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 22

Chapter Summary:
In this chapter, we find out what his parents got Viktor for his birthday, and the gang transfer to the Burrow for the remainder of the summer. Bill Weasley and his ponytail also make a cameo appearance, and Mrs. Weasley gets to make a birthday cake, something she enjoys only slightly less than knitting big wooly jumpers.
Posted:
06/26/2003
Hits:
800
Author's Note:
I went with the general consensus that Viktor is turning 19 at this point. Really, there is no ironclad statement of Viktor's age in GOF. All we know is he's over 17, since he can enter the tournament, and Ron's rather shaky statement at the World Cup to Harry, when Ron states something to the effect of "He's only 18 or something" when Ron's bragging on Viktor. I don't recall anything else in GOF (right this instant, anyway) in reference to Viktor's age. We'll assume that Quidditch-nut Ron knows enough about Viktor as a player that he got his age correct, seeing as he's a record-breaker.

"So what did you get?" Ron asked as he finished his muffin and stuffed a stray sock into his bag.

"Get?" Viktor looked puzzled.

"For your birthday! Sheesh! You really aren't any good at this wild eyed birthday greed, are you? You mean to tell me you still haven't opened it?" Ron rumpled his hair in his frustration.

"Yesterday was not my birthday. If it will make you happy, I will open it when we get there," Viktor grumbled as he trudged back up the steps to fetch the small package his mother had handed him the previous rainy evening at dinner. Harry was sure he and Ron were much more curious about what might be inside it than Viktor. He seemed rather indifferent.

"Come on, then. Stoatshead portkey will not wait all day and The Burrow is not getting to be a shorter walk," Viktor lectured. After much making over from Anya and Nikolas and many goodbyes, they bundled themselves out to the hill overlooking The Pavlova. They reused the knobby old tire they had traveled with from Sofia on that first day. Coming to an unsteady stop, they collected themselves at the top of Stoatshead Hill.

"C'mon! Open it already!" Ron shook Viktor's elbow.

"I'm getting curious too, Viktor," Hermione added.

He took the small box from his robe pocket and untied the ribbon almost reverently. This he folded and tucked back into the pocket. He peeled the paper open at the end flap, and slid the wrapping paper off in a neat packet, which he flattened and returned to the same pocket. A hinged box lay in his palm, and he considered it a moment before prying the top open.

In the box was a small locket on a chain. He removed it and balanced it on his fingers for a second, studying the back. "Guerda Engelikos," Viktor read the cyrillic script aloud, then rested it in his palm, gold chain spilling over his cupped fingers. After a bit, he tapped he small locket lightly with his wand. It opened to reveal four tiny portraits, one on the inside lid, one each side of the middle hinged leaf, and one on the inside back. Nicholas, Anya, Viktor and Violeta as a girl of about two.

He prodded it gently with the tip of the wand again, and the corners of his mouth turned up subtly when the strains of an orchestra came out of nowhere. Not nowhere exactly, but from the locket. "Isn't that...?" Hermione began.

"Nutcracker Suite, Waltz of the Flowers. Tchaikovsky," Viktor finished for her.

"I'm sure there's a perfectly logical explanation, but I couldn't guess," Ron said.

"I had no idea they even really remembered telling me the story in the first place, it has been years," Viktor said quietly, flipping the locket back over to run a finger over the inscription. "The music, there are two perfectly logical explanations. Papa listens to a lot of Tchaikovsky. Nearly every Christmas holiday, we would go to St. Petersburg and see the Nutcracker Suite. And they danced to it, late at night when I was supposed to be in bed. I used to lie at the top of the stairs and watch them through the banister sometimes. I fell asleep once with my head on the second step. I wonder if they ever knew about that. Oh, they danced to other things, but it was almost always that one, sooner or later." He pressed the small locket closed lightly between two fingers, then put it around his neck and tucked it into the neck of his robe.

"Curiosity satisfied?" Viktor asked as he raised his eyebrows at Ron.

