A/N: It was a joy to write this fic to go with bluefire986's art! (check it out at her livejournal or over on AO3 where they actually let you integrate pictures)
And thank you as always to heywhoaIwroteafic for being my beta.
The celebratory parties after their winning matches tend to blend together. They're fun, and Blaine loves getting to celebrate with the whole house, especially now that he's been on the team for a while, but the parties aren't really anything special unless they win the Hogwarts Quidditch Cup. So he tends to sneak off during them. He wants to send a letter to his parents, and he has a headache thanks to one of the Slytherin Beaters and his need to fly into him, so really, the Owlery is preferable to being anywhere near his common room.
When he reaches the Owlery, he expects it to be empty. There are only thirty minutes until curfew, and it's a Saturday. Therefore, he jumps - and possibly screams a little when someone jumps up from where they were sitting on the opposite end of the room.
He puts a hand over his heart, trying to calm it down while he watches the boy step out of the shadows.
"Kurt?" he asks, more than a little surprised to see him. He's never really gotten the chance to talk to him. They've only had one class together each year, and since they're never paired together… "What're you doing up here?"
"I could ask you the same thing," Kurt says, somewhat haughtily, petting the owl perched next to him. "Don't you have a party or something that you should be at?"
"Yeah," Blaine starts, surprised by how nervous his voice comes out. He knows he shouldn't be scared of Kurt. He's always off by himself, and everyone seems to either ignore him or make mean jokes about the embellishments he added to all of his robes. Plus, it must have been hard on him, showing up to school for the first week, only to immediately be pulled out for a month because of a family emergency. Blaine is honestly still impressed that Kurt not only caught up in all of his classes, but got some of the highest grades in their year. "I was at it for a little while, but the noise was just… too much. Plus, I wanted to send this letter to my mom and dad as soon as I could. What're you doing here?"
"What do you think I'm doing?" Kurt asks, raising an eyebrow at him.
"Well," Blaine says, stepping into the Owlery completely so the door can close behind him, "I would guess that you're sending a letter to someone, but I'm pretty sure that's your owl, so… I'm not really sure."
"I'm sending a letter to my dad," Kurt says with a glare. "But I'm visiting with Athena first." There's a pause, and then Kurt sighs, "Go ahead and laugh, whatever."
"Laugh?" Blaine blinks in confusion. "Why would I laugh at that?" Kurt crosses his arms, as though guarding against Blaine's next move. "Wait- isn't Athena the Goddess of War? Your owl has always seemed too friendly for any sort of battle."
"Athena can protect herself," Kurt says, immediately defensive. "Can you just send your letter and leave?"
"I-" Blaine glances over to where a few of the school owls are perched. "Would it be alright if I stuck around here with you for a while? I was kind of looking to escape the noise in my House for as long as possible." He isn't entirely sure why he's asking to stay. It is true that he wanted quiet, but he doesn't need Kurt's permission, and Kurt has certainly not given him any reason to want to stay. At the same time though, he can't help but feel as though Kurt's walls are mostly there because he got off to the wrong start. The other male Slytherins almost certainly have very little in common with him, and the girls are, well, highly competitive and seem too wrapped up with their drama to make new friends at the moment. Kurt just needs a friend, Blaine decides.
"Sure, whatever," Kurt says, rolling his eyes before settling back down on the bench, Athena fluttering down to land on his leg.
Blaine picks out an owl - a medium sized black one that he's used in the past - while watching Kurt out of the corner of his eye. He's sitting somewhat stiffly, but he smiles when Athena leans her head down to butt his hand until he starts stroking her.
That's when Blaine decides he's going to sit down next to Kurt after he sends this letter, and make Kurt have a conversation with him. Even if it's just about Athena or their Transfiguration homework. He's going to have a conversation with Kurt Hummel, and tomorrow he's going to join him for breakfast. He is going to be the best friend Kurt Hummel has ever had. Although he probably shouldn't tell Sam that.
"So," Blaine starts, settling down next to Kurt ten minutes later. "Tell me something about Kurt Hummel." The words feel silly coming out of his mouth, but he manages to resist bolting from the room at the appraising look Kurt gives him.
"What do you think you're doing?"
"I'm trying to start a conversation with you?" he asks, still uncertain if this is actually a good idea. Maybe Kurt wants to be alone.
Kurt raises an eyebrow at him. After a minute of this, Blaine's about to just give up and leave, when Kurt sighs loudly. "You're just going to stay here until I talk to you, aren't you? You actually are as much of a Hufflepuff as you appear to be from afar."
"Thank… you?" Blaine says uncertainly. "I'm not really sure what you mean by that, but I take pride in my house."
"Obviously," Kurt snorts. Silence stretches between them, broken only by the occasional owl hooting and Athena fluffing her feathers. "My dad's a muggle."
"What?" Blaine asks, looking over at him.
"You wanted to learn something about me. So there it is, my big secret," Kurt says, gesturing his hands in mock exaggeration. "I'm a half-blood in Slytherin."
"There are a ton of half-bloods in Slytherin," Blaine says, his eyebrows furrowing. "I can think of at least ten off the top of my head."
Kurt rolls his eyes, "There might be a bunch in Slytherin now but it was a big deal not even twenty years ago, so I'm sorry if I can't just 'get over' that blatant discrimination!" he exclaims angrily.
