Old Friends

[starfishstar]

Fandom: Harry Potter

Summary: Viktor Krum, now a successful businessman in his post-Quidditch career, has recently relocated his home and business headquarters to London and is curious to look up an old friend: Hermione Granger.

Characters: Viktor Krum, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Rose Granger-Weasley, Hugo Granger-Weasley

Words: 5,000

Notes: Beta: emily_in_the_glass.


~ ~ ~ ~ ~


Viktor had achieved a great deal in his years since leaving professional Quidditch.

With successful business ventures across Europe, from Bulgaria to Britain and many points between, he increasingly found himself a man who needed no introduction. Muggles knew his reputation for business acumen and fell over themselves to close deals with him; wizards wanted signatures and photos, or to tell him breathlessly where they’d been when he caught the Snitch at the 1994 World Cup. Though he’d learned with time to hide his irritation, all this adulation remained fully as absurd to Viktor as it had seemed when he was first thrust into the spotlight of international sport at the age of eighteen.

Which made it all the more pleasant when the first Floo call he placed, after relocating his home and business headquarters to London, was met simply by Hermione Granger’s delighted cry of, “Viktor! Is it really you?”

“Yes, Hermione,” he said, still taking care, after all these years, to pronounce her name just as she had taught him. “Indeed, it’s me.”

“This is incredible!” Hermione was pink-cheeked with excitement as she leaned down to peer at him in her fire. From what he could see, the room behind her was a kitchen. Children’s things lay scattered across the floor: a squashed-looking teddy bear, a toy broom. Hermione beamed at him. “I haven’t seen you since – well, I’m not even sure. Can it really be since Fleur’s wedding?”

“Indeed.” Viktor had last seen Hermione Disapparating from the chaos that had smashed through that idyllic garden party. She’d had Harry Potter on one arm and Ron Weasley on the other, still in her lovely gown and with fierce determination on her face. It was not a sight he was likely to forget.

“But Viktor, how are you? What have you been doing?”

“That’s why I’ve called, in fact: to tell you that I’ve moved to England. To London, because this is where I do more and more of my business. And so I thought that perhaps we can meet, just like old times.”

“Oh –” Hermione bit her lip. “Viktor, I don’t know if you heard, but I’m married.”

“No, no.” Viktor felt his face flush at this misunderstanding. “That’s not what I intended. But we are old friends, yes? I am new in England and I would appreciate it to have an old friend.”

“Oh, of course!” Now Hermione was blushing too. “Right, sorry, of course.”

“I believe you work at the Ministry now,” Viktor continued, before she could feel a need to apologise further. “May I invite you to lunch somewhere near there one day?”

*

The location Hermione had suggested was a small Muggle café not far from the Ministry. It had clean-scrubbed wooden tables and simple, straight-backed chairs, the sort of place that seemed to want to transport its customers back to the kitchen of a farmhouse in a previous century.

“I thought you might prefer this,” Hermione said, looking self-conscious. She was still breathless from her dash over from the Ministry, and red-faced from the cold outside. “I remember how you always hated people thronging around when they recognised you, and I thought that might happen a bit less among Muggles.”

“I don’t mind it nearly so much as I did then,” Viktor said. Then he realised, belatedly, that he’d answered the wrong question: Hermione had been trying to do something nice, that was the point. So he added hurriedly, hearing how he sounded too stiff and formal, but unable to express it better, “But I appreciate that thought.”

“Oh – that’s all right,” Hermione said, flustered.

They ordered their food and chose a small table near the window. Hermione settled her bag at her feet, and Viktor unwound his scarf and draped it over the back of his chair. His scarf was the crimson of the Bulgarian National Team, one of the few sentimental Quidditch indulgences he still allowed himself.

“Well!” Hermione said brightly. “This is nice. Thanks for thinking to look me up, now that you’re back in England.”

Viktor looked at Hermione across the table. She was grown up now, of course, as was he, both of them a decade and a half older than when they’d last met. And yet, in the ways that mattered, he could see that Hermione was exactly the same: her wild hair, the warmth of her smile, the fierceness in her eyes.

“I have always considered you a friend, Hermione,” he said.

She bit her lip. “I feel I ought to apologise. I don’t know why I fell out of touch all these years. I consider you a friend too, truly.”

“Hermione, no. There is no need for apology. I’m pleased to see you; that’s all that is necessary.”

