A few days after Viktor Krum had once again come into her life in an unexpected way, Hermione looked at the short letter she held in her hands and questioned her wisdom in sending it. Was she stupid to think that they could do something like this together? He was good at what she was not, and she was good at what he was not. Together, perhaps, they could overcome their limits.
But they weren't friends; in fact, she doubted he even knew her name. Flying was one thing, but a boggart was another. It was personal. Very personal, in fact. To see someone's greatest fear and to see them struggle against it...she doubted very much that he would want to reveal that to a stranger.
And yet something compelled her to try. Before she could regret it, she tried the letter to the owl's leg. "Please deliver this Viktor Krum this morning, if you wouldn't mind."
The tawny owl hooted obligingly, and she gave it a treat and a quick stroke of the head before she departed for breakfast herself. She was so early that barely anyone was there but she was still picking at her breakfast as Harry and Ron appeared.
"Hey, 'Mione." Harry, the more sentient of the two in the mornings, gave her a quick greeting as he prepared his plate. "Early morning?"
She nodded. "I couldn't sleep."
"Worrying about falling off a broom again?" Ron snickered into his porridge and she glared at him so fiercely his smirk fell straight off his face.
"No, Ronald, I wasn't. I was worried about an essay I've got for Arithmancy." The lie slipped off her tongue rather easily, but she wasn't about to admit she'd sent a letter to Viktor Krum. If she'd thought the teasing about the flying was bad, she'd never hear the end of becoming another one of the Bulgarian Bon Bon's conquests.
Her stomach churned as the owls flew in to deliver the morning post. Interestingly, Viktor received far fewer letters than she would have expected, making her wonder if they were screened. He looked at each cursorily, and she knew the moment he saw hers because his brows shot up in unison. An adequate response, she thought, for a letter addressed
To Viktor Krum
(from broomstick girl)
His eyes shot over to the Gryffindor table, and she gave a minute shrug and what she hoped was an encouraging glance.
All that remained now, she thought, was to see if he would take her up on it.
The day passed by in a blur, where she dutifully took notes, glared at people wearing Potter Stinks! badges, and fretted herself into a tizzy. By the time the afternoon came around, she felt more frazzled than usual.
"Hey, 'Mione?" Harry managed to rouse himself from his position by the fireplace in the common room.
"Yes?" She looked up from where she was furiously scanning a book on boggarts.
"Everything okay? You're seeming a bit…"
"Crazed?" Ron provided cheerfully as he kicked his foot against the settee, which he was draped across haphazardly. "Certifiable? Like a complete nutter?"
"Oh, shut it Ron." Rolling her eyes, she closed the book with rather more force than necessary and stood, smoothing her skirt. "I'm off. See you lot later."
It wasn't quite time for dinner, and students were milling about the castle on their way to and from various places. She passed Cedric Diggory, the other, more vaunted Hogwarts champion, having what seemed to be a rather fraught conversation with the girl of Harry's dreams. If Harry had seen the tense, ugly look on her face she was wearing now, Hermione bet that he might not be so keen on her.
Up she went, crossing stairs and traversing corridors, until she was, at last, in one of the most disused parts of the castle. A perfect place, she knew, for a boggart to hide.
She knew. She'd checked earlier that morning.
Her hand lifted to the latch, and she hesitated, unable to push the handle down to go in. Why was she so nervous? It wasn't like it mattered to her he was famous, so it must be the boggart. But...well, if she was being ruthlessly honest, showing her boggart to someone she hardly knew was a somewhat terrifying thought. She could still hear the laughs and jeers from when she'd encountered it in Professor Lupin's class last year. It still smarted.
Well. She threw her shoulders back and exhaled. She wasn't wasn't a Gryffindor for nothing, was she? And who even knew if he was there? This could all easily end up being a big to do about nothing if he didn't show.
When the door opened, though, the dim light of the afternoon filtering into the abandoned classroom, he was there. His tall, broad silhouette was framed against the window, which he was standing by with his hands in his pockets. His head turned towards her at the sound of the door, and his mouth quirked.
"Good evening."
She bit her lip. "Good evening."
