"Is there any particular reason for you to be skulking in a dark and dusty corner, or are you just feeling especially antisocial this evening
"Is there any particular reason for you to be skulking in a dark and dusty corner, or are you just feeling especially antisocial this evening?" The light and mildly interested tone belied the enjoyment he, the owner of the voice, was undoubtedly feeling.
He was one of the primary reasons for her presence in the aforementioned corner. It had, until now, seemed an ingenious hiding place for her to skulk about until his departure. But it appeared that the fates - no doubt conspiring against her - had led him right to her.
Of all the luck.
Casting her gaze about, she rummaged around giving the air of someone having misplaced something. A glance up at his knowing expression caused her to stop in the midst of her feeble attempts to pass her situation off as momentary lapse. Sighing in exasperation, she raised her eyebrows.
"Did you deliberately seek me out to make my evening worse? I must say you have a special knack for it."
He grinned then, looking almost jolly. Former Slytherins weren't jolly people; they were snarky cynics with over-developed egos and a propensity to smirk at inappropriate moments. Jolly was not a part of the average Slytherin's genetic make-up.
"Why thank you." he said rather humbly, and she narrowed her eyes immediately. He was clearly mocking her.
Hermione Granger pushed back the tumult of darkened curls which fell across her eyes on occasions such as this when she had her hair down. Cheeks flushed with embarrassed indignation, she looked back at the cause of her present predicament.
Blaise Zabini didn't look flushed, of course he didn't, she thought with irritation. His dress robes were frustratingly impeccable, his posture tall and his expression was that of total and utter amusement.
At her expense.
"He's not here, you know… he's upstairs having his wicked way with Parkinson."
"Oh." She didn't know what else to say to that comment, and felt uncomfortable at the suddenly intent way Blaise was looking at her.
Of course he would bring that up. She thought back to the reason behind her embarrassment; the reason why she was loitering in a hall way corridor rather than mingling with the other ministry members of her division.
Draco Malfoy, presumptuous git and owner of the most attractive hands she had ever seen, was the prototypical Slytherin, truthfully were she to discover he gave tutorials to the younger generation for a small fee she wouldn't be too surprised.
Hermione's career in the Ministry of Magic's administration was part of the reason she had been so unceremoniously thrown into his path once again. The prodigiously rude Malfoy heir was worth a fortune and felt the need to frequently remind the world of this fact by pouring money into the Ministry with increasing regularity. The only reason she had to deal with him was because she had been given the unpleasant task of being his liaison.
She worked directly under the Minster for Magic who was important enough to avoid Malfoy, when she quite clearly was not.
The real problem she knew, was not that she had to meet with him so frequently, but that she had to meet with him so frequently when he had grown up to look like that. And frankly looking like that gave him an unfair advantage.
As much as he irritated her, and mercy did he; it was his sometimes dubious charm and those long slender fingers that had caused her this current predicament. For he knew that she was attracted to him. He had caught her staring at him on several occasions and had started smirking at her mercilessly over the desk at their meetings.
It had all culminated last Thursday when, in typical fashion, he had put her on the back-foot, this time with considerably less effort than usual. As she had walked into his offices, not for the first time vexed that he couldn't just come to her office; he had been leaning against his desk, a positively illegal sort of a look curving his lips.
"Granger." He had spoken the word like an endearment, and she, flustered female that she became around him, had in all distraction dropped her armload of paperwork.
When she had kneeled down in mortification to pick it all up, frantically thinking of a pithy little line to throw at him, he had moved forward, closer to her.
She remembered his hand brushing her cheek, his face moving down towards hers. She recalled her heart spluttering, her breathing becoming ragged and her lips parting.
And him laughing.
"Oh Lord, Granger you make me laugh. Pull that chair up will you, there are a few stipulations I want to add about the new contribution I'll be making to …"
Hermione, breaking free from the mortifying memory cringed and turned back to her unwanted companion, who was ironically enough Draco Malfoy's closest friend.
"Please lose the forlorn puppy look; it's tugging at my heartstrings here."
Back in the present, she threw a glare in his direction, "And here I thought you were without that particularly part of your anatomy."
"I'll have you know, I'm not without any aspect of my anatomy you dirty minded girl. Now back to the issue at hand, why are you moping so continuously over him. I thought you said you were over your little school girl crush on him." He grinned rather lecherously.
And this was exactly the reason why it was Blaise she had been avoiding. He read her like a book, and she still to this day had no idea how. She could only hope that he, whilst being so patently aware of her attraction to his friend, had yet to recognize her attraction to him.
