Chapter 1- Blaise just had a bad break up.
"You're a faggot, Zabini," Parv spat.
There was an awkward pause during which Blaise arched a perfect single eyebrow and nothing else happened.
"Oh, shut up!" Parvati growled. She grabbed a black plastic garbage bag containing a few of her possessions up off the floor and flung it over her shoulder. Trying visibly to control her angry sobbing she stalked past Blaise and Hermione and out of the house.
"Why did you have to say that?" Hermione asked. She was horrified to have witnessed the entire sorrowful scene.
"Why are you so surprised?" Blaise asked, turning to face her "I'm an asshole, it's what we do. I saw an opening for a final parting insult and I took it."
"You are an asshole," Hermione said as if she almost couldn't believe it. She stumbled past him into the lounge room and threw herself down on the big purple couch, tangling her favourite throw rug up around her legs.
"I am," Blaise agreed sidling up and sitting down heavily beside her. He popped the tangle of blanket and legs on his lap, "But you like me".
"Sometimes I find myself questioning my own sanity," she retorted.
"I don't blame you" he said with a grin and a soft pinch of her big toe peeking out from the tangle in his lap.
"But Blaise," she continued in a disbelieving tone, "you're so much more than an arse hole. I don't understand. This jerk exterior you have going on, why are you so desperately clinging to it?"
And as far as Hermione was concerned it was true. Blaise was always quick to jump twenty steps ahead and take things too far, offending anyone within earshot but it was almost an instinctive trigger response when he felt threatened or anxious. She'd hated him at first of course, everyone did. But his position in Draco's life and therefore constant presence in hers had, in the year since she'd blackmailed the Malfoy's into funding SPEW, made her a bit of an expert on Slytherins.
"You're the one who insists that I have 'redeeming' qualities Hermione. I've never pretended to be anything but a jerk and Parvati wasn't exactly friendly back there."
Hermione's responding look was meant to convey a stern warning not to carry along on that same line of thought, "That might be because you very publicly dumped her in the Great Court yesterday and proclaimed to the entire student body that she was ´crap in the sack' just to mortify her. She's a nice girl Blaise, she didn't deserve that."
"I did that so that she would hate me. It makes it all so much easier when you have a reason to hate the person dumping you."
Hermione's questioning brow was enough to make him pause for a minute.
"Well she was crap in the sack," he continued.
"No," Hermione replied firmly. "You broke up with her because you were too chicken to face up to the scary prospect of maybe having a relationship with someone that might involve actual feelings."
Blaise, for the most part, remained unruffled but Hermione knew him well enough by now to be able to interpret the slight narrowing of the eyes as an indication that she'd hit rather close to home.
"This is rich coming from the woman who's been mooning around the flat for the past week because she's not entirely sure if she's one hundred percent in love with her boyfriend. Oh yes I know about that, Hermione. Sounds like a really credible expert on the heart and human relationships, don't you think?" he sneered.
"I might take the bait Blaise" Hermione said sounding a bit put out despite herself, "But I was fully expecting you to hit back with an insult and by the way, if you thought I'd be surprised that you know all about my relationship problems with Ron then you're wrong because I know that you skulk around listening to my phone calls to my mum. I also know that you've been snooping through my e-mails. I just don't know how you worked out how to use my computer."
She got up from the sofa and his close proximity in order to try to restrain her temper and walked over to the open kitchen and started banging around in the pantry.
"Lack of privacy is just one of the perks of living with a total jerk," Blaise supplied but with a roguish grin. The same grin that might have made Hermione want to punch anyone else in the teeth. He alone could pull it off with his almost infeasible good looks.
"Canned Spaghetti on toast for dinner then again?" she asked desperately trying to diffuse the situation by changing the subject.
"Again?" Blaise groaned.
"Well Draco still hasn't done the shopping and it's his turn again".
They always starved on Draco weeks until she decided to go out and rescue them all from malnourishment. Draco of course complained more loudly and frequently than anyone else, especially when he was hungry but he could never be prevailed on to actually do his share of the chores.
"What do you expect from him Hermione, the man's probably never even seen a trolley," Blaise said stretching his lithe body out over the entire vacant couch, "can't you do it? I've just had a bad break up," he pleaded.
Hermione gave him a mental kick in the shins with the sharp narrowing of her eyes.
"No," she said emphatically. "Besides, our flat is in a completely muggle zone. He needs to learn, Blaise."
"I know," Blaise said looking a little mournful, "It's just that yesterday I came home and found him practically in tears because his sheets were dirty and he was tired and he couldn't work the washing machine."
Hermione did feel a twinge of sympathy when she pictured the pathetic pointy face welling up with tears over his soiled, mint green, Egyptian cotton sheets.
"Well he might have used magic," she mumbled still riffling through the contents of the pantry and feeling mildly alarmed at some of scientific discoveries she was making.
Blaise arched a single brow from his place on the couch, and though her back was to him, she could feel the ire directed her way.
"Would you stop doing that eyebrow thing? It's annoying," she snapped and then huffily gave up her search for sustenance and commenced boiling the dependable kettle for a nice cup of tea.
"You are right though," she continued after a while, "he's like a puppy and one of us needs to adopt him but I don't see why it has to be me." She gave him a very pointed look. "You're his best friend."
"No, Pansy is and we're men, Hermione," he replied lazily lifting his empty coffee cup from its usual position on the rug by the foot of the coffee table waving at her. "Besides," Blaise continued, "It's you he's infatuated with. He's completely besotted actually. Follows you around like a groupie or something, secretly writes you poems at night in his diary…" he let this one hang, a saucy smile in his voice that at first went unnoticed.
"Oh, Draco´s just going through a phase. He'll get over…" Hermione stopped her dismissal mid sentence, her mouth gaping open, "Did you say poems?"
Blaise looked about ready to cackle, "Oh you heard me."
There was a moment when Hermione really was determined to just let it alone and forget Blaise had ever said anything. But it was only a moment.
"And how do you know? You read them?" she asked trying to sound innocent as she added more coffee to the carafe.
"Only one," Blaise said, "because I was waiting," he said sitting up with what looked like pure deviance written all over his beautiful face.
"For what?" Hermione asked.
"Your reaction" he supplied, "how sweet it will be to read them for the first time with the very muse who inspired them. Because I know Draco and these are bound to be a treat."
"No," Hermione replied horrified, "We can't possibly!"
Blaise raised a single eyebrow.
"Can we?"
AN: Look, this fic is basically just drabble. I lost my laptop and the pretty much completed version at the start of the year but for some reason I always find myself returning to this story when I have writers block. It was supposed to be set within a month but I'm not really committed to working within those constraints. So I'm going to redo what I've already posted and keep posting as I write more. Also, if you want the back-story, check out Hermione Granger and the Dirge of Malfoy Pride.