"So…" he ran his hand over his closely cropped hair. "You face your fears, and I face mine?" His face split into a grin. "A fair trade, but not one I like. For a pretty girl, though..." He shrugged.
Her heart beat a little faster at the sight of his warm chocolate eyes twinkling, and she ruthlessly crushed the feeling within her. There was no place for girlish fancies, not when they were both agreeing to show each other something extremely private about themselves.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" she asked a bit anxiously, having second thoughts. "We don't have to if you don't want to."
He shook his head and came closer. "No. I haff agreed to do this, and ve will make the best of it, you and I." He sidled a bit closer, still, until she could feel the heat radiating from his body. "But I might need...hand holding?"
She stared at the hand he held up between them and then looked into his eyes. Though his eyes were twinkling, a hint of trepidation lurked within.
Making a decision, she slapped her hand into his and closed her fingers around it. "I'll do whatever it takes to get you through this," she declared before adding warningly, I'll be just as bad, if not worse flying."
He looked down at her, warm teasing in his eyes. "You hold my hand now, you can hold onto me later."
The image of her holding onto his waist as they flew into the sunset slammed into her mind with the force of ten books falling on her head from the shelves in the library, and she blinked before flushing scarlet. "Yes. Well. That's fine," she managed, then said, "Shall we?"
His eyes narrowed as he followed her gaze. As they walked slowly toward the old cabinet the boggart had taken residence up in, his grip tightened reflexively. "It'll be fine," she said soothingly. "Have you dealt with boggarts before?"
Slowly, he nodded. "Once. It vas...unpleasant. Vhen I saw the boggart, my mind...shivered." He paused, searching for the word. "Froze. The spell to get rid of it is simple. But I vas small, and did not have a vand. It vas a long time before they found me."
Her heart clenched at his confession. "That is awful, Viktor. Was it so terrible, what it turned into?"
Shrugging, he rolled his shoulders a little bit. "Fairly terrible for anyone, I think. For me, my worst fear. It is what a boggart is, yes?"
She could've kicked herself. Of course it was terrible. It was, quite literally, his deepest fear. Exhaling sharply, she threw her shoulders back and let go of his hand. "Well then," she told him, "it's best if I go first then, right? Then you'll see it's not so bad. And you'll see my boggart first, so you won't have to worry about what I see with yours."
His face softened. "That is...very kind of you."
"Yes, well, I'm the one who agreed to do this. Facing our fears together, and all that rot."
With a fairly steady hand, she aimed her wand at the cabinet. "Alohamora!"
A whirling dervish swept out of the cabinet, turning and heaving until it separated into two distinct figures. Helen Granger, poised and perfect with her hair up in a chignon and immaculately clothed in a smart dress, stood next to her father, also similarly attired.
This, she thought distantly, was not at all what had happened last year, and it must have been a result of her summer vacation in France with them.
"A daughter?" Daddy looked over at her, his tone disinterested. "Whyever would I need one of those? All I need is my Nell."
"Besides," her mother added, "if we had a daughter, she wouldn't be you. She'd be far more like us. Muggle, for one, and fashionably inclined. I couldn't ever take a dowdy, frumpy little thing like you with me out into society."
Her wand hand felt frozen by her side, and she stared at them, transfixed. "But Mother...Daddy, I tried so hard."
"Herm-i-ninny, don't listen to them. Cast the spell!" Behind her, Viktor's voice urged her on.
Her mother huffed, crossing her arms. "And you think that's enough? When you're starting like that?" Her disdainful gaze raked her daughter head to foot.
Shaking, her hand came up. "Riddikulus." It was hard to think of what could make her parents seem, well, ridiculous. They were just so...perfect. Everything she was not. Their words echoed in her ears as she searched for an image, and finally one came to her. "Riddikulus!" she said more strongly.
A light streaked from her wand and hit the boggart. Moments later, her parents were in a state of complete chaos as they ran around the room in brightly colored mismatched clothes and missing shoes as a flock of geese chased them.
A snort escaped her despite herself, and then a giggle. Truly, they looked horrible. At the sound, the boggart cracked! and collapsed back into a black, amorphous blob as it fled back into the cabinet.
