Written for the Sherlock Competition Part 1 prompt #4, Your Favorite Hogwarts House Boot Camp #44 (speechless), Rivalry Boot Camp prompt #1 (choices) and the If You Dare Challenge prompt #963 (I'm not dying).

Just Maybe

It was freezing outside. Winter came with a lot of determination that year to freeze Britain over. She probably should've just apparated home, but she was distracted that night and had other things on her mind.

She tripped over his legs while walking and fell on the ice. It was painful, and she groaned and the contact. She flipped her body over, grabbing her head as she groaned. Pulling her wand out she illuminated the space in front of her to see what tripped her on that dark street. She was close to her home.

If this was a Muggle she would end up wiping a bit of their memory. But she would rather wipe someone's memory than act like she was defenseless tonight. It was too cold out.

She gasped when she realized who was in front of her. It looked like he'd taken refuge between the bushes, trying to hide from the wind. She didn't understand why he stopped here until she flashed her wand towards his face, and gasped. He was bleeding from a gash in his temple.

Hermione was no fool. He needed medical attention immediately. And as a Healer, she knew she could help him out without having to take him all the way to St. Mungo's. Locking her hands around his arms, she apparated them to her home. There was no way she could drag his heavy body all the way up the stairs and not accidently hurt him or something.

She was glad he was seated when they got upstairs. Using her wand she levitated him onto the couch in her apartment, immediately lighting up the fire. He was pretty cold, and she ran some tests to check for frostbite and anything else that might be wrong internally while going to work on his head. She was trained for emergencies like this one, where she needed to keep someone alive. This she could handle.

Although she recognized his face, she couldn't put a name with it. She'd seen him wandering around the streets over the years with people like Pansy Parkinson and Malfoy, but she'd never really learned his name. Although he apparently went to Hogwarts at the same time that she did, she hardly remembered him. They hadn't spoken.

That didn't matter now though. Healing the cut, she hurried over to her cupboards and opened them up, searching for the potions she needed. She always had a basic supply of pre-made potions on hand. The Healer inside her told her that she should always be prepared.

Turning around, she hurried back to him. She was about to start administering the potions to is limp form when a hand shot out and locked around her wrist. She gasped, having not expected something like that. His eyes snapped open.

He had rather lovely eyes.

"Remain calm," she said, watching his eyes dart around. He tried to sit up, then groaned and released her wrist when he realized how much pain he was in. She arched an eyebrow at his rash behavior, letting him moan in pain a moment longer before she offered up a vial to help. He looked at her skeptically.

"If I meant to harm you, I would've done it when I found you outside. Besides, I'm not the one here with a sketchy background, am I Zabini?"

He arched an eyebrow at her, surveying her just once. When he spoke, his voice came out hoarse and scratchy. "You helped me?"

"Well I wasn't rightly going to let you die. If I left you, I don't know how long it would've taken someone to find you. And even then, they might not be able to get help in time. It's freezing outside tonight. You're lucky you didn't die from the cold. It would've gotten you before that head injury did."

His eyebrows drew together at that, studying her face. "You should've just left me there. It's not as if I have any place to go now."

"What do you-"

He waved a hand, looking away from her. "Nothing, never mind. Just tell me that I'm not going to keel over and I'll be on my way."

"You had quite a bit of head injury," she snapped, hands on her hips. "Look, why don't I just floo Malfoy or your mother or something? They can come get you-"

"Save your breath," Blaise muttered, closing his eyes. "They won't come."

She frowned, but didn't drill him on what that meant. She got the feeling that he wasn't in the mood to talk about it anyway. "I'm going to start some tea- you keep your eyes open. There will be no sleeping on your part for the next twelve hours. At that time you can pass out from exhaustion, but not a minute before. We can't risk a concussion, can we?"

He had no response to that, but opened his eyes nonetheless. She smiled softly down at him.

