THE NEXT DOOR
Meet Mrs. Viktor Krum
Chapter Two
Hermione's face felt frozen solid. She pushed her body up on shaking arms, and it took her several long confused moments before she realized she was half buried in snow, and she was steadily covered more with falling snowflakes. White covered hills rose all around her, and mountains soared in the distance. The sky was overcast and grey, and the sun looked to be setting quickly.
Harry was already striding toward her. She reached up fingers that felt like brittle twigs and allowed Harry to tug her to a standing position. Immediately, she hugged her arms across her chest and shivered. They were poorly dressed for such savage weather.
"Where are we?" she asked through chattering teeth.
Harry pointed to a stone mansion at the bottom of the hill. "Let's find out."
He and Hermione traversed the hill at a slow pace. The last thing they wanted to do was tumble down a frozen hill and break bones. Hermione kept glancing around with a nervous twitch in her eye.
"What's going on, Harry?" she muttered, barely parting her freezing lips.
Harry grimaced and slid his arm around her shoulders. He didn't think Hermione looked too good. Her skin was pale and blotchy. "We're almost there," he said reassuringly, but he could not answer her question any better than he could answer the questions that arose wildly in his mind.
They stood in the alcove created by the front porch. Two torches flanked the large medieval front door and burned through the gloom of the approaching evening. A grouping of three stone pots guarded a corner of the alcove, the plants inside had not survived the brutal cold of the land. Harry reached up for the door knocker, but Hermione shook her head.
"Maybe we shouldn't," she said as she shivered on the shadowed porch.
Harry glanced at her with his bright green eyes. "You'll freeze to death if you stay out here much longer," he said. "Whatever is inside is a better fate than chancing it out here."
Hermione exhaled a chilled breath. She knew he was right. Harry grabbed the door knocker and gave it a couple of steady bangs. They stood and waited. The wind howled around the corners of the mansion, and Hermione unconsciously huddled closer to Harry.
"You think no one is home?" he asked.
Hermione stared at the three stone pots. She blinked snow out of her lashes and a distant memory floated like mist into her mind. She crouched down and grabbed the edge of one of the pots; then she tilted it slightly. A bronze key had been tucked beneath the pot.
"How did you know that was there?" Harry asked in shock.
"I…I don't know," she answered before passing the key to Harry.
He shoved the key into the lock on the front door and turned it. The door clicked open, and Hermione returned the key to its hiding place beneath the stone pot.
"Lucky us," Harry murmured. Then he pulled out his wand and stepped into the foyer of the mansion. "Very Muggle-like to need a key to the front door."
Hermione closed the heavy wooden door and stared up at the chandelier of floating candles glowing above the center of the foyer. "But a very wizard-like chandelier."
"Yes," Harry agreed.
Hermione pointed to a flag that waved from its post on one of the dark paneled walls. "That's the Bulgarian flag," she whispered.
Harry turned to her. "How could we be in Bulgaria?"
A door opened somewhere in the house and music blasted out, echoing through the cavernous foyer. "Someone's coming," Hermione said in a panicked whisper. She grabbed Harry's hand and they dashed into the nearest room, which appeared to be a small, tidy library.
"Mum?" an accented young man's voice called. Then, the young man proceeded to call for his mother in Bulgarian.
"Can you understand him?" Harry asked.
Hermione nodded and searched for a good place to hide. "The closet," she said, and they hurried over to the closet as footsteps sounded across the foyer and carried in to meet them. Harry and Hermione jumped into the library's closet and closed the door.
The closet turned out to be spacious and full of an extensive collection of heavy winter coats. "We could have used these," Harry mumbled.
"Too bad we didn't know we were going to Bulgaria," Hermione whispered bitterly. "I don't know what is going on here but-"
"-ouch, Hermione," Harry said. "Let go of my hand. Your fingernails are cutting into me."
"I don't have long fingernails," she replied, but she let go of his hand just the same.
"Something on your hand is sharp," Harry continued. He lit his wand and moved it down Hermione's arm. Her hand glistened, and Hermione followed the light with her eyes. A large diamond shined on the fourth finger of her left hand. "What the hell is that?" Harry asked.
Hermione started to voice her shock just as the closet door opened. She stumbled backwards into Harry and sent him sprawling behind a row of coats.
"Mum?" the young man before her asked. "What are you doing in here?"
Hermione stared at a much younger version of Viktor Krum. He appeared to be barely fifteen. He slouched less, and his hair was lighter.
"Viktor?" Hermione gasped in shock.
The young man's expression was surly and he frowned. "Ivan," he said, obviously irritated. "My name is Ivan, Mum. ТаÑ'ко wants to see you."
"W-who?" Hermione stammered.
"Dad," Ivan said, looking even more annoyed. "Your husband, my dad, Viktor."
