She had strategically selected her seat in the Great Hall for dinner that evening. Evangaline had teased that Hermione must have stolen some of Fleur's Veela charm for the evening, her hair charmed to hold its chestnut curls in effortless ringlets and confidence projecting from her like waves. Hermione looked down the long table they were seated at and noticed the contrast between the shade of blue belonging to their uniforms compared to that of the Ravenclaws they joined for meals, not responding to the compliment from her classmate beyond a bow of her head in acceptance.
"Are you finally ready to help us show these deprived men the allure of Beauxbaton ladies?" Evangaline's airy voice asked across the table. Hermione's only reply was the smirk that adorned her normally passive face. That was, after all, her intention, and there was no reason to hide it from the girls surrounding her.
Another classmate, a dark-haired beauty named Lauren, giggled like a 3rd-year and covered her face with a dainty hand, "Poor boys, they won't know what hit them."
Carefully unfolding a cream-colored napkin before laying it onto her lap, smoothing away the wrinkles with a steady hand, Hermione looked up with a feigned innocent expression, "Whatever do you mean? I'm just trying to maintain our image as proper Beauxbaton students."
Heads of ebony, scarlet, and honey looked at her with expressions that screamed that they didn't believe the easy lie she was telling and that they wanted details. The small feast that lay before them was irrelevant when potential plotting was afoot, especially the kind that involved garnering the attention of unsuspecting young men. Fleur raised a single eyebrow, resting her chin onto her fisted hand, daring Hermione to tell them more. She looked like the statue of a Grecian goddess, like Aphrodite had been reincarnated into the slim body of a young French woman.
She was likely curious as to why the brunette was entertaining the idea of interacting with anyone outside of her already established social circle. Relationships, to Hermione at least, were transactional. Sure, people tried to wrap their interactions up with pretty bows, but at the end of the day, unless a person had something to offer you, there was no reason to associate with them. It was a near sociopathic belief that she hadn't always held, but following the backing of the Flamels she'd learned the hard way that if she wasn't careful, people would give in to their innately selfish tendencies.
Take until there was nothing left. Take without offering anything in return.
Take time, take resources, take advantage of her.
Take. Take. Take.
That was why she'd done everything in her ability to fade into anonymity over the past three years following the destruction of the Sorcerer's Stone. It was honestly remarkable how quickly people forgot who she was attached to once Monsieur and Madame Flamel had exited the world; most likely because the sycophants that she'd met during her relationship with the couple had only referred to her as Flamel's apprentice, never asking her name. They'd refused to give her any sense of separation from the couple who'd given her so much.
This trend was the reason why one of the alchemist's final wishes was for Madame Maxime and Albus Dumbledore to help Hermione expand her educational pursuits based on her own merits and not his. At the time she'd questioned the necessity of including the Hogwarts Headmaster; now she abhorred it, given that his loose lips were the likely culprit behind Zabini's discovery.
As if the Slytherin knew where her trail of thoughts had wandered, she felt Blaise's eyes on her without having to turn and face him. Her long fingers tightened around the edge of the dining hall table as a current of irritation with a sliver of fear erupted in her chest. She'd weighed the likelihood of him exposing her secret to the masses for the public slight she was about to instigate, even performing arithmancy calculations earlier that evening, and had concluded she had more to gain than lose.
"If we're being technical, I guess I should say that there is one person in particular that I would like to make sure has the right idea of what Beauxbaton women have to offer while we're visiting the Scottish foothills," Hermione quipped, shrugging one of her shoulders like she hadn't just dropped the beginning of a crumb trail for her sisters to try and decipher.
It was honestly almost comical how easy it was to get the information she'd been seeking between the hour that she'd left the library and when she'd entered the Great Hall. The question was simple: which student at Durmstrang, an institution known for its generous inclusions of dark magic in its curriculum, had the highest marks in defensive magic?
The answer had been surprising, considering that Hermione had assumed his athletic pursuits overshadowed his academic ones. Viktor Krum, the man, not boy, with dark hair cut close to his head and whose masculine red uniform was always impeccable despite having to pry wandering hands of him constantly, stood high above the others in his defensive abilities.
He was the person who was going to be the catalyst to her further development as a well-rounded witch, the one who wouldn't be too timid to cross the imaginary line that stood between prim young women and dark magic, because he had never known a world where such information was kept behind a veil of morality. She only had to convince him that it would be worth it in the long run.
"Fleur, do you think you could get Monsieur Krum to join us for a moment?" Hermione looked at her close friend, mischievous chestnut eyes meeting twinkling cerulean ones.
The delicate powder blue shawl on the blonde's shoulders rippled as she shimmied in excitement. Evangeline's straight porcelain teeth showed as she grinned widely and Lauren looked to the youngest girl in the group with respect.
