ron fidgeted on the floor but finally met her gaze. "Harry's been having these weird dreams."
Viktor was surprised to find that he was sweating. Despite the obvious exertion his chosen profession entailed, he had thought that the cold weather would have prevented it today, but then again, he was having to work quite a bit harder than they had expected.
After a blissful summer had given way to the more familiar hard work of training and exams, time began to race by in the way it always did. Before Viktor knew it, the beginning of the season had landed on top of him. They were already at the second of their planned exhibition matches, this time in Germany.
Playing internationally had always been something that he enjoyed, though Viktor didn't particularly relish living out of hotels. The time away did more to bond the team than could be achieved by hard hours on the pitch, and that comradery was vital if they were going to be top of the league that season - and Viktor was determined that they would be. Anything less would be thought of as a failure after his signing. His failure. After the World Cup, he would do his best to make sure nothing like that ever happened again.
Viktor and the team had arrived two days before and had promptly been shown to a hotel fully equipped for their needs, both magical and sporting. Their coach insisted on never travelling less than two days before as it gave them some time to recover before they played.
Their opposition was based within a hidden location in the Black Forest. Hermione had told him - in one of their many letters - that Muggles held a motor racing event nearby, and Viktor had taken a few of his teammates out there to go and have a look at the track. It didn't make a lot of sense to most of them, but there was definite intrigue, and Viktor had been peppered with questions as they took in the sharp inclines and tight corners of the expertly laid tarmac. Viktor had shrugged but promised to ask Hermione more questions in his next letter. Even though he was sure she would have no more ideas than he did about the finer details of motorsport, but he smiled to himself about it all the same.
A bludger whistled on its way to him, cutting through the air with alarming speed, and Viktor was forced to roll on his broom to avoid it before one of the Vulture's Beaters arrived to thump it back up the pitch hastily. They exchanged a frown before they were both back into the fray.
This match should have been a walk in the park; after all, it was only for the fans. They had agreed to it as it would be a good warm-up and a bit of a test of the team dynamics. And that's all it would have been if the captain of the German side hadn't been pissed off with his own placement for the coming season.
Viktor had heard when they arrived that Hans Fischer had wanted to get into a higher ranking team, and, unlike Viktor, playing for a league in his own country hadn't been enough to satisfy him. Hans was clearly on a mission to make the scouts and team executives realise they had made the wrong call. Unfortunately for Viktor, the strategy Hans had chosen was to aggressively mark him at every turn in an attempt to humiliate him on the field.
Though he couldn't fault Hans' wanting to go for him, he did think his conduct could do with some improvement. He was overly combative in every manoeuvre and had already unseated a couple of the Vulture players with unnecessarily risky setups.
Viktor had been keeping an eye on the score throughout the match, periodically looking out for the cards that the junior coaches would hold aloft. After the brutality shown on the pitch, Viktor had been tempted to hold out until their numbers had skyrocketed. Nothing would drum home his displeasure at Hans' conduct than a crippling defeat. That changed when he soared around the edge of the pitch, almost meeting the tree line and saw their Chaser get hit in the chest by a bludger. How she managed to hold on to her broom was anyone's guess, but when he registered her rapidly paling cheeks, Viktor knew it was time to get it done.
He switched from general observer mode to that of a hunter, tunnelling his vision until all he was focused on was the search for a streaming gold fleck. The looming forest around them made it easier; creating a dark backdrop of leaves so the tiny winged ball would be distinctly visible.
It didn't take long. Though Viktor hadn't seen the ball often during the two hours plus game, he knew it hadn't gone too far. He was further aided by the crisp clarity afforded by the cloudless sky, and within ten minutes of knowing it was time to get the deed done, Viktor was racing off after the Snitch, soon followed by his opponent.
