Spoken and Unspoken

Viktor Krum and Hermione Granger:

The alternate story explored

between an uncertain Bulgarian and an opinionated witch.

Author's Notes:

I have always... always... been fond of the Viktor Krum/Hermione Granger pairing. For me, seeing Hermione together with Ron always seemed like more of a childhood friendship turning into an awkward relationship, with them knowing too much about each other, and the relationship being mildly awkward and just... not that interesting to me. Thinking about Viktor Krum and Hermione Granger together is a lot more satisfying to me, in that fact that Viktor singles her out, puts in effort to summon up the courage to talk to her, and continues to show interest in her. It's just more pleasing. Thinking of Hermione as an adult with an adult Ron is just... very awkward. You are, of course, entitled to your own opinion. In finding you here, however, I hope that you at least somewhat like Hermione and Viktor paired up together. So, in this fanfiction, I'm going to try to realistically place these two together while still following the storyline of the books. I'm not 100% sure where it's all going to go, but I'm dedicated to it. I also apologize to those who love very much a Ron/Hermione pairing. I hope you will like my take on this little pair, as much as I will enjoy writing it.

If this fanfiction seems to replicate something you have already read on the pair, I apologize. I will be trying to follow the story as best as I can. For the Ron/Hermione shippers, I won't be disregarding Ron's feelings entirely. He still has to come to terms with his affections for Hermione, but I doubt they will come to fruitation.

Viktor Krum, hunched over the dusty large hardback with more tension in his back than a tightly strung bow, sat in the Hogwart's library... again.

Many people assumed he was desperately trying to figure out the first task; it was in two day's time. Others surmised that the Bulgarian seeker had a penchant for studying.

His buddies from Durmstrang could have shot this conclusion down to the ground.

Viktor neither needed assistance in the first task nor needed to study. His exams were done. He had finished them before school had started, having been informed prior to his 7th year that he was a candidate for the Triwizard Tournament. With the Triwizard Tournament over at the end of the year he could fully concentrate on Quiddich.

For now, he knew what laid ahead of him for the first task: dragons. He was neither confident nor frightened. He knew pointless worrying wouldn't change the clock or the outcome. His Quiddich experiences stood behind him in this regard... But that didn't mean his stomach wasn't squirming like a restless snake.

The cause of his concerns sat diagonally across the room from him, several glossed wooden tables away. They might as well have been countries apart for all the good his being in the same room with her did him.

What really brought him to the library wasn't the book he was hunched over. It was her.

He had come to the library everyday since his gaining the knowledge that she frequented it. She was almost a resident in the large towering room. During the day, in a free moment, she sat under the light from the circular window filtering down. She smartly chose the lightest part of the room. In the evening and into the late night until the library closed, the stars could be seen above, floating candles offering light sufficient to read by. She was often hidden behind books of various sizes, always with a stack of several next to her. Her paper white hands would take notes with ink and quill. Her thick hair would lay in a mass on her small back. It hung in heavy brown waves, and she often had to push it back when it fell into her eyes. This was a cute quirk he noticed about her. But the true admirable trait he noted often was her quiet determination. Her face set into a line that was quite strong but not unfeminine. She set into her work, looked lost in it. It really was rather beautiful. She looked the way he felt when he was on a broomstick.

But he knew already the hopeless steer of his actions.

It didn't just stabilize him, snap him into thinking straight; it hindered him. He wasn't ignorant of their age difference. He was eighteen, less than a year from being done with school. In her fourth year, he could only assume she was fourteen; more hopefully, fifteen. It was three or four years... but he could think back to his own self at fifteen and himself now. He would be unable to list all the changes that had taken place in his thoughts, ideas, and outlook on life. It also didn't help that the first words he had heard from her were: "For heaven's sake, Ron, he's only a Quiddich player!"

But those words were also the introduction to his being there for countless hours over a book he wasn't really reading.

The exclamation had been said in such an indignant tone admist all the excitement that it was as if that was the only thing being said in that giant room. He had been the only professional Quiddich player there; how could it not have been an obvious statement with him as the subject?

He was quiet but he wasn't deaf.

He had turned his head ever so slightly to catch a glimpse of the people in that general direction. He couldn't make out who had said it, but in the squabble of people moving behind him, some people jumping up and down to catch a better look at him, he spotted a group of girls. It wasn't until he heard an exasperated, "Really!" of the same voice that he was able to pinpoint it to a younger girl next to a fiery red-head. The crowd had veered off and he had followed his companions. He could hear no more after that, but his gaze followed her as she was seating herself down at the long table with red and gold banners above it with the lion imprinted onto it's fabric.

Viktor looked across the library at her and his shoulders slumped lower more than usual. There wasn't a time he could instantly think of where he felt more disheartened at his inarticulate use of language. It had nothing to do with English or Bulgarian... In either language, he had no idea how to approach her, how to break the ice. And as Viktor saw her face contort into annoyance from the overly girlish giggles heard around a near bookcase, he sighed, standing up. Even being quiet as he was, he was still hindering her.

It wouldn't do. To talk to her or not, he couldn't handle whatever the outcome would be so close to the first task ahead of him. People often ruined his concentration. If she treated him badly, he would be unable to focus. If she swooned over him, he would be severely disappointed. If she was kind to him, or understanding, or quiet herself, he would be too flustered to pay attention to that task at hand. He was just a Quiddich player. He agreed with her.

He hadn't been offended at the statement. It was a reoccurring complaint towards others that it played like a broken record over and over in his mind.

But before a girl, an incredibly smart one at that, what kind of thing was he to say to impress her or prove her wrong? If the statement of him just being a Quiddich player was accurate, and there was no more to that statement, then what kind of common ground could he hope to introduce on her?

Trudging out of the library in low spirits, a fifteen year old girl's words were more frightening to a man than a fire-breathing dragon.

It was probably better that the girl didn't know it.