Viktor had taken remarkably little prodding to agree to traipsing all over the woods with her, with a quill and parchment no less. He insisted on being the one to write the symbols down, which Hermione took offense at until he explained.

"Is unknown magic," he told her. "If magic goes off, do not want you to be hurt." He gave her a serious look. "You are young, pretty witch. Many friends would be sad. I am older; I am likelier to survive."

Hermione flushed a bit. "You're… protecting me?"

Viktor seemed to sense he'd gotten her a bit off-kilter, and he grinned at her. Somehow, the warmth of his smile made his crooked teeth seem charming.

"You not accustomed to be protected?" he teased.

"I was the one who slaughtered the basilisk at my school," Hermione said, trying her best not to blush. "What do you think?"

Viktor laughed, even as he copied down the circle.

"Is not right," he said. "Witches should be protected, not risked."

"Why?" Hermione challenged, tossing her hair. "I'll have you know I'm just as capable, if not more capable, than any boy my age—"

"No, no," Viktor said, shaking his head. "I say wrong. Wait."

He paused, thinking deeply on his words. Hermione watched him with narrowed eyes, not about to tolerate any sexist nonsense or misguided chivalry he might spew.

"You know of Grindelwald?" he said finally.

Hermione's eyes widened. Of all the things she'd thought he might say, she'd expected that the least.

"A little," she admitted. "Not much."

"All you need know is he is bad wizard," Viktor said, waving away her admission. "Very bad, evil wizard." He gave her a serious look. "Grindelwald killed many people. Thousands. After Grindelwald, people start to patch life back together."

Hermione nodded along, listening.

"Some magic groups had fewer than others," Viktor went on. "When… when trying to…"

He trailed off, muttering frustratedly under his breath.

"Heal?" Hermione offered. "Repopulate?"

"Repopulate," Viktor repeated, with relief. "When repopulating, easy discovery: one wizard can populate many children; witch, only one every year or so."

Understanding dawned on Hermione as she saw where he was going with this.

"Witches are more valuable than wizards," Viktor said, looking at Hermione earnestly. "If a village is killed, many more witches needed to save the magic community there. Wizards are less important – they are shared, if needed."

He meant it so earnestly, so genuinely, that Hermione didn't know how to respond.

"That's…" She struggled to find the words. "I mean, that's still technically sexist, by the definition of the word, but it's not misogynistic at least."

Viktor laughed.

"I do not mean disrespect," he assured her. "Is meant to show value of a woman, not to un-value her."

"Well, your funeral," Hermione said, tossing her head haughtily, though her smile betrayed her amusement. "If you want to risk getting yourself blown up, have at it, then."

Viktor grinned at her.

"Risk blowing up for happy afternoon with pretty witch?" he said. His eyes gleamed. "Worth the risk."

Hermione's jaw dropped, her face turning red.

"You—You're flirting with me!" she accused.

"Is working?" Viktor asked, nonchalant. He finished up the circle he'd been copying before looking up at Hermione, his eyes sparkling.

"I—I don't even know how to answer that," Hermione said, flustered. "What defines if flirting is 'working' or not?"

Viktor laughed, standing up to go to the next tree.

"If the person flirted with feels happy, maybe," he said. "Happy, not awkward or self-conscious."

"Oh," said Hermione. "That makes sense."

"Then…?" Viktor prodded.

Her face was a bright red. "Yes, fine, it's working," she said, embarrassed. "Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"Yes," Viktor said. He grinned, extending his hand to Hermione. "Next tree?"

Rolling her eyes, Hermione took his hand, and they headed off.

"Is flirting where you're from so blatant?" she asked him, almost huffily. "Usually things are a little more subtle here."

Viktor considered.

"Sometimes. Depends on situation," he said. "Flirting is hard with English, though. I do not have enough words to do it good." He shrugged, giving her a cheeky grin. "So I try obvious instead."

Hermione rolled her eyes, and Viktor laughed.

"Besides, you do it first," he accused, and Hermione gasped, putting her hand to her chest.

