CHAPTER TWELVE: FAME ISN'T EVERYTHING

Library

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Scotland

16 October 1994

Viktor Krum was ready to full-on curse someone. He had rather a creative repertoire, too, courtesy of his uncle, Adrik Morozov, a highly adept and vicious duelist. Viktor's cousins had thoroughly briefed him on how to handle political attacks, his more distant cousins had schooled him on proper English pronunciations, and his parents had rounded out the lessons by coaching him on how to handle fame while abroad. Nothing, absolutely nothing they had taught him had prepared him for hordes of English fangirls. Or Welsh or Scottish or Northern Irish fangirls. Viktor had a difficult time telling the difference.

At any rate, there was a - relatively - small and dedicated horde that followed him around on a daily basis, peering around corners, sneaking glances through open classroom doors, and spying on him through stacks of books in the library. It made studying rather inconvenient. Pinching the bridge of his nose only made the titters worse, and Viktor wondered how much of an international accident he would cause if he accidentally cursed one of them. Most of the horde had settled into the tables surrounding his, and it would be all too easy to curse one if he kept his wand hidden…

"Do you mind if I join you?" a slightly irritated voice asked, "all the other tables are full. It seems as if the library has become rather popular as of late."

Viktor looked up. Hermione Granger was standing by the edge of his table, hair fluffing out more than usual. "You may," Viktor replied, inwardly wincing at his accent, "although I must warn you that this part of the library is usually noisy."

"Stupid bints," Hermione muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing," Hermione said quickly, spreading several rolls of parchment and half a dozen textbooks on the table.

Viktor raised an eyebrow but didn't reply. To be quite honest, he didn't know Hermione all that well - he'd become acquainted with her merely because Stefan was thick as thieves with Harry, and Hermione was one of Harry's close friends - or, at least that's what he told himself. It was better that than to fully acknowledge the letter he'd received.

With an internal sigh, Viktor redevoted himself to his homework. Admittedly, it was rather difficult to concentrate with the constant giggling coming from the nearby tables. Some of the girls had resorted to glaring, which was almost worse than the giggling.

"Is there nowhere better to study here?" Viktor asked.

"No - unless you count common rooms."

Viktor heaved a sigh. "Ebasi maikata."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Was that a spell?" Hermione asked suspiciously.

"What? No, no. Just Bulgarian."

Hermione looked at him in askance.

"Our curse words are more versatile than yours."

"Ah."

"This Transfiguration professor, McGonagall, is she hard on everyone?"

"Far as I know. I only had her first year and she didn't have any tolerance for laziness in her class. Doesn't show much favoritism, even to her own house. Why?"

Viktor shrugged. "Just wanted to make sure."

"Is everything alright?"

"Everything is as well as it could be. Actual transfigurations are fine, essays are more difficult because my English is not the best."

"That must be hard."

"Mm. Do you know where to find An Introduction to Human Transfiguration by Delvish Wriggle? I couldn't find it earlier, and the librarian is… not friendly."

"It should be in the Transfiguration section, towards the back. I can help you find it if you'd like?"
"Please. I think I will leave the library after I find the book - I cannot focus here."

Hermione smiled wryly. "I don't blame you."

Viktor smiled back, and tried, once again, in vain, to forget about the letter.

Slytherin Common Room

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Scotland

16 October 1994

Snap! Four wands darted out, Harry's landing on the pile first, causing it to explode spectacularly in Theo's face.

Harry grinned. "Ha! Gotcha!"

"Not for long, you don't."

"You wish, Nott."

Theo rolled his eyes. "Oh, shut it."

"If you two could stop your drama…" Blaise drawled.

"Shut it, Blaise," Harry and Theo chorused.

"And now my feelings are hurt…"

"Get stuffed, Zabini."

"Weasley, you wound me…"

"Look, are we going to keep playing or what?" Harry asked. "We've got Quidditch practice in half an hour."

"Well, who's fault is that?"

Harry mock-glared at him. "Yours, Nott, for taking too much time to find the Exploding Snap cards."

"Well, sor-ry."

"Pfft."

"So are we playing?" Ron butted in. "We have time for at least a couple more rounds before Quidditch."

"I'm ready." Harry carefully held his wand in his right hand, left hand poised to move cards.

"Go!"

Cards flew rapidly as wands remained at the ready. Moments later, the cards exploded, and Ron grinned triumphantly.

"Take that!"

"Luck! It was just luck!"

"Yeah, right!"

After the next two hands, Theo, who now had a soot spot on his nose, had to concede that it hadn't been luck.

"Look," Harry said placatingly, "we just have better reflexes than you. Just accept your defeat."

Theo humphed.

"And now we've got to leave for practice!"

"Convenient, very convenient."

Harry sighed exasperatedly.

"Don't worry, Blaise and I will plot your demise while you and Ron are at Quidditch, right, Zabini?"

"What?"

Theo elbowed Blaise. "Demise and destruction. Plotting. You and me."

Blaise steepled his fingers. "Yes, yes, of course."

Ron sighed. "Good grief."

"And with that," Harry said cheerfully, "I think we'll make our exit. Bye!" He strode out of the common room, Ron quickly following in step beside him.

"So, what's the plan for practice today?" Ron asked.