"For now," Ron replied. "Okay, Burrow's that way. All downhill from here." They set off down the hill toward the burrow, soon reaching the door and hearing the usual bustle of various Weasleys inside.

"I still wish you would let me give it a trim, dear. I don't know why Gringott's lets you go to work with that earring, and your hair all silly," Mrs. Weasley was scolding.

"Hey, Bill's here, then." Ron tossed his bag down by the door, and he, Harry and Hermione walked into the Burrow and the kitchen, where Bill was sitting at the table with a cup of tea, completely ignoring his mother's critique of his dressing style while perusing the Daily Prophet. Viktor hung back near the entrance to the kitchen. Ginny was busy putting dishes on the counter, readying to set the table, and Mrs. Weasley was banging away in several pots and pans.

Bill glanced up from his tea. "Oi, Harry, Ron, Hermione! How was your summer then? Come here, tell us all about it and save me from Mum's attempts to remake my image, already. She'll have me in one of those three piece Muggle suits by the time I get out of the kitchen if I'm not careful. Oh, and hullo there! Viktor Krum! Mum didn't tell me you were escorting these three home," Bill added, noticing Viktor for the first time.

"Now, Bill! I did too! And who did you think the birthday cake was for?" Mrs. Weasley interjected.

"Oh, one of my many siblings, probably. I thought maybe I had forgotten one, Mum. It's too hard to keep track. And how was I to be expected to know it was Viktor's birthday?" Bill said cheekily.

"Bill! I distinctly told you! Honestly, you would think you don't hear a word I say. Don't mind him, dear," Mrs. Weasley smiled at Viktor.

"Must have been in the middle of all that haircut, earring, and clothes talk. I listened to the games on the wireless. Sounded like they were real crackers. As good as the World Cup. You were incredible in all of them," Bill said, shaking Viktor's hand.

"Thank you," Viktor replied. Just then Fred and George came running through the kitchen.

"Mum, we're just off to the shed... oh, hullo, you lot... George here thinks he may have the solution to our Exploding Quills going off prematurely!" Fred yelled as they tramped through.

"You boys be back here in time for lunch! And you could at least..." Mrs. Weasley shrieked after them.

"...properly greet our guests, we know. Viktor, you were fab in the games, don't say a word about them until we get back and can listen to the blow by blow. You won us a fair bit in that Wales game ... oops!" Realizing his error in mentioning betting, George managed to streak out the back door before his mother started her tirade.

"Gambling! Those boys are going to be the death of me yet, and we're not going to have two planks of the garden shed standing if they don't stop cooking up their jokes out there!" She sat the pan she was stirring on the counter a little harder than necessary.

"I don't suppose I would be wrong in guessing that it's our twins that are going to be the death of you, and not any of the rest of them, Molly?" Mr. Weasley walked in from the back garden. "Oh, hello there, Viktor, it's nice to finally meet you in person! I really enjoyed watching you in last year's World Cup. Arthur Weasley." Arthur offered his hand.

"Nice to meet you," Viktor replied.

"Mum, Viktor's got longish hair, you won't be harassing him for a trim the entire time he's here, will you?" Bill piped up, pointing a finger in an exaggerated accusation at the back of Viktor's head.

"Bill! Will you let that drop! Course not dear, Viktor's is nowhere near as long as yours. Viktor, don't you mind the lot of them, I don't know why I bother. Why don't you and Hermione go out in the garden and arrange the tables? Hermione knows where they are, and I thought we would eat out today, since it's so nice," Mrs. Weasley said. Viktor looked the tiniest bit relieved at the prospect of getting out of the noisy kitchen. He wasn't particularly fond of crowds, Hermione knew, and the Weasleys were definitely a noisy crowd.

"Funny, I tried asking her to let it drop several times, and it didn't work. Maybe I didn't hold my tongue just right," Bill laughed. Viktor returned a slight smile, then followed Hermione out the door.

