A Visit To Bulgaria

Chapter 8 - In Which We Learn of Rachel

Viktor approached the messenger owl thumping at his window with some apprehension. He trusted Anastasia's fashion sense, certainly, but he wasn't quite sure that he trusted Alexei's. He never really wore much of anything except his black robes and his Quidditch clothes. Clothes to him were a necessity, like a toothbrush was. Just as he wouldn't want a designer toothbrush, so he rather disliked clothes that smacked of money and pretensions.

The owl had almost succeeded in breaking open his window by the time Viktor unlatched it and pushed out the glass. The bird, with an annoyed hoot, unceremoniously dropped the silk-wrapped package at Viktor's feet and took to the skies with a disgruntled air. He stooped and picked up the bundle, turning it over to take off the roll of parchment tied to it. The note read:

I hope you find these satisfactory. I would advise you not to worry about how you look in them. Your friend Mr. Poliakoff has excellent taste in men's' wear.

Constantine

Feeling decidedly unreassured, Viktor untied the strings that bound the package, laid it on his bed, and unwrapped the silk. He unfolded the clothes inside, and found them to consist of a pair of breeches such as modern equestrian riders might use, a shirt that laced up the top half of the front, and a pair of leather boots. It certainly wasn't as bad as he'd thought it would be, yet he didn't like the unfamiliarity of it. He supposed, however, that it would be best to trust Alexei. After all, social events like these were really just not his forte.

*~*~*~*

Hermione, looking forward to a restful, lazy morning in bed, was unpleasantly surprised when she was awoken just after dawn by Anastasia, who had somehow found her way into the room despite the fact that Viktor's Locking Charms were still in effect from the night of the Death Eater attack on Pansy Parkinson.

"'ermione! We 'ave no time to waste! Out of bed!"

Hermione only grunted and rolled over, trying without success to grasp at the disappearing fragments of the beautiful dream she had been enjoying.

Anastasia rolled her eyes and deliberately yanked the covers off the bed. Hermione coughed and sat up. "Fine, fine, look, I'm up." Her eyelids drooped, and she almost fell back into the comforting nest of pillows and feather mattress.

"Bien. Now, we must go over to my room. Time to get started on ze preparations."

Conceding that it really was no use to argue with Anastasia about...well, anything at all, Hermione followed her out of the room and to the sixth years' tower. Since she had practically been dragged to Anastasia's rooms, Hermione felt a slight bit annoyed. Was she really so ugly that Anastasia thought all of this necessary? After pronouncing Hermione's nails on both her hands and feet "seemply despicable" Anastasia had set to work with an emery board and all sorts of disgusting-looking bottled concoctions that would supposedly make her nails stronger. She inquired about the exact color of the dress she was wearing to the Ball, and then proceeded to expertly paint her now perfectly rounded nails in an appealing shade of matte silver. She also insisted on no less than four coats of polish for each nail, a process that took an absurdly long time and irritated Hermione to a great extent. She felt ridiculous waving her hands around so that the polish would dry quicker. She also wondered why Anastasia didn't just use a simple spell for all of this, but when she inquired, she was informed clearly that magically enhanced beauty was subject to failure and that most of the spells in that category were invented by inexperienced teenaged girls. According to Anastasia, the Muggles were geniuses when it came to improving their appearance.

After the nail ordeal, Anastasia had shown Hermione her private bath, which was an amazing tub the size of a small swimming pool, sunk into the floor so that one had to go down steps to reach it. The room was tiled entirely in a shimmery blue that reflected the changing waters in the pool, which were scattered with round slices of lemon and orange and all sorts of colors of rose petals. Anastasia left Hermione alone in the bath, but not before extracting a promise from her not to emerge before two hours had passed. However, she was not at all bored. She found that Anastasia had provided all sorts of interesting books for her to read, including the newest book in a novel series that she especially enjoyed. The bath continuously gave off heavenly scents, and Hermione felt as if she never wanted to leave the scented waters.

The two hours flew by like a beautiful dream, and when Anastasia came to retrieve her, Hermione found herself reluctant, especially after she was informed that what was to occur next was that she would have apply a special sort of lotion over her entire body to prevent dryness. Hermione noted with a chuckle that Anastasia practically shivered with fear when she said "dryness."

