The Hogwarts library had shockingly little information on Albania. Hermione, who had been taught from a very young age that all the information you'd ever need was located somewhere in a book, felt like her whole life had been a lie. She'd started her search in the section on Magical Communities, which had finally yielded one small, very dusty volume that mentioned a single wizarding community in the country (which apparently had changed names many, many times); but whether the settlement from 1027 was still there or not was anyone's guess.

She'd then moved on to a tiny section on geography. Besides two maps of the Balkan region from 1661 and 1815, there'd been nothing. And even the maps were written in a language she didn't know, because of course no one could possibly have been interested in reading the maps in bloody English. In a school in England.

Earlier that very day, she'd even interrupted Madame Pince and Professor Moody to ask about any books on the topic. But even Madame Pince hadn't had any suggestions for her. In fact, she'd said with complete certainty that she'd never received a request for information on that particular country. Professor Moody, meanwhile, had looked incredibly upset that she'd interrupted their exceptionally dry, very lengthy conversation about books on Mediterranean plants. But honestly, how long was she supposed to stand there waiting for them to finish? It wasn't like magical libraries were generous—or organized—enough to have something as simple as a card catalogue.

So here she was, sitting at her favorite library table staring blankly at her day planner and wondering where she was supposed to go from here. She couldn't have even told you what she'd been looking for, but she'd been completely certain that what she needed was in the library and she'd know it the minute she saw it.

Heaving a sigh, Hermione opened up her Potions textbook and unrolled her essay on the anti-paralysis potion. It was already six inches too long, but she just knew that she hadn't adequately discussed the interaction of the lacewing flies with the anticlockwise stirring. And it would be a disaster if she didn't note the way it made the drinker's tongue feel like moss-covered lead or how the drinker would be color-blind for the next two days. She certainly remembered the effects of the potion quite well after being petrified her second year. Indeed, it was a feeling she was convinced she'd never, ever forget.

Which only served to bring her thoughts away from her essay and back to Albania. Something continued to tickle at her brain.

A stray thought swam behind her eyes.

Wait.

Wait wait wait.

Voldemort and Albania. Those two things went together. She couldn't remember how, but they belonged together in her brain. And she was very, very rarely wrong.

Packing up her things, she strode out of the library with as much purpose as possible. Passing through a group of obnoxiously giggling sixth years, she couldn't help but overhear the topic of conversation: The Yule Ball.

Now there was a subject she didn't want to think about. As always, her brain didn't care whether she wanted to think about it or not. And she'd done a lot of thinking about it.

Professor McGonagall had announced the ball in class just yesterday, and already it felt like everyone in the entire castle had gone crazy. Girls twittered and chirped in every corner, judging potential dance partners and each other in equal measure. Groups of boys wandered the halls in a daze, the younger ones looking awkward and hunted, the older ones lapping up the sudden attention from their classmates.

It wouldn't have bothered her so much if Harry hadn't quietly pulled her aside and told her that the Champions and their dates had to open the ball with a dance. The grey pallor of his face told her everything she needed to know about his own thoughts on the matter.

This was a problem. Because Hermione. Did not. Dance.

Not that Viktor had even asked her to be his date yet.

Oh lord. Would he ask her? It was one thing to share a broom ride and a couple of quick, private kisses. It was something else entirely to open a huge, international ball with her at his side. In public. Where everyone could see them. Where everyone could judge them.

She wasn't an idiot. She knew that Viktor's school didn't even admit Muggleborn students, and their headmaster had been arrested as a Death Eater in the last Wizarding War. There was no doubt in her mind that stepping out with her on his arm would be a major hit to Viktor's social standing at Durmstrang, perhaps even in the Wizarding World as a whole. In the end, she certainly wouldn't blame him for deciding he didn't want to go with her after all, but the thought of him opening the dance with someone else on his arm—someone beautiful and graceful and socially acceptable—hurt. It stung and burned and made her want to cry.

Raking her fingers through her hair, Hermione tried to shut off the repetitive thoughts. Her brain seemed determined to remind her of every possible reason dating Viktor Krum was a terrible idea. And then repeat them over and over and over until that was all she could think of.

How she made it back to the Gryffindor common room, she didn't know.