Her shoulders unwound as it disappeared, and she let out a long breath. Wow. Her parents. Truly, she would never have thought. But she supposed their indifference and seeming disappointment in her over the summer was explanation enough for why her boggart had changed. She tried so very hard to please them, and it was never quite enough.
"So." she turned and faced Viktor, who was wide eyed and solemn. "That's that, then! Not too bad." Her smile felt bright and false.
"You fear your parents...also?" His voice was low.
Also? She came closer and took up his hand again, though this time she held it between both of hers. "Your boggart is also your parents?"
He nodded.
"How awful." Squeezing his hand, she looked up at him. "I'm sorry, Viktor. It's...well, to be honest, that was horrible. My boggart used to be something else." Inspiration struck, and she threw herself to the wolves as she confessed, "Last year, it was one of the professors telling me I had failed all my classes."
Incredulously, he stared at her for a long moment before he began to laugh. The sound was warm and full, and it washed over her until she felt slightly less wretched about the whole thing. "So," she ventured a bit cheekily a moment later, "perhaps yours has also changed?"
His laughter quieted down until it trailed off. "I do not think so, but ve shall see, yes?"
He strode towards the cabinet, his boots clicking against the stone floors. There was a fraught silence, and she watched as his nostrils flared and his free hand tapped anxiously against his thigh.
For all his bravery in the air, and all his notoriety on the ground, Viktor really was well and truly terrified of his boggart, she realized. Sincerely, deeply scared.
It was on the tip of her tongue to call it all off when his wand whipped up and he snarled, "Alohamora!"
As the boggart flew out and began to take form, she streaked forward and took his hand. At his sideways look, she stubbornly said, "Promises are promises. We'll do this together."
In response, his hand adjusted around hers to grip it more securely, and they faced the boggart as it coalesced into a tall, formidable man with patrician features and a sneer that seemed carved onto his face. His robes, a dark, olive green, hung around him in crisp lines, and his hands were gloved in black leather.
"My son," he began menacingly, disdain dripping from the words. "The disgrace. The one who never does as I instruct, who would rather ride brooms and chase after a golden snitch instead of attending to his duties as he should."
Next to her, Viktor made a mute sound of protest deep in his chest.
"It's not real," she tried to reassure him. "Cast the spell Viktor, and get rid of him."
"Having to rely on a little girl to get the job done?" His father scoffed. "Why am I unsurprised. You're incapable. Truly, sometimes I wonder if Milena had an affair before you were born, because I can't fathom how you could be mind. Kosta is perfect. You…" he arched a brow. "You're just worthless to the family."
"The spell, Viktor!" she tugged on his hand harder, which seemed to draw his attention. His eyes flitted over to hers, before snapping back. Even as he visibly strained against the weight of the accusations thrown against him, she saw him gird himself and bring his wand up. "Riddikulus."
Just as had happened with her, his first attempt had no success. "Think of something that takes his power away," she encouraged. "Think of him doing something truly stupid, or that would make him an idiot. You've got this, Viktor. You can do it!"
He squeezed her hand and moved closer to her. He took a deep breath and closed his eyesight. An instant later, his eyes snapped open. "Riddikulus."
The laugh that escaped her moments later was involuntary. "I feel like I should feel somewhat offended," she said between giggles as they looked at the image of his father hanging off a broom while it whizzed around the room and he screamed like a—well, like her, actually.
Viktor's warm laugh joined hers moments later, and shortly thereafter the boggart fled back into the cabinet.
"There," she said, satisfied. "You vanquished that boggart easy as pie."
His hand slid up her arm and squeezed her shoulder as he looked into her eyes. Unaccountably, she warmed as he said, "All thanks to you."
She bit her lip. "I was just moral support."
"Necessary support," he corrected.
They walked towards the exit of the room, and with a start, she realized their hands were still comfortably tangled together. Quickly, she removed her hand from his grip, using it to comb back a piece of hair from her face. "Well," she stammered a little, feeling suddenly and unaccountably shy, "I, um, I'm glad I could help."
His teeth flashed in a quick grin that she was beginning to associate with him, and he said, "You're next, broomstick girl."
She groaned, and his laugh followed her out of the room.