By this time, nearly four hours had passed, and by Hermione's estimate it was about eleven o'clock. However, as she was soon to find out, Anastasia was far from finished. The next step was probably the most outlandish, as Anastasia smeared a bright blue paste all over Hermione's face. According to her, this facial was literally a miracle, but Hermione couldn't help but feel as if she had nuclear waste on her skin, for that was what it looked like. But when it was washed off and Anastasia gave her a mirror to see the results, she nearly fainted.

Before the facial, her skin had been plagued by the occasional breakouts that most adolescents have, and one had cropped up just a few days previous. She had been slightly worried about the bright red spots on her nose and forehead, but now they were gone, without even a slight mark to commemorate where they had once been. Also, she had had slight variations of color across her face, which she thought little of. Her face now was completely smooth, and as she touched her cheek, she found it to be as soft as a baby's skin. The color had also changed slightly, to a gorgeous shade a tad darker than cream, but still light enough so that it contrasted amazingly with her brown hair and matched the rest of her skin. As if that was not enough, her face now radiated a sort of cleanliness and health, an incandescent glow that was obvious and yet not unnatural.

Speechless, she turned to Anastasia to thank her, but the other girl only shrugged and said that it was nothing, and that she had practically tons of the stuff. She then got to work on her hair. After applying a straightening concoction to it, she brushed it until it practically gleamed in the sunlight. Hermione had never thought that she had golden strands in her hair before, but now it seemed as though she had quite a few of them. Anastasia twisted Hermione's long bangs into two braids and fastened the ends together at the back of her head with an intricate clip that looked almost Celtic, with its entwined knot work patterns. When she looked in the mirror again, it was the face of some medieval princess that greeted her, and she was much impressed at Anastasia's skill.

She thought that it really couldn't get any better than this, but once again she was completely wrong. Anastasia whipped out a huge box overflowing with cosmetics and set to work, declaring foundation and powder unnecessary due to the present perfect state of Hermione's skin, but insisting on a luxurious red lip color and neutral eye shadow to accentuate the "deepness" of her eyes.

Hermione, by the end, was simply shocked by her own radiance. She had never thought that she could have been beautiful, much less that goddess that looked back at her from the mirror.

*~*~*~*

After Anastasia had worked her peculiar magic, Hermione planned to go to her room and have lunch there. She wanted the new changed to be entirely a surprise to Viktor that night. In the hall on the way, nearly everyone stopped dead in their tracks to stare at her. Unused to that sort of blind adoration, she gave them odd looks, but still they gazed at her in disbelief. She was rather impatient, and it didn't improve her mood. After all, what might possibly be one of the most important nights of her life was coming, in less than six hours.

The element is surprise was, however, eliminated the moment she stepped into the room. Viktor had already arrived, bringing with him a small table and two chairs like a Parisian cafe might have. It was set with food, including a risotto that gave off the heady scent of almonds.

"Oh! Thank you!"

Like all of the people in the hall, he simply stared. "Vot did Stasi do to you?"

She reddened a little bit, though on her now-perfect skin it looked simply like an attractive blush. "Just a facial. Really, everyone is looking at me like I just sprouted tentacles."

He smiled. "No, no, of course not. Sit and eat."

She did so, and they spent several minutes in contented silence, chewing.

Hermione took another bite of the excellent almond risotto and asked a question that had been on her mind for quite some time.  "Viktor, have you ever had any other..."  She let the sentence finish itself, unsaid.

"One."

She sensed a bit of hesitation on his part, so she said nothing and waited for him to continue at his own pace. 

"Her name vos Rachel."

A beautiful name.

"Ve vere both fifteen.  It vos during the summer ven I spent the holidays in Italy.  I vos staying with Alexei's family in their retreat at Lake Como."

"Lake Como?  I've seen pictures of it.  Almost paradise."

He continued as if she had not said a single word.  "In the shade, her hair vos a very simple middling brown.  Ven the sun came out, it vos as if someone had set fire to her head.  Not quite red, because fire is not red, but some other shade..."

Perhaps I should not have asked him.

"She vos so vibrant, so full of life, that sometimes she exhausted me.  Ve vood run through the halls of the retreat, chasing each other, or through the meadows by the lake.  And ve vood go swimming together, at night."

At night?

"Haff you ever seen the full moon on vater, Herm-own-ninny?  It is possibly the most beautiful thing in the vorld.  I know that I vill never forget it."