The exotically attractive Slytherin had acted as an intermediary at times for her and Malfoy, helping to combat his arrogance and her melting pot of indignation and nerves.
Blaise, like Malfoy, did not appear to have much of a job other than to schmooze heavyweights and garner invitations to events such as this. They liked to think of themselves as philanthropists. Hermione rather thought of them as little boys with better toys.
But Malfoy, for all that she was infatuated with him, had not nearly the same damning effect as his friend. For the problem with Blaise was that he appeared to be especially attuned to Hermione, and seemed to have taken particular enjoyment in observing her behaviour around his friend.
Thus he was always there at soirees such as the one she was presently wishing she hadn't attended. And he always managed to find and mortify her by making references to his friend and her reactions to him.
She could not fathom what it was about this that had kept him so entertained, and thus so present for the last nine months. But whatever it was, she could never avoid his beautiful features, twisted in mocking delight as they so often were.
He was the dangerous one, she had decided long ago. Both he and Draco were blessed with hideously good looks and money, but he unlike Draco had the patience to slowly torture his prey. It was the intelligent and knowing glint in his dark eyes that scared her most.
"I don't have a crush on him!" She rasped back.
"Then why on earth are you hiding from him at a party you should otherwise be enjoying? Especially when you're looking so…" He let the sentence trail off softly.
"If you must know I was hiding from you! Not Malfoy, and I don't care if he's screwing Pansy in the bathroom. I'm quite certain she crabs you know." She whispered conspiratorially
Blaise raised a brow.
She then recalled his other comment. "When I'm looking so what?" She furrowed her brow and looked down at her outfit - a simple but well cut dress of midnight blue. She had rather thought it looked nice on her. But under Blaise's scrutinising gaze she felt uncommonly insecure.
He grinned by way of response.
"You were hiding from me? Whatever for Miss Granger?" His amusement rang clear in his words and he leaned closer to whisper in her ear. His breath tickled the delicate outer-shell. "Finally established who's the bigger danger to your virtue, have you?" He chuckled darkly and she shivered.
How they had slipped from witty banter to this, she wasn't quite sure.
Hermione felt distinctly over heated by now, and she was quite sure it had nothing to do with the wine she had sipped at earlier. This was not helped when he turned his head slightly from her ear to press a whisper of a kiss to the outer corner of her mouth, before turning and disappearing back into the main room.
Her eyes widened in shock as she pressed fingers to tingling lips; her mind was momentarily consumed by the thought that she was in grave danger of being played a fool by both the men who had so recently become a part of her life.
She had emerged from the darkened corridor to mingle distractedly amongst her colleagues. He was watching her from the far side of the room, the length of his tall form resting against the window ledge, his body grateful for the sliver of cool air from the window tickling his skin.
He hadn't yet decided whether kissing her had been a mistake. Not, he reflected, that it was a proper kiss. No, when he kissed her properly she would know it, she would know nothing else. In the meantime, the taste of her skin, and the scent of her hair which lingered around him would have to be enough.
Grey eyes and a cocky grin suddenly impeded his vision and he realised that Malfoy had finished his phone call to his personal assistant – not, in fact, the delightful Miss Parkinson - up stairs.
"Looking deeply pensive there, Zabini, I hardly think it's healthy."
"Like you'd bloody know," he responded with a chuckle.
"So which fortunate girl in this room has been lucky enough to cause you such distraction?" His smile tightened fractionally as he followed Blaise's gaze.
"What are you playing at?" He asked quietly, after a long moment. Blaise turned to look at his friend in bemusement.
"There's some by-law I'm unaware of which prevents me from looking at her?"
"No…" Blaise knew there was more that Draco had wanted to say, his minutely narrowed eyes gave him away. Someone else might not have noticed how pissed off the blond man was, but Blaise knew. Blaise had known Draco Malfoy for too long to be labouring under false impressions.
She looked up then, seeming to feel the joint weight of their heated gazes upon her. Startled, she looked away quickly, but not before Blaise noticed the signature flushed cheeks that so haunted him behind closed eyelids.
"You have absolutely no interest in her, we both know that."
"Do we?" Draco uttered coolly, looking at him with brows raised.
Blaise laughed derisively. "Please, Draco when have you ever had an interest in Granger that stretched beyond momentary amusement?"
"You know, Blaise, I might ask you exactly the same question."
The both turned to look at her, in all her flushed glory. Blaise flicked a sideways glance at his friend, sizing him up.
He was suddenly conscious that the path to procuring one Hermione Granger's affections might have suddenly met a kink in the road.