"Krum?!" Hermione shouted. The young man stepped back in surprise.
He eyed Hermione suspiciously. "That's right, Mum. Viktor Krum. Been that way a few years now," he said sarcastically. "And did you know you have snow all in your hair?"
Before Hermione could question the boy any further, he stalked off, muttering in Bulgarian. Harry stepped out of the shadows. "Was he calling you Mum?"
Hermione nodded her head but didn't answer.
"You don't suppose…" Harry hesitated, "…you don't suppose we leapt through time, do you? I mean, it sounds perfectly nutters, but you're wearing an engagement ring, some kid who looks like Viktor Krum is calling you Mum, and we appear to be in Krum's mansion."
"Don't be absurd," Hermione said, releasing a tight unnatural laugh. "That would suggest I marry Viktor in the future-"
"-that could happen-"
"-No!" Hermione shouted and then lowered her voice. "Don't be ridiculous, Harry. There's a good explanation for all of this. A portkey! Yes, that's it. The door in the labs acted as a portkey. We've traveled to Bulgaria. Now, we can go find Viktor, explain all this to him, and get back home."
Harry frowned. "That's all and good, but why is that Ivan kid calling you Mum? He said…he said Viktor was your husband."
"I don't know, Harry," Hermione said and tossed up her hands. "Let's just get out of this closet and go find Viktor. I'm sure he can explain everything to us."
Hermione walked out into the library with Harry close behind. A young girl, perhaps ten, stepped into the room from the foyer. Hermione's eyes widened to the size of bludgers. The little girl looked exactly like a miniature Hermione except that her hair was black and she was taller than Hermione would have been at that age.
Hermione screamed. The little girl looked from Hermione to Harry and ran from the room screaming holy murder. Harry clamped his hand over Hermione's mouth, and he could feel her trembling in his arms. When she stopped shaking, Harry released his hand.
"You okay?" he asked.
"Did you-did you see her?"
Harry nodded.
"She looked like me."
Again Harry nodded.
"What is going on?"
Before Harry could answer, a voice boomed through the foyer. "Her-my-oh-knee!"
She could recognize that accented voice anywhere. "It's Viktor!" Without thinking, Hermione rushed into the foyer and looked up the staircase. A much older Viktor glared down at her from the second floor balcony. She was startled by how much he had aged. He looked nearly 40.
"Viktor!" she shouted at him. "Thank good-"
"-what is wrong with you?" he shouted. "Why do you make Elisaveta cry?"
"Who?" Hermione asked, suddenly confused.
"Elisaveta," he said slowly, as if Hermione had not understood his word, not that she had not recognized the person's name.
The little girl stepped out onto the staircase beside Viktor. Her light eyes were red, and again, Hermione was shocked into silence by how much the strange girl resembled her.
"She said you were not alone," Viktor said. He leaned down to the little girl and spoke in Bulgarian. The girl nodded and ran off, out of Hermione's view.
"She said there was a man," he said as he descended the staircase. He pulled out his wand and tapped it in the palm of his other hand.
"Yes," Hermione said. "It's Harry. Something's happened. Something's gone wrong-"
"Yes," Viktor said, now slouching his way across the foyer. "Something is indeed wrong."
Viktor's eyes were dark and wild. Hermione began to feel uneasy. "Viktor, you have to listen to me," she said gently.
"I have listened until my head explodes," he said darkly. "First, I listen to you talk of nothing but Potter. Then, I must endure you carrying his child-"
"-his child!" Hermione screeched. She walked backwards toward the door of the library as Krum moved closer and closer.
Viktor dropped his voice and eyes as he whispered, "Elisaveta. She is not my own." He glared at her with furrowed brows. "But she is mine. And you are mine. I will take no more of this. Where is Potter?" he growled.
Hermione whipped out her wand and pointed it at Viktor. She cast a Stunning Spell, and he dropped to the floor like a deflated balloon. She rushed into the library and snatched at Harry's arm.
"What is he talking about?" Harry asked.
Hermione dragged Harry through the library and to a side door. "We have to get out of here! Something is terribly wrong. I don't know what Dr. Kakosovytch did, but Viktor has lost his mind!"
The adjacent door led down a staircase that dumped them out into a dark, narrow hallway. "That little girl," Harry said. "Did Viktor say that…she was our child?" Harry stammered.
"Obviously, he's completely mental!" Hermione said. "There!" She pointed to a door at the end of the hallway. She paused long enough to wrench it open, and she and Harry blindly rushed into darkness.
The heat stifled them immediately. Breath pulled from their lungs and vaporized into nothingness. Hermione felt imaginary walls of suffocation close around her and sweat rolled between her shoulder blades. She and Harry dropped away from Viktor's mansion and were yanked again through time and space.
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