"I'll start the tea then. Relax, but don't rest." She turned and hurried to her kitchen, using her wand to start the kettle. He turned his head just a hair and watched her go.

Why the hell did she have to find him?

"If you're not going to bloody floo anyone then you need to stay the night on my couch!" she snapped later, the early hours wearing her thin. It was almost three, and her lovely new houseguest had yet to try and get ahold of someone.

"I don't need any help," he replied evenly, finally sitting up. "You healed the cut in my head, and that's great. But it doesn't do me any good if I can't leave this place. Thanks for your help and all Granger, but I don't need any more of it. I need to be on my way."

"You need to rest since you lost quite a bit of blood earlier and sat in the cold. Your body needs time to re-cooperate. If you insist on contacting no one, then sleep here. Anything to keep you from going off on your own tonight. If you won't let me contact someone, then sleep on my bloody couch for all I care. But you can't just leave this place! You're in no condition to."

He shook his head at the irony of everything, but she didn't understand what was going through his head. To her, it looked like he was still trying to blow her off.

"Whatever," he said at length, flopping back against her couch. "It's not like this is going to get me into any worse trouble than I already am."

"Beg pardon?"

"Nothing," he muttered, rolling his eyes. "Well, off you go then. A busy Healer like you needs sleep."

She arched an eyebrow, mocking him. "You really think I'm just going to leave you alone now? Fat chance! I know that the second I turn my back you'll be out of here. For one reason or another, you're avoiding the people closest to you. And I might not know why, but I've had my experience with Slytherin's. You're going to try to sneak out when I'm not looking."

"Now you're just stereotyping me."

She shrugged. "I'm just telling you what I see. Now, I've made some bad choices but this won't be one of them. You are in no condition to go out on your own. Just hang tight until morning. Then you can go back to doing whatever it is that Slytherin's do."

"We're not in school anymore you know. You can just call me Zabini."

"I'll call you Zabini when you start thinking smart and stop trying to run away. Just relax. Morning will be here before you know it."

"I seriously doubt that," he muttered, his frown deepening as she sat down on the sofa across from him. The woman was bloody determined.

He was never going to get out of there.

"I'm not dying!" he cried later when she still rightly refused to let him leave. "I'm bloody okay for Merlin's sake. I refuse to be held up any longer! Give me my fucking wand!"

"You're language is so vulgar," Hermione responded easily, relaxed in her seat. She knew Zabini wouldn't be happy with the situation, nor that she'd warded his wand until morning. He couldn't just escape that easily. "Calm down. Morning will be here soon enough."

"Granger, if you don't stop saying that, I'm probably going to strangle you to death."

"Well at least you'd be awake."

He swore, and she chose to ignore him. When he turned into a pouting child, she tilted her head to the side. "You remind me of Malfoy when you do that."

His whole frame stiffened at that. "Why?"

"From when we were children. He always looked that way when he was pouting. Did you pick up that habit from him?"

"No," Blaise replied softly, his hands dancing slowly up to his cheek. "That's not what I got from him."

Hermione instantly picked up on the man's change of mood. He wasn't sarcastic and irritated anymore. He looked pained. She wondered if it had to do with the state she found him in.

"What did Malfoy give you?"

Blaise scoffed. "Not much, even. He did give me a few things I could do without."

"Oh?"

"Look Granger, I'm not going to tell you a story about what happened or any of that. You're not getting a fucking explanation to what's going on here. Just leave it be."

She sighed, rubbing her temples. It was going to be a long night with Zabini.

Eventually, she did pry a story out of him. Six o'clock in the morning came around and he was in an awful, snappy mood from having been kept up all night. Every other word he said to her for the past hour was some sort of swear word. It got old real quick.

But he was tired, and eventually Zabini broke down and told her what happened. The story left her speechless.

