Rating:
PG-13
House:
Astronomy Tower
Characters:
Hermione Granger Viktor Krum
Genres:
General Romance
Era:
Multiple Eras
Stats:
Published: 06/09/2003
Updated: 11/20/2003
Words: 224,686
Chapters: 100
Hits: 71,003

Past Present

Miss Yetigoosecreature

Story Summary:
Hermione, Harry, and Ron visit Viktor Krum in Bulgaria and discover there's a lot more to Viktor's past than they could have imagined.

Chapter 03

Chapter Summary:
The scar! The scar! Okay, I held off mentioning it until chapter 3. I think that was wonderful restraint. In this chapter, parents, baby pictures, a lot of nose talk, foreshadowing, some Bulgarian (according to the online translator, I mean, I don't know...), and the deep dark secret. Or at least, what was a secret before this chapter.
Posted:
06/15/2003
Hits:
938
Author's Note:
Uploading...uploading... lots of uploading. Thought I would knock of formatting and chaptering several at once.

Inside, Harry and Ron met up in the hall, still yawning and stretching. They headed down to the kitchen, where Anya was laying out sliced apples in a bowl, with her wand, to add to the already loaded table. They sat at the table, and she rushed to bring them glasses, indicating the milk in a pitcher on the table. "Okay?" she asked, and they nodded enthusiastically. Anya finished off the table with an open jar of honey, stepping between them to lay it on the table. She reached out and ruffled Harry and Ron's hair from their foreheads, much as she had done with Viktor, and smiled.

Feeling the scar under her fingers, she paused, turning to Harry. She propped his chin on her other hand, tilting his head back slightly, holding his hair away from his face with her right hand. She gently traced the scar with her cool finger, looking at it intently, a deep sadness creeping into her face. What might have felt like an unexpected manhandling from any other person felt like an oddly gentle, motherly caress from her. After a long moment, she smoothed his hair back down. "Sorry," she murmured, looking into his eyes, her own looking suspiciously teary. "Vork, now."

She turned toward the door, and there stood Viktor and Hermione. Viktor's face held almost the same sad expression, a short, wordless exchange seemed to take place, and they bid each other goodbye. "Sokrovishte" she said softly, patting Viktor on the shoulder, and Anya Disapparated just outside the back door. Viktor looked after her for a long moment.

"Why on ear... " Ron began, but Harry gave him a look that silenced him. Viktor glanced over at an alcove in the corner, full of family photos. He shook his head sharply, as if to clear it, and moved to sit down. He held Hermione's chair for her, then settled into his own seat.

"Pastry, pears, peaches, strawberries, clotted cream, whipped cream, apples, honey, cottage cheese, I'm not sure I could eat a tenth of this, " Hermione said brightly.

"What does she keep saying to you, your mum?" Ron asked, after swallowing his mouth full of pear.

"Vot?" Viktor asked, his absolute studied concentration on the untouched apple slice in his hand broken.

"That word, sokro..sokro... whatever. What's it mean?"

"Oh, that. 'Sokrovishte' is Russian. Roughly translated, it is 'treasure', sort of like 'darling'. Her grandmother used to call her that." He finally dipped the apple slice into the honey ladled onto his plate.

"That's nice," Harry said earnestly, feeling a bit envious that Viktor had someone who called him her treasure. The Dursleys certainly didn't feel that way about him.

As it was when he was with Mrs. Weasley, or even Hermione's mother, he found himself wanting a mother like that, one who caressed your face like a lost treasure returned unexpectedly and put out feasts for you and your friends. Viktor could at least look at his mother and see several of his own features, measure his height against his father's, trace his black hair, dark eyes, and Russian heritage on both sides. He had his mother's eyes. His father's mouth. That hooked nose might not be much of a prize to other people, but Harry often found himself wishing he could lament his unruly hair by simply pointing to his father and shrugging the way Viktor had written off his nose by nodding at Nikolas with an arched brow. All he had was other people's memories, a picture in his head.

They ate mostly in silence, until Hermione turned and began examining the photos in the alcove. One was obviously Anya and Nikolas on their wedding day, the wedding party surrounding them. Anya had a demure lacy veil over her dark hair, smiling shyly at the camera, giving a little wave, Nikolas was tall and imposing in his suit, one hand on her arm, the other around her waist.