The sight of Harry and Ron playing chess by the fireplace put a smile on her face. It was good to see they'd finally made up. Ron had extracted his head from his arse, and Harry had been good enough and kind enough to forgive him. Whether they'd ever be the way they had been again, she couldn't say, but for right now it was enough.

Which reminded her.

Albania.

"Can I talk to you two?"

"Can't very well stop you, can we?" Ron said. While his voice carried a little of the bite and bitterness it had all year long, it was at least accompanied by a smile this time.

"I've been doing some thinking about our Bertha problem."

At this, Harry looked up at her from the chess board, missing the heave of relief his knight gave.

"What's up? Have you found anything?"

"I keep coming back to the same thought, over and over. I know I'm missing something. Something important."

This seemed to finally get their whole attention. It wasn't often, after all, that Hermione admitted she couldn't remember something.

"I think there's a connection between Albania and" she dropped her voice to a bare whisper "You-Know-Who. I know I've heard something about it before, but for the life of me I can't remember what it is."

Harry and Ron sat in deep contemplation for several minutes. Before Halloween, Hermione would have guessed that Harry's silence meant he was trying to look as though he were thinking rather than actually putting any kind of effort into it. Now, after studying with him alone every day for weeks, she recognized Harry's thinking face for what it was.

Finally, Harry's eyebrows furrowed. "Wait. Wasn't Albania where Professor Quirrell went on holiday? Right before he came back with two faces?"

"Merlin. I think that's right." Ron chimed in. "Didn't he give us that whole lecture on the vampires in Albania? The ones he'd gone to study that summer?"

Harry's face became more animated. "That's right! And we all joked that he must still be afraid of vampires because his turban smelled like garlic."

"How could I not remember that?!" Hermione exclaimed, somewhat louder than she'd intended.

"It's alright, Hermione. You can't actually remember everything, you know. Then what would we have to do?" Ron laughed, patting her on the shoulder consolingly.

"So, what do we do now?" Harry asked. "We know there's something dark in Albania. But what can we do about it?"

"I don't know," Hermione replied. "I'll have to think on it. But this is a really great first step."

"Well, I for one think we have more important things to be thinking about." Ron said, turning back to face the chess board.

"Like what?" Hermione scoffed. Certainly he couldn't mean chess was more important than murder.

"Like getting Harry a date to the ball. Did he tell you he has to dance?"

Harry's face crumpled and stared at the chess pieces a bit too intently.

"Have you thought about who you'll ask, Harry?" She inquired, although she had a pretty good guess who Harry wanted to ask.

After a surreptitious look around, Harry seemed to decide the Common Room was so packed and noisy that no one would overhear him.

"I. Well. I wanted to invite Cho Chang. But then last night I heard Cedric telling Fleur that he was going to ask her. I think they might be dating."

Ron scoffed. "Why'd she want to pick Cedric Diggory over you? I bet if you asked her first, she'd go with you. That'd serve him right."

Harry's lips thinned into a pained line and he shook his head. "I don't think that's going to work. She's been in the dorm a lot lately. She really likes him."

Oh, poor Harry. He'd been not-so-subtly making eyes at Cho all year long.

With a shrug, Ron ordered his chess piece. "Her loss, mate. I bet there'll be loads of girls who'll want to go with you, though. You know, being a Champion and all."

As if she needed a reminder that the Champions were the number one commodity at Hogwarts right now.

"I guess." Harry shrugged.

"We've got plenty of time, mate. I'm sure it'll be ok."

Hermione tried to steer the conversation away from the Champions. "Have you heard there's going to be another Hogsmeade weekend next week? So people can go shopping for the ball?"

"Ugh. I hate shopping. But you should have seen the robes Mum got me. They're hideous. I'd burn them to a crisp if I could afford new ones."

Hermione thought back to the strange, baggy, muted mauve robes Mrs. Weasley had gotten her and flinched. If that's what she got with Hermione's own money, what would she have gotten for poor Ronald?

"Well, you could always try and alter them. We've been learning some household spells in Practical Magic. I could do the spell work if you told me what you wanted to change."

Ron shrugged, unconvinced or uninterested. She could never tell which one with him.

"What about Fleur? Do you know if anyone's asked her yet?" Ron asked.

