Chapter Text
The library’s become somewhat of a zoo. The Bulgarian Quidditch player, the one everyone’s obsessing about, is in there all the time, and he seems to have inspired a good part of the Hogwarts population to hitting the books with him; hordes of students, most of whom I don’t think ever stepped one foot in the library before his arrival, have decided that it's now the place to be seen.
I really don’t want to go, but I’m missing some information on the properties of dragon liver which I need in order to finish my Potions essay. It’s due in a week, and I don’t like to leave things to the last minute.
The Quidditch player- I forget his name, stands and heads out of the Great Hall. He’s immediately followed by a swarm of people.
I down my drink and hurriedly prepare to leave also. It looks like he and his fans are heading outside, and if I’m fast, I can be in and out of the library in an hour and evade all of them.
“Where are you going?” someone asks, yanking on my arm.
I look down at Parvati. “To the library,” I reply. “I need to research something for the Potions essay.”
“Which essay? The one we were given just this afternoon?” She groans. “Hermione, no one's in the mood to study right now.”
That’s not true. I’m in the mood.
“Speaking of moods, she’s ruining the one here,” Ron says unkindly. “Just let her leave.”
Lavender chuckles. But she chuckles at everything Ron says, so I don’t take offence.
Harry, playing with a snitch he likely stole, looks wistfully in the direction the famous player has disappeared. “If I could just go to the library, read a book, and become amazing at Quidditch, I’d be there all the time,” he mutters. “Wait a minute! Is that why Krum’s always in the library?”
“No!” I say hastily, alarmed by the significant glances he's now exchanging with Ron and Neville. That’s the absolute last thing I need- more noisy Quidditch fans in the library. “No way,” I firmly tell them. “He’s just looking up spells to help him in the tasks. I saw him reading a book on orbital theories yesterday.”
I didn’t, but I figure it’ll turn them off to the idea of coming to the library with me.
And it works: They're grimacing with disgust. Smiling to myself, I leave.
-
The library is finally quiet.
Some OWLs and NEWTs students are occupying the study tables in the heart of the Potions section, and I stay a respectful distance from them, scouring the shelves as unobtrusively as I can. I’m looking for recently published books, ones that take into account Professor Dumbledore’s discourse on the twelve uses of dragon blood.
Finding a promising title, I pull it out:
[Regulating Hormone Imbalance in Mid-Weight Dragons]
“Liver,” I whisper into the spine, and the number ‘56’ appears engraved into it for an instant before disappearing. 56 mentions of liver in this book. Promising indeed. I flip to the first glowing page.
“May I haff a vord with you?”
I jump, accidentally dropping the book.
It’s the famous Quidditch player who’s snuck up behind me. Alone, too, and looking as though he’s just shed a disillusionment charm. He’s still semi-transparent around the edges.
“I am sorry if I haff scared you,” he apologises. He has a very thick accent. I’m not sure if I’m hearing everything he’s saying correctly.
I glare at him suspiciously, looking over his shoulder for signs of his followers of which there are none. He must have finally got sick of them and taken to walking around invisible. I don’t blame him.
“How can I help you?” I whisper.
“I am Viktor.” He offers me his hand to shake.
I take it, still peering around him. “I’m Hermione. You’re not supposed to be invisible in Hogwarts, you know.”
I know he’s not technically a student here, and while I do sympathise with his situation, it’s forbidden for a reason, and no one should be exempt from the rules.
“I’m sorry if I haff scared you,” he says again. “I hope I am not offending you by being so direct, but I vont to know how you are managing to be hiding.”
“Hiding?” I ask, frowning up at him. He’s frowning also, but then he always looks like he’s frowning. “I’m not hiding. I’m just being quiet. This is a library.”
His face gets even frownier. “No,” he insists. “You are hiding vot you are.”
I jerk back. “If you mean hiding the fact that I’m a muggle-born,” I snap quietly, “you should know that we don’t generally have a sign on our forehead declaring us as such. Now if you’ll excuse me.” I bend to pick up the fallen book, hoping I’ve made it clear that I want to be left alone.
But when I unbend, he’s still standing in front of me, and looking dumbstruck.
Maybe it’s the first time someone’s stood up to him, but if he thinks he can do wonky faints and get away with being a prick, it’s time he learns otherwise.
“This is a library,” I repeat pointedly.
His eyes widen. “You don’t know…” he mutters.
I resent being told that I don’t know something even if I don't know what the something I apparently don't know is, so I glare at him while debating whether to demand an apology or just walk away, until a smile breaks out across his face, erasing his inbuilt frown.
“Vot I mean,” he clarifies, “is that you are a beautiful girl. A very beautiful girl. That is vot I mean. How are you hiding your… true beauty from others, that is vot I was asking you.”
“Er, okay,” I mutter blushing straightaway. My eyes flit around. Is this a prank? Or is he really trying it on me?
“Hermione,” he says, voice deepening, “I think you are the most beautiful girl here in Hogwarts.”
Oh.
His voice makes something uncurl in my belly. He takes a step forward. I feel rooted to the spot.
“You vill go with me to the Yule Ball next week,” he says in an even deeper, lower voice. His eyes lock to mine. “Yes? Say yes.”
