Work Text:
Here’s the scene: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Stands have been set up around the school lake and they’re packed with students, who are staring at the surface of the water, waiting for something to happen. Suddenly, they all gasp together, then burst into cheers as one of their champions’ heads breaks the water. It’s a shark head right now, a bit of botched transfiguration. A real cock-up, but also kind of badass. Then the shark head shrinks back into the face of Viktor Krum, world-famous Bulgarian Quidditch star. He pulls his hostage up beside him. The hostage comes round as soon as his face breaks the surface. A fourth year student; Hogwarts; ginger.
The kids in the stands were all getting ready to cheer again, but they have to switch to confused muttering instead, because this scene has just rocketed way off script.
The ginger kid flounders around in the water and looks at Viktor Krum. That is not the world famous face he was expecting to see. His mouth falls open and he swallows a wave of water.
‘Ronald, you are awake!’ Viktor shouts. He treads water and grins. ‘Come, swim to shore! We will be second!’
Record scratch.
Freeze-frame.
Hi. My name’s Ronald Weasley. You’re probably wondering how I ended up in this situation.
* * *
It all started with Hermione, like a lot of good things do that happen to Harry and me. We don’t appreciate her enough. When Viktor asked her to the ball, everyone thought that was going to be the sensation of the year. Harry and I had no clue ’till the night. Then I saw them together, and, well.
It’s wild, looking back at being a teenager and remembering how much everything just fucking sucked. You have a bad emotion and it hits you like a tidal wave of snakes . It hurt so bad I couldn’t even separate out the reasons why it was hurting. I just knew that I hated the sight of them together, and that’s got to mean one thing, right? I’m jealous of the girl. Yeah. I just assumed that was it.
Actually I think straight away I was aware that there was also a bit of, hey, I’m the Viktor Krum fan around here, how come Hermione gets his attention without even trying and I get nothing? Which was so pathetic that I tried to block it out and just focus on supposedly being mad that Hermione was with him instead of me. Because that was so much better.
‘Come on, mate,’ Harry said to me. ‘She’s our friend; we’ve got to go and say hi. Don’t spoil this for her.’
So we went over, me trying to bite back on all the snakes and lava so that they wouldn’t vomit out all over my friends, and said hi. And in the end it was surprisingly okay. Viktor was older than us and he had that Slavic menace going on, but underneath it you could see he was really just shy of us and being on our turf and shy about being on a date, and that calmed me down a bit. We all got a butterbeer and tried to chat politely like grownups. It was kind of awkward, kind of awful, kind of nice.
And then the party was over and Hermione realised that the first-date glitter had rubbed off but the awkwardness was there to stay.
‘I suppose it doesn’t matter that he and I don’t talk as much as we do,’ she said to Harry and me. ‘Viktor’s more of a physical being.’
Harry looked out of the window to try and hide how he was smirking. I stared at my homework and prayed for death.
‘I just mean he’s not particularly loquacious,’ Hermione said. ‘Anyway, we’re going for a walk after dinner. Would you like to join us?’
‘Wouldn’t you, uh, rather, I mean, some quality time,’ I mumbled.
‘It’s just that it’s a little easier to break the ice with company,’ she said. ‘You understand more about Quidditch and the wizarding world and things like that.’
‘You could just not see him,’ Harry said.
‘No, I want to!’ Hermione said, too fast. ‘But please come! It’s so awkward otherwise! Please!’
So it ended up like that quite often between the ball and the second task, the four of us hanging out together to cover the fact that Hermione wanted her high school romance to work out but didn’t actually know what to say to Viktor. The topic got on to Quidditch a lot. Harry was way closer to being on Viktor’s level as a player, but when it came to tactics, the different teams, the history of the game, he still didn’t know much. And that’s how I ended up dissecting the new season’s line-up with Viktor freaking Krum.
It was Harry who suggested we get up in the air together. He could tell how much I wanted to but he knew I’d never say it myself. Flying with Viktor was brutal. He just literally forgets that there aren’t many people in the world who can do what he does. But right off the bat he was surprisingly cool about it. Kind of like how Harry’s surprisingly cool about having vanquished the Dark Lord.
Hermione was pretty much done by that point. Thank Merlin she was relieved at it fizzling without a scene, and not upset that Harry and I had dragged her almost-boyfriend off to play Quidditch. In another couple of weeks Harry was busy with the second task and Hermione was dragging him off to the library to prepare. But by then Viktor had got a hold of me. He’d decided we weren’t just having a chuck-around together, we were training together. And that meant four times a week, rain or shine. Or snow.