Blaine rests a calming hand on Kurt's shoulder, quickly pulling it away when Kurt flinches. "I wasn't saying you should just forget about the discrimination. It's just- I wanted to make sure you were aware that Slytherin house is beyond the narrow mindedness of it's founder. Heck, none of the houses are solely made up of the pieces their founder admired most. We just all share some personality traits."
They both fall silent again, Athena flying off to eat a mouse one of her friends caught for her.
"Do I get to learn something about Blaine Anderson?" Kurt eventually asks, a nervous tremor in his voice.
"Oh, um, sure. Yeah. I… have an older brother who, upon graduating Hogwarts with no NEWTs, decided to run off to the United States to become famous in Hollywood."
Kurt laughs, causing Blaine to grin at the beautiful sound. "How's that going for him?"
"He has a tendency to change direction really fast, so now he's a magician, working in Las Vegas."
Kurt snorts, "I didn't think wizards actually did that, oh my god."
"I don't know about actual wizards, but my brother certainly decided to go for it," Blaine replies, a happy spark spreading through his chest because Kurt is actually relaxed and happy looking right now.
Monday morning Blaine wanders down to the Great Hall intent on finding Kurt. Sunday morning he had slept late - when he'd finally snuck back from the Owlery (he and Kurt had stayed an hour past curfew by mistake), the Hufflepuff party had still been going strong. Apparently he had been missed, because the moment he returned, his teammate Mike Chang was pulling him into the center of the pack and shoving a mug of butterbeer into his hands. Kurt hadn't been in the Great Hall by the time he'd made it down Sunday. Granted, he couldn't remember having ever seen him at a weekend breakfast, unless he was up extremely early.
Blaine pauses in the doorway, looking into the hall. His gaze runs over the Gryffindor table first and, no surprise, Sam isn't there. He then looks over at the Slytherin table, and his eyes almost immediately land on Kurt, who is sitting apart from everyone else. Blaine makes a beeline for him, only pausing to say hi to Tina when she calls out to him on his way.
"Good morning!" he says cheerfully as he sits himself down across from Kurt.
At first, Kurt doesn't acknowledge him, he just continues eating his breakfast as though he didn't hear him. Blaine's about to try again, a little confused as to how Kurt hadn't heard him, when Kurt looks up and jumps.
"What are you doing here?"
Well. That wasn't the reaction Blaine was looking for.
"I just mean- this is the Slytherin table."
"People sit at other house tables all the time," Blaine shrugs. "I've never sit over here, but I saw you and figured you wouldn't mind the company." Kurt eyes him warily, looking him up and down as though trying to figure out what he's up to. "If you don't want me to sit here, I can go back to my own table?" he offers uncertainly.
"No…" Kurt says slowly. "You can stay here if you want. I don't mind."
"So," Blaine says, grinning across the table at Kurt now that he knows he's welcome. "How was the rest of your weekend," he asks, putting some bacon and scrambled eggs onto his plate.
"It was fine, I got ahead on some of my work." Kurt continues eating for a moment before he seems to realize that he should probably return the question. "How was the rest of your weekend?"
"It was good," Blaine shrugs. "We had the day off of Quidditch practice because of our win on Saturday, so I studied with some friends and played some Quidditch for fun."
They continue chatting, Blaine ignoring the looks every Slytherin seems to be giving him when they see him sitting at the table, talking to Kurt. He doesn't quite understand what the Slytherin's have against making new friends, but apparently they're not entirely pleased with his presence. He's not going to let a bunch of people he doesn't know, scare him away from being friends with Kurt.
It's a week later when Kurt finally starts a conversation with him at breakfast, dropping his fork when Blaine sits down across from him. "Look. No one ever talks to me unless they have to, and I pretty much never want to talk to any of them. I don't understand why you're choosing to sit with me all the time when you have like thirty other people vying for your attention, practically begging you to sit next to them."
Blaine blinks in surprise, momentarily stunned by Kurt's statement. "First of all, I don't care what other people want. I don't know why they never talk to you, but you're one of the most interesting people I've met here, and I want to be friends with you. I was kind of hoping we were friends already, honestly. Second of all, I am hoping that you'll consider joining me and some of my others friends over at the Hufflepuff table sometime for lunch or dinner or something, but you don't have to if you don't want to."
"Wait. You're inviting me to join you at the Hufflepuff table?"
"Yes. Only if you want to," Blaine nods.
"After Transfiguration today? We could walk to lunch together?" Kurt asks nervously.
"Sure!" Blaine agrees, grinning triumphantly. "I'm really excited about this."
"I can tell," Kurt says. "I'm a little bit worried that your smile is going to break your face," he teases. Blaine almost drops his fork. If he's not mistaken, Kurt is ...flirting with him. Just a little bit. Or at the very least he's finally treating him like a friend, rather than someone who's just been showing up to test or bother him.
After that, Kurt joins Blaine and his friends for almost every meal. At first, he's withdrawn, mainly just listening to Blaine's friends talk and hiding in the library all weekend. Eventually though, he starts to open up and join in conversations. Two months later, he's no longer referring to Mike, Tina, Sam, Artie, Mercedes, and the others as 'Blaine's friends.' He's calling them 'their friends.' Blaine couldn't be happier about it, particularly when he comes to breakfast one Saturday to find Kurt and Mercedes giggling together at the Gryffindor table. The two of them have really hit it off, and Blaine often finds them studying together these days. He's a little jealous of the closeness that they share, but he's happy Kurt has someone more than him now.