"What the hell, Holly!" Tori was the first one to exclaim. "It was BLAISE? HE'S the guy you've been going after this whole time?"

Holly broke away from Blaise with a sheepish look on her face before slowly turning to the pair of shocked blondes. Their expressions were so comical that it was all Holly could do to not burst out laughing. Tori and Draco were blinking ferociously, trying to dispel the scene that was playing out in front of them from their vision. For a while, they only stared at each other, waiting to see who would speak next. It suddenly felt uncomfortably hot in the common room, which was pretty much impossible because it was a stone room under the Black Lake. No, this heat was radiating from Holly, permeating the room like a furnace. She wondered if Blaise could feel her hot skin trough his shirt where their arms grazed each other. Holly itched her neck awkwardly and cleared her throat. This seemed to have broken the spell that they were under as Draco opened his mouth soon after with an enthusiastic "well done, mate" to Blaise and announcing that he was heading off to get some sleep. With a quick smile at Tori, he turned on his heel and disappeared behind his door with a soft click, never once meeting Holly's probing eyes.

Well, she thought, that could have gone better. How could he react with happiness? He was supposed to be jealous, or at least a little bit more surprised! Maybe she was wrong about the whole thing, was it possible that all of Draco's crude comments to her meant nothing at all? Not only would that be mortifying if it were true, but it would also render the whole game that she and Draco were playing pointless. If she was being honest with herself, it was a little pointless from the beginning, anyways, though. What, she would get him to admit that he was jealous and then what? Just laugh at him and walk away? How did she actually believe that that would teach Draco a lesson? If anything, he would just be more horrible than he already was. She really had taken it too far when she brought Blaise into this. What would he say when she told him it was only to make his best friend angry? And worse, what if he thought that she had meant the kiss? Holly knew that that was a stretch, she and Blaise had always been more like siblings than friends and they had told each other that they could never like the other because of it, so she really was not worried about that.

Her internal monologue was interrupted by Tori coughing lightly. "Uh, yes, I think I'm going to go to our dorm also, Holly. Night," she said, throwing a wink over her shoulder at Holly to let her know that she wasn't in the least bit mad over what she had just seen. Great, now I'm going to have to put up with her constant tormenting about this, Holly growled and rolled her eyes at Blaise. Her expression changed to one of nervousness the second she caught sight of his furious eyes.

"Hey, Tori! Wait up a sec, I'll come with you!" she called and leaped off of the couch. Just when she thought she could make it to the door, Blaise grabbed her arm and pulled her back onto the satiny black couch with a plop and turned her head to look at him.

"Do you want to start explaining what the bloody hell that was?" he asked with a hard look in his eyes that made Holly squirm in her seat. Oh, he wasn't taking this well, Holly realized with a gulp. "There had better be a damn good reason why you did that. He's furious now!"

"I am so sorry, Blaise! I wasn't thinking and then you were right there and..." Holly's explanation was left hanging as she registered what Blaise had just said. "Who's furious?" The only person that she had seen in the last few hours that was the remotest bit mad was sitting in front of her right now.

"Uhh, Draco?" He drew out the name as if he was speaking to a child. Was Blaise mental? Holly had been staring at Draco since she broke the kiss to see what he would do, but he never seemed bothered by it, a little shocked at first, it was true, but nothing bad. Running his hands over his face frustratedly, he continued, "Look, Holly, you don't know him like I do. Draco doesn't show how he's feeling like a normal person, he keeps it all in his head until it explodes out of him. I know that the look he had on his face means that it's going to be a really rough next couple of days."

Wow, he looked really upset over this. His friendship with Draco was obviously already strained and now she might have just ruined his chance to fix it. She was a terrible friend. With another glance at Blaise's sorrowful expression, Holly knew that she had to make things right between the two boys to make up for her mistake. An explanation of what had been happening over the last couple of days seemed as good a place as any to start. With a heavy sigh, Holly got into a comfortable position with her legs crossed in the middle of the couch. "I'm sorry," she repeated, "I should have thought about what might happen if I, er, did what I did. I just get so mad when I see him and Tori together all the time! He just parades around like he can get anything he wants because he's so much better than everyone else in the world, and you know what? No one proves him wrong! All I wanted was to get him to admit that he fancies me so that I could knock him down a few pegs. He's caught on, though, you see, so now he keeps trying to one-up me and I can't stand it! The sight of him snogging my best friend to prove he's better than me literally makes me sick to my stomach. That's why I kissed you, obviously, to make him jealous."

Blaise just sat there quietly, taking in every word that Holly was saying. While he did so, she watched a wide range of emotions flit across his face. At first, she was not surprised to see anger as she complained about Draco yet again. His jaw slowly loosened and his brows pulled in, Holly knew this to be the expression he took on when met with a particularly difficult question. Then his face gradually changed to look shocked, and finally, to Holly's intense surprise, he started to laugh.

The sound was a bit disconcerting, considering it was coming from the same person who looked like he would feed her to a blast-ended skrewt without a second thought. "Uh, Blaise?" Holly whispered, chancing to poke him on the shoulder questioningly before flying back onto her side of the couch for protection. "Do you want me to take you to see Madam Pomfrey? You're starting to scare me."

Finally Blaise quieted down enough to say, "no, I'm fine, really. It's just funny that I figured something out and you have no idea what it is for once. You are the smartest witch I know, besides that bloody Hermione Granger," he added, earning him a loud snort of agreement from Holly, "and yet, you are so clueless sometimes."

"And you make no sense all of the time, but I'm too tired to argue about it right now so I'm really going to bed this time. Goodnight," she said with a long yawn.

Blaise let out a chuckle, shaking his head. "Goodnight, Holly," he replied, holding out his hand to help her stand up. She took it gladly and gave him a toothy grin. How had she gotten so lucky as to get a friend like him? She really didn't deserve it. "Ok ok, stop smiling at me like that, it's creepy," Blaise said so she flashed him an even bigger one and went up to her dorm.


Ok, I know that this was a really short chapter, think of it as the end to the last one because I read it over and didn't like how I left it. So, what do you think Blaise figured out? And I do have one other thing to say. I really hate to do this but I'm not going to put up another chapter until I get a couple of reviews that aren't from my best friend. I just want to know if it's even worth continuing because I'm really having a hard time trying to find motivation lately. I only want two reviews, and then I promise I'll keep going. I have a lot planned for the next couple of chapters; there will be a chat with Draco and a game of truth or dare! I hope you like it :)