Hufflepuff

Fifth Year

Drabble

Prompt: Digging

Additional Requirement: A single character for one house - Blaise Zabini

Word Count: 585

Challenges: Click-Bait It; Yellow Ribbon; Yellow Ribbon Redux; In a Flash; Slytherin MC (x2); Ethnic & Present; Sett to Destroy (N)

Bonus: Persistence Still

Stacked With: The Houses Competition; MC4A; Individual Challenges; Fem Power Challenge; Spring Bingo

Space Address: 5B - Copper

Slight AU

~o0o~

"Where are you going, Draco?"

"Out," Draco replied evasively and exited the Common Room.

Blaise Zabini frowned and twisted his copper ring, a gift from Father Number 3, around his pinkie finger. Draco had been acting odd. He no longer showed interest in his usual hobbies such as Quidditch or complaining about Harry Potter, and it worried Blaise. Not that he would ever show it. Blaise counted Draco as one of his few true friends, not just someone to get along with on the basis of they might be able to do you a favor. They had gotten along ever since Narcissa Malfoy provided young pure-blood children tutelage to prepare them for school.

Draco was not acting like himself, so Blaise did some digging. He asked around, making sure to be vague and hide his true intentions for conversation so as to not raise suspicion, and occasionally followed Draco around.

It was a bit more difficult since Draco always insisted on lugging Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dumber around. He even thought he was being clever by making them Polyjuice into various third-year girls.

Finally, he figured out that the room Draco was hiding away in was called the Room of Requirement. He learned more about it from the house-elves and that odd one, Dobby, kindly showed Blaise the exact location of the room and how to enter it.

Then, Blaise studied how often Draco visited the room. He feigned illness in his last class of the day, got a cough drop from Madam Pomfrey, and went to the Room of Requirement. He paced in front of it three times and thought show me the lost and found.

What he found when he opened the wooden door made him recoil in disgust. It was as if they had never heard of a filing system! There was broken furniture, moth-eaten tapestries, and artifacts stacked in precarious pyramids as far as he could see. Blaise wrinkled his nose and picked through a pile of copper items before moving on to find a chair that wouldn't collapse if it was looked at wrong. He came across a tall, black cabinet, and heard a knocking.

"I think not," he said and drew his wand to place a lock on it.

He heard the door to the corridor creak open and Draco's muffled orders to one of the meat walls. Blaise straightened his spine and kept his back turned so it would be the first thing Draco saw. He made sure his expression was relaxed and devoid of expression and twisted his copper ring once.

"I've been expecting you," he said, turning and turned around in time to see Draco knock over a pile of broken textbooks.

"What are you doing here, Blaise?" Draco asked, narrowing those piercing blue eyes.

Blaise quirked an eyebrow. "I could ask you the same. Like, what are you planning on doing with this Vanishing Cabinet?"

"None of your business!" Draco spat.

"We used to have no secrets," said Blaise cooly. "Perhaps I could help you."

"Why would you want to help me?"

"Because we are friends."

"I didn't think you had friends."

"Though it may not seem like it," said Blaise, "I actually care quite a lot about you, Draco, despite you having a foot in fascism. I'd like to help you."

"Even if it means murder?"

Blaise looked at him steadily before cracking a smile. "All right, take a seat, tell me everything, and I will help you quickly, and quietly, commit a murder."