“All right,” she said, though she still looked unconvinced. But then she blew out a breath and said it again, more like she meant it: “All right.” She picked up her fork. “So, you didn’t say over the Floo – what kind of business is it that’s brought you to England?”

So, as they ate, he told her about the booming international trade in metals that were used for both Muggle machine-building and wizarding metalcraft. Then he turned the conversation to her, and listened as Hermione talked passionately about her work to improve legal rights for all Beasts and Beings. Viktor was reminded of their conversations long ago in the Hogwarts library, always like this: Hermione talking passionately and Viktor listening with all his attention. She’d amazed him, then, with how deeply she cared about figuring out what was right and then pursuing that thing, whatever it might be.

“Do you still work with, was it S.P.E.W.? The campaign for house-elves?” he asked.

Hermione flushed. “I can’t believe you remember that name. No – well, yes, of course, I still believe we need to do a lot more for elf rights. But the whole thing is more complicated than I was willing to admit when I was fifteen. Which I suppose comes as a surprise to no one but myself. We’re working now on getting a bilateral advisory committee together, elves and humans collaborating to review the current laws and see what needs to be improved.”

“It’s good to see that you still care just as you used to,” Viktor said. “I always admired this about you, very much.”

Hermione went even pinker than before. “I’m just trying to make things a little better. There’s so much that needs to be fixed, even now, so many years after the war. Because the prejudices that caused the conflict, they’re still there, and it’ll only happen again if we don’t address the underlying issues –” She broke off. “I’m sorry, listen to me lecturing at you! All these years later and still the first thing I do is start boring you about my work.”

“I’m not bored,” Viktor said truthfully. “I would tell you if I were bored.”

Hermione laughed. “Then you haven’t changed so much either, I suppose.” She paused to take a bite of her casserole, then said, “Listen, Viktor, I promise I won’t keep going on about it, but I am sorry for not keeping in touch. During the war, it was madness, we were always running from one crisis to another. And then after the war…I don’t know, life kept rushing on somehow.”

“I see how hard you have been working,” Viktor agreed. “And I know that you’re married. You have children, yes?”

“Yes!” Hermione’s smile was uncomplicated and joyful, with an ease he’d never seen in her before. “Two kids, Rose and Hugo. They’re so funny and so clever. I know, I’m completely biased, but they really are.” She paused with her fork halfway back to her plate. “Speaking of which…would you like to meet them? You could come to dinner sometime, and meet the kids. And I know Ron would love to see you.” She must have seen a flicker of doubt in Viktor’s face, because she added, “Really. He would.”

When Viktor thought back on that year he’d spent at Hogwarts, he remembered first those uncomfortable early weeks of feeling so very out of place. And then, far pleasanter, the time after he’d finally dared to speak to Hermione: all the long hours they’d spent talking in the library or by the lake, and the pleasure he’d always taken in her company. But always, too, there had been Ron Weasley, lurking somewhere at the edges, scowling at Viktor and glaring at Hermione. So obviously jealous, yet too immature to recognise it in himself.

Viktor tried, now, to be fair; he knew Ron must have done a great deal of growing up since then. But still, it was hard not to picture that sulking fifteen-year-old, when Hermione spoke of Ron Weasley.

But years had passed, and Hermione had married Ron Weasley, and there was clearly much that Viktor did not know. Besides, this was Hermione asking. Of course there could be only one answer. “Yes,” he told her, setting his napkin down beside his plate. “I would like very much to meet your family. It would be an honour.”

“I’ll Floo you,” Hermione said. “I’ll talk to Ron to find an evening that works, and I’ll Floo you.”

*

It was evening and Viktor was sorting papers in the study of his new flat, when his fire blazed green.

The flat was far too large, its surfaces all steel and glass. But the assistant who’d done Viktor’s flat hunting, ahead of his arrival in London, had swooned over this place and declared it a perfect fit for a businessman of Viktor’s stature – whatever that meant.

Amidst all that cold steel, Viktor felt a rush of gladness simply at seeing Hermione’s head appear in the fire.

“Hi, Viktor!” She beamed up at him from within the cast iron scrollwork that framed the fire. “I’ve talked with Ron, and we’d like to invite you to dinner this weekend. Are you free?”

Which was how Viktor found himself, that Saturday evening, walking up to Hermione and Ron’s front door with a bottle of wine in hand. It was a narrow place in a row of London townhouses, the building’s simple brick façade made more inviting by large, white-framed windows. Curtains were pulled back to reveal lamps in the windows, casting a welcoming glow into the street.

