Work Text:
The sun shone warmly down from the sky and bathed the streets in a bright light. The outdoor areas of cafes and ice cream parlors were almost completely occupied.
At one of the tables sat two middle-aged women and a young man. The woman talked and giggled while they drank their coffee and the man stirred thoughts lost in his iced tea while he looked into the window of the pharmacy across the street.
"So Viktor, how long do you want to go on like this?" one of the women asked him.
When he didn't respond, the other woman slapped him lightly on the shoulder and made a slightly indignant noise.
That pulled him out of his thoughts and he walled his gaze from the window and instead looked at his mother and made a question of face.
The older woman pressed her lips together into a thin line and looked sternly at her son.
"Viktor, didn't you listen to what Aunt Donka asked you? I thought I taught you manners."
Then he looked at his mother apologetically. He knew that if he didn't want to upset her further, he better not say anything.
So he turned to his aunt and put on a smile that he hoped didn't seem too forced.
"I'm sorry, Aunt Donka. My thoughts were elsewhere. Would you please repeat your question?"
She huffed and looked at him slightly appraisingly. "I asked you how long do you want to go on like this? Playing quidditch isn't a real job. How do you ever want to start a family like that. As if some lady would marry a mindless sports troll who is never there. You should get a real job. Something with a foundation. A job where you can earn real money. You had your fun now it's time to grow up."
At her words the smile slipped from his face and he looked at his aunt slightly shocked.
It wasn't new to him that his family wasn't convinced of his career as a Quidditch seeker, all but his little nephew who loved Quidditch. But until now no one had mentioned that he should stop playing. They just all ignored it and never talked about it. Now that his aunt asked him about it, he remembered how much his family actually objected to what he was doing.
He took a deep breath and explain in as neutral a tone as possible :"It's a real job. I play for the Bulgarian national team, I make enough money and I'm 22, I don't have to get married or start a family, yet."
Both women made an outraged noise and his mother slapped him on the back of the head.
"Foolish boy. That's not how you talk to your aunt."
He shrugged his shoulders and first looked at the table top, but then his gaze wandered back up through the pharmacy window.
Beside him, his aunt clicked her tongue and lifted her cup to her mouth with her little finger spread apart to take a sip and then put her cup back on without a sound.
"The sport makes him outrageous. I bet he fell on his head so often that his brain is still broken than before. He's never been the smartest."
He looked at his aunt again in shock. Yes, he hadn't finished school as well as his older brothers, but he was still one of the best in his year. He just opened his mouth to protest when his aunt continued to speak.
"He can't stay with his thoughts in the here and now. Where did he always look, Inolia?"
His mother on the other side put down her cup and gestured at the building opposite.
The alley they were sitting in was narrow and so it was easy to see into the building and watch the people in it.
"A new medi witch works in the pharmacy, over there. It's the girl he went to yule ball with at Hogwarts. She is also responsible for his team and is always there at practice lessons or games. Viktor has fallen for her. Again."
It amazed him that his mother knew that. In fact, she never listened to him talking about what happened in Quidditch. But she must have noticed that he had talked about the girl with the Brown curly hair a lot lately.
How could he not talk about her either?
She was fantastic. She was nice and courteous, polite and quick-witted, very smart and independent, loyal and brave.A very powerful witch. She not only saw him as, Viktor Krum the famous quidditch seeker of Bulgaria. She saw in him just Viktor, the guy who, when he first talked to her properly after a few years of not seeing each other and only exchanging a few letters, started stuttering and almost fell over his own feet. Just him and not his fame.
When he first saw her at the trenig, he thought he couldn't believe his eyes. There she stood Hermione Granger. In black pants and a swetter with his Them logo on it and the words "Medi Witch". She was taller as if he had last seen her but still quite small and her body was no longer childlike but now had feminine curves. Her hair was still curly, but not as extremely bushy as it was a few years ago. He thought she was pretty even then, but to him it looked as if she had become more and more beautiful over the years. When she saw him and their eyes met, her face lit up with a smile and she waved to him. And then it happened, he fell head over heels for her a second time.