Hermione was ashamed at how loud she snorted. Ron stared at her contemptuously.

"What?! Think she wouldn't want to go with a poor nobody like me? Is that what it is?"

"No. No." Hermione back-peddled furiously. "I just can't imagine she hasn't been asked at least a dozen times already. I think half the male population at Hogwarts is in love with her."

The fire in Ron's eyes dampened a little.

"Yeah. You're probably right. I bet her and Krum'll be drowning in people asking them."

Harry shot her a quick glance. She'd sworn him to secrecy on the subject of Viktor so Ron couldn't be…well, Ron. Before the whole Champion fiasco, he probably would have told Ron anyways. Harry had always seen the best in his friends, after all. But now, he seemed a bit wary of Ron, a bit hesitant to trust him so implicitly anymore. It made her heart hurt a bit to see that happen, but at least this time it worked in her favor. Ron needn't know about Viktor. Not right now. Maybe not ever.

"Do you all want to go to Hogsmeade on Saturday or Sunday? Or both?" Harry asked. If he'd been talking to almost anyone but Ron, they'd have easily figured out he was trying to quickly change the subject, but Ron was far too invested in the chess match to notice.

"Let's do both, mate. End of term's almost here. We'll need the break from Miss Priss's study plans." Ron's smile was much less friendly this time.

With a sniff and a huff, Hermione grabbed her bag and left for the dorm.

If there was one thing she knew, it was this: whether Viktor asked her or not, she would never, ever go to the Yule Ball with Ronald Weasley.

It was with a heavy heart that Hermione trudged up to the third floor after dinner on Friday. It had been nearly five days since the Yule Ball had been announced and she hadn't seen hide nor hair of Viktor. What little hope she'd had was turning to dust and she'd more than once caught herself sinking into despair at the idea that he was never going to ask her and she was never going to see him again. He hadn't shown up to their study table all week, and now she'd have to see him in Alchemy and not look like a fainting flower who's only ambition in life was for a boy to like her.

What if he didn't sit next to her anymore? What if something had changed? What if he'd taken one look at her ugly, crying face with her puffy eyes and snotty nose after the First Task and decided he didn't like her so much after all? What if he'd never liked her? Just the thought of it made her want to cry again. Or to skip Alchemy altogether.

She'd left dinner exceptionally early so she'd be one of the first in the classroom. After all, if she was at the table first, she wouldn't be embarrassed in front of the whole class if she found out Viktor didn't want her to sit next to him. Sighing heavily, she dropped her bag and took her usual seat in the second row, determined to act like everything was normal.

A flash of Durmstrang red caught her attention. Whipping around, she was incredibly embarrassed to see not Viktor, but Poliakoff. He was looking at her intensely with an expression she couldn't place but that made her feel like a bug under a magnifying glass. When he noticed her looking back at him, his face transformed into something like a smirk. While his expression was a bit more friendly now, she certainly didn't feel comfortable. He probably realized she'd been waiting for Viktor, but what exactly he thought about that she couldn't begin to tell.

With a sigh, she started to root through her bag and pull out her Alchemy text and notes. After all, it wouldn't do to sit there and stare at the door as if she were some airheaded little girl with nothing better to do.

It was while she was—trying to look—busy arranging her ink well and quill that her week-long wait was finally over. With an exhausted sigh and the thunk of a very heavy bag, Viktor collapsed next to her at the table.

He.

Looked.

Awful.

There were dark bruises beneath his eyes. His hair looked like he'd barely even bothered to brush it. And it rather smelled like he might not have showered that morning. Or brushed his teeth.

"Is everything alright?" she whispered, darting a sidelong glance at him as she continued setting out her study materials.

His face collapsed a little. Dear lord he looked knackered.

"Am fine." He paused for a moment to rub his eye and begin searching through his own bag. "Very busy week."

"Are you ok?" Her worries about his constancy evaporated (at least for the moment) under his absolutely exhausted gaze.

"Da. Tired. Karkaroff would not permit me stop until I find secret of puzzle." She furrowed her brow for a moment, parsing through the thickest accent he'd sported in months.

"Do you mean? You've already figured out the egg?"

Viktor stared at his hands for a moment, as if uncertain how—or whether—to answer her.

Finally, he nodded briefly. "Last night. Was difficult but…simple."