I definitely shouldn't have asked.

Suddenly his face lost that dreamy expression and hardened a little.  "One day she had tired me out so much that as we sat together in front of the fireplace that night, I fell asleep.  From what I heard later, she went swimming anyway."

Oh my God.

"They found her the next morning.  They said it was simply that she wasn't very strong, or a very talented swimmer, and when she got out farther than she had intended to, she just couldn't swim back to the land."

*~*~*~*

After Viktor had left her alone with the remnants of lunch, Hermione went to the bay window, sat down, and looked despondently out of the window while musing for a while on what she had just discovered.  She admitted that her motives in asking the question were not entirely innocent.  Guilt swelled in her at the discovery that she'd actually wanted to know about his former love interests just so that she could better them.  After all, she reasoned with herself, she did not need to compare herself with anybody.  She was perfectly fine just the way she was, and besides, Viktor admired and liked her anyway, despite the former existence of this Rachel girl. 

Yet did he still hold her in such high esteem?  For the first time in her life, Hermione had the unsettling feeling that Viktor must have experienced: the knowledge that one that you care for greatly might not care for you at all.  It was a despicable emotion, and she immediately felt even more guilt for indirectly causing him pain over the almost two years that they had known each other. 

Why didn't he want to tell me more about Rachel?  Was she beautiful?  Was she intelligent?  How did she laugh?  What did she wear?  What did she say to him that made him fall in love with her?  Why am I so curious about her?  Yet, even as she asked herself the question, she knew the answer.  It is because it is the one part of his life that he will not tell me about, and that was not totally focused on doing what others wanted him to do.  He had his first taste of freedom that summer in Italy.  And it was this girl Rachel that showed him what it was like to live life to the fullest, to laugh until he cried, and to cry until he laughed.  But still, why won't he discuss her with me?  It was five years ago.  The pain must have dulled.  Besides, he loves me, doesn't he?  He can't still love Rachel, can he?  She's been dead for five whole years!  Can he love a memory, a few fading images and sounds, maybe one or two photographs? 

Can he?

And then a disturbing thought hit her.  If I died, could he forget me in five years?  Could he live again?  Would I want him to?  She did not know the answer.

*~*~*~*

After the abrupt end to the lunch he had been enjoying with Hermione, Viktor had gone back to his room and dug around in his closet until he found, at the bottom in a corner, a medium-sized wooden box without a keyhole.  It opened at his touch, as if it knew his fingers.  He closed it again and brought it to his desk.  Sitting down, with the mid-afternoon sun streaming over the wood, he opened the box again and emptied its contents onto the desk.  It contained five photographs and a small lock of very fine, straight brown hair.  He took the strands of hair, tied together with a piece of ribbon, and held them up to the sunlight.  Instantly the color changed into exactly the sort of fire he'd tried to describe to Hermione.  A few of the strands shone like purest gold.  He shook his head, sighed, and put it back in the box.  Taking the first in the pile of photographs, he studied it, trying to call to mind the day that it had been taken.  It showed him and a teenaged girl sitting side by side in a grassy meadow dotted here and there with flowers.  If he concentrated, he could remember...

    "Viktor," murmured Rachel as she looked up at the sky dappled with clouds, "what is the meaning of life?"

    "To work hard and to get the most you can out of it."

    "No," she exclaimed, looking him straight in the eyes, "you've got it all wrong.  The meaning of life is to enjoy every separate pleasure like it was your last."

    "I don't understand."

    "No, you wouldn't, with all your studies and schoolwork...but there was a British poet once who wrote a poem about all the pleasures of life and how he wanted to enjoy them with the one he loved..."

    "Christopher Marlowe."

"So they teach you useful things at that school of yours?"

"Poetry is useful?"

She'd playfully punched him in the shoulder then, as if appalled at his lack of intellect.  "Poetry is the words of the soul!  You've just forgotten what beauty is."

That he knew was true.  Until he'd come to Italy, he'd thought that life was entirely composed of schoolwork, and that he was destined to work as hard as he did for the rest of life.  But here, everything was enchantment.  His next words shocked him the moment they left his mouth.  "Make me remember."

She stared at him, dumbfounded.  Then she reached for the back of his neck, pulled him down in the grass beside her, and kissed him...