She was still there after his practice session and he had run into her. He really wanted to speak to her but was so nervous that he tripped over his own feet, stumbled into her and almost knocked her to the ground if he hadn't caught himself in time. She had started to laugh and asked him, in almost accent-free Bulgaria, his native language, if everything was okay. He had apologized, half in Bulgarian and half in English, her native language, stuttering, for almost knocking her over. She just kept laughing and said that everything was okay and that there is worse than bumping into a handsome quidditch player. Her laugh infected him and from that moment they started talking. About his school days, and hers. They spoke briefly about the time he was at Hogwarts and even more briefly about the time she had spent in the war. Both topics that neither of them liked to talk about and which were just too heavy and painful for a simply nice conversation.
They talked a bit on other subjects, what they had experienced in the years before and after the war or what drove Hermione to Bulgaria. A failed relationship with her red-haired best friend and the feeling to get out of the place where she had experienced so much bad. The position as medi witch for this quidditch team was offered to her after her training as a healer and she had immediately accepted. While they were talking they walked across the field and when they left the stadium. When they both stood in front of the stadium and she told him that she had to go now, he felt the disappointment in himself, he would have liked to keep talking to her. But when she wished him a nice day and said see you tomorrow, he realized again that they would see each other more often from now on and the deception disappeared as quickly as it came, instead he was looking forward to tomorrow.
From that day on they talked whenever they saw each other and with each passing day he fell more for her.
His aunt's almost hysterical giggle tore him from his memories. She snickered with her hand over her mouth, her cheeks all red.
"She? Really? I beg you." she continued to laugh, put a hand on his forearm and watched the young woman in the pharmacy who was filling shelves.
Viktor was about to say that she should dare to talk badly about Hermione, when his aunt kept talking, still giggling. "She is so small. Delicate and beautiful like a fairy. What should a fair beauty like her do with a troll like you? Look at yourself huge and wide, with big hands and feet and a not exactly beautiful square head. And that hooked nose, the muscles that you have don't do that better, kid. They tend to make you look even more like a giant. As if someone like you, had the slightest chance, by someone like her. I bet if you touched her, she would just break like a match, if she doesn't run away out of fear that you will harm her. A few years ago she was just a child and simply influenced by your status and that's why she went to this dance with you. Now she is a woman and a war heroine. As if she wanted something from someone like you."
He had the feeling that all features were slipping away from him. His own aunt spoke so badly of him. And his mother? Not contradicting the whole thing, just sipping her coffee. How did it come about that his family thought so badly of him? Maybe he wasn't the prettiest and a lot of women were only interested in him because of his fame and money, but the way he looked wasn't really that bad, Or?
He looked down so he could see his hands and feet. Yes, they were big, but if they were smaller they wouldn't match the rest of him and who'd look ridiculous. He was tall and broad-shouldered, which Quidditch made even more apparent. And who really had a hooked nose, he got that from his father. All of his brothers were lucky enough to inherit his mother's nose, except he. But appearance wasn't the most important thing, a person's character counts. And Hermione seemed to like him for who he was.She had called him attractive. She had never complained or ridiculed about him.
He wonders if she would go out with him if he asked her.
He didn't want to listen to his aunt's giggles and pokes any longer. So he got up and walked around the table. He took his wallet and put enough money on the table to pay for his drink. As if he were paying for the drink for the two Furies now.
"Viktor, son, where do you think you're going?" asked his mother, giving him a stern look. He looked at his mother without emotion and replied flatly: "I no longer do this to myself. What she says and that you are silent. I go." With these words he turned around, passed the other tables, crossed the little alley and then entered the little pharmacy.
When he opened the door, a small bell rang which attracted the attention of the woman with the brown hair to the entrance.
When she saw him she smiled at him from the ladder she was standing on.
"Hey Viktor. It's nice to see you." she greeted him and then carefully placed a couple of ampoules with a bluish potion on a shelf.
"Hello Her-my-ninny. It's nice to see you too." he greeted back. Now that she spoke his language, better than he could speak English, he felt a lot safer talking to her. When they talked in English at Hogwarts, he always had problems with words, the sentence structure or the pronunciation and did not want to embarrass himself in front of her. So he always talked slowly and gave himself time to answer in order to formulate a reasonable sentence. It never bothered her how he spoke in English, but he still wanted to do as much as possible right so that nobody could laugh at his bad pronunciation. Now that she spoke Bulgarian he felt safe to talk to her. The only thing that is still difficult for him to pronounce is her Name. But that wasn't bad. She had recently said that she liked the way he pronounced her name.