Shaking her head, she couldn't keep the incredulous tone out of her voice. "That's incredible. I don't think Harry's even started yet."

Viktor shrugged, a gesture she'd never actually seen him use before. He was always far too uptight, too proper to descend to such plebian gestures. It made a wave of fondness shoot through her, even as her anxiety over Harry's lackadaisical approach to the tournament ratcheted up ever higher. The idea that Harry could figure out the egg in only a week was laughable at best. She may love him, but she was under no illusions about Harry's work ethic.

"Potter does not want to win." Viktor said plainly, as if that explained everything. Perhaps it did.

She was prevented from answering by the beginning of Professor Dumbledore's lecture on the contributions of Dhou Yen to the study of magical duality. Despite taking extensive notes, if someone had asked her later what the lecture had been about or what she thought of it, she would have barely been able to fool them into believing she'd paid any attention at all. Because she certainly hadn't. If Harry or Ron had paid such terrible attention to a lesson, she'd have given them a harsh lecture all the way back to the Common Room: but she couldn't seem to summon the same amount of judgement when it was her own distraction.

Probably a character flaw.

Not that that would ever stop her from putting those two in their place again at the earliest opportunity. Who else would keep them in line so they could get real jobs and be something other than shop hands scraping to get by?

Perhaps she was being melodramatic, but she was in a melodramatic type of mood this week.

She was startled at the end of the lesson when Viktor swung her bag up over his shoulder and began walking away with it.

'Was he really that tired?' Hermione thought.

But no, he hadn't left his own bag behind. He was just walking away with both of them and, what? Expecting her to blindly follow him?

Oh, the nerve!

She tried to nonchalantly catch up with him, but he was so much taller than her and had a head start. Her brisk steps finally melted into a loping kind of jog as she pulled level with him, trying not to think of what a spectacle she was making in front of at least half the alchemy class.

"Viktor!" she hissed. "What are you doing?"

Glaring up into his face, she was surprised to see a look of—dare she call it—fondness in his eyes as he looked down at her.

"Did not want ask you to ball in front of class. Knew you would follow. Could not be with no books very long."

"What?"

Viktor's eyebrows pulled together in confusion and, perhaps, a bit of embarrassment. Glancing around quickly, he gripped her by the hand and swiftly pulled her into an alcove behind the tapestry of the mad monk.

With her hand still clasped in his, Viktor bent down to look into her eyes.

"You go with me to ball, yes?" he asked, raising his eyebrows and looking at her expectantly.

"You want to go with me?"

Oh, what a terrible answer to his question. She should have just said yes. Or teased him that it hadn't sounded very much like a question at all. In fact, now that she thought about it, he'd asked as if it had been a foregone conclusion that they'd be going together. Like there hadn't ever been a doubt in his mind that she'd be on his arm in a mere three weeks. Like asking was a mere formality, nothing more.

She wasn't sure whether to feel put out that he hadn't expected her to say no or pleased that he was acting as if they were an actual, legitimate couple who would obviously do things like this together.

"Of course." He paused, uncertain. "Do you?" Another pause, longer this time, as he contemplated their clasped hands. "Do you want to go with me?"

"Oh, Viktor. Of course. I'm sorry. I was just being silly."

Viktor's head drew back like she'd slapped him.

"You make joke?"

"No. No. Not at all." When he looked unconvinced, she continued, desperate to fix whatever this was. "I wasn't being silly, like, making a joke. I was being silly. You know, stupid. I was being stupid."

As always when she babbled, Viktor let her stream of consciousness run its course. It was the hurt expression in his eyes that made her open her mouth and admit the absolute truth. She couldn't meet his eyes as she admitted what had been bothering her.

"I was worried that you weren't going to ask me. That you wouldn't want to go with me."

"Why?" His eyebrows were pulled low, bunched together so tightly it almost looked like he only had the one. Only his squeeze of her hand kept her from running away in an emotional panic.

"Because I'm a Muggleborn. And not very pretty. Or popular. And you have to open the ball."

