Just A Boy

Just a Boy

Notes: I have no idea why I had the compulsion to write this, but the muse struck and stuck and for the first time ever, I actually wrote Viktor Krum. And liked it. Dear oh dear. Methinks I´ll be writing more Viktor fic soon. He really is awfully sweet!

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Viktor Krum shifted nervously on his feet just inside the door of the library, his bag full of books slung low on his shoulder. His dark eyes scanned around the room and he felt a nervous jolt when he saw her.

Yes, he had played in the Quidditch World Cup.

Yes, he was one of the youngest Professional Seekers in the world.

Yes, he was possibly the most famous pupil to ever emerge from Durmstrang, but that didn´t matter now.

Now, his stomach feeling like it had been launched into space, he was in the library at Hogwarts, as Viktor. Not a celebrity Quidditch player. Not a competitor in the Tri-Wizard tournament. Just as himself.

Himself...

Even the thought of that made him want to laugh in panic.

He never approached anyone, not like this, not as simply Viktor: a nervous boy who truly liked a studious girl who was always sitting in the corner of the library and he was hoping beyond hopes that she would agree to accompany him to the Yule Ball.

When Karkaroff had first informed him of the ball, he had laughed.

Everyone knew that he didn´t dance.

The very idea was ridiculous and humiliating and he had told Karkaroff so.

The Head Master had not been amused, his eyes turning cold and narrowed to icy slivers that always made Viktor feel like less than an insect crushed beneath his teacher´s boot, and he had informed Viktor that the ball was compulsory.

Please let her understand that I have never done this before.

Glancing around the quiet library, only a scattering of pupils here and there, he couldn´t help feeling relieved that the gaggle of girls who normally followed him everywhere were probably in their classes.

For this, he knew he would rather talk to her alone, in the room where his whispers would be smothered by the heavy, dusty air that filled the whole room, the scent of parchment, leather binding and ink lingering around them.

Please do not let me offend her.

Approaching the girl, who was bowed over a massive book at the table in the far corner, out of the way of everyone, he stopped close to her chair. The sunlight was pouring in the window, casting its warming fingers over her intent face.

He had never seen anyone so...focussed on anything.

His hands were shaking and uncomfortably twisting around the strap of his bag, his palms damp with sweat, he licked lips that were suddenly very dry.

He could distract her, talk to her.

He could.

Please give me the words so I do not offend her.

"Excuse me?" How astonishing it is that under such circumstances, the most normal of voices can be rendered a squeak.

Please let her listen to me.

The girl looked up from her books, a surprised expression on her face. Viktor´s heart sank as the familiar expression of recognition darkened her eyes.

Please don´t make her hate me.

Maybe this was a mistake, after all.

Maybe he should have simply asked one of the pretty, mindless fools who giggled their high pitched giggles and hid their faces when he passed, but he did not want someone who saw him for his name.

Please let her listen to me, just for a moment.

Brown eyes studied him calmly, a little distant, but nothing like Karkaroff. Curious and puzzled. "What can I do for you?"

Please.

Often, he had noticed, since he had started coming to the library, to try and bring himself to talk to someone as brilliantly-minded as she allegedly was, she would leave when he entered.

Please don´t let me offend her or hurt her or upset her.

"I voz wondering," he began, his hands twisting more vehemently on the strap of his bag. His mental voice was screaming that this was folly, the puzzled and slightly amused look on her face making him want to turn and flee. "That is to say..."

Please let the floor open and swallow me whole.

"Would you like to sit down?" she asked.

Please will you repeat that because I am sure I must be hearing things.

"Vot?" Blinking at her, Viktor wondered if he could possibly have sounded more stupid in his life. Here he was, trying to get the nerve to talk to this clearly brilliant girl and he had been reduced to one syllable words out of sheer panic.

Please let me say something coherent.

She smiled at him. Not a smile that he was used to, fake with as many teeth as possible on display, but a small lifting of the corner of her lips. "Would you like to sit down?" she repeated, gesturing to the seat beside her.

Please let me do the right thing.

"Of course. I vould be honoured," Sitting down, he dropped his bag - heavy with books - into his lap gripping the strap just as tightly as he had when the bag was on his shoulder. "I am...I am Viktor," he volunteered awkwardly, raising his eyes to her and nervously extending a hand, hoping she wouldn´t mind too greatly that his palms were clammy with nervousness.

This was far worse than playing against Ireland.

There, he had only had a team to contend with and he was in his place, on a broom, the wind whipping his face. Catch a snitch. That was all he had to do. It was a simple task compared to this. There, he knew the rules and could manipulate them to help him get what he needed to insure victory.

Here, he was on the ground, out of the wonderful free element of the air, feeling all the terrified nerves that he was sure that every other boy in the castle felt, when they approached a lady to be a partner for a Yule Ball.

Please do not let her take offence.

She stared at him for a minute, then smiled that pretty little smile again. Her smaller hand slid into his and she shook it with a firm self-assuredness. "I´m Hermione Granger," she replied. "I know who you are."