Mrs. Weasley clucked her tongue and looked after them. "Dreadfully shy thing, isn't he? Barely said two words the entire time he was in here. But then the rest of you didn't exactly give him a chance to get a word in edgewise."

"More like quiet, Mum. He just doesn't say anything unless he has good reason to. I imagine he's not used to the kitchen being busier than the train station and twice as noisy. His family isn't a constant three ring circus like our crew. Nikolas was probably the most talkative of the lot, and he didn't exactly talk our ears off. Could be because of all the translating back and forth, but he was still friendly enough," Ron said.

"Did you say Nikolas? Nikolas Krum?" Bill interrupted.

"Well, it's his dad, so yeah, I suppose he would be Nikolas Krum, Bill. Fathers do often share a last name with their son," Ron shot back.

"Mind your cheek, Ron. Hmmm, well I suppose that probably would be him, then," Bill said to himself, rubbing his chin.

"Him who?" Ron wrinkled his forehead in confusion.

"Fella I work with, Lestrev, he's got a picture of his first crew that he showed to me. Viktor look quite a lot like his dad?"

"Sure. Dark hair, black, dark eyes, he got the nose from him, tall and built rather like him, too. Lanky. Surely you saw them at Hogwarts last year?" Ron responded.

"Not really. And I wasn't working with Lestrev then. I suppose it's Viktor's dad, then, in the picture. Lestrev isn't a big one for Quidditch, doesn't really follow sport, but he saw Viktor's picture on a Quidditch magazine I was reading and asked if he might be any relation to Nikolas Krum, maybe his son. Told him I had no idea what Viktor's dad's name might be. Lestrev seemed to think it a little unlikely that Nikolas would have a son in such a ... a public job. But with that longer hair and the way he's filled out a bit since last year, he looks remarkably like his dad in that picture. Suppose he would be about the same age by now, too."

"Why so unlikely, dear?" Mrs. Weasley asked, putting the potato salad in a bowl.

"Now, Mum, if I tell this, you have to promise not to shriek 'poor baby' and go running out there in the garden and tackling him while you squall," Bill warned. He took a deep breath. "I don't suppose I should really tell this, but... Nikolas had to deal with a family tragedy several years ago. Quit his job and never came back."

"Viktor's mum getting hurt in a Death Eater attack. His sister dying in the same attack. In Russia. He's told us. His dad quit his job to stay home with his mum," Ron said.

"What about him?"

"Viktor's dad?"

"No. Viktor."

"What about him?"

"Lestrev seemed to think Nikolas quit as much to be with his son as he did to be with his wife. Considering the circumstances, if Lestrev heard right, I suppose it would be. I mean, I can't imagine. Nikolas rather dropped out of sight after that. They lost touch really. By the time it happened, they were on different crews, but they were still friendly, saw each other occasionally before that."

"Huh? What are you getting at, Bill?"

"It's got to be hard to see something like that happen, much less to someone you know. You see..."

"I was there. I saw," Viktor supplied from the doorway. "What is it with you Weasleys? Every time I leave a room and come back, I seem to walk in on a conversation about me," Viktor said, not unkindly.

"I'm sorry. It really was none of our business, but I work with a former colleague of your dad's. Lestrev. He seems to think pretty highly of your father. Says Nikolas Krum is a bit of a living legend around Gringott's. For being the only coworker that crusty old Lestrev ever got on with completely, if for nothing else."

"Enormous blonde man with a perhaps overbearing fondness for black pudding, mulled wine... and a limp... and a walrus mustache?" Viktor asked in a lighter tone.

"That's the one. I can't imagine two people of that description ever working at Gringott's," Bill nodded.

"Papa has some pictures of him and I think I met him once or twice at Gringott's. He has not gotten anything else chewed on by a dragon?"