Trouble is, there’s no saying no to Viktor when he gets keen. At least not for me. I’ve got a bit better of a handle on it these days, but back then I’d’ve followed him to the North Pole just to watch him play a friendly match, never mind Scotland in January to have him actually train me. It was like some fever dream, but he spent as much time showing me what to do as he did working on himself.
‘When the Chaser make like this,’ he used to yell at me over a howling gale, ‘the Keeper can feint like this.’ Or, ‘if the Beater is hitting the Bludger to you, but you have grip on your broom like this, you roll with the broom and you do not fall.’
I still remember all those mistakes he used to make with his English. I got to understand him soon enough. If he didn’t know the word, he’d just say it in Bulgarian with a lot of arm-waving. He kept telling me I needed something that years later I found out translates like one-with-the-broom-ness. It’s one of those things where it doesn’t really make a difference whether you talk about it in Bulgarian or English, because you won’t know it ’till you feel it either way. So I just used the Bulgarian word and asked him if I was doing it. Or when he was talking fast he’d just throw out the Bulgarian for Snitch or Quaffle or Wronski Feint. It was usually pretty obvious from context what he meant. Then we’d walk back to the Durmstrang boat together and I’d try to follow what all the Durmstrang students were saying to each other. I picked up a few phrases pretty fast. They were fairly happy to help me learn. I think they were pleased that a Hogwarts kid was finally getting friendly with them, plus of course they were impressed that I was working with Viktor and actually improving. I was pretty impressed with myself.
Anyway, February rolled round, and the second task, and you all know more or less what happened. Hermione and I got called to Dumbledore’s office. Cho Chang was there, and a younger girl, Gabrielle, from Beauxbatons, and Dumbledore explained that they were going to put us into an enchanted sleep and the champions were going to have to rescue us – their ‘treasure’ – from the bottom of the lake. Me for Harry, Chang for Diggory, Gabrielle for Fleur and Hermione for Viktor.
With hindsight I wish I’d argued on the spot, but it honestly wasn’t the weirdest thing that had happened to me at school. Have our respective best friends, siblings and love interests rescue us from a watery grave? Sure, why not, knock me the fuck out.
So, one minute I was falling asleep in Dumbledore’s office, and the next I was waking up, out of my depth in freezing water, staring into a shark’s face, which transformed into Viktor’s face.
I could hear from the sound of the crowd that people were surprised. I knew Dumbledore had told me I was Harry’s hostage, and now here was Viktor. For a moment I felt embarrassed like we’d all cocked up on a group project in class together, which was pretty stupid as I’d been out the entire time and was definitely not responsible. I think my first thought was that Harry was going to bloody well drown down there hunting for me.
‘Where’s Harry?’ I called out.
‘Don’t worry, he finded hostages too,’ Viktor shouted back. He was trying to talk and grin and tread water at the same time. ‘He’s coming. But we are back first!’
(I asked Harry about it later. He said that Viktor grabbed me and so he just shrugged and rescued Hermione instead. He loves us both a lot. )
I was still groggy, and Viktor was about twice as strong as I was. He helped pull me to shore. By then I was having a kind of out-of-body experience as I realized that, while I’d been assuming I was a fan he was helping out to pass the time, he’d decided we’d reached lake-rescuing levels of friendship. I was actually still several steps behind in my realisations, but for now I just enjoyed having my Quidditch idol and new best mate help me up the bank.
‘Ronald,’ he said to me once we were back on dry land. Madame Pomfrey was fussing around us with blankets and pepper-up potion.
‘Call me Ron,’ I told him for the millionth time.
‘Ron,’ he said. He looked half-way between happy that we’d come in second and annoyed about something. ‘What did you tell your Dumbledore about you and me?’
‘Um…’ I racked my brains. ‘Nothing?’ That question went shooting right over my head as well.
‘They spy on everything I do,’ Viktor muttered. ‘Professor Karkaroff?’
His head teacher was hurrying over to us, all over him for doing so well.
‘I want to speak to you and Professor Dumbledore straight away,’ Viktor said.
‘Of course, my dear boy, of course!’ Karkaroff said, but actually we had to wait more than half an hour, because Harry came spluttering up with Hermione and Gabrielle in tow and the staff had to give them first aid and then confer with the merpeople and decide how to reward Harry this time for being a noble idiot. All the time things were going on, Viktor kept his hand on my arm through my blanket and kept on looking happy about coming second and annoyed about I-didn’t-know-what. Although I felt like I should really be rooting for Harry, I couldn’t help grinning back at him every time I saw him look cheerful. Hadn’t Hermione said this whole production was about international magical cooperation anyway? Seeing me happy cheered him up, but whenever I tried to start talking about what a cock-up this whole task had been, he quieted me down. I guessed he didn’t want to go over it until he’d seen Karkaroff and Dumbledore, for some reason. I guessed correctly.