She murmured little comments about each one, picking them up and studying them in turn. Christmases, birthdays, various broomsticks and Quidditch matches. "Oh, is this you?" she asked, showing him a small silver framed photo of a toddler with dark hair, not more than a year old, intense, serious expression in place, sitting on the grass in the orchard, fingers twisting in the blades.

Viktor smiled a little. "Yes. It is me."

She came to another photo of Anya and Nikolas, sitting in front of the fireplace, with a year-old toddler on her lap. She was jogging her knee up and down, the child studying the person taking the picture intently, solemnly. Viktor was certainly serious right from the beginning, Hermione thought and smiled to herself. He wouldn't even crack a grin as a toddler.

As she was about to replace it, she paused. Something wasn't right in the photo. She studied it a moment before realizing what was amiss. She glanced back over at the silver frame. The nose. The unmistakable nose passed on by Nikolas Krum was apparent in the first picture. Not nearly as prominent a feature or as obviously broken as it was now, it was definitely hooked. The child in the second picture had Anya's nose, more upturned, a thinner bridge.

She continued to compare the two. Almost identical in every other way, the second picture differed only in two details. The nose and the slightly longer, curlier hair. A cursory glance would have made her assume it was simply Viktor, maybe a bit older or younger than the first picture. "This one...it's not quite like the other one, could this be a cousin, maybe?" She turned back and put the picture in front of him. He closed his eyes and winced. "Viktor?"

"Not me. Violeta," he intoned sadly.

"Violeta? Who is Violeta?" Harry asked. Viktor sighed heavily, and took the photo from Hermione's hand.

"She is...vos... my sister. She vos two years younger." He studied the photo glumly, silently.

"W..was?" Harry prompted softly.

Viktor sighed again. "She vos killed. Ve had Death Eaters here as vell."

"But...but you're a pureblood. You would have never gotten into Durmstrang otherwise!" Ron said.

"Pure!" Viktor spat the word like it tasted bad. "Like that little dictator Malfoy? True, but blind luck, who your parents are, vhere you are born. No Durmstrang Institute, no wizarding academy, no Quidditch. I spoke almost no English then, no French now, so no Hogvarts, no Beauxbatons. Could not haff gone anyvay, even if my parents had vonted to send me there. Do you think Death Eaters cared if innocents got in the vay?"

Viktor raised his brows for a moment, dropping them and resuming, a deep scowl settling on his face as he continued. "Voldemort vos strong. Many, many Death Eaters in Russia, Romania, even Bulgaria. No vone knew who to trust. My mother vos in a Muggle shop, just across the border, in Russia, vith my sister. There vos...a ... a massacre. Death Eaters killed a group of Muggles, took the shop down, vith four more buildings. It vos passed off to Muggles as terrorist bomb. It fit. Russia vos beginning to crumble from the inside. Muggles had plenty to vorry about. Shortages, famine, assassinations, death sqvads, terrorists. My mother lived. Violeta... " He struggled for the word, and finally, it fell flatly from his lips. "Dead."

Eventually, he looked up at Harry. "The var, it vos not just in England. Ve suffered too. Ve are still suffering. I saw her feel your scar. She is scarred too, on the inside. She vos...curious, I am sure. Ve heard of The Boy Who Lived here. Like the rest, she vonders vhy, vhy so many others died. Vhy she lived. Vhy just a few months later, you lived," Viktor's voice was matter-of-fact, no bitterness, Harry thought. "Vot's vone pureblooded three-year-old by accident against forty Muggles dead?" he finished in a disgusted tone. He laid the picture reverently on the table, still studying it.

"Actually, it was kind of nice, your mother stroking my forehead. It just bothered me that she looked so sad. I'm sorry," Harry said quietly, not quite sure what he was apologizing for, bringing up a painful memory, or surviving.

"Viktor, I never would have brought it up if I had known..." Hermione began, but Viktor cut her off with a wave of his hand.

He looked back up, continuing to study Harry intently. "You lost your parents. No need to be sorry. You lived. You had to votch Cedric die. You lived. How or vhy, not important. Harry, others may vont a piece of you, because you are special. Sometimes you can't help being special, but you can help it vhen no one vill let you be vot you are. Don't let everyone else push expectations on you. Curiosity is fine, controlling is not. Guide your own destiny, Harry," he said with quiet conviction.

"Karkaroff nearly..." Viktor stopped abruptly and looked at Ron. "Ron...you may not think it, but you haff nothing to be jealous of. So many other people thinking you are special comes vith lots of problems. Hermione...she tells me you vere brave...sacrificing yourself in chess. Helping Harry. She and Harry think you are special. Your parents, your brothers, your sister, they do, I am sure. I vould... I vould like to consider you a friend."

