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The Bulgarian summer is at its height, verdant and gold, and night, when it falls, is a scented dark veil billowing out and lowering softly. Hermione has been staying with Viktor and his family as a guest at their summer house for a week, ever since an escalating exchange of owls over the spring and early summer ended in, not an invitation — which had long since been issued — but in a receipt for an international Portkey to the city of Burgas.
Hermione doesn't know why it took such a concrete push for her to do what she'd already wanted for months. Perhaps it's just that, while she was the one who called off the engagement with Ron, it was a surprise that Ron so quickly found someone else to smile to and hold hands with. It's a conundrum — he's happy, happier, and loving him as she still does she can't begrudge him the haste; she doesn't. But it's made her hesitant to take steps that might signal anything like the same hurry on her part, as though she needs twice the time because he needed none.
But now she's here, with the sprawling, intense, noisy Krum clan, at a folklore festival in a village outside busy Burgas where Viktor and his parents live. They've been at the village culture hall and watched a show with dance performances that made her gasp and gape and exclaim in admiration. The cultural pride in this ancient Thrakian region is vibrant and alive, and while Viktor sat beside her watching quietly during the show, his parents and grandparents seemed to take immense pleasure in her reactions.
Now the festival continues in a green field outside the town, with a crowded outdoors restaurant and bar. A rose-trained trellis pavilion is open to everyone who wants a dance under the stars. It's a Muggle venue, and the advantage to this is obvious: much less of a risk of people recognising Viktor and mobbing him for an autograph, a handshake, a friendly word.
Hermione sits at one of the tables, watches and listens. The musicians have flutes, a violin, mandolins, a small bagpipe, and an accordion. The singer is a woman, and her voice, strong and clear as a bell, is echoed and thrown back in answers from the male musicians. A few of the songs are slow, melancholy in tone, but most convey a jubilant zest for life, hurried along by a high weaving melody and a drum beat that seems to be the only thing anchoring the dancers to earth.
Because they are dancing. Everyone, from Viktor's cousins to his parents to his great-great-aunt leaning on her walking stick down to his tiny nieces and nephews, are out on the dance floor, and while they can't quite compete with the breakneck performance of the dancers they saw on stage, they make up for it with the sheer surrender to joy in their faces, in their moves. Not that they don't move well. Their feet skip and jump so fast that to Hermione the dance patterns blur. She's already turned down three offers to get her out there, by Viktor and by his dad and one of his uncles; she can't imagine how she's going to join them and not look like a complete idiot with her stiff British limbs all frozen in place.
And in the middle of it is Viktor. Viktor, who'd frowned when she dug her heels in and turned him down but refrained from outright forcing her out on the dance floor. He'd raised an eyebrow and got her a shot of rakija instead. He was dancing at first with the great-great-aunt, then with a small niece; now he's dancing with Lyudmila, his younger sister, her black hair whipping around her shoulders as she grins at him and follows his moves. Viktor swaggers and circles her, the look on his face mischievous, and Lyudmila, dancing with her hands on her hips, throws her head back and laughs and laughs at something he's said utterly deadpan.
It looks like the most gorgeous, fabulous fun in the world. It looks like the Yule Ball to the tenth power. Hermione feels her feet itch with wanting to try, tapping to the beat as she tries to build up the nerve. This perfectionist horror of failure has been her personal Boggart as far back as she can recall, and just thinking of trying to join in makes her stumble and lose rhythm in her thoughts. This is the problem. She never can stop thinking. And England's not prepared her for anything like these traditional Bulgarian dances. The closest they get to folk dance at home is Morris dancing, a notion that makes her dip her head and snort quiet laughter into her rakija.
When she looks up, Viktor is looking straight at her. Lyudmila follows his gaze and gives him a playful shove in her direction, but he's already started on his way. Hermione flushes hotly as he approaches. He hasn't so much as tried to kiss her in the preceding week, and so she wonders if perhaps she shouldn't be noticing so acutely how he's too tall and lanky, wide shoulders hunched as always, but so masculine in his black trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up over strong arms — so... handsome, almost, but only almost, better than any sort of pretty boy looks.
Stopping at her table, he gives her a slow grin, white in his tanned, flushed face, as he leans down to her, one hand braced on the table. He's crowding her and well aware of it. Hermione is well aware of it, too. She's sure she's as pink as the roses in the garlands overhanging the table.
"Now, Her-my-nee. Had enough yet of longing to have fun and not getting any fun?"
She presses her lips together to avoid smiling at his tone, and tips her head back to look him straight in the face. "That's silly. I'm quite comfortable here, taking notes."
"Comfortable is rated over...." He frowns, pondering the expression, and gets it right on the next try. "Over-rated. Are you girl I danced with at the Yule ball? You not want to take notes. You want passion. Your feet want passion." His foot nudges hers under the table. "Could see them trying to dance, mila. Your feet are braver than you."
