Sunday, November 1st
Charlotte woke at six-thirty later that same morning like she did every other morning. She showered and she dressed in warm, muggle clothing, and wondered what would be on the table now they had international guests. What made this morning different was the number of female students gathered in the common room so early after such a late night. They sat in groups of twos and threes, and it took them a moment to spot Charlotte standing at the bottom of the stairs, but when they did, every eye was focused on her.
"Good morning?" she said hesitantly.
"Well, "said a fifth year, "tell us how you did it."
"Did what, exactly?" Charlotte asked, though she wasn't sure she wanted to know.
"How did you get Viktor Krum to stick to you like a thistle all night last night?" someone asked.
"I bet she slipped him a love potion," another voice said.
"Excuse me?" Charlotte said.
"Is that it then? A love potion?"
"Viktor and I have been friends for years," Charlotte said, face heating as if she were blistering in the sun.
"I've never heard you talk about him before."
"Me either."
"Yes, you have," Charlotte said firmly. "The difference is that because you didn't know I was speaking of someone famous, you didn't care. I have talked about Viktor for years, but not one of you gave a bloody lick until you found out which Viktor it was."
"What's going on down here?" a sleepy voice asked from behind Charlotte.
Cho Chang stood on the stairs, still dressed in her pajamas and wiping the sleep from her eyes.
"Charlotte won't tell us how she got Viktor Krum to dance with her last night and ignore the rest of us."
"Viktor?" Cho asked. "The Viktor you've been writing to for the last four years?"
"Five," Charlotte said quietly.
"Well, then," Cho said. "There's your answer."
"That's not an answer at all!" someone insisted, but Charlotte was done with the conversation, and saw herself out of the common room.
Charlotte was absolutely fuming by the time she made it to the main part of the castle, and her face must have reflected how she felt because other students were quick to step out of her way. Additionally, as she rounded the doorway into the entrance hall, she plowed right into another person.
"We must stop meeting this way, Ms. Wright," Professor McGonagall tsked.
Charlotte couldn't even make her mouth form a proper reply, but she did manage an awful croak before she started to cry.
"Oh dear," McGonagall said softly. "Let's get you somewhere quiet."
McGonagall put her arm around Charlotte's shoulders, shrouding her under the long sleeves of her robes, and guided the distraught student back to the teacher's office. Once she sat Charlotte down in an armchair by the fireplace, she set about requesting a pot of tea from the house elves, and summoning Ada to her office. Charlotte, who had calmed since her initial outburst, was trying to dry her eyes on the sleeves of her sweater; McGonagall handed her a handkerchief instead.
"Are you alright, dear?"
Before Charlotte could answer, Ada burst into the room without knocking. She was still in her bed clothes, and looked as if she hadn't stopped to brush her hair, never mind find a pair of shoes. The frantic look that was etched onto her face melted into one of fury when she saw the condition Charlotte was in.
"What happened?" Ada asked, eerily calm.
"Ms. Wright was just about to tell me," McGonagall said quietly. "Have a seat, Ms. Fane."
Instead of taking the seat the head of house summoned for her, she shoved her way into Charlotte's armchair and wrapped her arms around her friend.
"You don't have to tell me, dear," McGonagall said, "but whatever it is is weighing on your mind."
"I got up this morning, and," Charlotte said, voice thick as she fought to keep her nose from running, "and some of the other Ravenclaw girls were waiting on me in the common room. They... they wanted to know how I had gotten Viktor to ignore them all, how I..."
"They think you spelled him?" Ada asked.
Charlotte nodded. Something nudged her elbow, and when she turned, she found a house elf silently offering her a cup of tea. She thanked him and took a long sip, even though it was nowhere near cool enough to drink.
"They asked if I had managed to slip him a love potion. They all... they all looked at me like I was something to scrape off the bottom of their shoes, like I was the reason he hadn't chosen one of them to dance with. I... I have schooled with these people for seven years, and they don't know me well enough to know I'd never do something like that? The way they hurled accusations, like it must have been a love potion, because there was no other conceivable way for Viktor and I to have known each other, that it must have been a potion because what else could it have been? I'm nobody."
Charlotte said all of this to her tea cup.
Ada pulled Charlotte to her, and whispered, "You are not nobody. You are the kindest, cleverest, most talented soul I have ever known and I will spend the rest of our lives reminding you of that until you actually believe me."
Charlotte sobbed quietly, and hugged Ada back. If either girl had bothered to look at Professor McGonagall's face, they would have seen her mouth settle into a hard line and decide to do something about the situation.