"Miraculously, no. But not for his lack of trying. You would think a man three toes down would learn his lesson and be more careful about where he camps. But no, he's still as oblivious to signs of dragons as a deaf garden gnome with his head in a bucket. He was lucky it was only a young one that got at him the first time, not the mother. Nobody on his team with a lick of sense lets him set up camp anymore. Lestrev hasn't exactly followed Quidditch much, but he saw your picture on my Quidditch mag and asked me if you might be the son of Nikolas Krum. He told me what happened when he was telling me about your dad."

"Why didn't you say you were there, Viktor?" Ron asked.

"I did not think it that important. My sister. My mother, they were important, " Viktor said softly as he slid into a chair at the table and spread his hands, rubbing his palms over the wood. How could I? What good would it do? How exactly do you tell someone that you've seen what Hell must look like, stood ankle deep in it, waded through it, still see it? It was why he didn't press Harry for many details about what happened at the end of the maze. Death did not improve in the retelling, in the reviewing. Some things defy your ability to describe them. And what point is there to sharing what you can't describe? Turning it into useless noise?

"Has she recovered? Lestrev said the last he heard, she was still in for a long road and Nikolas had given notice at Gringott's that he wouldn't be coming back. After that, Lestrev got reassigned to Egypt..." Bill asked the question gently.

"She was very lucky," Viktor mouthed carefully, considering his hands. "It crushed her pelvis and her legs, but she relearned how to walk after she healed. To look at her now, you would never know." Not entirely true. He could just about convince himself of that, if he forgot the way she still winced when she stood too long, or walked up stairs. He and Papa were probably the only ones who noticed. She hid it well. The weakness in her legs. She had never picked him up again. He had grown so much that she couldn't lift him by the time she recovered enough to try it. She still didn't know that he had heard her crying about it that night.

"Lestrev said they got transported to a Muggle hospital first... that your sister might have..." Bill began, but Viktor stopped him with the slow shake of his head.

"No. He does not think that anymore. It would not haff mattered. Muggle or wizard. No one can bring back the dead," Viktor was barely audible, but his voice betrayed a quiet strength. His voice commanded attention without demanding it, much like his father's. It had taken Papa a while to shake that one last 'If only....' No one can bring back the dead. No one can bring back the dead, he had finally told Viktor. For once, the collective Weasleys inhabiting the kitchen were completely silent.

"Where... where were you? When it happened?" Hermione asked, standing behind Viktor's chair, gripping the back.

"Across the street. We went to a cafe to wait for them. Luck. Circumstance. Three buildings up, five down. We were in one of the three. They were in one of the five. Not so much as a scratch," he said, holding out his arms and turning them over, as though looking for a sign of injury even now. Not a scratch. On the outside, at least, he added in his head. The inside was another story entirely.

"I'm sorry Viktor. Lestrev will be glad to hear that your parents are doing well, though, if I can pass that on?" Bill inquired.

"Yes. You can pass that on. They are well. Tell him, believe it or not, Papa keeps sheep now, as more than a pastime. And Mama went back to her job at the museum. And tell him their son might graduate before he is twenty, if he can get through the rest of his studies without an excuse to avoid his exit exams, but he is still not interested in working with Lestrev. I value my toes too much," Viktor finished with a sly smile.

Bill laughed and the tension was broken. Ginny had been on the verge of tears, and Hermione thought she would also become a sobbing mess in short order as well if Ginny so much as sniffled. Mrs. Weasley was determinedly dabbing at her eyes with the corners of her apron. Hermione marveled that Mrs. Weasley had been able to restrain herself from falling on Viktor's neck and sobbing, much less that she was now on her way to dry eyes.

"Now if we don't get out there and start eating soon, we'll still be at it at midnight. Ginny, set the tables, Bill you fetch the salads, everyone carry something and that should take care of it in one go," Mrs. Weasley directed, regaining control of herself. They shifted and grabbed bowls and platters, filing into the back garden and sitting down. Thinking back to last year, Harry recognized the two tables they were using. Bill and Charlie had levitated them with their wands and had a duel with them. He doubted Hermione and Viktor had done anything half as silly when they had set the tables out in the garden.