Hermione opened the door to his knock, warmth and cheerful light spilling out of the doorway around her. “Hi, welcome –” she began, but even as she spoke, there came a crash from somewhere inside the house, and the high, shrill sound of small children shouting. Hermione rolled her eyes. “Sorry about that. If we hadn’t raised them ourselves, I would think they’d been raised by trolls. But come in, come in. The kids will settle down in a minute. They’re just, er, a bit excited…”

Viktor offered Hermione the wine, then turned to hang his cloak on a peg beside the door. When he turned around again, there were two children staring at him from the nearest doorway. Both had Hermione’s hair and Ron’s freckles, and Viktor guessed them at about six and four years old, the girl older than the boy.

“Hello,” Viktor said.

Both children gaped at him in silence.

“The thing is,” Hermione said, “someone let slip that you’re Viktor Krum, as in the famous Viktor Krum, whereas I’d been planning to let that particular fact out gradually, to avoid just this sort of reaction. But, no, instead it had to be a big, exciting revelation, moments before you were due to arrive…”

“I heard that!” Ron called from somewhere in the house. Hermione grinned.

“Anyway,” she said, “this is Rose, and this is Hugo. Rose and Hugo, this is our friend Viktor. Can you say hello, please?”

In the doorway, her eyes still enormous and fixed on Viktor, quite possibly not having blinked since she’d first set eyes on him, Rose whispered, “Are you Viktor Krum?”

“Yes,” Viktor said.

Rose let out a high-pitched shriek. Hugo, looking at his sister, shrieked too.

“DidyoureallyplayforBulgaria?” Rose gasped.

“Yes, I did.”

“Didyoureally–” Rose continued, still not pausing for breath.

Hermione interjected, “All right, all right, let’s save the interrogation for later, shall we? Let Viktor come inside. Rose,” she added, because the child seemed to be gearing up to launch a protest, “could you please show Viktor the way to the kitchen?”

Successfully diverted from her indignation by being entrusted with this task, and holding her head up proudly, Rose marched away into the house. It was clear she intended Viktor to follow, so he did. Hugo trotted at his heels, glancing up at Viktor so frequently that he kept bumping into the wall as they walked. Viktor hid a smile.

“Here’s the kitchen!” Rose announced. “And this is Daddy.”

Indeed, there stood Ron Weasley with a wand in his hand, just closing the door of a Muggle-style oven, from which warmth and savoury smells wafted.

“Sorry, yes, we’re running a little late on the kitchen end of things,” Ron said, sounding flustered. “I mean – sorry! What I mean is, hello, Viktor, it’s good to see you.” He set his wand down on the worktop beside the oven and came over with his hand outstretched towards Viktor’s, bobbing his head earnestly. “I’m really glad you could come, mate.”

“It’s my pleasure. Thank you for inviting me.” Viktor reached out to shake hands, trying to square this friendly, smiling man with the Ron Weasley of his memory.

“Unfortunately, dinner’s not quite ready yet –” Ron began.

“So I’ll pour us all a drink first,” Hermione finished, as she arrived in the kitchen behind Viktor and the children. She gave Ron a peck on the cheek, easy and affectionate, as she passed by on her way to set the wine down on the worktop.

Viktor watched as she poured three glasses of wine, then cups of pumpkin juice for the children. Here was Hermione, at home in her life. No more Dark Lord to outrun or dangerous tasks to complete, simply Hermione at ease among familiar things and the people she loved, in her comfortable, cosy home. It was good.

Hermione handed Viktor a glass. Rose came and bumped against Viktor’s leg, peering up at him. “Did you really play in the 1994 World Cup and the 2002 World Cup?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Is it true you caught the Snitch in 1994 even though it made your team lose, because you would’ve lost by a whole lot, but you caught the Snitch fast so it wouldn’t be so bad?”

Viktor glanced over at Hermione, who looked embarrassed but also a little proud of her precocious daughter. “She’s rather Quidditch mad,” Hermione apologised. “I can stop her at any point if it’s too annoying.”

“It’s not annoying,” Viktor said. He was impressed that Rose knew of the Bulgarian National Team at all, let alone details of their World Cup matches. He doubted many children her age could have found Bulgaria on a map. But then again, this was Hermione’s daughter.

To Rose he said, crouching down so he could speak to her directly, “When you’re the Seeker, sometimes you must make hard choices. There is no good choice, but still you must pick one: you lose later very badly, or you lose now but you can choose the way it happens. Does that make sense?”