"Me?" she said in mock-affront.

"Yes, you," Viktor said firmly. He looked over at her, smirking. "You complimented me three times."

Hermione was surprised. "Three?"

"Three," Viktor said firmly, nodding his head. "You said I have good memory; you said it was lucky we ran into each other again; you said I was sharp and smart at studies." He paused. "You also hinted you would hex my classmates if I ask."

Hermione found it hard to object to his points, but she was grinning.

"Is that not typically polite?" she teased. "To offer to hex troublesome classmates for new friends?"

"Not very," Viktor grinned crookedly. "Anyway. All pales in the face of you ask me out first."

"I asked you out?" Hermione repeated, giving him a confused look. "When?"

"You asked if I was busy today," Viktor pointed out. "You invited me on adventure through strange woods to discover unknown magic."

Hermione started to grin, though her cheeks were pink.

"Is that your typical date?" she teased him. "Unravelling strange magic?"

Viktor hummed, thoughtful.

"No," he said decisively. "But is better. Normal date is eating, maybe flying. This is exciting."

"I thought you liked flying," Hermione said, blinking. "Is that not exciting?"

Viktor made a noise, one Hermione didn't quite know how to interpret – ambivalence mixed with disdain?

"Flying fast is exciting," Viktor said. "On date, you cannot fly fast. Girl wants flight to be romantic, to hug on broom." Hermione could practically hear the exasperation in his voice. "You cannot fly well with someone hugging on broom."

Hermione was laughing.

"Well, a date on a broom sounds absolutely dreadful to me," she said cheerily. "I'd much rather explore new unknown magics. I should make this my typical date."

Viktor grinned at her.

"Be careful," he advised her. "If your date is stupid, he could end up blown up."

Hermione laughed.

"Well, then he clearly wasn't the one for me then, was he?" she quipped back. "Sounds like an excellent vetting method, really."

Now that they both had sensed the Keep-Away Charms laid around the marked trees, it was easier to find them. Viktor carefully copied the symbols down, meticulous, a trait Hermione appreciated.

"You're very detail-oriented," she observed. "Do you have calligraphy experience? Your control over the quill is excellent."

Viktor turned a ruddy red.

"Some," he admitted. "My mother teached me lessons as a boy. She stopped when I go to school, but I remember them."

"I wish I'd taken calligraphy lessons," Hermione sighed wistfully. "Maybe there's still time."

After they'd collected drawings of twelve different circles, they decided it was time to examine what all they'd found and look for similarities and things to decode. As they settled down into a more cleared-away place in the woods, Hermione's stomach growled, interrupting them. Viktor looked up at her, raising a bushy eyebrow, and she blushed.

"I didn't imagine I'd be out here this long," Hermione admitted, grinning sheepishly. "I kind of only had a rough plan to look around, not spend the day."

A slow grin spread on Viktor's face.

"This was not a big, elaborate plan to date me? You did not plan this?" he asked innocently.

"How would I?" Hermione protested, her face reddening. She shoved him playfully. "I thought you went back to Bulgaria!"

"Bulgaria is playing in the World Cup," Viktor pointed out. "You might think I, like most wizards, would come to watch."

"If that were the case, I'd have gone hunting for you on the campground with all the other Bulgarians," Hermione objected. "I wouldn't have been lurking around the woods alone!"

"Ah. This makes sense." Viktor nodded seriously. "You are very bad at planning to date me, Hermione."

"What—!"

Hermione pushed him again, and Viktor laughed, not moving in the face of her shoving.

"I will make up for it," he declared. "I will plan rest of date and save you from starving. Bogomila!"

There was a CRACK, and a House Elf appeared from nowhere. Viktor nodded to it and spoke to it rapidly in Bulgarian (or what Hermione presumed was Bulgarian). The House Elf listened and nodded with wide eyes, shooting side-eyed looks at Hermione the entire time, before finally responding with something, bowing low, and disappearing with another CRACK.

"There," Viktor said with satisfaction. "We will have food soon."