Before long, it was there, right in front of him. By now, it was such a familiar feeling, a mix of excitement and anticipation and yet, the rush never diminished. Viktor could almost feel the ball fluttering against the tips of his fingers as he stretched, and pushed his broom into an accelerated, but controlled descent. But then, out of nowhere a sharp pain in his abdomen dropped him off course and he lurched over, wildly swiping forward in desperation before he was clean off his broom and dropping the final fifteen feet or so to the ground.
Viktor felt his entire body jolt, but he ignored the sensation and jumped immediately to his feet. Memories of being on his back out on the grounds at Hogwarts raced to the front of his mind, and he pushed back against the inevitable feeling of vulnerability.
Viktor saw the opposition team captain land on the grass, still with a Beater's bat that he now had in his possession, confirming what Viktor had suspected from his peripheral vision before his fall. Why Hans thought to take the weapon from his teammate was necessary was anyone's guess but Viktor didn't care about the man's deeper motives. He was standing, which was enough to tell him he would be fine, eventually, but he was in a fuck load of pain and the knowledge that it could have been so much worse made him see red. That idiot could have ended his first professional season, and all because he was in a snit.
Viktor could hear his couch shouting something about conduct to the officials, and he felt more than heard his teammates land around him, but he ignored it. Disregarding the stiffness in his torso, the sharp pain across his shoulder, and the faint sensation of blood on his brow he stalked forward till he was face to face with a seemingly unrepentant Hans.
Viktor considered unleashing some of his fury and shouting until he was hoarse, but he already knew it wasn't worth it. Men like the one in front of him didn't see the world from any perspective but their own, and he was sure Hans would have probably given himself a hundred excuses for his actions. Likely, chief among them that Viktor didn't deserve the reputation he had, and needed to be taken down a peg. Viktor had heard it all before.
Instead of any argument, Viktor thrust his hand forward and pushed the newly caught Snitch into the other man's jersey. He gritted his teeth against a hiss as his arm protested, but he held it there until Hans' moved to take it from him. He didn't know how he had made it to the ground with the Snitch, but he had, and that was all that mattered.
"As you wanted it so badly, here it is," he spat. "If you do not trust your Seeker to do their job, try catching it yourself next time."
If Hans was going to say anything in response, Viktor would never know. Shortly after he had pressed the ball into his chest, one of the German team's Beaters hit the ground next to them and yoinked his liberated bat out of Hans' grasp with a look of exasperation for his captain.
Viktor moved away as soon as his point was made and a quick look at the team medic who had come to the side of the pitch told him there was no way he wasn't having a session with him afterwards. Viktor sighed. He knew they were only doing their job, and they were certainly good at it, if not exactly kind.
As he trudged off in relative defeat, he realised he was going to have to floo call his mother when he got back to the hotel. He imagined she would have been listening in on the wireless and if he didn't want her to turn up in Germany, or kill anyone, he had better tell her what was happening as soon as he knew himself.
An hour later Viktor was facedown on a bench in the Healer's hotel room, after agreeing to further inspection of his back. He'd had a broken collarbone, a cracked rib and some bruises but it seemed as if he would recover within a couple of days. He had been lucky, or so he had been told. He hadn't felt it as he'd been instructed to down vial after vial of disgusting potions.
The man's calloused hands and occasional grumblings were a million miles away from the practical yet kind treatment Viktor imagined he would get if he were to put himself at Hermione's disposal. He hoped he would have enough energy to write to her that night before the English papers reported on the match.
Viktor took the final tonic he was offered with barely a compliant and headed off to his room to sleep off the worst of the effects of the potions.
He tried not to think about how much he needed a cuddle before he drifted off to sleep.
It was Luna that first spotted the piece in the paper about Viktor having a fall. Which was surprising because as far as anyone knew she never read the Daily Prophet, apart from the occasional glance at the advertisements. Hermione had begun following the sports pages after their return to the castle, and she was especially dedicated now as she knew the season was starting. Usually, she understood barely half of it, but as she was surrounded by friends that could think of nothing better than to explain the finer details to her, finding answers to her questions was never a hard task.
