Fleur's plan worked, and she was been able to speak normally when she and Hermione parted ways, Fleur leaving a last soft kiss on her lips.
"If it would not destroy me, I would break the contract for you," Fleur murmured, her blue eyes intense on hers. "Being with you… your love is worth killing for."
"I don't think murder would exactly help us any," Hermione said, a bit breathless, and Fleur's eyes took on a wicked gleam.
"Maybe, maybe not," she equivocated, before giving an exaggerated shrug. "If Madame Maxime was no longer around to watch me quite so closely…"
"Fleur!" Hermione protested, pushing her, and Fleur laughed.
"Adieu, mon petit chou," she bid her, kissing her hand, and they parted ways.
Hermione was still half-floating in a pleasant haze as she went to the library, intending to look up spells related to water in preparation for the second challenge. She'd only just reached the card catalog when two Durmstrang students intercepted her, a boy and a girl, both in their blood-red uniforms.
"Hello," the girl said, her voice heavily accented.
Hermione blinked.
"Hello…" she said back, and the girl immediately looked stressed.
"Vant help," she said slowly. "But English… bad," she said decisively, and Hermione felt her heart go out to her.
"Can you understand and just not speak it?" she asked them. "Or is that beyond you too?"
The boy and girl exchanged a wide-eyed look of alarm, and Hermione sighed.
"Okay," she said simply. "I help." She gestured widely. "How?"
This seemed to be enough for the boy and the girl, who looked relieved and excited all at once. It was an interesting expression to see on them – both of them were solidly older and bigger than Hermione, but they looked desperately glad that this underclassman had agreed to help them.
"Come," the boy said, and they led Hermione over to a table bearing a couple open genealogy books and a large piece of parchment.
The parchment was large and sprawling, with lots of Cyrillic, numbers, and lines. As Hermione looked closer, she realized she wasn't looking at an Arithmancy prediction tree like she'd thought at first – these numbers were dates. Some of the dates had sketches of people above them along with Cyrillic, and a few of them had names spelled out in careful English – Varvara, Dmitry, Maria, Feodosiya.
"Is this your family tree?" Hermione asked, fascinated.
"Family," the girl repeated, nodding. She pointed to one person. "I."
"Me," the boy corrected, and the girl shoved him and said something under her breath.
"Me," she corrected. "Sofia."
Sofia traced the line up through her parents (Maria and Gideon) to her grandparents, (Maria and Boris). As she went one level higher, she reached a name Hermione recognized.
"Rasputin?" Hermione said aloud, her eyes wide, and Sofia nodded.
"Rasputin," she said. "Family."
The boy took over now, tracing his own line down – he went down to Dmitry, another of Rasputin's children, then another level, and another, and then to himself.
"Me," he said. "Vladimir."
Hermione nodded, following along so far, and the girl called Sofia pointed back at the level where they diverged.
"Rasputin," she said again, pointing. "Dmitry, Varvara, Maria," she said, pointing to Rasputin's three children. "Varvara."
Here, she traced down the tree of third child of Rasputin's lineage. This one was more complicated – it crossed over with another family tree that was off to the side some, where a daughter had apparently married her 3rd cousin. From there, there were two children, names spelled out in careful, deliberate English – Mark and Anastasia. Mark had married a woman named Jasmine Brown, and they had had one daughter – Anthea. Connected to Anthea was a question mark, and there was a question mark for her child's name, too.
"Hogwarts," Sophia said firmly. "Family."
"Vant find," Vladimir said. "Help?"
Hermione bit her lip, tracing the lines of the family tree herself, lingering on the name Anthea Parshukova. She picked up the quill, dipped it in the inkwell, and hesitated a moment, before putting the quill to the parchment.
"She married Thoros," Hermione said, penning in the name Thoros Nott next to Anthea's mystery partner. "And their child is Theo." Theodore Nott replaced the other question mark on the tree, and Hermione pulled back, looking at the family tree for a long moment before setting the quill aside.
"Zheo," Sofia repeated, testing it. "Zheo."
"Seo?" Vladimir tried. "Zheo."
"Maybe just use 'Nott'," Hermione said apologetically. She hesitated another moment, before she finally looked up. "Would you like to meet him?"
Theo was fairly stunned to discover he had family, no matter how distant.
"I'm related to them how?" he asked, and Hermione winced.
"Twice, in a weird way," she said. "I think you're all related through your great grand-parents or great-great grandparents, and then your great-grandmother was distantly related to her husband too, four generations back, I think, through Anna Parshukova's brother. So they're your… fifth cousins, I think? Maybe fourth cousins once removed?"
Theo looked astonished. "And they want to meet me?"
"They do," Hermione said, nodding. "I left them wandering about the Entrance Hall – I wasn't about to bring them into the Slytherin Common Room – but they've done a lot of research to find you."
Theo considered it for a moment, before nodding.
"I'll be just a moment," he said. "I'm going to get my cloak."
That sounded like a smart idea, and Hermione had been wanting to take a look at the Black Lake anyway, so she went and got her own cloak as well, returning just as Theo did.
"Ready?" she asked, securing the silver clasps at her throat.
Theo shrugged. "As I'll ever be, I guess."
Hermione led Theo up to the Entrance Hall, where a number of students were lingering or loitering, waiting for dinner to open up. She could see Sofia and Vladimir move in excitement at her return; they'd been joined by two others while she'd been gone, Durmstrang students Hermione recognized better – Viktor and Alexei.
"Sofia and Vladimir, may I present Theodore Nott?" Hermione said, offering them a curtsy. She turned to Theo. "Theo, may I present Sofia and Vladimir, your distant cousins through your mother's line."
Theo offered them a stiff bow, and Alexei grinned.
"Alexei Ovechkin," he reintroduced himself. "I vill translate for you, yeah? My English is not good, but is better than theirs."
He turned to Sofia and Vladimir and said something to them, to which they responded excitedly, both offering Theo deep bows. Theo blinked, seemingly not sure how to react to all of this.
"How about you all go for a walk to get to know each other?" Hermione suggested, gesturing towards the doors. "You'll be able to hear each other better where it isn't so loud."
Alexei relayed this message to the others, who both nodded in agreement immediately. Sofia led the way, opening the door for their small group, while Hermione and Viktor lingered behind.
"Out of curiosity," she said, "what would have happened if the Durmstrang champion chosen couldn't speak English at all?"
Viktor grinned.
"Learn very fast?" he guessed. He chuckled. "Karkaroff said would not be problem. He was sure, so I think he had plan. Maybe some Dark magic way to learn?"
Hermione shuddered. "Merlin, I hope not. The only way I know would involve finding an English-speaking person and having them willingly sacrifice their life to you."
Viktor looked down at her strangely. "You know this Dark magic?"
Hermione winced.
"Technically, it's not Dark," she equivocated. "If someone willingly sacrifices something, it's not Dark. It's just—it definitely borders on Dark magic, and I'd call it Grey…"
Viktor laughed.
"Maybe we not talk Dark magic here," he suggested, eyes dancing. He offered her his arm. "Will you come for walk with me?"
Hermione blinked, looking up at him for a moment, before slowly taking his arm.
"I'd love to, Viktor," she told him. "Show me around the lake? I've been meaning to ask more questions about your ship."
Viktor grinned, pleased.
"I think you are maybe not curious about ship," he teased. "Is okay, though. I need to study lake anyways."
Hermione flushed lightly.
"I have absolutely no idea what you mean," she said airily, and Viktor laughed as he led her outside as well.