"Is that your family's elf?" Hermione asked, curious. "I wouldn't think summoning a House Elf from such a distance would work!"

Viktor hesitated.

"Bogomila… she is here for World Cup too," he said.

"She isn't bound to a manor with a ley line?" Hermione asked, astonished. "How's she manage?"

Viktor looked confused.

"She is bound to group, not place?" he said, struggling to follow. "What is 'ley line'?"

Hermione hadn't the slightest idea how to translate what a ley line was to someone who wasn't aware, and she didn't know what the word was for it in any other language.

"Never mind," she said. "It doesn't matter – let's look at these runes."

With twelve examples laid out in front of them, it was immediately apparent to them both – these were not runic sigils. Not in any sort of traditional way.

"This is mad," Hermione breathed, looking over it. "I've never seen anything like this before."

Their theory that each circle was a word didn't seem to hold up. Though they'd found several circles where the same inner circle pattern was repeated, they found far more other inner circle patterns than there were letters, which Hermione found frustrating.

"Maybe it's from another language?" she ventured. "How many letter does Cyrillic have?"

"Thirty in Bulgarian," Viktor said, shaking his head. "Thirty-three in Russian. Still not enough."

They examined the drawings further, comparing the circles to each other.

"This one," Viktor said, pointing to a small inner-inner circle with three dots inside of it. "This is repeated often, often in the inner-outer circle."

"The second layer of circles?" Hermione said, looking again. "Yeah. This tiny circle on the other circles is pretty common, too."

Viktor looked at all the drawings he'd made, studying them. His gaze was narrowed.

"Here," he said abruptly. "Each circle – each has only one outer dot."

Each sigil was formed of many configurations of circles, curves, dots, and lines, but they all shared a few consistent characteristics – there was an unbroken, uninterrupted outer circle, and an inner clockwork-like line right inside that that encompassed the other circles. It was this line that Viktor had pointed out – each had one circle on it somewhere, and only one – usually around the bottom-left most place.

"Are these sentences…?" Hermione asked aloud, incredulous. "Is that punctuation?"

Excited, they examined them further. While each inner circle was different from other circles, the inner circles, dots, and curves that composed that inner circle were seen from circle to circle. Circles with two or three dots showed up consistently inside of the inner circles, as did small circles touching or on the lines of the circles.

"There is system," Viktor said, his eyes alive with excitement. "There are four inner shapes, and eight inner patterns to them. We will make chart."

They drew a chart – a circle above a line, a circle with a line through it, a circle formed from a line with a small gap, and a half circle in a line. These four shapes, Viktor determined, were the core shapes from which other configurations were derived. Above the columns of his chart, he added one, two, three, and four dots, as well as one, two, and three lines, with a blank column at the end.

"So this," he said, drawing a circle with three dots inside it, "is this letter. With two or four dots, it is different letter." He paused. "Maybe similar, maybe not. We not know what alphabet they are encoding."

"Do you think they started with an existing alphabet?" Hermione asked. "Or did they make one up?"

Viktor frowned down at his drawings.

"Your Ministry, they drew these," he said. "Which you think they would do?"

Hermione gnawed on her lip.

"Well, four times eight is thirty-two," she said, grudging. "And we still haven't figured out the tiny circles at all—"

"Vowel sounds," Viktor said easily, as if it was obvious.

"—so I'm guessing, if they filled this chart up, it was with sounds and phenomes, not strict letters." Hermione frowned. "Which leaves us with no easy place to start. We don't even know if these sentences are in English."

Viktor grinned at her consternation.

"Code is not good if easy to break," he told her. "If werewolves cannot break it, woods should be safe."

"They could just chop down the enchanted trees," Hermione muttered, and Viktor laughed.

"Come," he told her, patting the ground. "Bogomila has brought food."

Hermione had entirely missed the House Elf reappearing with a picnic basket, but as Viktor pulled out sandwiches, Hermione found she was very grateful to the discreet little elf for her efforts. She devoured two of the sandwiches quickly, and she flushed before Viktor's amused gaze.