After leaving McGonagall's office, Ada herded Charlotte to Gryffindor Tower, poured her another cup of tea in the common room, and left her there to rush through her morning routine. Though mostly empty, there was one person awake and sitting by the fire.
"Do you mind?" Charlotte asked, indicating a red velvet armchair.
"No, not at all."
Once she was sitting and could better see the face of the other person, she asked, "How are you this morning, Harry?"
"Fantastic," he said sarcastically without taking his eyes from the fire.
"Did you sleep at all?"
"Oh, no, I was too excited."
"Dear," Charlotte said, and it must have been the way her voice cracked because Harry's head spun to look at her, "only two kinds of people are going to believe you put your name in that Goblet: the mean ones, who will try to beat you down into the dust because their spirits are rotten; and the ones who don't have another explanation, the ones who don't have anything else to believe. They'll come around eventually."
"The same thing applies to you, you know," Ada said, appearing at the bottom of the stairs that led to the girls' dorms.
Charlotte dropped her eyes to her tea cup, and shrugged her shoulders.
"Great at giving advice, horrible at taking it for yourself," Ada said. "C'mon, let's go out to the greenhouses."
Charlotte stands and leaves her cup on a table for a house elf to collect and lets Ada shuffle her out the door. Halfway back to the entrance hall, Charlotte spies a Durmstang student and stops in her tracks.
"I was supposed to meet Viktor for breakfast," she says faintly.
"Bloody hell," Ada sighs.
"I'm sorry; I can't just leave him there."
"Of course not," Ada agreed, eyes roaming the entrance hall. Upon spotting a second year Gryffindor, she called, "Colin! Get over here!"
The small blonde boy looked around as if he couldn't decide Ada was talking to him, never mind that she called his name, before pointing at himself, and asking, "Me?"
"Yes, you," she said waving him over.
He shuffled over, eyeing her prefect's badge, and apparently expecting a scolding.
"Calm down. You're not in trouble."
The boy visibly relaxes. Until Ada tells him what she called him over for.
"I need you to take a message to someone."
"Uh, alright."
"Charlotte is very sorry she missed breakfast, but can be found down by the lake under the willow tree. Repeat that back to me."
"Charlotte is very sorry she missed breakfast, but can be found down by the lake under the willow tree. Repeat that back to me."
"Alright, smart arse. Think you got it?"
"Yeah, I got it. Who's the message for?"
"Viktor Krum. He'll be at the Slytherin table."
"Viktor Krum?! You want me to take a message to Viktor Krum?"
"Ten points if you can do it without asking for his autograph."
"Autograph's worth more than ten points," Colin said.
"Ten points and I won't turn you into Filch for the Wizbangs I know are under your bed."
Colin paled, and nodded "Deal."
"Off you go then. Message first, then points."
"I thought we were going to the greenhouses," Charlotte said after Colin was on his way.
"He can meet us at the lake, and then we can go to the greenhouses if you want, but he'd never find the right one on his own."
As soon as Charlotte has plopped down on the cold stone bench under the willow tree, Ada lays back on what's left of the dying grass, and demands,
"Sing me a song."
"What song?" Charlotte asks, rolling her eyes.
"That one with the pretty melody."
"You are so bloody difficult."
"The one about places and growing up."
"Somewhere Only We Know?"
"Yeah, that one."
Viktor was surprised when the younger Hogwarts student had brought him a message. He had been waiting for Charlotte in the Great Hall, and was starting to worry something was wrong when she had not appeared by half passed. As he made his way out of the entrance hall and across the grounds towards the lake, he could not help but wonder what could have held her up.
Along the lake's shore, just as he had been directed, there was a small copse of weeping willow trees that were vibrantly green against the dull greyness of the Scottish morning. As he grew closer, Viktor could hear a lovely melody being sung that almost stopped him in his tracks. The voice was light and airy, though quiet, as if meant for a private audience or the result of bashfulness, but was, none the less, pleasing to the ear.
"I love that song," Ada sighed when Charlotte finished.
"I know you do."
"It vas very lovely," said another voice.
Charlotte nearly jumped from the bench, but Ada merely rolled her head to the right and said,
"Good morning, Viktor."
"Good morning, Ada." He brushed some of the branches aside, and entered the small, seemingly private bubble the trees made, and smiled. "Good morning, Charlotte."
"Good morning, Viktor."
"You did not come to breakfast. You vere not hungry?" he asked, sitting beside her on the bench.