They passed a pleasant lunch, and Mrs. Weasley actually managed to coax a few sentences out of Viktor. Hermione could tell, though, that Mrs. Weasley was duly impressed with his direct, simple answers, and his respectful attitude. Her own parents had been quite taken with him for the same reason. Arthur, of course, was more interesting in talking Quidditch, as were the rest of the Weasley men. Viktor carefully avoided talking about himself too much, often steering the conversation back to a particular team as a whole, or praising another player's abilities.

"Harry here is quite the seeker, himself, considering he never played the game before Hogwarts," Mr. Weasley said.

"I know. I heard plenty of stories. And I saw him fly once. It is not every seeker that can win a game by catching the snitch in his mouth," Viktor replied.

"That was an accident," Harry piped up, blushing.

"Accident or no, you still had to really be flying. I do not recall catching anything in my mouth during a game except a bug or an elbow," Viktor protested with a smile.

Harry laughed. I wish I had told him the rest of it, that Sirius is an animagus, too, Harry found himself thinking. It would be kind of nice for someone other than the three of us to know that as well. Maybe it will be kind of nice to go to the opening ball and see what Durmstrang looks like, too. Meet some other students there.

Viktor had to protest for all that he was worth to resist Mrs. Weasley's invitations to stay. "I really haff to go. I haff to be at an appointment early tomorrow, a team meeting soon after, and then school. We start a week earlier than Hogwarts this year. By the way, I found out the opening ball will be the first Saturday in the Hogwarts year. Dumbledore already gave his permission. I will take care of the rest. Besides, I promised Mama I would be back. I suspect I might be hauled off to St. Petersburg tonight for a concert," he said with a little smile.

"Well, you're more than welcome to come visit any time you like. And if Dumbledore doesn't have a problem with the three of them going, I don't suppose I can find one either. Bye bye, dear," Mrs. Weasley told him.

Ron, Harry and Hermione walked him out the front door and onto the lawn, silent for a moment. "Thanks for the invite, Viktor, I had a really great time," Ron finally volunteered.

"Yeah. The games, they were fabulous. After an entire year away, I was beginning to miss it. The Dursleys don't exactly let me follow the sport," Harry added.

"C'mon Harry, let's go see what Fred and George are up to," Ron said, jerking his head toward the Burrow.

"Oh. Yeah. Fred and George. Right. Well, goodbye, then, Viktor," Harry called.

"Goodbye. You are welcome. And thank you, I enjoyed having the company," Viktor replied. I enjoyed having the company. That was a foreign phrase in more ways than one, Viktor thought to himself.

"Well, then..." Hermione began, and trailed off.

"Well, then. I would like to kiss you goodbye, but I think we haff far worse to worry about than Rita Skeeter, this time," Viktor said quietly, as he inclined his head subtly toward the house. Hermione looked quickly over her shoulder and saw Fred and George gawping out one window, Harry and Ron trying to drag them away. In another, Mrs. Weasley was peering out from between the curtains with what just might be Ginny's head below hers. "I think Mrs. Weasley would be less charitable if I kissed you the way I wish to, I think she would haff my head," he added, as she turned back and suppressed a laugh.

"Oh, surely not. Although, she did think I was a scarlet woman, last year until Harry told her differently," Hermione murmured.

"Nothing wrong with scarlet. Bulgarian team colors. Durmstrang robes. Maybe I like that color," he said with a grin, remembering what Hermione had told him about her experiences after the Rita Skeeter articles. "Would you settle for a remarkably restrained kiss on the cheek?" he asked softly.

"I would. But only as downpayment until I see you again. At the ball. I think my parents will say yes, since Harry and Ron will go."

He nodded silently, then placed a curled finger beneath her chin. He tilted it upward slightly, then bent and placed a quick kiss on her left cheek. "Until then, Sokrovishte," he whispered near her ear before straightening.

"Until then, Viktor," she whispered back. He took a couple of steps back, pulled out his wand, and disapparated with a small pop. She found herself missing him already.