Her skin was soft and dry, his own damp and warm. He could see the faintly ink-stained tips of her fingers resting against the edge of his palm and that she had neatly trimmed nails.

Feminine hands, but not the painted nails that he found so disconcerting.

Already, she was unlike the others.

Please do not let her hate me.

"You do?"

Please. Please. Please.

She nodded. "My friends like Quidditch, so I heard all about you from both of them, especially at the World Cup," The cool look in her eyes had warmed somewhat. "I´ve seen you in here a lot as well."

That made him start in surprise. "You haf noticed me?"

"You´ve been in here almost as often as I have," she replied amiably. "You seem to study a lot."

"Actually," How he needed the right words now, but it was on occasions like these that the mind and the tongue are two very separate entities, each following a different set of instructions. "I haf been coming here because I have hoped to be meeting you for some time now."

There.

He had said it.

She gaped at him and he looked down at the bag in his lap. His face had darkened to deep red and he wondered if she could feel the heat radiating from his cheeks. "I hope you do not think I am imposing upon you by coming in here to find you."

Her mouth opened and shut a few times. "Did...are...are you saying that you came in here to see me?"

Please forgive me, my rudeness.

"I vill leave you alone," he mumbled, getting to his feet. "I am sorry for disturbing you, Hermyninny."

"Wait!" she was on her feet too. "You...you really came here because of me? Why?"

Please help me. Please do not let me offend her. Please do not let me ruin this chance.

Unable to look her in the eyes, Viktor stared down at his hands, which were closed tightly around his bag. "You do not treat me like I am something so special," he replied carefully. "You are not running around me like a fool. You behave like I am a normal person." He slowly turned and met her eyes. "I haf not been treated like this for a long time."

"Oh."

Such a simple sound.

One little sound.

Had he offended her?

Did she mind?

Why did his heart feel like it was about to leap through his chest?

She was staring at him and he tried to understand what he was seeing in her face.

Confusion, yes. Wonder?

"What...is that what you wanted to talk to me about?" she asked, her voice shaking a little, as his was.

Please let me do this right.

"I vos vondering...I vill understand if you are not vanting to, but..." Time seemed to have slowed down, as he tried to form the words, his stomach twisting painfully. "I-I vos vondering if you vould be my..." Somewhere on the way from his brain to his lips, his words went off at an obscure tangent and were blurted out with a little less finesse that he wanted. "Please, vill you go vith me to the Yule Ball?"

Please say yes, please, please, please...

Hermione Granger´s brown eyes went wide. "Me?" she squeaked.

"If you are going vith someone already," he hastily added. "I vill not be surprised."

"No! No, I´m not! No one has asked me yet... except you," She sat down on the seat behind her with a bump and stared up at him. "You...you really would like me to go with you?"

Please say yes.

"I vould be honoured if you will be my partner," he replied honestly, the knots in his stomach getting tighter by the minute.

Why hadn´t she said yes or no yet?

"But I-I´m a Muggle-born," she whispered unsteadily, her eyes still lingering on his face, as if she had never seen such a thing before. "Your Head Master...he wouldn´t like it if you took me..."

"Vell, I am not going vith my Head Master," he said with a nervous half-smile, sitting down opposite her. "And he vill haf no choice."

"But you could choose any girl," she argued. "There are so many girls who are prettier than me. Why don´t you go with one of them? I mean, I´m not exactly anything special..."

"But you are, Hermyinny," he said as he hesitantly took one of her hands, which he was surprised to notice was shaking as much as his own. "I vould very much like to go vith you. Please."

Please say yes. Please. Please.

A shy smile reached her lips. "All right," she replied bashfully, a blush blooming on her cheeks.

YES!

"But," she added and he felt his heart sink. Was he so bad that she had changed her mind already? She lowered her eyes for a moment, then looked up at him. "Can... can we keep it a secret until the ball?"

Viktor blinked at her. He had been hoping to ask her the same thing, because he knew that - as she had observed - Karkaroff would not be pleased that his star pupil was consorting with a Hogwarts student, a Gryffindor and a Muggle-born.

"It´s not that I´m not pleased to be going with you, because I am," she hastily said, clearly mistaking his silence for an expression of hurt. "But I-I don´t want to make things difficult."

"I am understanding and I must be agreeing with you," he said, hoping he had not offended her in some way. She looked at him hopefully. "I vos going to ask you the same thing. I do not think Karkaroff vill be pleased and I vould...I vould like that he does not know until it is too late to stop us."

She smiled, then, a broader smile than before. "That sounds perfect," she said, her cheeks a pretty pink when he looked at her.

"I-I vill leave you to your vork now, Hermyninny," he said. "Thank you."

"Thank you, too," she replied, blushing again.

Turning back to her books, she didn´t see the smile that Viktor couldn´t conceal. It was an alien expression for him for the most part, but she was simply so sweet, so charming that he could not help but smile at her.

He couldn´t wait for the Ball.

Now, he could almost say he knew what it felt like to fly without a broomstick, his heart soaring at the very thought of her, as he turned and walked back out the library, smiling to himself.