In Need

~~**~~


Hermione Granger was in her room lying on her bed, which was unusual because it was only just after dinnertime on a Saturday free day into Hogsmeade. What was also unusual was that her books lay untouched on her desk, and, judging by the way she felt, were likely to remain so for the rest of the evening. All she felt like doing was having a good cry, which was fortunate, because that was exactly what she was doing. It wasn’t a weepy, trickly, sniffy kind of cry - it was an all-out, snotty nose, ghastly red eyes, sobby, hiccupy kind of cry.


~~**~~

The whole day had really started out so nicely. She, Ron, Harry, and Ginny had gone to Hogsmeade, finally being able to enjoy a free Saturday out for once instead of having to go to a meeting of the Order. They\'d spent the morning browsing through shops and by lunchtime had worked up quite an appetite which they remedied at the tavern.


They spent the rest of the afternoon at the street fair watching the jugglers, snake charmers, glassblowers, and such. Harry had been thrilled to be able to try out the newest model of Firebolt and promised himself one as a graduation present. Ginny and Hermione each bought necklaces with crystals that would change color according to their moods, and Harry and Ron each bought little bunches of violets for the girls. They all crammed into an automatic photo booth and had their picture taken together, grinning and making faces at the camera. Four copies fell into the slot, and each of them took one.


It was getting dark now, and the group of friends were looking forward to spending the evening at the Three Broomsticks where they planned to have supper, settle back over a few butterbeers, and watch the arm wrestling championship which was scheduled to take place that evening. Ron was even thinking of competing in his weight class, and had made rather a big show of flexing his arms and challenging al the them to practice rounds over the past week. The four of them had just walked merrily arm-in-arm into the pub when they noticed a dark figure seated alone at one of the tables near the back.


“Hullo, Viktor!” called Harry, waving.


Harry did not notice the poisonous looks being thrown at him from both Ron and Hermione, and instead found a fifth chair to drag over to their table. The flock of women that had - in hopes of catching his attention - gathered around Viktor\'s table, pouted as he got up to join Harry’s group. Hermione’s heart felt like it had crept up into her throat, and was hammering quite unpleasantly in its new location.
MoreMore than a week had passed since Viktor\'s arrival and she had avoided him, hoping to buy herself some time to think of something suitable to say when she really did approach him. While none of her imagined conversations with or apologies to him had actually taken place, in her mind, her bruised conscience had made them all go something like this:


“Why hello there, Viktor - so sorry to have ignored your tenderest declarations, but I’m afraid that I\'ve been quite caught up in practicing spells. Hoping to defeat Voldemort and all, you know. By the way, funny you turning up here when I was *just* about to owl you back…”


At whichnt, nt, she would groan and go back to her homework, hoping that a savvier way to approach him would come to her before they had an awkward chance meeting…


…except that now they were having quite a fine example of the very sort of awkward chance meeting she’d had in mind. Hermione became flustered and wished that they could just leave, and really wished that Ron would stop looking at her like that.


And so it was that the first time Hermione and Viktor actually came face to face with one another since his arrival at Hogwarts, they were really not at their best.


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Viktor Krum was not a handsome young man. He was rake-thin, walked with a slouch which made him look shorter and older than he was, and his dark lanky hair had a habit of persistently falling over his eyes. His nose, thanks to plenty of encounters with bludgers, was even larger and beakier than nature originally made it Despite all that though, he had an appealingly quiet and poignant look in his eyes which, combined with his dynamic presence on the quidditch pitch, drew a lot of attention.


Ever since he’d been in the public eye, he’d been surrounded by admirers, people who wanted to be his friend, and women who wanted to bed him. When he spent a year at Hogwarts and noticed Hermione Granger, he’d fallen hard for her, impossible name and all. She’d been fifteen, vivacious, and really couldn’t have cared less that he was at Hogwarts. Even with most of the other girls trying to catch his attention at some point, she hadn’t given a hang about him, or really about quidditch either. He tried so many times to have a moment to talk with her back then, but at first she could only see him as a threat to Harry and a young wizard from a school that taught dark and dangerous things to its students.