"Wait, I'm coming down." she called over her shoulder, and slowly descended the steps of the ladder.
"Please be careful. Don't fall down."
He stepped closer to the ladder so that he could catch it in an emergency. Hermione gave a muffled giggle, went down the last few steps and then stood in front of him. She tilted her head back slightly to look him in the face. His aunt was right about that. She was quite small compared to him. It didn't quite reach his shoulder.
"I saw you sitting over in the ice cream parlor with two ladies. I think one of them was your mother, right? Did you have a nice day?" she asked and walked around him behind the counter and with a wave of her hand moved the ladder to one side.
She had seen him. Through the window, across the street, between all the people. Just like he'd seen her.
He followed her with a slight smile, but stopped in front of the counter. She put her elbows on the counter and put her head in her hands while she looked at him waiting.
He looked back briefly, out through the window to the place where he had just been sitting. His mother and aunt whispered to each other and kept glancing in the direction of the pharmacy. The smile left his face and he looked back at Hermione in front of him and replied weakly: " Yes, that's right. This is my mother and my aunt. They wanted me to spend my days off with them. And no, the day wasn't nice until a moment ago. Quite the opposite."
Her smile, too, gave way to a gentle but worried expression. In her eyes he could read the question that was burning on her lips. "My aunt doesn't have the highest opinion of me. My whole family doesn't like me being a Quidditch player, but she also don't like everything else about me. She says I should stop and do some real work. One where I really make money."
Hermione looked confused and shook her head in disbelief. "But playing Quidditch makes you happy and you're really, really good at it. Why should you stop doing something that makes you happy? I don't know what a quidditch player deserves but I guess it's enough to live. Please don't listen to her. You should do what makes you happy."
Her words made him smile again. He reached out an arm and grabbed her wrist and squeezed it in a silent gesture of thanks for her kind words. Now she smiled too and put the hand of her free arm over his.
"I won't stop just because she says so. Otherwise I would never have started playing." he explained to her and looked into her big cinnamon brown eyes.
"You said until a moment ago your day wasn't nice. What has changed?" she asked, changing the subject, which was fine with him. He was about to ask her something, after all, and her question got him off to a good start.
"Now I'm standing in front of you and I can talk to you." he gave the honest answer and could see her cheeks turning red. Her smile widened and her eyes sparkled at him.
Before he lost his courage, he decided to continue speaking. "Something my aunt said made me realize I had to ask you something, Hermione."
He kept looking at her. How she stood before him with red cheeks and sparkling eyes. The sight of her turned his cheeks red too, and the red color moved even further, turning his ears red.
"Hermione, I want to ask you if you would go out with me? On a date? Please?"
She looked at him with big Bambi eyes, her mouth slightly open and her cheeks redder than they were a moment ago.
The lack of her answer made him nervous, he scratched the back of his head and quickly collected: " Of course you don't have to ... it ... it's okay ... if you ... say no ... I ... I just wanted to ask ... because ... " Of course she would refuse. What was he thinking. Apparently his aunt was right; a beauty like her would never date a troll like him. He gave her a pained smile, took his hand from her wrist and looked at the floor.
"No no! Wait no, I mean yes. Yes, I would love to go out with you." she interrupted him hastily and grabbed the hand that is closest to her. He stopped moving and looked at her in astonishment. Did he understand her correctly? "Really? Are you going out with me?" he asked her just to reassure himself.
She nodded and gave him one of her smiles that could light up the whole room.
He smiled back, grabbed her hand and interlaced his fingers with his.
"When do you finish work?" he asked with a smile and ran his thumb over her knuckles.
She glanced over her shoulder at the clock and back to him again.
"Five minutes ago." she whispered.
Viktor laughed and squeezed her hand lightly. "Okay, do you want to go out to eat with me? Now?"
"Yes, I would love to. Let me get my bag and then we can go." replied Hermione.
He nodded to her with a smile. She withdrew her hand from him and disappeared to the back of the shop.
Short on it they both stood in front of the pharmacy and Hermione locked the shop with some protective charms.
Then he took her hand and was about to go down the alley with her when another idea occurred to him.
He led her over to the ice cream parlor in front of his mother and aunt's table.
"Just so you know. I asked her and she said yes. For the second time now."
And then he left again. Down the alley with the laughing Hermione in the hand, the incredulous looks of his mother and aunt behind him.