"What?" she said defensively. "I was hungry. I'm not being rude."

"No," Viktor said, cheerily. "Please, eat. Is good to see a witch eat all she wants."

Hermione's hands hesitated over a piece of fruit at that.

"…is there not enough food to go around in Bulgaria?" she asked, tentative. "Is famine—"

Viktor said something harsh and frustrated in another language, shaking his head.

"Witches eat little to stay thin," he said. "Very fashionable to be very thin, now in Bulgaria. But…" He trailed off, shrugging. "I think is better a witch look healthy. Some prefer otherwise."

Mollified, Hermione ate the piece of fruit a bit more slowly, thoughtfully. There weren't many people in Hogwarts, if any, that she would classify as 'very thin', like a fashion model. Now that she thought about it, though, there weren't many big people she saw in Hogwarts, either. There were Crabbe and Goyle, and there was Hagrid, and… that was it, really. Molly Weasley was a bit plump, she supposed. But everyone else, though not what Hermione would describe as in shape, was at least a somewhat normal weight for their frame.

"Does magic raise metabolism?" Hermione asked, curious. "Does using it burn energy in the same way moving does?"

Viktor was a bit lost at that one. "Meta—metabloyn—"

Hermione explained what she meant, which had Viktor pausing to think too as he ate his fourth sandwich.

"I think yes," he said finally. "If not directly, energy from food must be used to make magic, yes? Energy must come from somewhere."

Hermione had rather thought witches and wizards just pulled magic from the ambient chaos of the world around them, but that was a new opinion that'd been seriously influenced by the cryptic things the Fae had said. Maybe even if wizards didn't create the magic, they used metabolic energy to cast with it, to enforce their will on their spells.

It would explain why Crabbe and Goyle were rather large for their age and size – neither was very good at magic or seemed to enjoy magic very much, so they probably cast magic and practiced significantly less than the rest of their year. Hagrid – well, Hagrid had been expelled, hadn't he? And he'd had his wand snapped. So he certainly wasn't using up magic to boost his metabolism. And Molly Weasley – she was mostly a homemaker, right? She probably used the same household spells every day, and she probably wasn't often called upon to use a lot of magic at once…

"I think you're right," Hermione said, wonderingly. "It never really occurred to me before. But the adults – especially the Ministry workers, really – they tend to get a bit larger. I figured it was just because they had rather sedentary jobs. But people who cast spells for a living or students – they do not. Magic must use a lot of energy from food."

That led to a discussion of food at the different schools. Durmstrang, apparently, was not as big on feasts as Hogwarts was.

"We haff food," Viktor reassured Hermione. "But… not much variety. Many same foods, over and over. Potatoes, stroganoff, borscht, banitsa, syrniki…"

"I've never heard of some of those," Hermione admitted. "What is 'syrniki'?"

Viktor grinned. "Syrniki is sweet, cheesy pancake. Not flat like British pancake – syrniki is made from thick dough."

"What do you eat it with?" Hermione asked, blinking. "That can't be it, is it?"

"Yogurt, fruit, whatever," Viktor said, shrugging. "Powder sugar and raspberries is very popular. Also syrup. Common breakfast at Durmstrang."

"You have that much sugar for breakfast?" Hermione tried not to sound judgmental, but her tone still came out slightly incredulous. "How is that possibly healthy?"

Viktor chuckled.

"English eat fat for breakfast," he pointed out. "Bangers and beans and black pudding and fried eggs and bacon…"

"Beans are healthy!" Hermione objected, flushing. "And we have grilled tomatoes and mushrooms, too."

Viktor smirked. "Fried mushrooms," he corrected. "Not healthy either."

Hermione huffed.

"Fine," she conceded. "You have a fair point."

Viktor laughed.

"Breakfast here is different, but not bad," he reassured her.

"You don't have to mollify me." Hermione tossed her head. "I'm not the guardian of the Traditional British Breakfast."

Viktor looked confused for a moment, then he laughed.