Ron nodded, his mouth open. Viktor extended a large hand across the table and they shook solemnly. Viktor turned to Hermione and said softly, "It had to come out sometime about Violeta. Might as vell be now. Do I haff to tell you how special I think you are, too?" Hermione blushed and shook her head dumbly. Viktor chuckled softly. "My parents, they talked to me this morning about you. Met you all of five minutes and they haff you pegged."

"Pegged?" she asked.

"Know vot they said? 'Tia e krasivo momiche, i smart'," he laughed.

"Err, except for that bit on the end, I don't think I caught any of that."

"'She is a beautiful girl, and smart' in Bulgarian. No Bulgarian in those books at Hogvarts?" Hermione blushed again. "Mama caught you studying the book covers in the den while Harry and Ron just stood there yawning," he explained.

"Bookworm!" Ron jabbed. They all laughed, and Viktor discreetly slipped the photo back onto the table in the alcove.

"Vell, I haff a whole day before practice begins. You vont to see the grounds?" he asked the table at large. They all nodded. "Good. Lambs, hiking those hills, the orchard, I am going to put you to vork." And so he did. The wandered up and down the hills around the inn most of the morning, petted lambs and generally disturbed and startled the sheep during midday, stopping to picnic in the orchard, before picking wicker baskets full of peaches and smallish red apples that were early in ripening, climbing some of the bigger trees and sitting in the forks, legs dangling.

Ivan and Natasha wagged and panted along wherever they went, never far from Viktor. Viktor pointed out the small lake, fed by a cold water spring from the higher elevations, the hills, and talked them into swimming in it by saying he had been in the water during winter holidays, even. "Good grief! Viktor, you actually swim in this lake during the winter?" Ron asked, his teeth chattering, his lips blue, shivering on the shore.

"Vinter, summer, just as cold. The vater comes from the mountains, north. Melted snow."

They dashed in and out for five minutes or so at a time, with the exception of Viktor. "You sure it's actually melted?" Hermione asked, hopping up and down on the shore, rubbing her arms vigorously. "Seriously, do you ever get cold?" she asked, scrubbing the towel over her hair.

"Not often. It is a relief to not need big furred robes though," he replied, floating on his back near Harry, the only one still brave enough to be in the water. "On the bright side, no testy giant sqvid," Viktor pointed out.

"Or Grindylows." Harry added, his mind flashing back to the Durmstrang ship's arrival, and the moment he had recognized Viktor's profile, his thin body swathed in those bulky robes. He had thought all of Durmstrang's contingent must be as big and bulky as Crabbe and Goyle when he first spotted them with their thick furs. Turns out most of them had been nearly as slender as Viktor. Karkaroff, with his sleek furs, had been all fatherly concern, wanting him in the warmth since he had a head cold. Harry still remembered the way Karkaroff had seemingly fussed over Viktor.

"They've all surely frozen to death," Ron said.

They trudged toward the house at dusk again, tired and thoroughly worn out and pleasantly warmed by the sun "Tomorrow, Harry, practice," Viktor murmured. Harry groaned exaggeratedly in response, too tired to form a sentence. "Ron, you too, if you vont."

"Really!?! Practice with the team? Me?"

"Sure. Hermione?"

"I'll just watch, thanks. You know I have two left feet on a broom."

"Nothing a little practice in the orchard vould not fix," he replied.

"Said the boy who flew around those trees as fast as he could at age seven," she intoned. He sighed and shook his head, smiling quietly to himself.

At dinner, they talked excitedly about their day, about some of the events of the early summer, vacations with families, with occasional pauses for Viktor to narrate things in one direction or the other. Anya again ruffled everyone's hair as she cleared things away for dessert, not lingering on Harry any longer than the rest, instead spending an extra moment gathering Hermione's mass of hair off her neck and from the sides of her face, pulling it behind her shoulders before clearing her dishes.

This forehead stroking and hair gathering was a natural gesture of affection they often saw her lavish on Viktor when he entered a room, and they half expected her to start addressing them all as "Sokrovishte". She doted on her guests as much as on her son. The sadness that had been there this morning was almost forgotten. Even Viktor smiled now and then during dinner. They all crawled up the stairs to baths and bed right after supper. It had been a long day.