On that particular day, her breakfast routine was interrupted as Hermione had begun a long and arduous conversation with Harry about what they were going to do to circumvent their lack of teaching in defence. She was ashamed to say that all other thoughts had completely gone out of her mind.
Luna came over during lunch and pressed the by now creased and well-read paper into her hands. Hermione looked up questioningly, and a feeling of light dread came over her when Luna didn't immediately scamper off, but instead, she squidged in on the bench so she could sit next to Hermione as she began scanning the page.
The whole article was only a few short paragraphs, but the final one mentioned that Viktor had come off his broom and fallen to the ground. There was no photo, and Hermione couldn't decide whether that made it better or worse. Just hearing about what had happened made her so desperate to see him, in whatever way she was able. To confirm that Viktor was alright by looking him over.
"Suspected broken collarbone," she said aloud, though not truly consciously. Hermione paid no attention to the people around her. Her mind was thousands of miles away.
Ron leant forward and pulled the paper out of her hands, surprisingly pushing his plate away from his table setting as his eyes glanced over the page. "Don't worry about it, Mione, I'm sure it's not as bad as it sounds," he said confidently after reading through the report. He quickly passed the folded pages to a waiting Harry.
"No?" Hermione asked, hopefully. She heard the wobble in her voice, but thankfully, her friends choose to ignore it.
Ron shook his head knowingly. "Fred, George and even Charlie have done it, more than once. Fred once broke his collarbone and six ribs after misjudging his speed during a match in the garden and hitting a tree. Mum went spare, but it's a pretty common injury for players. And remember, as long as he didn't have someone like Lockhart rushing out to help him, he's probably all healed by now."
"Do you think?" Hermione turned to Luna - eager to get as much positive reinforcement as possible - who nodded as she helped herself to some lemon cake. Even the action soothed Hermione's bubbling panic. Luna would never have been so casual if she was in any way worried.
Luna pulled Hermione's cup closer to her and refreshed her tea. "Ron's right. In any case, I imagine you will have all of the details from Viktor soon enough."
Patience had never been one of Hermione's strong suits. As such, it was no surprise that following the news of Viktor's injury, she hadn't been able to wait for his inevitable letter before sending one of her own. As a consequence, the note she had sent had been more frantic and raw than she was prepared to reflect on later.
Hermione had been feeling like a stopped bottle since she had gotten back to school, and apparently, Viktor getting hurt had been a push too far. It had led to her pouring out her emotions on to the parchment and barely considering what she was saying before she wrote it down.
She missed him. She had told him so before, many times in fact, but never quite so desperately.
'I keep trying to decide if it was a blessing or a curse that we spent so much time together here, at Hogwarts. I remember you so clearly I can almost see you sitting at my table in the library, or out in the grounds. I love this place, I always have. No matter how dark things have been, no matter how hard people try to make me feel as if I don't belong, I still love it. But now it feels like there is a hole here, where you should be.'
In the end, Hermione needn't have worried about his welfare, Luna and Ron had been right. Her letter had crossed with one Viktor had sent the day after he had collided with the ground. He had clearly been trying to warn her before she heard the news from some other source, and though his effort was for nought, Hermione appreciated the sentiment all the same.
Hermione had squirrelled herself away on her bed to read her letter and was still recovering from a section where Viktor had expressed, in some detail, how much he would have prefered for her 'careful ministrations' to have been on hand when he was injured, than that of the rough, brusque medic. She was still blushing when Lavender entered the room.
The girls shared a perfunctory acknowledging glance, and Hermione briefly pondered how long it had been since she had seen Lavender without Pravati, the girls were usually joined at the hip, before she got back to her letter.
"Who are you writing to?"
The question was unexpected, so unexpected that Hermione jumped a little. She didn't think Lavender had asked her a direct question that she didn't strictly have to since their second year. Any real interaction between them was typically strained, and yet Lavender did not appear to be poking at her to try and get a response.