“Uh-huh,” Rose agreed, nodding seriously. “My daddy always says you’re a brilliant strategist.”

Viktor glanced up at Ron, who was blushing to the roots of his ginger hair.

“Er,” Ron said.

“Rose isn’t the only one in this house who’s a bit Quidditch mad,” Hermione said, patting Ron on the shoulder.

Viktor found himself surprised into a laugh by the easy teasing in Hermione’s tone. After a moment, Ron ducked his head and laughed too.

“Come on through to the lounge, Viktor,” Hermione said. “We can chat until dinner’s ready.”

Ron remained in the kitchen, and Viktor followed Hermione into the next room, the children trailing behind. Hugo flopped down on a brightly coloured throw rug to play with a toy Quidditch figurine. The figure wore the orange robes of the Chudley Cannons and its kit suggested it was a Beater, but Hugo was making it swoop through the air like a Seeker.

Rose, meanwhile, came and leaned hard against Viktor’s knee, once he’d sat down on the squashy, cushion-strewn sofa. Rose nodded along seriously at everything he and Hermione said, as though she understood everything and agreed completely. It was absurd and rather endearing.

“How are you liking London so far?” Hermione asked, as Viktor sipped his wine and Rose nodded along.

“I like it,” Viktor said, once he’d taken a moment to consider whether this was in fact true. “I’m not certain if it will ever feel like a home, but it has something exciting, I think. The city is very busy and very alive. And you?” he asked. He’d never pictured Hermione settling in London, but then, there were a great many things he’d never pictured.

“Oh, yes, we like it,” Hermione said, reaching out absently to stroke Rose’s hair. “Ron makes noises now and then about moving closer to his family, and we may do that someday. It’s not as though we couldn’t Apparate to work just as easily from there. But I came to London straight after I’d finished at Hogwarts, and Ron and Harry were already here, since they were training in the Auror Department by that point. I think we all loved that feeling of being newly grown-up and on our own in the big city, and somehow a bit of that feeling’s lasted even now.”

Ron had come to lean against the lounge doorway, with his wand in one hand and salad tongs in the other. “It’s true,” he agreed. “Those were great times, those first years in London.”

He grinned at Hermione, and she smiled back at him, and Viktor saw all the history there.

“Anyway, everything’ll be ready in about five minutes,” Ron said, and disappeared back in the direction of the kitchen.

Little Hugo came and leaned against Viktor’s other leg, opposite where Rose was, with a picture book in his hand. He nudged the book against Viktor’s knee and said, “Read this to me.”

“Hugo!” Hermione exclaimed. “Say ‘please’, please. Ask Viktor if he would please read the book to you.”

“Please read this to me,” Hugo repeated.

Viktor looked down at the book cover, which had a picture of a bear floating under a balloon, with bees all around.

“Do you know it? It’s a Muggle classic,” Hermione explained. “I wanted them to have things from my childhood, too. You don’t have to read to him, though, Viktor, unless you really want to.”

Hugo nudged Viktor with the book again, gazing up into his face. “Please?”

“Yes, I will read to you,” Viktor replied, and nodded at Hermione to show he was responding to her concern as well. To Hugo he said, “It’s not every day I have the opportunity to read a book about a bear. Is it a good book?”

“The best,” Hugo said, and clambered up to plop himself unselfconsciously onto Viktor’s lap.

So Viktor read aloud to Hermione’s son about a small bear who loved honey and tried to trick some bees by disguising himself as a raincloud. Rose leaned in to look at the pictures, too, propping her chin against Viktor’s arm.

They’d read up to the point where the bear sang a song to himself, when Ron called from the kitchen, “Grub’s ready! Come and get it!” Both children scrambled from Viktor’s lap and ran towards the sound of their father’s voice.

“Raised by trolls, all three of them,” Hermione said, shaking her head, but she was smiling. “Shall we go through?”

They relocated to the dining room, where Hermione coaxed the children into their seats, while Ron filled plates from an enormous shepherd’s pie and an equally enormous green salad.

Once the children were settled and engrossed in their meals, Ron turned to Viktor. “Sorry, this is probably really annoying, but I just want to say it once and then I’ve got it over with: you were brilliant in the 2002 World Cup. I know Bulgaria didn’t win, again, but you played brilliantly. I just wanted to say that.”

“Ron!” Hermione exclaimed. “Merlin’s sake, you’re as bad as Rose.”