"I am brave," she retorts immediately, her Gryffindor pride piqued.
"This is what I have thought, too. So why you pretend to be coward?" he needles her.
"Oh, all right." She takes a quick, eye-watering gulp of her rakija, and then, gasping for air, grudging and still nervous, she pushes her chair back from the table. Yet her stomach flips with excitement. "Do you promise to make sure I won't get trampled to death if I fall?"
"Better than that. I promise to make sure you will not fall, at all." Viktor's smile is brilliant as he takes her hand and, giving her no time for second thoughts, tugs her quickly with him out on the crowded floor. She's still coughing from the firewater down her throat.
The music seems to weep with joy or to laugh until it cries. The wild notes swoop around her like swift birds on the wind currents of a bright, stormy day, which may be why Viktor, usually much more graceful in the air than on the ground, seems completely in his element. But Hermione is lost, already losing her balance as the surrounding dancers jostle her. Viktor doesn't laugh. He speaks low enough to be heard under the music. "Not look at your feet. Just hold my hand and follow me, and I will follow music."
She can't help it; even though she manages not to watch her own, she has to at least throw some glances around her to the other women's feet. Promptly, she stumbles, and Viktor chuckles and catches her easily against his chest. He smells of spice and clean sweat, somehow devastatingly familiar, and his skin burns hot through his shirt against her own warm skin. His lips graze her ear in an intimate murmur. "Told you, not look. Not worry."
Hermione realises that she's already been watching the dance-steps for half an hour, and what she's not learned yet from watching she'll simply have to learn by doing. She nods, her laugh coming out unsteady against his throat. "Who, me, worry?"
And then he spins her out again and they're caught up in the rhythm immediately, Viktor's gaze holding hers, his feet that she is not watching moving in a pattern that she feels in her toes, her calves, her hips. His free hand touches the small of her back and she softens there, arches gently, more supple than she knew as she tries to follow.
"Good." He's verging on a smile, eyes glittering at her. "Now let down shoulders. When shoulders are stiff, feet cannot move."
"Oh really, Mr Krum, is that so?" she mutters, trying with an effort to drop her shoulders from their tense, hard concentration.
"Oh really, is so." The smile spreads on his face, and he's laughing at her at last, but in a way that appreciates her rebellious retort and invites her to laugh, too. He's inviting her to allow herself to risk mistakes, to forget about how she looks and just enjoy being out here with him like this again, out on a dance floor, out on a limb.
After she's stayed on her feet for twenty seconds and no one has yet turned to point and laugh at her, she relaxes somewhat. "It's fun," she admits, breathless as he lifts her.
"Mm-hmm. More fun than taking notes?"
"By a hair's breadth," she says haughtily, but she is grinning at him as she puts a hand on her hip the way Lyudmila did and lets him circle her slowly. She knows she's missing half the steps, but then so is the great-great-aunt and she's certainly not letting it stop her. She turns as Viktor circles her, holding her gaze, and her heart starts to beat like crazy. With the swaggering stride of the male side of the dance he looks a bit like a kindly wolf rounding in on his prey.
She meets his gaze and reminds herself, she's brave, in fact she's helped save the whole bloody wizarding world, more than once, she's a Gryffindor, she's.... "Viktor, why haven't you kissed me yet?" she blurts.
The wolf stops in his tracks, stumbling and catching himself in a remarkably graceless move. Hermione, red-faced and consternated, bites her lip and tries without success not to laugh.
"Oh, so is all right for you to laugh at me," Viktor grouses. His eyes narrow but his mouth quirks up.
"I'm sorry," she says humbly. Around her the other dancers whirl like colourful leaves on an autumn wind.
"I... well, I worried — you've never said... I not wanted to take for granted."
She can hear the promise under those words, and her heart seems to soar on it. She answers with a wide smile, recklessly tossing his cheerful jibe back at him. "I always thought you were brave, so why are you pretending to be a coward, Viktor?"
Viktor clears his throat, looking around. The faces of his family circle by, staring at them with a mixture of worry, anticipation and good-natured interest. He sighs. "You know to pick nice and private moment, Her-my-nee."
A second later she's scooped up in his arms and caught up in a kiss, and Viktor doesn't do anything halfway. He kisses her with all the intensity and passion of the music, and she throws her arms around him, closes her eyes and lets the exciting sensations, his closeness and familiarity, carry her for seconds as long as an eternity.
Scattered applause breaks out when they draw apart for breath. Lyudmila grins at them and the great-great-aunt pumps her walking stick in the air in approval. Hermione blushes, and Viktor shakes his head and laughs. He scoops her up once more, this time to continue the dance, but now he holds her close and they sway in a rhythm all their own.
Her feet are as steady and sure as the smile in Viktor's eyes, and all of her is dancing.
-end-