Title: Poison Paradise

Author: ExcentrykeMuse

Beta: Kamerreon

Pairing: Viktor/Harry

Warnings: slash: male/male, adult language, peril, sexual situations, possible violence, discussion of prejudices, and AU.

Summary: The summer before Viktor starts Durmstrang, his parents take him to London. After wandering off into Muggle London, he spots a Muggle boy beating a magical child and intervenes. He feels protective of the unknown boy and takes him back to his parents who, when they discover he's Harry Potter, decide to illegally adopt him through magic. Little did they know that Viktor's fierce protectiveness for his new "brother" was in fact a love so strong that it would surpass any other emotion either would ever feel. Takes place during fourth year.

Prologue: The Taste of a Poison Paradise

The unearthly music of the merpeople echoed across the underwater waves of Hogwarts' lake. Three figures, limp in a magically induced sleep, bobbed up and down in the currents. Loose vines of seaweed wrapped around their waists, tying them to the base of a roughly hewn statue of a mergod. Their heads rolled sideways in sleep, and small bubbles issued from their open mouths as they were somehow able to breathe despite the water that should have filled their lungs.

The hair of a girl no older than eight swam in shimmering silver sheets, giving her an unearthly beauty in the green tinted murk. Next to her was an older girl, pretty in her soft features and slanted eyes, but nowhere near as ethereally haunting as the younger girl. Finally there was a fourteen-year-old boy; the black waves of his hair lifted off of his face, revealing a thin scar on his forehead in the shape of a lightning bolt. All three were silent, unaware—but they all shared something in common, although they had never met before—they were all beloved: one as a sister, one as a first crush, and one as the deepest desire of the boy who loved him more than life itself.

Above them, the erected stadium benches were slowly being filled by students from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The British and Bulgarian Ministers for Magic arrived with their personal entourages, greeting each other through a translation spell and mumbling insults to the other's back when the politicians turned away from one another. Each politician was terribly competitive and Cornelius Fudge, the British Minister, was still upset that Bulgaria had won the Quidditch World Cup earlier that summer, and that the Bulgarian team had the premier seeker in the international league: Viktor Krum.

It rubbed Fudge even more that Krum was only seventeen, had at least ten if not fifteen good years of Quidditch left in him, and that he had spectacularly ended the World Cup by catching the golden snitch. Furthermore, he was a student from Durmstrang, his family was close family friends of the foreign minister, and he was a competing champion against Hogwarts' own Cedric Diggory.

Of course, Cornelius Fudge would have had bragging rights if the Boy Who Lived, Harry Potter, had not mysteriously disappeared from Muggle Britain six years earlier. That had been a political embarrassment and no matter what Great Britain accomplished, his foreign counterparts would never let him live down his supposed incompetency.

This mishap, for which Fudge completely blamed Potter's magical guardian, Albus Dumbledore, was also not his fault in the least, which made it so much worse. He had immediately agreed to Albus's crackpot idea of resurrecting the Triwizard Tournament in the hopes that it would bring back some positive press for his country. Unfortunately, Krum had come out with the highest points in the first task, and was clearly favored to win the tournament.

If only he could find the Boy Who Lived...

Fudge knew that Harry was still alive. Dumbledore, although clearly incompetent about the boy's still secret placement, had at least had the foresight to cast a blood spell on the orphan that was designed to activate if the boy should ever perish.

No, he was just missing. Hopefully the few rogue Death Eaters who still hid in society hadn't caught up with him. And it was clear that the boy also wasn't using accidental magic. The Ministry would have traced it by now if he had performed any spells in the United Kingdom. Missing, Fudge reassured himself for the millionth time since he had first been informed . . . just missing among the Muggle populace.

As the stands continued to fill, a ginger haired fourth-year sighed as his "friend" started spouting inane facts into his ear about the giant squid. Ronald Weasley, the youngest of the Weasley brothers and second youngest child of the clan, couldn't believe that he still hadn't managed to give the insufferable know-it-all the shove. He had stupidly tried to rescue her from a troll in their first year. He just had to brave and heroic, he thought glumly to himself. Both of them had wound up being knocked out and were in the infirmary for over a month, and had somehow bonded over the fact.

Hermione Granger, which was in fact this particular know-it-all's name, had had no friends and had latched onto him and he, not wanting to be stuck with the bumbling Neville Longbottom as his only company, had reluctantly gone along with it. Although three years had passed and he had even gone to the Yule Ball with the fiery brunette (because he was too embarrassed to ask a "real" girl and still hadn't had a date at the last minute), he still wondered to himself at least twice a month why he went along with it in the first place. What made it even worse was that she had somehow managed to become friends with his little sister, Ginny, and now he couldn’t get rid of her either.

And his elder twin brothers wouldn’t let him live it down, either.