I nod dumbly. “Y-yes.”
“Good.” His voice returns to normal. He grins and winks at me. “See you soon, Hermione.”
I stay standing in the same spot for a while after he leaves before remembering what I’m supposed to be doing. I look at my book.
“Liver.”
The pages glow.
-
The Yule Ball is tomorrow.
I know, because I’ve been counting down the days in nervous anticipation. Along with everyone else. Ron finally asked Lavender to go with him, but seeing as he only asked her last night after rumours that he had been publicly rejected by the Beauxbatons Champion, I’m not sure she should be as happy as she is.
Nobody has asked me if I have a date, and I haven’t told anyone. Sometimes it feels like a dream, or a big joke, but every time I think about it, Viktor’s voice resounds in my head – You’ll go with me to the Yule Ball next week, yes? – and that voice silences all doubts.
So, I bought a dress; a very expensive dress, because I had to have it custom-made at the last minute. It’s a dark pink, my favourite colour.
There’s a tapping on the window. An owl looks balefully in at us, feathers white against the sky.
One of the boys- Neville, goes to open it and let in the owl. He takes the letter.
“It’s for Hermione,” he says, walking over to hand it to me.
All the girls turns to stare. “Who’s sent you a letter at night?” asks Lavender interestedly.
I shrug and put down my quill. “Thanks, Neville,” I say, ripping the envelope open.
Parvati reads aloud over my shoulder: “Wear your hair up tomorrow,” she squeaks breathlessly. “Who’s V?”
“No one,” I say, but that just makes it worse. Lavender leans over and snatches the slip of paper from my hands. She shrieks excitedly. “Who’s V, Hermione?”
-
I’m so proud and happy, I think. I’m walking into the Great Hall on the arm of the most famous Quidditch player in the world. I’m busy trying not to trip, and I’m smiling nervously at no one and nothing in particular.
Viktor’s prouder, smugger, and looking like he’s the one showing me off. Like he’s seen something in me no one else has. And I want to believe that- that finally, after all my struggle to belong to this world, someone has noticed me for me and not for the fact that I’m a muggleborn; but he has this mischievous grin on his face that kind of makes me nervous.
We descend the stairs.
“I like your hair,” he says to me. It’s piled up on the top of my head in smooth curls that took hours to achieve.
“Thanks,” I say. I look at him. We kind of match; his hair is a little curly at the top, like a masculine version of my hairstyle. He’s in burgundy and has a fur cape draped around one shoulder. I wouldn’t have thought him my type, but he asked me, and here we are. He’s good-looking, I guess, in a rugged kind of way.
We walk past a rank of silent students. Some of them look terribly displeased- his fan club, especially, and Venusa Lockhart’s face is thunderous. I heard that Viktor had first asked her to be his partner before changing his mind and not even telling her until yesterday. That doesn’t sound very nice of him, so I hope it’s not true.
I’m about to ask Viktor about it when he says, “You should wear your hair up all the time and show off your lovely neck.”
He brushes my neck with a finger.
Several girls around us burst into giggles. I hear an intake of breath and a whisper from someone nearby that sounds like: ‘No way’.
Is it that unbelievable that a famous Quidditch keeper has me for a date? I guess so. I can hardly believe it myself.
Viktor steers me towards the other champions all already waiting in the middle of the Great Hall, right in front of the row of professors and ministry officials.
None of them look very happy. Professor Karkaroff seems to be placating the Minister of Magic. “I can assure you that there is no intent…” I hear him say, before the music begins and we are swept into the first waltz.
“What’s happening there, you think?” I ask Viktor as we go through the motions.
Viktor laughs a full-throated laugh and spins me. “They’re not very happy with me,” he says happily.
“What did you do?” I ask. He’d probably been caught prowling around invisible. I did warn him. Although, I don’t think that kind of infraction would involve the Minister of Magic. Whatever he did had to have been really out of line.
He appears to think for a moment, and then says, “They think I stole something valuable.”
I spot Lavender and Ron amongst the blur of staring faces. Lavender is whispering in his ear.
Viktor spins me again, and when we come back to each other, I rest my hand on his arm. “Don’t joke about such things,” I scold lightheartedly. “You didn’t actually steal anything, did you?”
“Finders keepers,” he says cryptically, wearing a wide smile. He looks a lot less moody when he smiles.
“Ha ha,” I say. “Very funny. I know you play keeper and all, but I highly doubt that sort of childish excuse will hold up in court.”
He shoots me an astonished look. “I’m a seeker, Hermione.”
I wave a hand. “Seeker, finder, stealer, however you want to call it…”
“No. What? No! I play Seeker. In Quidditch.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I apologise. I may not care for the game, but I’m sure it’s important to him, and it’s embarrassing to have got it wrong.
The tempo of the waltz is slowing. “Well, what do they think you stole?” I humour him by asking.
While he’s thinking about it- inventing a lie, probably, the song comes to an end. We have to separate and bow to each other.
As the first smatterings of applause begins, he puts his thumb in his mouth, sucks on it, and then reaching out, his arm bridging the space between us, he rubs his wet thumb along my collarbone.
“You,” he grins.