“Please don’t worry, I don’t mind it,” Viktor told her. And that was true, in its own way. The thought of the 2002 World Cup still shot a pain through his heart, but he had learned to live with that. And he could recognise when a comment was kindly meant. To Ron he said, “I appreciate your words. Thank you.”

“You know, I’ve always wondered,” Ron said, despite the way Hermione was frowning at him, “how did you even get started playing for the national team in the first place? I mean, you were still in school when you played your first World Cup!”

Viktor took a bite of his shepherd’s pie. “This is excellent, by the way.” He inclined his head to Ron, who nodded in thanks. Then he went on, “I played for a local league team each summer, when I was home from school. You must understand, Bulgaria is not a large country. If someone is good at Quidditch, the scouts will find them. And a World Cup was coming, so they were keen to find new players.”

“But how did you find the time to train at that level, while you were at school?” Ron still looked awestruck.

Viktor felt his face settle into a scowl, as he thought back to that time. Quidditch had never been a burden, but the politics surrounding it sometimes were. “The professors ensured that I had the time. I received much special treatment at Durmstrang, because the school liked the honour of having a student who played for a national team. It did not always make me popular.”

This, of course, was an understatement. Viktor’s duelling skills had been honed primarily in defence of himself and his honour: not from foes, but from envious fellow students.

“Durmstrang,” he concluded, “was not a good place to stand out.”

“Durmstrang,” Ron echoed. “Not to be rude, mate, but what was that like?”

Hermione made a small noise of discomfort. “Really, Viktor, we don’t have to talk about Durmstrang if you don’t want to.”

This he remembered about Hermione: her concern, always, for others’ feelings, and her desire to be considerate and fair. Once, it would have made him reach out and clasp her hand in appreciation for her kindness. But of course he did not do that now.

“I don’t mind to talk about Durmstrang,” he said instead, with a polite nod to Hermione to acknowledge her concern. To Ron he said, “Anything you’re imagining, I’m sure, is even worse than how it really was. No, it was not pleasant. Life at Durmstrang was not cosy or fun, as it often seemed to me your time at Hogwarts was. But it was an education, a very good education, and for that I was willing to suffer a little.”

“But wasn’t it – er –” Ron looked uncertain how to finish his sentence diplomatically.

“Full of Dark wizards, yes,” Viktor agreed, taking another forkful of potato. “Our headmaster was a former Death Eater, and many of the other masters were not much better. Are you asking if I agreed with them? I did not agree with them.”

“No, I didn’t mean that!” Ron exclaimed, sounding horrified. “Sorry, that’s not what I was trying to say at all. But – how did you get through it? Go through all those years there, and still come out okay in the end? I mean, we had to deal with all kinds of stuff at Hogwarts, but at least we knew we had professors who were on our side, if we really needed them.”

“I’ve wondered that, too,” Hermione admitted, turning to Viktor. “Durmstrang sounds like it could be, well, overwhelming. But Viktor, you always seemed so sure of what you believed, and so unshakeable about it.”

There it was again, Hermione’s talent for seeing people. Others had looked at teenaged Viktor and seen only his quick temper or his sudden rise to fame. But Hermione had somehow known to look closer. She’d seemed to understand that there was more to him than only the prickly exterior of a boy thrust too soon into the spotlight. That beneath all that was someone who had loyalties and strong beliefs, much as she herself had.

Even so, it had been hard, back then, to share much that was personal with Hermione. He’d been so unaccustomed to having anyone to confide in. So now he tried to do better. Be truer.

“My mother died when I was very young,” Viktor said, and he heard Hermione’s small intake of breath. He’d never told her that, in all their time together. “But in those few years of my childhood, she taught me to think and be certain in my beliefs about what is right, and to follow that always. At Durmstrang I always asked myself, before I took any action, what my mother would say of it. In fact, this is true everywhere, not only at Durmstrang. I do not follow any witch or wizard, unless I am certain I believe in what they say.”

“Viktor,” Hermione said. She set down her fork and reached out to rest her hand on top of his. “I didn’t know that about your mother – I’m so sorry.”

“Yes,” Viktor said, looking down at her hand in surprise. “Yes, that’s how it is.”

Hermione squeezed his hand, then let it go. Taking up her fork again, she said, “And I think I understand what you mean. If you admire someone, if they teach you well, they don’t have to be there in person to still be able to guide you. I feel that way about my parents, too. Especially when we were on the run during the war, and they were so far away. I know it sounds silly to say, because they’re Muggle dentists; they don’t know anything about magic or duels or all the things we had to face. But they’d taught me about being honest, and about doing what’s right. So even when things were at their very worst, I always felt I could find a way forward.”