"That's my fault, I'm afraid," Ada said before Charlotte could try to stumble through an explanation that would most likely send her back into tears. "I indulged a little too heavily in the fire whiskey after the Ball last night, and Charlotte insisted on dragging me to the healer's this morning for a headache potion. By the time Madame Pomfrey was done expounding upon the evils of fire whiskey, neither of us wanted to brave the Great Hall."
"The teachers, they let you haff fire whiskey?"
Charlotte huffed a small laugh. "No one lets Ada do anything."
"I'm of age, so as long as I'm not sharing it with those who aren't, like our dear Charlotte here, most eyes look in the other direction."
"What she means," Charlotte said, nudging Ada with her shoe, "is that she can't get in trouble if she doesn't get caught."
"That's what I said."
After a short half hour of chatter, Ada begged off to go and find herself another headache potion, leaving Charlotte and Viktor on the stone bench beneath the willow. Spared the wind by the branches, Charlotte was left shivering only occasionally. Viktor, dressed in casual clothes suited for much colder weather, used the opportunity to slide his arm around Charlotte's waist and draw her to him.
"What happened last night?" Charlotte asked. "After Harry Potter's name came out of the Goblet?"
"Karkaroff and the Beauxbatons's Headmistress are not happy," Viktor said. "They both believe that the Goblet vas spelled to give Hogwarts an extra Champion, but no one could figure out how he had put his name in the Goblet. Dumbledore said the age line vas faultless."
"The thing about Harry Potter," Charlotte said, laying her hand on Viktor's knee, "is that the boy has the worst luck in the world. His first year, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named attempted to return, and Harry, somehow, miraculously defeated him. In his second year, someone, we weren't told who, opened the Chamber of Secrets, and something started attacking students. Turns out, a first year Gryffindor girl had been given a cursed object that used to belong to You-Know-Who, and had had her mind scrambled. Harry, once again, came out the victor. His third year," she paused, "Do you remember when Sirius Black escaped Azkaban?"
"I do."
"It is a very poorly kept secret that Sirius Black is Harry Potter's godfather. He's had more trouble than a lifetime deserves, and I just cannot believe that he'd willingly put himself in harm's way, just for a little more glory. The rest of the world already knows his name, what more does he have to gain?"
Viktor said nothing for several moments, though his hand didn't cease caressing Charlotte's shoulder.
"I vill give him the benefit of doubt," Viktor said, "but only because you ask."
"You'll give him the benefit of the doubt because you're a good man, Viktor Krum."
"So when's the first task?" Ada asked as she joined Charlotte and Viktor at the Ravenclaw table for lunch.
"November twenty-fourth," Charlotte said.
"And it is?"
"It is meant to test our daring," Viktor said. "They vould not tell us."
"That's..."
"Worrying," Charlotte sighed.
"I was going to say rude. How do they expect you to survive if you aren't allowed to prepare?"
"Your Ministry vould not choose a task ve vere not prepared for, in some vay or another," Viktor said, squeezing Charlotte's knee under the table. "I vill be fine."
Ada leaned in a little closer so that only Charlotte and Viktor might hear her.
"To be honest, it's not you I'm really worried about; it's Potter."
"This has been a very pleasant Sunday," Viktor said quietly as he and Charlotte wandered aimlessly across the grounds.
"It has," Charlotte agreed, mouth turned up at the corners.
"There is only one thing, I think, that could make it better."
Charlotte pursed her lips in confusion.
"Come," Viktor said. "I vill show you."
He lead her across the grounds and towards the lake where Durmstrang's ship was docked. There, standing at the bow, was a figure Charlotte couldn't make out in the dark, but perched on its arm was a rather twitchy mess of feathers. The feathers lept from the figure and in a few quick wing beats, Charlotte was dashing forward to meet it.
"Deek!" she cried as the large bird came to perch on her shoulder. She ran her fingers through his feathers as he preened her with his beak. After the initial reunion settled down, Charlotte turned to Viktor, tears brimming in her eyes. "Thank you. Thank you so much."
"It is my pleasure," Viktor said quietly. "Healer Orlovsky says maybe he should not fly too far for another few months, but that all else is vell."
"Viktor," Charlotte said, reaching out to take his hand. "Thank you. For everything."
Author's Note: Hey, guys! Thanks so much for making it this far with me! Today's update will be the last until after the holidays, due to finals, family, and the actual holidays themselves. I just can't keep up! Charlotte and Viktor will return January 1st, 2017, and resume it's regular posting schedule. Happy Holidays!