Hermione regarded the blonde as she sat on the end of her carefully made bed. Lavender had a large pink headband pushed on top of her neatly tousled hair, it matched the fresh manicure on her nails and the hue of her lips. In short, she looked as ridiculously put together as ever, and yet, her hands wouldn't stop moving. Whatever she had come in to say - for it was now clear this was no absent errand - she was nervous about it. The whole idea of Lavender being unsure about anything was enough to make Hermione intrigued enough to try not to be prickly without provocation. Though she gave herself leave to be as obstinate as ever if Lavender became catty.
Hermione carefully folded her letter as she considered what to say. She could lie, brush it off and say she was writing to her parents. But, she had said that she wouldn't hide Viktor, and that would have been doing precisely that. She wasn't ashamed of her relationship, and, she could admit there was a small part of herself that wanted to see Lavender's face twist in displeasure when she told her.
"Viktor Krum," she answered steadily.
Lavender's eyes widened for a moment, and Hermione was sure she was about to offer a mean barb, but none came. Instead, Lavender gathered herself before rearranging the ends of her hair, so they fell more neatly - if such a thing were possible - onto the front of her unnecessarily tight jumper.
"Oh, that's… that's serious, is it?"
Hermione weakly gestured to the pinboard above her bed with a list of his match fixings as well as an annotated map of Europe that indicated Viktor's travel plans for the next three months. He had shared the information and then she had put it into map form. It was probably a little excessive, but Ginny had said it was 'cute' and in any case, she was trying not to dwell on it too much.
Lavender's eyebrows raised and Hermione knew she had an opinion on Hermione's sudden interest in cartography, but whatever it was she didn't share, instead, she glanced at Hermione's letter, now resting on the top of her bed and took a deep breath.
"So, you and Ron… you're not interested then?"
Hermione's brow furrowed. "I'm sorry?"
Lavender sighed as if each moment and every word she had to expend were causing her physical pain. "He seems to be interested… in you… this year."
Despite the earnestness in Lavender's eyes, Hermione almost laughed. Two whole years she had pined over Ron, two, and he had never paid her the slightest bit of romantic attention. She knew he'd had a few robust exchanges with Viktor last year, but after conversations with her Mum, she had come to realise that might have been a 'Dog in the Manger' type thing. She certainly didn't think he felt that way now.
She considered his behaviour over the last couple of weeks, to try and explain why Lavender had clearly thought a trade-off in her pride was worth the information or assurances Hermione could apparently provide. True their friendship was markedly different from how they had behaved towards each other before, but that was part of their truce, for Harry. She supposed Lavender didn't know about that.
"We're friends, Lavender," she offered finally with a little shrug.
"That's it?" Lavender said eagerly, scooting forward on her duvet. "You just seem real… close is all."
Nearly dying together on a regular basis does that to people.
"Yes, we are. I'm close to Harry too, but I'm not trying to… you know," Hermione said waving her hand in a way she hoped would cover what she was trying to get at, "... with either of them."
Lavender grinned, and it was probably the most genuine emotion Hermione had ever seen from her dorm-mate. "So you wouldn't mind if I… well, you know?"
Hermione snorted. "Are you asking for my permission?"
Lavender's smile faulted and her lips pursed, giving her a much more familiar supercilious expression. "No, I don't believe I am."
With that she flounced out of the room, presumably off to start hunting down her quarry. Hermione almost found herself feeling sorry for Ron, but she quickly dismissed it. Soon enough, Lavender would no doubt reflect on what Hermione had told her and be back, wanting to pump her for information about Viktor.
She looked back at her pinboard and then laid down on her bed, thinking about where he would be now, and what he might be doing. Though being his girlfriend might throw more interfering, silly girls in her path - and it definitely would now Lavender knew - he was more than worth it.
There were few places to find any real privacy in a castle filled with hundreds of students and relatively competent staff. Luckily for Ginny, one of the advantages of being the last in a long line of children was that all of the discoveries the others made had been passed down to her. In some cases begrudgingly, but passed down all the same.