Anyway, finally the results were in, the event wrapped up, and then Dumbledore was coming towards us, smiling like there was nothing he wanted more than to spend his afternoon having a chat with Viktor Krum.
‘Please, this way,’ he said, pointing to the judges’ tent.
‘Come with me, please, Ronald,’ Viktor said to me. ‘This is completely your business as well.’
By then I’d warmed up enough to start feeling curious. I followed them into the tent. Karkaroff came too.
Viktor immediately went off into a huddle with him and started speaking in Bulgarian. Way too fast for me to follow. I guess it made sense that he put things to his head teacher first. The guy usually had his back, after all. Anyway, they talked for a couple of minutes, and then Viktor sat down next to me – they’d given me a chair – and waited for Karkaroff to play spokesman.
‘Albus, I’m afraid Viktor isn’t pleased with your choice of this – er – Ronald Weasley as his hostage,’ Karkaroff said to Dumbledore. ‘He says that the rescue amounted to an inappropriate public scene.’
‘Oh dear,’ Dumbledore said. He looked questioningly at Viktor.
‘I do not appreciate that this has become gossip for all the students, professor,’ Viktor said. ‘Ronald and I didn’t even talk about it together yet.’
The way he rolled the r on appreciate. I didn’t know how I felt about it. It was kind of ridiculous, but kind of intimidating; I also kind of loved it.
Of course, I know exactly how I feel about it now.
Shut up.
This is a story about one wild thing that happened to Viktor and me, not the entire history of our love-life to date.
Anyway.
‘I completely understand, Viktor,’ Dumbledore said, ‘but I assure you that we’re just as surprised as you are! We had intended Miss Hermione Granger to be your hostage, and we thought that, since you had invited her to the Yule Ball, that relationship could be considered public knowledge.’
You probably think I was pretty slow on the uptake, not getting it before. Well, I definitely got it then. I felt pretty much how that mountain troll must have felt when I dropped the club on its head. Then my ears started going red.
‘This is a monstrous indiscretion!’ Karkaroff was saying. ‘It should have been made clear to the champions exactly which treasure they were required to recover!’
Viktor looked stunned. He hadn’t realised until that exact moment that he wasn’t the one I’d been expecting. His mouth was hanging open. His expression was slowly shifting from shocked to horrified. It was like watching a broom crash in slow motion.
‘My dear Igor,’ Dumbledore said, ‘both of us gave the go-ahead for this task in its final form; and Madame Maxime as well. This consequence is unexpected, but isn’t it delightful when love blossoms unlooked for ?’
‘So let me get this straight,’ I interrupted. ‘Thanks to you teachers, Viktor’s just declared me the treasure of his heart or whatever in front of the entire three schools? You do realise he’s famous, right? And whatever happens next everyone and their great aunt’s going to have a say in it? What’s Rita Skeeter going to think?’
Yup. One look at Viktor’s sad face and I was ready to throw down with Albus Dumbledore himself. I should’ve known right then that I was a goner.
‘I should have known it wasn’t you who said anything to them, Ronald,’ Viktor said to me. ‘You understand perfectly. I see why Harry Potter trusts you as his closest friend.’
‘Viktor has pointed out to me that the society pages are still discussing his choice of companion at the Yule Ball,’ Karkaroff said. ‘How will it look if he’s seen to move so fast from one involvement to another?’
‘And as well,’ Viktor added, ‘Ronald and Hermione, it will…ach, how you say it?’ He snapped his fingers in frustration and said something in Bulgarian to Karkaroff.
‘Viktor,’ Karkaroff said, ‘you’re very considerate, but hurting their feelings is not the most pressing problem here.’
‘It is problem!’ Viktor said mutinously. He glared from Karkaroff to Dumbledore and gestured to me. ‘So I misunderstand your task; now everybody knows his business. What does he tell his friends now? What does he tell papers?’
‘Alas, the laws of unintended consequences are beyond even the most powerful wizard’s control,’ Dumbledore said. ‘Among a teacher’s greatest joys is to see his young charges reveal a side of themselves of which he had not even dreamt.’
‘Alright, but even if you hadn’t guessed about…this,’ I said, flapping my hand between Viktor and me, ‘the task was still – sticking Hermione and Chang down there and making Viktor and Diggory fish them up in front of everyone? That’s messed up.’