Viktor dropped her hand in lieu of wrapping her tightly in his arms. The feel of his chest under her forehead, his arms tightly clasped around her, made some hard knot of emotion in Hermione's chest finally loosen. The stress of dragons and exams and balls and boyfriends all began to seep from her very limbs as Viktor held her. Even her heart rate, usually high from anxiety and stress and near-constant adrenaline, began to slow. Curling her fingers into the soft wool of Viktor's sweater, she felt like she could sleep for a week.

"You are beautiful," he murmured into her hair. "And I do not care you are Muggleborn. No matters."

She pressed her forehead a little harder into his chest. "But a lot of people will care."

She felt him shrug but refused to draw back so she could see his expression. He'd called her beautiful. He'd said he didn't care she was Muggleborn. She so badly wanted to believe him, to take his words at face value, that she refused to look at his face and see he was lying. Maybe he wasn't, but she wasn't ready to believe him.

"What will they do? Talk? No matter. You let me worry, yes?"

"Ok." They both knew it was a lie, but it was a very pretty one.

He kissed the top of her head before drawing back, bending a little at the waist so she had no choice but to meet his eyes.

"Will you, my Hermione, go with me to ball?"

"Yes."

If her smile was a little watery, he was good enough to not mention it.

"Harry, who is your date for the Yule Ball." Fleur's voice was firm and insistent when Viktor led her into the Champions dorm with the promise of a cup of tea.

"I, er, I don't have one yet."

Fleur heaved a melodramatic sigh and turned towards the newcomers.

"You asked her, yes?" She pointedly looked at Hermione.

Viktor nodded uncomfortably before stalking over to the teapot in discomfort.

With one last exasperated glance at Harry, Fleur glided over and grasped both her hands before giving her a swift kiss on each cheek and practically pulling her to sit on one of the sofas next to her.

Hermione stared over Fleur's shoulder at her best friend, who seemed just as confused and wrong-footed as she herself felt.

"Hermione. Cedric is bringing Cho. Viktor is bringing you. You must come with us girls to Paris for shopping." Without so much as a moment to allow Hermione to respond, she turned to look at Harry and announced: "You will get date in one week. She will come with us. It is very important: we must not clash, you understand?"

Harry did not understand.

"Paris?!" Hermione finally choked out.

Fleur looked back at her in confusion, as if convinced Hermione was stupid or hadn't been paying attention.

"Oui. Madame Maxime, she gets us portkey. It is very important we look our best. You will come with Cho and I. And whoever Harry chooses. To get dress robes, you understand."

Hermione found herself gaping like a fish. It wasn't often she was speechless: rather, it was more usual that Hermione had entirely too many things to say. But to an announcement that Fleur Delacour, the stunning part-Veela half the school was in love with, expected Hermione to go shopping with her? Nope. Hermione had absolutely nothing to say at all.

Well. Maybe not nothing.

"But. I don't think I could afford…Paris is so very expensive."

A brief flash of something like understanding passed over Fleur's face before she brusquely continued on. She put to mind a freight train, barreling down the tracks and stopping for absolutely no one.

"This is the Triwizard Tournament. Our pictures will be in every paper in Europe. Designers will pay you to wear their robes." She paused long enough to acknowledge Viktor as he brought Hermione a bracing cup of tea.

If Hermione had thought being in the Champions Dorm when Viktor wasn't there was awkward, it was nothing to how awkward she felt now that he was. With Harry there, Viktor said barely two words, but he sat so close to her that the whole length of his thigh was pressed to hers.

It felt like a brand.

It felt like a promise.

It felt bloody embarrassing because Harry kept catching her gaze and waggling his eyebrows when he thought no one was looking.

When she couldn't take his smug teasing any longer, she retaliated with an exaggerated eye roll, a simpering expression, and a mouthed "oh 'arry!"

The full-face blush that rushed to Harry's face was worth his look of betrayal.

When she finally couldn't take the stilted conversation any longer, she fled back to the Gryffindor dorm room, pressing a bold kiss to Viktor's cheek on her way out the door. To hell with Harry: he could judge her all he wanted, tease her all he wanted. She was going to the ball with Viktor Krum and she was kissing him goodnight.

The slightly stunned, smug, self-satisfied look on Viktor's face after she pecked a lingering kiss on his cheek made it all worth it.

A/N: Welcome back! I hope you all enjoy the chapter and have a safe, healthy, and happy winter holiday season. See you soon!