Remembrance

[why_me_why_not]

Title: Remembrance
Author: why_me_why_not
Summary: ltlredhairdgirl asked for Viktor/Cedric. This is what my plot bunnies wanted instead. Viktor/Hermione with hints of past Viktor/Cedric.
Disclaimer: Don't own the wizarding world or its inhabitants



Viktor remembers the day a goblet -- a glorified cup -- spit out their names and set the four so-called Triwizard Champions on a course that would eventually destroy them all. The tense silence in the chamber was a stark contrast to the jubilation out in the Great Hall. Viktor was standing silently, casting sideways glances at both of his newly-declared competitors, watching as Cedric paced the length of the room, trying to work off at least a bit of the excess nervous energy, watching as Fleur tried to keep the mask of cool confidence in place. Both of them were studying him just as surreptitiously, and he was careful to let both of them catch him an equal number of times. He caught Cedric's gaze directly at one point, and for a moment he felt as if he could not look away. Then, someone else walked into the chamber and the strange feeling passed.

Viktor remembers the first time he ran into Cedric alone. It was early morning, before the sun had even peeked out from its bed, and they had been walking in opposite directions around the lake. By mutual agreement, they began meeting and running together, alternately filling the early morning silence with whimsical conversations and deep thoughts. The fact that they were both consorting with the enemy, that they had to sneak around to speak to one another, added to the excitement of their friendship -- like it was some sort of secret club. And of course, secret clubs come with initiations.

Viktor remembers their first kiss, which came quickly on the heels of their first argument. In the Champions' tent before first task, Viktor noticed Cedric was studiously avoiding him, trying overly hard not to even glance in his direction. Potter, as usual, stole the spotlight momentarily, and Viktor made his way to where Cedric was.

"What's the problem?" he asked quietly, hurt more than he cared to dwell on by Cedric's silence, and the fact that the other boy had not shown up the past several morning for their now-ritual run.

"You knew," Cedric answered accusingly, his own voice mirroring the conflicting emotions Viktor felt. "You knew about the dragons, and I had to hear about it from Harry!"

Viktor looked away before answering. "Karkaroff may have known, but I didn't find out about it until last night! I was going to tell you this morning, but it seems your sainted Boy Wonder beat me to it." The two had studied each other with heated, searching glares for a long moment, measuring out the truth in each other's eyes. Suddenly, Viktor's arms were full of warm Hufflepuff, lips pressed tightly to Cedric's, in what started as a chaste kiss but dissolved into something more.

Cedric pulled away, breathing heavily, and his face broke into that grin that seemed to bring light into the world. "Be careful out there, yeah?"

And just like that, it had blown over.

Viktor remembers the day Hermione Granger came around the corner, returning to her dorm from some late night studying, and ran into the jumble of him and Cedric wrapped so closely together that it was hard to distinguish the two. She had looked at the two in astonishment for a long moment before breaking into a smile. "Intraschool friendships indeed," she said lightly before stepping around the two. "Though you two may want to know that there is a secret room just behind that second portrait." Viktor had laughed and rested his forehead against Cedric's for a moment before saying, "I think I know who I'm asking to the Yule Ball." It was one of the differences in their approach to whatever was happening between them -- for as much as Hermione had known the truth all along, Cho was an innocent bystander. Viktor had wondered how she didn't know, but then again, maybe she didn't want to.

Viktor remembers being surprised at first during the second task when he finds out who is under the water, but he quickly reasoned it out. He was never as dumb as everyone believed him to be. Gabby, of course, was a given, because Fleur talked about her sister incessantly. For Potter, it was surely a toss-up between Granger and Weasley, his two closest friends, and although Hermione was the one who stood by him, Ron had been the first friend he ever had. That had to leave an impression. As for Hermione -- even though Cedric was the first person to make Viktor feel something besides the hatred and anger that had been bred into him, Hermione was the first person he had shared those feelings with, so it was fitting. And Cho. Cedric cared for her, felt guilty for deceiving her, but was hesitant to break his ties with her. Or so he had told Viktor at the time.