Once he’d finally managed to introduce himself, they actually had hit it off quite well. She was bright and could make perfect sense of his broken English, and she found him to be kind and sweet. As they spent more time together, he grew quite fond of her and when he had to leave for Durmstrang again, he looked forward to keeping in touch with her and even visiting each other. He worked with a tutor to improve his English, and he always looked forward to hearing from her and was pleased by the charming way she described Hogwarts, her friends, and her life. After two years of correspondence and occasional visits, Viktor mustered the courage to write to her about how strong his feelings were becoming. He asked to arrange a visit with her so they could talk about it and see what it might mean for their friendship.


With his heart pounding, he’d tied the scroll to his owl’s leg and sent it away, mentally calculating the time that it would take to reach her. He imagined what she might look like that night: maybe reading, with her head resting on a hand as she concentrated on the pages. Maybe sleeping, curled up snugly under her covers, and her sweet face resting on a pillow. He smiled as he thought about her, and it warmed his heart.


As the days passed, he restlessly awaited her reply. As the days turned into weeks, he became embarrassed and disappointed, and regretted ever sending such a letter, and as the weeks turned into months, he got angry. No matter what her reply to him would have been, she ought to have at least sent one and not just brushed him off like their friendship didn’t mean anything at all.


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Viktor had seen Hermione, Ron, Harry, and Ginny from a distance at different points throughout the day, particularly noticing Ron handing flowers to Hermione. Hoping to be alone with his thoughts, he went to the Three Broomsticks to drink some vodka and have some peace and quiet. When the group of friends came in, he quietly noticed Hermione arm-in-arm with Ron, looking quite happy. He was reluctant to accept Harry’s invitation to join them, but felt it important to keep a friendly tie with him, considering the work they were going to have to do together. It also soothed his wounded pride somewhat to see Hermione look so obviously uncomfortable.


“Good,” he thought. “Let the little prat squirm a bit.”


After awhile, the assorted young women began to flock around Viktor again in his new spot. Without his really noticing it, he soon he had one on each arm. They didn\'t add anything to the conversation - they were too busy trying to outdo each other at being arm candy.


Viktor and Harry chatted, Hermione, quietly mortified, looked at her food but barely picked at it, Viktor watched Hermione with an unreadable expression, Ron watched Viktor with growing annoyance, and Ginny watched the whole thing with bemusement. Harry and the girls hanging around Viktor were blissfully clueless and had a good time.


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Hermione excused herself to go to the washroom. As she went into the side corridor where it was located, she squeezed past a small cluster of people who were collecting their cloaks from the hallway rack. She made her way to the grungy wooden washroom door, changed her mind, went past it, and simply stood in the hallway. She covered up her face and exhaled deeply. Why, why, *why*, did it have to have turned out like this?


She made a noise of frustration and wondered if she could slip out unnoticed and try to sort it all out later. “Viktor...,” she muttered to herself. “Why didn\'t I just write to you sooner?”


“I don\'t know, Hermione,” came a soft voice behind her. “Vy didn\'t you?”


She spun around and saw him there, and felt excited, embarrassed, elated, and miserable all at the same time. “Viktor! Oh bugger! Viktor, I... I don\'t even know what to say to you...,” she stammered.


He raised an eyebrow at her. “I suppose that saying *something* vould be a good beginning.”


She drew a shaky breath and looked him in the eye. “I am *so* sorry about not writing to you. I really meant to... but so much time passed, and I wasn’t sure what you were thinking about me by then, and now you’re here, and... oh gosh, I’m just so sorry.”


He stepped closer to her, getting out of the way of some people going into the washrooms. “Now I am here, and still vaiting,” he said, looking at her with his big dark eyes.