"Team building, mostly," Harry replied. "Stefan and Baptiste only know the two of us, and Demelza is obviously intimidated by everyone, so I want to make sure that we all can work well together. If we don't have that, we don't have anything, and we've got to be really cohesive if we want to have a chance at beating some of the other teams. The Skipping Cerberi are stacked - Viktor as Seeker, Millie as Beater, and both those other girls from Durmstrang, Ostrowska and Mieczkowska look really good - we'll definitely have a hard time beating them. Bouncing Unicorns have good Chasers too since they have Draco and Roger Davies, and Flipping Flobberworms have Spinnet and Moran…"

"I can't believe you can keep a straight face," Ron interrupted.

Harry was puzzled. "Why?"

"The team names are so bloody stupid."

Harry thought for a moment, then chuckled. "I know. We need to take them seriously though. You always need to have a plan. And a backup plan. And a backup plan for the backup plan. But anyway, as I was saying, I also have concerns about the Dancing Manticores since they have Euan as their Keeper and he's actually decent. I owled Flint about some Chaser drills, actually, and if you have any ideas about what's tricky from a Keeper's perspective, I'd be open to anything you could come up with."

"Hmm...well…" Ron began, "there is one thing I was thinking about…it more applies to newer Chasers than experienced ones, though. A lot of the time, they forget they can move in three dimensions, and just move forward, or to the side instead of going over or under someone. I think it's something we could really play with as a team since you can get some pretty good angles on the Quaffle if you drop down low or pop up high enough."

"I think Flint has some drills for that. I'll definitely make sure to look for those."

Ron nodded. "Good. We should also try to watch the other teams' practices - knowing which Chaser formations they use will help out me and our Chasers and Beaters."

Harry smirked. "That's what the Invisibility Cloak is for."

"Thank Merlin for that."

By then, they were at the Quidditch Pitch. Most of the team was there, with the exception of Demelza and Ginny.

Harry checked his watch. "We've still got a few minutes. I'll be right back - just

grabbing some brooms from the Slytherin locker room."

By the time Harry had returned, Ginny and Demelza had arrived.

"Alright," Harry said, dropping the brooms on the ground. "I got permission to borrow these for Ginny and Demelza so we're all on a relatively similar brooms. But, before we do any sort of flying, we're going to play a get-to-know-you game. Everyone come here and sit in a circle."

Harry pulled out a bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, and there was a chorus of groans.

"Alright, most of you should already know how this works. You pull out a red-ish bean, and you've got to say something fun you did over the summer. Orange-ish bean, say something you're excited about. Yellow-ish bean, something you're nervous about. Green-ish, favorite subject at school. Blue-ish, what animagus you wish you were and why.

"Okay, I'll start. Orange. I'm excited to get to know everyone better and play Quidditch with all of you this year. Ron?"

"Orange. I'm also excited to play Quidditch with all of you and also for the chess tournament we're going to have which everyone should sign up for!"

Ginny took the bag. "Yellow. I'm worried about the pranks Fred and George will pull when we handedly beat both of their teams."

Ginny passed the bag to Demelza. "Red. I went to visit my grandparents. They live in the magical enclave in Cornwall, which is pretty neat."

The bag continued to be passed around the circle until Harry felt they couldn't take it much longer. "Alright, now that that's done, I hope we all feel like we know each other better. If everyone could grab their brooms, we're going to do a couple of warm up laps then go through the agility course three times before starting drills."

Much to Harry's surprise, practice seemed to run smoothly, even if Demelza was a bit awkward around the rest of the team. Stefan and Leila were going to need a lot more practice before they'd be able to work together smoothly as Beaters, but Harry could see that the potential was there, and felt gratified he'd made the right picks at tryouts. Ginny had done better than Harry expected, and he left the Slytherin locker room feeling quite pleased with himself.

Stefan and Baptiste were waiting for him, and Harry easily fell into step beside them. "What'd you think of practice?"

"It was good," Stefan said, Bulgarian accent slightly less pronounced than over the summer. "I like the agility course you have here, it is very fun."

"I enjoyed myself as well," Baptiste said smoothly. "Are those 'team-building' activities going to be a regular part of practice?"

Harry thought for a moment. "For the first couple weeks, yeah. I want people to get to know each other."

"Look, I know you want us to be a good team, but are those really necessary?"
"What do you mean?"

Baptiste sighed. "As endearing as it is, I don't think anyone cares what little Demelza did over the summer or that my favorite class is Charms. It seems like something we don't need to waste practice time with. I fail to see its importance."

"It is."

"You simply can't say that without properly justifying it."

"Well, I can," Harry said stubbornly.

"Listen, Harry, I know you'll do a good job as captain, otherwise they wouldn't have picked you. However, you can't say things without being able to properly justify them. You need to be able to explain yourself otherwise people won't believe in you."

"Okay."

"Well?"

"The people you played with at Beauxbatons - have you known them for a long time?"

Baptiste shrugged elegantly. "Most of them, yes."

"And you practice a lot with them, yeah? Especially the other Chasers?"
"Yes."

"And have you gotten to the point with any of them, that almost without needing to look for them, you know exactly where they're flying beside you, because you've practiced a play so bloody many times, and you've flown with them enough that you have that sort of deep trust in each other?"

"There have been a few moments like that."

Harry sighed. "That's the type of moments I want to create on our team. But I can't do that if we're completely strangers to each other. We need to know each other, become comfortable with each other and practice with each other. The more we do this, the closer we'll get as a team, and the stronger chance we'll have at winning the tournament. That's what we all want, right?"

"It is," Baptiste said, although he no longer seemed to be paying attention. "It really is."

A/N: Sorry it's been a while since the last update! School has been crazy so far this semester; I will do my best to get the next update out sooner. Hope you all enjoyed it!