When Viktor had finished looking at the photograph, he put all five of them back in the box and went over to stand by the fireplace, the box in his hands. What was in the box was all he had left of Rachel and the summer in Italy. At his request, Alexei had destroyed all the other photographs and indeed any other evidence that he had ever visited Italy. Was it right for him to live in the past like this? It used to be that every day after he had finished his work, he had stared at these five photographs for hours. He'd needed the memories more than he'd needed food, or sleep, or his friends. Not even Alexei knew that he had saved these photographs. Alexei had simply assumed that he had forgotten about Rachel, and consigned her to the dead.

Though he and Alexei were no doubt the closest of friends, he had enjoyed something with Rachel that Alexei could never understand - or experience. Every time he looked at those photographs, the same sort of enchantment crept over his mind again. The days by the lake in Italy were forever burned into his mind. Yet by clinging to them, he was doing both Hermione and Rachel an injustice. He extended the hand holding the box over the fire as the patterns of the flames danced over his face. He could get rid of it all now, watch as the wood was bathed in heat and melted under the force of the fire, exposing what was left of his first happiness to the flames, which never had any mercy.

Then, his face twisted into an expression near to fury, and he flung the box away from him, against the wall. God damn it, I am going to enjoy myself tonight, even if she is dead.

*~*~*~*

When her clock pleasantly chimed six o'clock, Hermione was broken out of her thoughts, glanced at the time, and slipped off the bay window onto the floor. Her ball gown was neatly laid out on her bed, along with the hair ribbons that she hadn't ended up using. With a languid flick of her wand, she transformed them into bracelets. Then, she put on her dress, lacing it up tightly in the front. She was reaching for her unassuming silver sandals when a knock sounded at her door. "Come in, it's not locked," she answered, rather annoyed.

As she had expected, it was Anastasia. Alexei was waiting outside, in a costume reminiscent of sixteenth century male Muggles. "Eet ees the tradition for ze men to dress up for ze Ball, 'ermione."

"Anastasia, I'm sure I look fine. I do not need any more facials, coats of nail polish, or a better pedicure."

"Ah, no, 'ermione, ce n'est pas what I came for. I 'ave two more things for you." She brought her hands out from behind her back. In each was a delicately crafted shoe made of -

Hermione blinked. "Glass?"

Anastasia giggled. "Well, zey are reinforced with ze charms so zat zey will not break. But do you like zem?"

"Oh, Anastasia..." With wonder and adoration, Hermione took the shoes and carefully slipped them over her feet, then tentatively stood up. They held as firmly as if they were normal shoes, and felt as comfortable as her old hiking boots. "I...can't begin to thank you..."

"Do not bother, ma chere. I only ask zat you enjoy yourself tonight. And 'ere is ze second thing." She tapped Hermione's head with her wand and a garland of fragrant jasmine flowers formed out of thin air and settled itself on the crown of her head. "Now you are ready for ze Ball. I a've got your Revels clothes with me."

Alexei grunted under his breath, as if it was a secret signal, and Anastasia smiled. "Well, Alexei ees very impatient, ees 'e not? I will see you soon."

Then she was gone, as quickly as she had come, closing the door behind her. Hermione found herself in a sort of odd shock. Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed herself in the mirror, and turned around, mesmerized with herself.

Then another knock sounded on Hermione's door, and she knew very well who it was. She hesitated a little before opening the door, wondering if he was still in a sour mood from the afternoon. Her curiosity overcame her hesitation, and she turned the knob.

He was standing before her, and the first thing that struck her was how beautiful he was, both in person and in soul. She had never thought before of just how immensely fortunate she was to have him, and to have this night. Suddenly she was immensely grateful for everything, for her life, for her newfound beauty, for the friendship of Anastasia, for the love he had for her, for Harry and Ron, Hogwarts, even Snape.

They stood there staring at each other for quite some time until he broke the silence, his voice full of sincerity and devoid of any sarcasm or falseness.

"I almost feel like I should kiss the ground you valk on. I can truthfully say that I haff never seen anyone as beautiful as you, both inside and out, in my entire life. You vere beautiful from the very first day I saw you, and I cannot believe that this is true and not just some dream that reality will soon rob me of."

When she said nothing but simply stared at him, he offered her his arm and said, "Ve must not be late."

She took the invitation, and together they descended the entwined spiral staircases, both of them looking forward to the night of their lives.