Her heart was pounding again. She had so little experience with boys, and she was quite sure that there were no books in the Hogwarts library that were going to be able to instruct her about what to do in a situation like this either. But for as bewildered as she felt, she couldn’t deny that the fluttering feeling he seemed to cause whenever he came close to her was really pretty nice…


Viktor braced himself as more people squeezed themselves through the busy corridor. He was jostled, and ended up pressed against Hermione with his hands on the wall on either side of her. He was taller than she was, and she ended up with a close-up view of his chin. He looked down into her face to apologize, but his soft words were swallowed up by the noise of the around them. Particularly by Ron, who had come to see what was going on and blew his top when he saw them pressed together like that.


“Jeez, Hermione! What the *hell*!” he yelled. She only caught a glimpse of his bright red face before he on on his heel and stormed off.


“Ron!” Hermione called after him as he left. “This wasn’t what it looked like! Ron!”


But his hastily retreating back did not slow down. Viktor stared at her, clearly hurt and somewhat annoyed. “Vatever it is you decide to do, I think that you should just decide it and let the rest of us know.”


He bent down to pick up the photograph that Ron had thrown on the floor and handed it to her. “I don\'t know if there could ever be room for another here,” Viktor said, indicating the spot next to Hermione in the picture.


He went back to the table to say a brief goodbye to Harry and Ginny and then left.


Hermione was now miserable. Besides feeling bad about the exchanges with Ron and Viktor, she was also feeling pretty sorry for herself for finding herself in the dilemma at all. All of them wanted answers that she didn’t necessarily feel ready to give.


The bewildered look on Harry’s fand tnd the concerned look on Ginny’s were too much tce rce right then. She waved a hasty goodbye to them, apparated back to Hogwarts, ran to her room, and made it just in time as the tears she’d been holding back burst out.


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Hermione eventually started to settle down. Her sobs tapered off, and she blew her nose wetly into her handkerchief. She felt like hers was a difficult position to be in. Ron had never said it in so many words, but she knew that he thought of her like his right arm, and he probably believed that they should be a couple. He had always been jealous of her friendship with Viktor, and who knows - maybe that had something to do with her delay in replying to Viktor’s declarations.


And then there was Viktor - she didn’t know exactly how she felt about him, but she did know that he stirred something within her that no one ever had. He treated her like a lady and made her feel special. But now, with the way she had put her foot in her mouth on top of the way she had already treated him, she might have ruined any chance to know him better after all.


However it turned out, someone’s feelings were going to get hurt, and she hated that.


Ginny had come by earlier to check on her, tapping softly on the door and calling her name, but Hermione had been in no mood to have someone else around and had pretended to just be asleep. Now, though, after the busy day and grueling emotional episode, she really was tired. She put on her pajamas, tied back her hair, and crawled under the covers, pulling them up around her ears. Her eyes were getting heavy and she was drifting off to sleep when she heard a light tapping at her window. It pulled her out of the dream that had begun, and she looked sleepily toward the distraction.


Viktor’s face was outside of her window. Stifling a startled scream, she sat up, now fully awake.


She got out of her bed, padded across the room in her bare feet, and looked at Viktor incredulously. He was hovering outside her window on his broomstick and, while he wasn’t smiling, he at least had a much nicer look on his face than he’d had around her so far this week. He gestured for her to open the window, and she did, with some amount of nervousness. Viktor simply handed her a letter, nodded to her, and flew away. He gave no sign of it to her, but her swollen eyes and tear-stained face did not go unnoticed.


Hermione sat cross-legged on her bed, opened the seal on the letter, and unfolded the paper. She looked at Viktor’s now-familiar scrawled handwriting on the parchment, but couldn’t read a word of it.


He had written to her in Bulgarian.


After staring blankly at it for a moment, a weak smile spread over her face. He probably had no way of realizing it, but having a puzzle to solve was the best thing that could have happened to her that day. Finally, her brain, worn out with so much uncertainty, had something concrete to work with.