Fred had been the one to tell her years before that if she ever wanted to do anything covertly, there was nothing more effective than hiding in plain sight. Which was how she found herself sat next to a reluctantly Luna, bent over a small piece of parchment in the History of Magic section of the library. They had been there for over half an hour, and through a series of false starts and patchy inspiration, they had finally managed to put together most of what seemed like the right words in the right order.
"I don't think Hermione is going to be happy about this," Luna said. It was the third variation of such a statement she had made in as many minutes.
Ginny rolled her eyes, but she didn't bother arguing. There simply was no point in arguing with Luna. "She will be fine," she insisted warmly and then added a final, hastily written line and signed her name. Despite the agonies they had taken, the words weren't all that important anyway. Ginny was a believer in action. "She just doesn't always know what's good for her."
"Are you sure we shouldn't ask first?"
Ginny shook her head. "Forgiveness rather than permission is the motto here."
Luna shrugged which Ginny took to be as much acceptance as she would get, but she refused to add her name next to Ginny's drying one.
"What are you two up to?"
After a stab of panic, Ginny forced herself to relax and swivelled in her seat. Instead of an unwelcome interloper, she was quite delighted to find a smirking Dean Thomas leaning casually against a bookshelf so forgotten it was practically teaming with cobwebs.
He was giving her that look, that one he had been giving her for a while and Ginny was increasingly feeling that now might be the time to do something about it. Especially since he had apparently gotten bold enough to come and seek her out. She did so admire bravery. Like she had always said, she was a believer in action.
"Nothing," Ginny she offered nonchalantly, sitting back in her seat and giving him a winning smile.
"Well, in that case," he said, moving towards them, "allow me to escort you ladies to dinner."
Ginny exchanged eye contact with Luna and felt for the paper under her fingers. "I'll be there in a minute. We'll catch you up."
Dean looked reluctant, and Ginny could hardly blame him, they were unlikely to be able to talk further at the Gryffindor table, not with Ron's ever-watchful eyes rounding on them every couple of mouthfuls. But it couldn't be helped. After a few more longing looks, Dean sloped off and Ginny sighed.
"If you wanted to spend time with him, you could have gone," Luna observed as Ginny listened to the sound of Dean's feet moving further away.
"I know," Ginny replied, "but for right now, this is more important."
Ginny quickly folded the carefully constructed note and then pulled out a photo, her real purpose for the letter, from inside the book that she had stuffed it into earlier.
She tilted the image so that Luna could see, and the blonde's face softened as the image of their friend waved at them from the picture before pushing a curl behind her ear, adjusting her scarf and leafing through the pages.
"It is a lovely photo."
Ginny smiled in agreement. She had happened to notice Colin Creevey taking a casual snap of Hermione while she was outside reading a few weeks before it had gotten too cold to do so. She had managed to bully him into giving her a print without sharing her intentions and had been pleased with the results. Irritating as Colin may have been, he could take a bloody good photo.
She placed the envelope inside the parchment and put both inside the envelope she had carefully written the address label for. It hadn't been challenging to get the address, Hermione wrote him enough letters for Ginny to find it easily.
The idea had started in her mind when she realised just how effected Hermione was becoming by Viktor's absence. Ginny thought Hermione could do with some cheering up, and some fun. What could cheer a girl up more than getting a candid photo of her boyfriend?
Another lesson Ginny had learnt from her brothers - Bill this time - was that nothing created an obligation easier than offering a person the same act you wanted from them ahead of time. As there was no chance Hermione would have sent a picture herself, Ginny saw it as her duty as a good friend to do so in her place. Viktor would get this one, and then he would send one in return, it was as simple as that.
Hermione would forgive her, eventually.
A/N: In the next chapter, we will get some DA action, Hermione will find out about Ginny's (master) plan and we shall have some Sirius. Merry Christmas lovely readers.