Viktor doesn't remember the maze that was the Third Task of the Triwizard Tournament. It's been said that a person under the Imperius Curse remembers what he or she does while under the curse's influence, but not Viktor. Maybe it was a different spell Crouch used, a Darker variation. Maybe Viktor just reacted differently than others. Maybe what he did while in that maze, and what he learned upon coming out of it, was too traumatic for him to remember. For whatever reason, he doesn't remember. He has been told that he crucio'd Cedric -- how improbable. Even if Harry wouldn't have stopped him, even if he had been under a spell, he would never have been able to conjure up the hatred necessary for the spell to succeed, not against Cedric. But apparently he did, and that's probably the reason the memory doesn't exist for him.

He does, however, remember waking up in the Hospital Wing at Hogwarts sometime after the Task. Hermione was at his bedside, tears clouding her eyes, and he knew then that something had gone horribly wrong. Like the considerate witch he always knew her to be, she cast privacy charms around the bed before telling him that the Triwizard Cup had been a Portkey, that the Dark Lord was back, that Harry had been injured... and that Cedric was dead. Murdered by Voldemort's pet rat.

Viktor remembers returning to Durmstrang, going through the motions of his life -- school, Quidditch, all the things that had once mattered but were no longer as important. His friends, his classmates, most of the people he associated with, rejoiced in the return of the Dark Lord and covertly supported his activities. Viktor couldn't. For a long while, his anger was based on the fact that the Dark Lord had been the one to order Cedric's murder, to toss aside the life of an innocent young man as if he was of no importance. Over time, however, and with his own upbringing tempered by the information that filled Hermione's letters, he came to realize the depths of the Dark Lord's psychopathy. The man -- if he could be called that -- had hunted down an infant and attempted to use a Killing Curse on him, and later searched out the same boy, still a child, several times in an attempt to finish the job. He murdered for pleasure and for his own gain, attempting to achieve his own immortality by exploiting the deaths of innocent people. He manipulated his followers into believing they were supporting a cause, when in reality they were only furthering his own agendas.

Viktor remembers the shock he felt upon receiving word of Dumbledore's murder. He was surprised when Snape had shown up at his Muggle flat, Draco Malfoy in tow. Snape had given him that scornful look he had long since perfected and said, "I am not one of the Dark Lord's mindless followers. Besides, I've been in the service of both the Dark Lord and Headmaster Dumbledore for longer than you have been alive, and your abilities as a spy are abysmal. Your tracks have been quite easy to follow."

Viktor remembers the last letter Hedwig had brought from Hermione, while she had been buried in helping Harry research the Horcruxes. The tone of the letter was rushed, her normally meticulous handwriting less careful now, as she spelled out in code that the Order had all the information that they needed from him and his companions and that she wasn't to write again until the outcome of the War was settled. At the bottom of the letter was a hesitant postscript referencing the latest Death Eater attack on the home of Mr. and Mrs. Amos Diggory. The way it was written indicated Hermione had debated with herself about including it, but Viktor was glad she had. He hadn't personally known the Diggorys, other than a quick handshake several years earlier, but he had known who they were through their son, and he felt their loss deeply.

Viktor remembers the increasing amount of time spent sneaking about, the difficult meetings with the Dark Lord, the tension that punctuated their every waking moment and the nightmares that filled their sleep. Snape had successfully argued with the Dark Lord that both Viktor and Draco, despite being highly recognizable, would be more valuable to their cause if they were not branded with the Dark Mark. It was a relief for both of them. The Dark Lord had grown more reckless as the time had passed, and between each meeting he appeared to age a considerable amount. Snape's speculation was that the Order was finding success in their search-and-destroy mission involving the Horcruxes.