“That’s true,” Ron said. He glanced over at Hermione, another shared look with a weight of history behind it. “We had to figure out a lot of things for ourselves at Hogwarts, and then later, in the last year of the war. But we’d had people in our lives before that who’d steered us well.”

“We have all been fortunate, then,” Viktor said.

Rose, who had been quiet a surprisingly long time, immersed in her meal, now piped up, “What does ‘fortunate’ mean?”

Ron laughed and said to Viktor, “She’s going to be a professor, this one. I predicted it when she was about a year old, and I still don’t think I’m wrong.” Turning to his daughter, he said, “It’s another word for ‘lucky’. You know, like in ‘The Fountain of Fair Fortune’ – remember how ‘fortune’ is another word that means ‘luck’?”

“Oh, yeah,” Rose said. “I know that, Daddy.”

Apparently satisfied, she turned her attention back to her shepherd’s pie.

Hermione glanced up, from where she’d leaned in to help Hugo cut a bite of his own pie, and commented, “I know it may not seem like it, but I’ve really tried not to push my interests on them. It’s fine if their interests aren’t academic ones. Rose knows she doesn’t need to excel at school to earn our love. And yet…”

“And yet,” Ron continued the thought, “they see their mum’s example, how much she loves understanding how the world works. She makes learning seem cool.”

“‘Cool’!” Hermione laughed. “That’s not what you thought when we were at school.”

“Fair enough,” Ron conceded easily. “Some things took me a little while to figure out.”

Soon, the children asked to be excused from the table to play. Hermione picked up the wine to refill Viktor’s glass.

Watching as she set the bottle down again, Viktor commented, “Do you know, I think you are now the friends I’ve known the longest in my life. Both of you,” he added, turning to include Ron as well. “There are students from Durmstrang I knew from a younger age, of course, but there are not many of them with whom I care to stay in contact.”

Hermione’s eyes on him were wide. “But that’s so sad. To think there’s no one else from back then you would want to stay in touch with.”

“No, no,” Viktor assured her, “this is a good thing. Most people keep only a few friends, if any, from each stage of their life. The year at Hogwarts was only a brief stage in my life, and yet we know each other still. I feel fortunate.”

“That’s a lovely way of thinking about it.” Hermione nodded slowly. “And I suppose that’s true: it’s not possible to carry every connection we’ve ever made with us through the rest of our lives. Which means every friend we’ve found and kept is a fortunate thing.” A smile warmed her face, as she looked at Ron, then turned again to Viktor. “I’m so glad you’ve come to London, Viktor. It will be lovely to have a chance get to know you again.”

This was Hermione exactly as he remembered her: bright-eyed, passionate and entirely committed to the people in her life, whether that be as family or partner or friend.

It was good to be in her presence again. It was different, but it was good.

Viktor lifted his glass, and looked at Hermione and Ron. “Here’s to old friends,” he said.

Together, they raised their glasses to that.


~ ~ ~ ~ ~

End notes:

This chapter was inspired by these two metas on Viktor Krum:

• a meta (previously here but now a broken link) that first got me thinking about Viktor as a character, by mentioning points such as:
– "He was an internationally famous Quidditch player but showed like zero signs of being a conceited ass about it."
– "He was an internationally famous Quidditch player with lots of fangirls, but hung around the library for ages trying to work up the courage to ask Hermione Granger to the Yule Ball."
– "He didn’t behave like an asshole dudebro when Hermione wasn’t interested in dating him."
– "He stayed on good enough terms with Fleur that he was invited to her wedding."

• this meta pondering how it could be that the person Viktor would miss most during the third Triwizard task was Hermione, a girl he’d just met – and wondering what that says about his life back home.

This fic also owes a debt of gratitude to “At the Start of Whatever” by swissmarg, which goes a very different direction with Viktor and Hermione, but is a long-time favourite of mine.

And of course I’ve got these ongoing headcanons about Hermione’s legal work for equal rights… Bits of that theme are also in Twenty Years On and Saying Yes. And of course there’s her earlier work on inter-house unity in Chambers and Bright-Eyed and Bushy-Tailed. :-)

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(Continue to the third fic in the series, about Dean: MAMMAS, DON'T LET YOUR BABIES GROW UP TO BE WIZARDS)

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