A majority of the heads in the dining area snapped toward the Beauxbaton quartet when Fleur stood up and appeared to float over to the Durmstrang champion who was sitting with his comrades toward the end of the table decorated in emerald green. Her kitten heels had barely made a noise as she crossed the room, a fact that Hermione normally wouldn't have been able to discern with the low hum that seemed to constantly persist during meal times but was now apparent because the room was silent. It appeared that the public interaction between two TriWizard Champions was more interesting than discussing classes, because by the time Fleur had reached the Bulgarian you could have heard a wand drop.
Fleur's unnatural ability to bring even the fiercest of beasts to their knees was on display when Viktor erupted with a boisterous laugh less than a minute after she'd initiated conversation; it filled the Great Hall with a delicious tenor that seemed to echo into the silence that had developed. As if the spell had been broken, the room once again buzzed with that familiar undercurrent of sound. Krum stood up from his table and offered Fleur his arm as he escorted her back to them, toward what Hermione hoped would be the start of a mutually beneficial relationship between the two of them.
It really didn't hurt, she thought to herself, that he was easy to look at.
*\
Fleur waited to introduce her last, a deliberate attempt to make sure that his attention lingered longer on the brunette than it had any of the other ladies. With a flourish of her hand, she drew Viktor's attention to her friend and stated with a smile, "And this, Monsieur Krum, is Hermione Granger. The brightest witch I've ever known, and someone I'm lucky to call my friend."
"Her-my-owny?" His eyebrows drew together in concentration, attempting to pronounce her name correctly. The overabundance of vowels and the unreasonable amount of syllables were a challenge that he was unlikely to overcome given his heavy Eastern-European accent.
With a demure smile, Hermione stepped in, extending her hand to the green-eyed addition for the customary kiss before offering, "Over the years I've learned that it's a difficult name to say in any language other than English. Fleur calls me "kitten," perhaps you'd like to keep that tradition?"
Viktor displayed all the markings of a young man who'd had traditions ingrained to him since childhood. He gracefully accepted her offered hand and gently placed his full lips to her knuckles before letting go and taking a seat on the bench directly across the table from her. With a curious expression, he turned back towards the aforementioned blonde who had taken the seat next to him, "Kitten, you say?"
Her best friend may have looked like Aphrodite, but she had the strategic mind of Athena. Hermione was reminded of that fact when she replied to the inquiry.
"She's effortlessly beautiful and cares for those she loves with a gentle but strong conviction, but I wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of her claws when she's crossed," Fleur started to explain. The pause that followed was deliberate; she picked up her water and took a small sip before adding on with a casual tone. "I can think of a few reasons why she is the ideal companion given the current setting in which we find ourselves. Wouldn't you say so, Viktor?"
That beautiful devil. I laid the pretty trap but she shoved him into it; how Ombrelune of her. If this were wizard's chess he'd be in check.
Understanding flickered across his face, and he wet his full lips with a quick brush of his tongue. Despite her best intentions, Hermione's attention was on those lips and not his eyes as he replied, "Well spotted, Miss Delacour."
The conversation at the table stalled. Confused, Hermione looked up and met the green eyes of Viktor Krum. Eyes that had just caught her staring at his lips for longer than was socially appropriate, eyes that winked at her, sending uncharacteristic butterflies off in her stomach. Now it was her scrambling for a mental foothold, put in check by her inability to remain objective. She visualized the intruders and imagined herself ripping their colorful wings off as he directed his next words toward her. "My people's word for kitten is kiska, but I feel like it may be more appropriate to wait and call you that after I've become worthy of the level of familiarity required to truly understand the reference."
"Shall we begin this new endeavor by you escorting me to the potions classroom then?" Hermione questioned with a gentle tilt of her head. The movement sent her curls in motion with a grace that was made possible only by a plethora of charms she'd learned during her four years at Beauxbatons. Viktor couldn't help but to be enchanted by them for a few seconds before righting himself and looking at her with the ghost of a smirk on his lips.
Standing up, he surprised the entire Great Hall when his shiny black boots made contact with the tabletop, engrained athleticism allowing him to avoid the platters and goblets before he jumped down and stood before Hermione, extending his arm before responding in a casual tone that didn't match the exuberance he'd just exhibited, "That shouldn't be too much of a hassle, kroshka."
The word had multiple meanings; most people nowadays only associated it with its more popular use as a Russian term of endearment. It had another meaning though, bread crumb - like the crumbs that she'd laid down so carefully to lead them to this moment, like the ones she was continuing to lay as she directed her chaperone to walk the long way out of the Great Hall. A route that would force them to walk directly in front of the Slytherin table.
Check mate.
*************
I now have an amazing Beta-reader; I'll update this note with her username once she gets an AO3 account. Basically, she's amazing and catches all of my grammar mistakes, while still managing to help me make sure I'm moving the plot forward.
Next chapter things get interesting, but for now let's enjoy Viktor Krum.