~~**~~


She transfigured her pajamas into Gryffindor robes, grabbed a roll of parchment and a quill, and then went to the library. Dropping her things on her usual table, she headed for the stacks to search for a translation spell. She went by a table farther back where Professors Snape and Waters sat across from each other. Professor Snape was looking intently through pages of diagrams that immediately caught Hermione’s interest. Professor Waters had a stack of muggle stationary and envelopes next to her on one side, with a small stack of completed letters on the other. Professor Snape’s long black teaching robes did not entirely conceal the fact that under the table their ankles were hooked casually together.


Megan noticed Hermione, smiled cordially at her, and went back to wng hng her letter. Professor Snape, distracted by Megan’s movement, looked up at her, saw her writing, and the corners of his mouth turned up in a content smile before he settled back into the book in front of him.


Hermione hesitated for a moment. When she saw the two of them together in such a casual and unguarded moment, the memory of their kiss that she had secretly witnessed came to mind. She had begun to realize that in love, there may be much more than meets the eye. Apparently, sometimes giving someone a chance who might seem like an unlikely choice was worth the challenges that such a pursuit undoubtedly demanded.


~~**~~


Hermione searched quickly through the shelves, feeling ever more eager to know the contents of Viktor’s letter. She knew that she remembered seeing a book somewhere that had the spell she wanted… now where was it?


Finally, she found it. Grabbing it off the shelf, she hurried back over to her table and opened it up to the page she wanted. Reading carefully through the instructions, she lay a blank piece of parchment over Viktor’s letter, poised her quill at the top of it as if she were going to start writing something, and whispered the incantation.


At first, nothing happened. She didn’t think that the spell had worked and was about to read the instructions again, when all of a sudden, her quill leapt out of her hand and started scratching across the paper, hesitating occasionally - as if it was thinking - before it wrote each line. Bit by bit, the letter was scrawled out onto the fresh parchment in English, and Hermione chewed her bottom lip as she read along.


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My dear little friend,


I apologize for writing to you in a language that you do not speak, but I do this for two reasons. First, I know that if you are reading it then you will care enough to have found a way to understand it, and that makes me glad. Second, this is the language of my heart, and I will be able to say to you exactly what I mean. Since it took me nearly three years just to learn how to correctly pronounce your name, you can understand my hesitation in attempting to express the rest of these words to you out loud.


Since the time that we first met, you have captivated me. You are pretty and clever, and you have the heart of a lion. There is a goodness in you that warms me, and a goodness in the people that you know and the places where you spend time which refreshes me, and I long to be a part of it. I also know that your life is a full one, and I do not know whether there could ever be a place for me in it.


I could never hope to be as clever as you are, but the time that we spent together and the things that we have said to one another have given me hope that we can get along well enough anyway. In these times no one can say what the future is going to be like, but for right now, all I know is that I want to spend my time with you. I tried to forget about you, Hermione Granger, but I can’t, especially now that I am back where you are and I see every day the lovely young woman that you have become. I ask only that you give me a chance.


Yours,
Viktor


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With a dry mouth and butterflies in her stomach, Hermione took out a fresh scroll of parchment and began to write.

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A/N - Thanks to all of you who have read and/or reviewed!


Estrilda - Thanks! I am glad that you like the change of venue for him, and I hope that you enjoy the rest of the story. :-)


droxy - Thanks for your sweet comments! I\'m so glad you like the story. Can\'t say too much about your concerns now, of course... ::gives innocent look:: :-)


A/N - Also, I\'ve had the whole story sketched out in my head from pretty much the beginning and have it outlined on the computer --- but I had no idea that it would turn out to be this long! I thank all of you who have followed it so far, and want to reassure you that it won\'t string along forever. It has just taken some time to sort out the various pieces and make them look like I imagined. So please stay tuned...

I would love to hear your thoughts - let me know what you think. :-D

Best wishes to you all,
R.