"I loved someone just like you Granger, a muggleborn. While some people in Britain have changed their ways, others have not. And a lot of those people who are stuck in the past are my friends and family. They weren't accepting when they heard about my relationship, okay? My mother even went after the girl. Scared her straight out of my fucking life. I hadn't been able to tell her I was a wizard yet."

Hermione paled at his words. "Zabini- Blaise, I-"

"And then Draco cornered me," he continued shaking his head. "He's such a fucking prat. If his social circle has even the tiniest glitch, he has to fix it. He couldn't tolerate the fact that I even liked someone like you. So he beat me up. I don't know how I ended up here, but I guess he just dropped me off. He thought he was teaching me a lesson or something. I guess it's a good thing I really don't want to be his friend anymore."

"Good call," the brunette muttered, though she sounded a bit numb. She couldn't believe Zabini put up with friends, with family like that. Wetting her lips she looked up and met his eyes.

"Is that why you didn't want me owling or flooing your mother? I understand why you have no desire to speak to Malfoy, but wouldn't she-"

"My mother disowned me when she found out," he spat, eyes darkening. "If you floo her she's just going to throw every racial remark she can at you. Save your breath; it's not worth it."

"Oh."

"Yeah, oh."

They sat in silence for a long time, Hermione staring down at her hands. She supposed that the stress and tension of everything made him snap more than any desire to share what was going on in his life with an almost-stranger.

How could one simple choice cost him so much?

"Are you homeless now?" she asked, treading on dangerous water. He arched an eyebrow at that.

"Yes Granger, quite homeless. And poor too. I'll have to go and get myself a few more jobs to be able to actually have a place to live. The money I had to my name's gone now." He stood, stretching. "But don't you worry about me now. I'm a big boy; I'll be okay in the world. Now, it's been twelve hours right? So I'm free to go."

"Yes, I suppose you are," she muttered. She was still a bit surprised at what he told her.

"Do you mind if I use the loo before I go? Might as well before I'm on the streets."

"First door on the left," she replied, and he nodded thankfully before disappearing down the hall. She sat on the couch several moments longer, staring at nothing.

He was homeless. How could she just let him walk out that door?

But Blaise was a proud Slytherin at heart. He wouldn't readily take her hospitality, even if he did date someone just like her. Of course, while he explained things he sounded pretty disgusted with himself, but if he loved that girl enough to be with her seriously and piss of his mother, then there had to be a connection there somewhere. He might not want to admit that he missed that girl yet, but she had a feeling his walls would crumble in the future and he wouldn't be able to avoid that truth. She felt bad about his situation.

He'd left his jacket on the couch. Her eyes darted towards the bathroom briefly, before her hands shot out and grabbed a quill and parchment, scribbling out a note. She used her wand to drop it into the pocket of his jumper just before the bathroom door opened. He hopefully wouldn't discover it until he was out of her apartment. Maybe after he had a bit of time to think about things he'd look at the note and perhaps not laugh so hard.

Maybe.

"It's been real Granger," he remarked, grabbing his jumper, "But I best be off. Thanks for making sure I didn't die."

"Anytime, it is my job." She paused, watching him head towards the door. "Good luck Zabini."

"Same to you Ganger."

"And don't forget, help sometimes comes from unlikely places."

He paused at the door then, wondering what she met. His wand sat on the table there, left there sometime in the past few hours when he kept trying to doze off. He remembered that she brought it up as an excuse to move around and keep herself awake. He now snatched the wooden weapon off the table and bolted from her apartment, the gears in his head turning. What did she mean by that last sentence?

Blaise was several blocks away when he dropped his hands into his pockets and felt something strange. Withdrawing his hand, he discovered a note hidden there.

My door is always open. You need only knock on it.

For a moment he almost crumbled up the note and threw it away. But then he remembered how helpful she'd been to him last night and hesitated. It wasn't like he had a lot of friends in the world.

Glancing over his shoulder, he looked back in the direction of her apartment. Maybe he'd take her up on that offer.

A/n: Read, review, enjoy.