He glanced over toward the three champions and his eyes lingered on Viktor Krum. Scowling in the February cold, the Bulgarian Seeker stripped off his robes to reveal his toned body and stooped shoulders. Ron couldn't help but wonder about the champion. Ever since he had seen Viktor at the infamous World Cup . . . he shivered just thinking about the small boy who had been in the stands with the Bulgarian Minister: bright green eyes hidden under a mop of long black hair.

The mystery boy, who the press still couldn't figure out the identity of, had been sitting next to the Malfoys and had even spoken to the prat Draco Malfoy, although his eyes never left the Pitch. Ron couldn't help but be jealous when Krum, his hero, had swooped toward the top row as soon as he had caught the snitch and then...

Rumors abounded throughout Hogwarts about the international celebrity. A few of the brave students had asked some of the Durmstrang students about the identity of the Quidditch Boy, as the Daily Prophet had dubbed him. The students had only laughed and said that it was only little Henrik. Henrik who? Henrik Krum, his little brother. But that hadn't made sense. No one acted like that around a younger sibling, and the official biography had never mentioned a sibling. Ron shook his head to dispel that train of thought and wondered what exactly was going to occur in this task.

One of the judges, Ludo Bagman, stood up and let his eyes sweep over the stadium. Pointing his wand at his throat, he muttered, "Sonorus!" and smiled as his voice was magically amplified.

"Well, all of our champions are ready for the second task, which will start on my whistle. They have precisely one hour to recover what has been taken from them in the lake. Good luck to all! On the count of three, then: one . . . two . . . three!"

A whistle echoed across the deep water of the lake as the stands erupted with cheers. The students talked excitedly amongst themselves, wondering what had been taken from each student. "Her hairbrush!" one surmised about the gorgeous, yet snobby part-Veela, Fleur Delacour.

"I bet they took his broom," another said about Viktor Krum. "Doesn't he have a Firebolt?"

Everyone talked quietly amongst themselves as they stared avidly at the lake, the minutes ticking by, all of the Hogwarts students wishing that their champion would actually come out first place. After half an hour, students began to check their watches and then when forty minutes had passed, an enthusiastic Hufflepuff started calling off the minute marks. "Forty-one minutes!" he shouted and everyone turned to the lake. Still nothing.

"Forty-three!"

A ripple was seen near the surface and everyone held their breath, leaning forward curiously.

"Forty-four minutes!" shouted the excited boy, and then with a splash the water broke to reveal a black head of hair. The stands erupted in cheers and Fudge couldn't help but groan as he recognized the dark hair of the Durmstrang champion. Pushing the bundle in his arms toward the surface, another head emerged, this one just as black, but the face was young and the boy appeared to be sleeping.

Krum coughed into his hand and quickly swam to shore. He lifted his cargo, the thing he would miss the most, onto the dock before hauling himself up onto the dry surface. A towel was immediately placed over his shoulders by a fussing Madam Pomfrey and his Headmaster came over to congratulate him, but the Bulgarian didn't notice. Instead, Viktor rushed toward the boy who was beginning to stir and shook him gently, whispering, "Henrik, Henrik!" desperately. The crowd watched the pair, not even realizing that their own champion was surfacing. They had recognized the waterlogged Quidditch Boy, as Krum's supposed younger brother. Apart from the color of their hair, the two looked as if they couldn't possibly be related!

"I told you he wasn't dating someone in Bulgaria," a Slytherin girl whispered to her boyfriend when she noticed the Hogwarts champion had rescued his Ravenclaw girlfriend. "The rumors must be true then."

As the Quidditch Boy sputtered, his eyes fluttered open and looked up into the face of a worried champion. "Viktor?" he whispered as his brother's fingers ghosted over his cheekbone. He sighed at the touch, eyes never leaving those of the boy hunched over him.

"Oh Henrik," Viktor said, awed, thankful that his brother was alive and well. "Harry," he whispered as all reason left him. He cupped the boy's cheek before leaning down and kissing him softly and deeply. The boy, shocked, opened his mouth in pleasure and moaned as Viktor kissed him again and again, letting gentle passion and relief flood both of their senses.

He was safe, Viktor repeated mentally; his beloved Harry was safe and all Viktor could think of was how he had fallen in love with this strange boy the first time he had laid eyes on him, all those years ago when they were only children: before Harry was adopted, before he became Henrik Krum, before they were branded as brothers and sentenced to purgatory and forbidden to love each other as they both secretly knew they did.

Viktor sighed as he pulled away from Harry and looked searchingly into those green eyes, which were so mysterious and yet so open with him. His own gaze shone with love, with guilt, and asked for a child's forgiveness, but all Harry did was pull Viktor closer until the older boy was lying on top of him. He kissed his brother passionately in a silent reply as the shocked stadium couldn't believe what they were witnessing.