"Is a thing?" he asked, amused. "You have guard for breakfast?"

"…I mean, I meant it as a joke, but who knows?" Hermione said, her lips quirking. "We have all kinds of stupid official titles. Side effect of still having a monarchy, I suppose."

Viktor blinked.

"…you haff a Minister of Magic," he said slowly.

Hermione blinked. "…yes?"

"Not a king," Viktor said, clarifying.

"Oh!" Hermione gave him a sheepish smile. "No, no we don't. I meant the muggle monarchy. We have a queen. She isn't supposed to do much, but she still holds a lot of power, really."

Viktor looked thoughtful.

"Muggle government in Bulgaria is a mess," he said decisively, shaking his head. "Trying to become capitalist is going bad. I am glad magical government is separate."

"Bulgaria was part of the Soviet Union, wasn't it?" Hermione said, realizing. She shuddered. "I've never even considered how that might manifest in magical communities. Were you all communist too?"

Viktor snorted.

"Not by choice," he said. "After Grindelwald, recovery took long time. Everyone helped each other as we could until stable communities come back. But we still used money. We still owned our own things." He glanced back at her. "Now, things are good. Many mine magical minerals, many build magical artifacts. Many grow food. We all sell and trade and earn a wage."

Hermione tilted her head. It was as good an economy as any, she supposed.

"What do you want to do when you graduate?" she asked. "Are you going to go back to Bulgaria? Or stay near Durmstrang?"

Viktor opened his mouth to answer, then snapped it shut. He gave Hermione a long, scrutinizing look, before opening up once more.

"I want to play Quidditch professionally," he admitted. "But I know such a career is not for forever. After, I want something more. I do not know what, though. Maybe to do with Transfiguration."

"It's good to have a backup option if your first choice doesn't work out," Hermione agreed. "Professional Quidditch leagues are probably very competitive and difficult to get into—"

Viktor snorted. "Very."

"—so a different career isn't a bad idea." She bit her lip. "You like Transfiguration?"

"Yes," Viktor said immediately. "Much more than Dark Arts or Dueling."

"…you have classes on the Dark Arts and Dueling?" Hermione repeated, eyes wide. "What are those like?"

Viktor clearly picked up on the envy in her voice, and he laughed.

"Is not as fun as it sounds," he assured her, packing up the picnic kit. "Dark Arts is much history, philosophy. Dueling is much running and ducking." He made a face. "Not as fun as actual duel."

"I'm sure," Hermione said, laughing. "Making anything into a class probably takes the fun out of it."

As Viktor packed up, Hermione duplicated the notes he'd taken and packed one set away, giving him the other to keep. When they both stood, it was somewhat awkwardly; they both knew they needed to part, but neither knew an appropriate way to say goodbye.

"It was good to see you again," Hermione said finally, giving him a quirked smile. "I didn't expect to, of course, but I had a lovely time tree-hunting with you."

Viktor chuckled.

"I enjoyed as well," he told her. His eyes gleamed. "Maybe I will see you again at World Cup?"

"Maybe," Hermione said, shrugging. She gave him a wry smile. "There are so many people who are going to be here, though. Who knows if we'll manage to run into each other again?"

"Nothing can stop determined wizard from seeing pretty witch he likes," Viktor declared. He grinned his crooked grin. "Where are you sitting for match?"

"The Top Box, I think," Hermione said. "My friend got really good tickets and invited me along." She grinned ruefully. "So I imagine it's at the top?"

Viktor laughed.

"I will find you," he declared. "We can discuss match afterward, and I can explain all the Quidditch you did not understand."

"Hey!" Hermione's face colored, and Viktor laughed.

"Haff a good day, Hermione," he bid her, as he headed back into the forest a different way. "Maybe I see you soon."

"Good-bye!" Hermione called after him, waving with a smile. She doubted she'd run into him again, given a crowd of over 50,000 people would be descending on the stadium, but it would do no one any good to point out the statistics and steal the beautiful smile that lit up his face.