Viktor remembers the night that he was left out of a Death Eater raid, and Draco had returned to the flat with a glazed look in his eyes and covered in blood that was not his own. The raid had gone horribly wrong, and the citizens of the village they had attacked -- one that was half-Muggle and half-magical -- had banded together and fought back the Death Eater squad with Muggle means. After their retreat back to the Dark Lord's headquarters, the Dark Lord had refused to let any attempts be made to save the injured, so even though Draco would have been perfectly capable of saving Snape through a combination of mediwitchery and potions, he had been forced to sit there and watch as his mentor and friend slowly slipped away from life, his blood seeping into the crack along the stone floor in a crimson river. Viktor hadn't been there, so the nightmare wasn't his own, but the death of Severus Snape haunted his dreams for many nights.

Viktor remembers the day the War ended. It was a gloomy day, chilly and rainy, not the type of day that seemed like victory, but it was. There was something exhilirating about shoving what he could fit of his belongings into a knapsack and taking off for the Malfoy's cottage in France with Draco. He sent an owl to Hermione, but it returned with its letter undelivered, and he believed the worst had happened. Weeks later, however, he received an message from Gabrielle Delacour, requesting that he meet her in Diagon Alley. He went and found a girl who looked much older than her fifteen years, a child who was never allowed to be a child. Fleur, in a fit of premonition in the weeks before the finally battle, had confided in Gabby that Viktor was a friend of Hermione's and that she would need him before the end. Bill and Fleur were both killed the next night. Gabby rattled off names of all those killed in the war, most names that didn't mean much to Viktor, but she finally reached the ones that did matter. Mr. and Mrs. Granger had been targeted by Death Eaters and killed quite some time before -- probably very shortly after Viktor and Hermione had stopped corresponding. During the Final Battle, Hermione had been on the front line during that last standoff with Voldemort, herself and Ginny standing between Harry and Ron. No one was clear on the details; the only thing anyone actually knew was that afterwards, when the bodies were found, Harry and Ron were on top of the girls, having protected them from whatever had happened. The girls survived, shocked and unable to relate the happenenings to anyone. Harry, Ron, and the few Death Eaters that had stood beside the Dark Lord during his last final moments had all died. Voldemort himself was also dead, but his body had disintegrated into a swirl of dust when the Aurors had arrived to move it.

Viktor remembers picking Hermione up from St. Mungo's in one of the Malfoy's private carriages. It had taken a lot of time and effort, and quite a bit of help from Mr. Weasley, to allow the young woman to be released into his care. She had scars from the war that weren't visible and that time couldn't heal. It was a strange friendship that developed between her, Viktor, and Draco. The three of them would sit in silence, each lost in their own memories but none of them daring to mention them out loud. Talking about them, acknowledging that they were the past, meant admitting that the present was reality, and that hurt too much. Eventually, Viktor and Hermione married and took a house in Hogsmeade for the summers, living at Hogwarts during the school term.

Viktor remembers the day Hogwarts reopened, three years after the end of the war and headed by the youngest and probably least-qualified staff in Hogwarts' history. The former Auror, Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin, was in place as Headmistress. Hermione Granger-Krum replaced the formidable Professor Minerva McGonagall as Deputy Headmistress, Transfigurations Professor, and Head of Gryffindor House. Viktor was given the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor and was almost disappointed that the curse seemed to have been broken and he survived to teach for more than the first year. Draco Malfoy, now hailed as a hero rather than a malicious Death Eater, had taken up residence in the dungeons -- Head of Slytherin House and Master of Potions. To the dismay of many, he had also adopted Snape's seemingly grim and anti-social attitude, preferring potions to people. The other Professors were barely older than these, but they had all seen war, and no parent doubted their abiliites to teach the lessons that would really matter.

Viktor remembers a time when his life was happy and carefree, when the most important thing in his future was winning the Quidditch World Cup or being named Champion of the Triwizard Tournament. He remembers what it was like to know love, to share his triumphs and frustrations with someone else, and to hope for a future. Hermione used to laugh and joke with him, tease him about his plans, and she would always smile when she saw him, her eyes sparkling with the excitement of shared secrets. Now, what they have isn't love. It isn't perfect. But it is enough, as long as they both remember.