Disclaimer: if only I were JK Rowling...
"If you have adjusted your telescope to the right focal point and the right angle, the Unicorn should be visible in your lower right corner. Having the Unicorn in vision is vital to progress to the next step, so if you do not see the Unicorn, raise your hand please."
Two hands rose slowly in the air. One belonged to Sophie Roper, the other to Blaise Zabini.
"At this point in your education, you ought to be capable of finding the Unicorn yourself," Aurora reprimanded. "However, the sky isn't very bright tonight, so it might be a bit difficult to locate. I'll give directions one last time, but on your NEWTs it is expected that you can achieve this without any help."
She walked over to Miss Roper. "Mister Zabini, I'll be with you in a moment. The rest of you, please wait until all telescopes are correctly adjusted."
As she told Miss Roper that she had it nearly right, her eyes darted towards Mister Zabini and the rest of the Slytherins. She'd been trying to avoid him as much as she could, afraid anyone would discover her biggest secret, but the way things were going at Hogwarts, ignoring a Slytherin student might not be taken lightly. The Slytherins in her class weren't the worst out there, but they had friends, and Severus favoured his own house now more than anytime. When she saw that Miss Greengrass and Miss Runcorn were too busy chatting with one another, and that Mister Nott was too busy trying to get Miss Runcorn's attention, she let out a sigh of relief. She'd already received an official reprimand from Severus last week for scolding a third year Slytherin who was messing around in class – apparently she was to accept just about anything as long as the students still got good grades. She huffed. Git.
When she was sure Miss Roper had her telescope adjusted corrected, she walked over to where Blaise Zabini was seated.
"Let's have a look." Aurora peered into his telescope and didn't like what she saw. "Your focus is all wrong!" she exclaimed.
"Maybe my focus is on other things." He leaned back casually, a look of nonchalance etched on his face. It suited him annoyingly well.
"You'd do well to turn it back to your telescope then," she snapped.
"Honestly, Mister Zabini, I would have expected better of you. You're a NEWT student, after all!"
He raised his eyebrow suggestively - no, she only thought he did, she really oughtn't think to much of it. Behind them, Miss Greengrass and Miss Runcorn snickered. Blaise' lips curled up in a smirk. 'Well, wouldn't you like that?' his eyes seemed to say. She pretended not to understand the joke, even though other classes in other years had produced the same stifled laughs at times.
She turned her attention back towards the rest of the relatively small class and cleared her throat.
"Right, now that we've all got the right focal point, I want you to adjust the focus of the telescope to the point where you'll be able to count the stars in M50. This week's assignment seems very simple, but in fact it takes quite some time to do it right. You'll be drawing a star chart of M50, whilst taking into account the magnitude of the stars in it. You can draw a basic outline during this class, but you'll have to work on it outside of class as well. Are there any questions?"
They all looked a bit dumbstruck.
"Let me know when you have."
Aurora sat back behind her desk while the seventh years set themselves to the task she had given them. She knew it would take them up to ten minutes to set their telescopes in such a manner that they could see past the triple star structure of Beta Monoceros and into the star cluster that was M50.
There were fewer students than she'd had in other years, which wasn't surprising given the regime Severus and the Carrows had put in place. A Gryffindor, two Hufflepuffs, two Ravenclaws and four Slytherins, and apart from one of the Hufflepuffs they were all Pure Bloods.
Her gaze lingered a little longer on Blaise Zabini. Of course, it was ridiculous to think that... She shook her head to clear it of the thought that had formed. She must be imagining things. Still, she glanced in his direction every so often and wondered.
It was a difficult assignment. The star cluster consisted of no less then two hundred stars, most of them of a feeble magnitude and the clouded sky didn't make it easier to locate them. There were groans and curses every now and then as the students struggled to find some point of orientation to start with.
After half an hour, she made a round around the telescopes, peering through all and advising the students on their charts.
"You have it upside down, Miss Brown."
"Down jot them down haphazardly, Mister Macmillan, you'll never be able to find them again tomorrow."
"Keep your eyes on the sky, Mister Cornfoot, not on Miss Turpin."
When she arrived at Blaise' telescope, she immediately noticed that he hadn't done much work yet. His parchment had drawings on it - but not of the night sky. His focus was obviously somewhere else. She placed a hand on his parchment, which caused him to look up.
"Mister Zabini," she said threatingly, keeping her voice down so the other students wouldn't be disturbed.
He looked her straight into the eyes, not impressed by her tone of voice. "Miss Sinistra. Or is it Misses?" he added matter-of-factly.
"That is none of your business."
He didn't blink, but kept staring at her, making her feel uneasy. Death Eaters might be ruling the school, but she would not be stared down in her own classroom by one of her students. She steeled her gaze and stared back calmly. It was difficult to keep her focus though, because their faces were only inches apart and his eyes were a mesmerising shade of chocolat with specks of caramel. For nearly half a minute neither of them moved a muscle.
The other students were starting to notice something was going on, for she could hear whispers behind her.
She ignored them, just like she ignored the jolt in her stomach Blaise' piercing look gave her. It seemed like their faces were slightly less apart than before and she picked up the scent of his cologne. She had goose bumps on her skin and her breath hitched. Eventually, Blaise looked away. She swallowed away the lump in her throat.
"I'll get back to my chart then, Professor."
"You do that," she nodded as casually as she could and straightened her back, breathing in deeply to slow the racing of her heart.
The other students returned to their own telescopes, disappointed that the diversion had ended before it had even really began.
But Aurora knew it wasn't over yet. In his eyes, she thought she had read a promise of things she shouldn't be thinking about, shouldn't want to think about. She didn't know if it had really been there, or if it was her imagination. What she did know, was that if they'd continue the staring for a couple more seconds, she would have let things get way out of hand.
She inhaled a couple of times until her breathing was normal again.
For the remainder of the lesson, she focused her attention on the other students, maybe helping them out a little more than she usually did at this point in their education. Anything to prevent herself from making a huge mistake.
When she dismissed the class an hour later, Blaise lingered behind.
"Can I ask you a question?"
"Not now, Mister Zabini. It's nearing curfew already and Professor Snape wouldn't be too pleased if I kept you up any longer," she replied as sternly as she could.
He opened his mouth to retort, but she ushered him out.
The last thing she needed was to find herself in a compromising situation, and being alone in a classroom with him after curfew could definitely count as a compromising situation.
After he had left, she closed the door to the Astronomy tower and rested her head against the wood.
This could not happen again.
She'd let it go too far already and she really ought to be careful to not let it escalate any further.
She was uncertain though how long she would be able to prevent the inevitable from happening.
A/N: This was written for the Unresolved Sexual Tension Competition, hosted by Kailey Hamilton on the HPFC.
A/N 2: I know there's supposed to be dots betweens NEWTs but if I do that FFnet eats up half the letters on the account of it thinking it's the address of a website...