The Hostage

Title: The Hostage

Author: ExcentrykeMuse

Prompt: Raven: Oof, pretty please!!!! Harry/Krum? Specifically during the Triwizard tournament.

The Hostage

It was Dennis Creevey who came and got him.  Harry was curled up in a corner, doing his homework, avoiding Ron and Hermione.

Ron and Hermione, at the moment, were fighting.  They always seemed to be fighting.  Last year—their third year—they were fighting about Crookshanks and Scabbers.  Now, in their fourth year, they were fighting about the fact that according to Rosa Vane who had it from Pavarti Patil who got it from her sister Padma, Viktor Krum had wanted to ask Hermione to the Yule Ball.  How Padma Patil had found out was anyone’s guess.  But the scuttlebutt was that Krum wanted to ask Hermione.

He hadn’t though.  Krum had gone without a date.  Hermione had gone without a date.  Ron had gone without a date.  And Harry, who didn’t care about the Triwizard Tournament (though he of course wanted the Hogwarts Champion, Cedric Diggory, to win), didn’t go at all.

Still, Ron and Hermione were fighting and Harry was hiding, which was how Dennis Creevey found him.

“Dumbledore wants to see you in his office.”

Harry looked up blearily, confused.

“Why?”

Dennis shrugged.  “Didn’t say.”  He handed him a folded piece of parchment.

Opening it, Harry saw mars bar scribbled across it.  Must be the password.

Glancing over his book, Harry closed it and shoved it into his bag along with his quill, which had been tucked behind his ear.  He got up and picked his way through the Common Room, keeping his eye out for Hermione, Ron, or anyone else who might talk to him, and went out the Portrait Hole.

The trek to the Headmaster’s office wasn’t particularly tedious, but Harry would much rather be curled up in his chair.  The Second Tournament was tomorrow and he, like everyone else, was going to turn out for it and cheer for Diggory.  Of course, if Krum just happened to look a little dashing in his robes, despite being duck footed, Harry wouldn’t tell anyone he thought so.

When he got there, Harry found that Cho Chang was there already, which was a bit strange, as well as a young girl with long silver-blonde hair.  He looked at them oddly before turning to the Headmaster.

“Ah, yes, we’re all here!” Dumbledore stated enthusiastically.  Then he waved his wand and Harry fell asleep.—not that he was aware he was asleep at all.

…

The next thing Harry realized was that he was exceedingly wet.  He opened his eyes and realized he was in the lake and that someone was holding onto him.  Harry was also being pulled through some type of large body of water.  Looking around himself wildly, Harry became aware of several facts all at once.

Not only was he wet, Harry was extremely cold.

People were screaming.

Krum was holding him tight against his chest and pulling him to shore.

Harry seemed to be in the lake of all places.

Harry breathed out through his nose because he wasn’t exactly sure what else to do and soon he was being pulled out of the Lake and a towel was being wrapped around him.  “Harry,” Krum was saying and someone was pushing chocolate into his hand.

On autopilot, Harry took a bite of it and felt instantly better, if not still confused.

“Harry,” Krum repeated, and Harry looked up at him.

“What’s happening?” he asked, looking around and seeing they were on a dock and that stands had been erected on shore, filled with screaming students.

Krum looked at him intently.  “You vere being my hostage.  You vere the thing that I vould miss most.  I had to find you, Harry.”

Harry looked at him intently and then back out toward the water.  “In the lake?”

He looked back at Krum, who nodded solemnly. 

“I was in the lake?” he repeated, still a bit confused.

Krum reached out hesitantly and cupped Harry’s cheek.  His fingers were pruned and cold.  “I am being most sorry, Harry.”

Uncomprehendingly, Harry looked at him and then turned back toward the lake, where he saw Cedric resurface with, yes, that was a sopping wet and still sleeping Cho Chang.  Cho had been Cedric’s date to the Yule Ball, according to the gossip.  They had been dating ever since.  She had also been in the Headmaster’s office.

Harry’s mind began to whirl.

“You didn’t take anyone to the Yule Ball,” Harry murmured before turning back to Krum.

Krum’s dark eyes were sad and his cold thumb stroked Harry’s cheek.  “Highmaster Karkaroff vould not be letting me ask you.  I vas so afraid you vould take somevone else.  But you did not go.”

Harry’s eyebrows furrowed.  “I don’t dance.”  He fought the urge to pull away from Krum’s cold touch as he shivered a little.  He took another bite of his chocolate.

He didn’t pay attention when a sobbing Fleur Delacour was pulled from the lake or the points were given, Krum ending up in first place.  He sat on the dock with the towel wrapped around him, eating the chocolate that kept on being handed to him, wet and confused.

When Madam Pomfrey ushered him up and toward the Hospital Wing, he didn’t protest, instead glad that there was a hot shower on the other end and dry robes. 

“I don’t like your pulse,” the matron said as he sat on a hospital bed.  “It’s a little slow.”

Harry’s mind was elsewhere.  Did Krum fancy him?  Was that what this was all about?  Is that why he had been a hostage?  Why he had been at the bottom of the lake?  A small smile stole across his face at the thought of it.

“I want you to get some sleep,” Madam Pomfrey told him as she brought him a cup of hot chocolate, now that they were in the hospital wing.  “You’ve been through a shock.”

“You’ll wake me up if Viktor Krum comes, won’t you?” Harry asked her and she smiled down at him kindly.

“He can sit by your bed until you wake up naturally,” she promised before dimming the lights with a wave of her wand.

Harry settled down against the pillow and closed his eyes.  He didn’t have long to wait.

The End.