‘The second task,’ Dumbledore said serenely, ‘was a celebration of the bonds of love. Love between siblings, love between friends, and, yes, also love between two young people…’
‘As a well-known person, I value my privacy,’ Viktor said angrily. ‘And I value the privacy of people who associate with me as much or more.’
Viktor’s English was pretty broken in those days, but if there was one thing he was fluent in it was the vocabulary of dealing with celebrity shit. It honestly broke my heart to sit there and think how he’d probably had to say all this stuff before.
‘You are absolutely right,’ Karkaroff said straight away. ‘Viktor, you may go now; I’ll make sure that this mess is sorted out immediately.’
The bastard was jumping to his star pupil’s defense, although really he’d cocked up just as much as Dumbledore. But really there wasn’t a lot that he and Dumbledore could do to sort things out. The cat was out of the bag, and nothing short of five hundred or so memory charms was going to save Viktor from either a public relationship, or public rejection.
‘You can say you did it in a friendly way,’ I said to him the moment we were out of the tent.
‘Not to you,’ he said. I think that was when it really hit me that what he cared about was how this had made things between us, not Skeeter or his reputation or whatever. You know that feeling when your Quidditch idol turns out to also be a really great guy? Yeah. I couldn’t think of a thing to say.
‘Ronald, I apologise,’ he said. ‘I put you in an impossible position.’
‘Call me Ron,’ I said automatically. ‘Not your fault.’
‘I know you must be completely sick of gossips and attention – ’
‘Huh?’
‘As Harry Potter’s good friend.’
‘Oh.’
‘Your answer should be between us,’ he said. ‘Please pretend it is.’
‘Mate,’ I said, ‘you went to the Yule Ball with Hermione.’
He looked all around like he was looking for someone to kill. Or someone to kill him.
‘It is too fast as well!’ he said. ‘I wanted wait, then talk privately. So nobody will gossip about Hermione; they will lose interest.’
‘But I thought you liked her.’
‘Ach, you think I don’t care about your friend’s feelings! She is a wonderful witch, and I invited her to ball because I admired her very much, but…then, I noticed…and I thought anyway she is not so interested in me now…’
‘No, she’s not – ’ I said. ‘I mean – fuck – I mean. Wait. You’re gay?’
I just kept finding new stupid things to say, and he kept finding new flavours of shocked and confused and miserable to mix into his expression. Like I said, a real cock-up.
‘I see,’ he said at last. ‘So you are straight.’
‘No – !’ I blurted out, and that word was probably a bigger surprise to me than all the other surprises that day. I swear, sometimes I’m the last person to know, even about myself.
Viktor just looked at me and didn’t say anything. He still looked shocked, and confused, but suddenly sort of the opposite of miserable.
There’s probably a lot of smoother people than me in the world who’d have managed to turn this into a really romantic moment, but not me. I pretty much panicked. I told him a lot of stuff about how this wasn’t me telling him yes or no, it was just that I’d only just started thinking about liking girls, never mind other options besides liking girls and how they might apply to me, it wasn’t even a question I’d asked myself and anyway I’d thought he was teaching me Quidditch to be kind and I couldn’t reprocess the last few weeks into him fancying me all in a minute. I said it all back to front and several times round while he tried to understand my English. I’m pretty sure some stuff about how Hermione and Harry and my siblings were all way more special than me got mixed up in there as well. Thank God he stopped me when I started on how special he was.
‘Yes, yes, I understand,’ he said, nodding frantically. ‘You need time.’
‘Uh, yeah, so…’ The conversation was beyond salvaging. It just needed to be over and we both knew it. I more or less bolted while he waved me off like he was urging me to run away and take this whole awkward situation with me. But when I reached the corner he suddenly called out,
‘Ronald! Quidditch practise this Thursday, yes?’
Rolled r on practise, Tursday instead of Thursday because there’s no th sound in Bulgarian. And after all the stuff I’d blurted out he still wanted to see me. And he cared about my feelings, and about my friends. And he’d helped me climb up the bank. And he was a world-famous Quidditch star.
The bit of my brain that had randomly ordered me to deny being straight decided that I’d done enough reprocessing and had enough time to think. I turned around and ran back up the path and basically launched myself into his arms.
It was so awkward after that. Like, him-and-Hermione levels of awkward. But for some reason we both kept coming back for more, and it gradually got better. At the end of the year he asked me to write to him. Hermione bet I wouldn’t, but I did. And the letters gradually got better, too. Everything got better. Everything ended up pretty damned good.
And that’s the story of how Viktor Krum accidentally declared his love for me in front of three whole schools of wizards.