Chapter 8: Books and Blows

For the first time in a long time, Hermione found herself getting her Potion wrong. She was so eager to talk to Theo that at one stage she even got her rat spleen and chicken liver mixed up.

"Miss. Granger" Snape said after her potion started overflowing "just because it is your birthday, does not mean you are allowed to cause another commotion in my class. Five points from Gryffindor."

After what seemed like way more than an hour, the bell range and Snape finally dismissed them. She quickly said bye to Harry and Ron, and then started to set off towards the dungeons with Blaise.

"Oi, where are you two going?" Ron asked.

"We're just going to check up on Theo" Hermione said "make sure his ok after the whole thing with the boils."

"Why do you want to go and check up on that freak?" Ron asked.

"Look Weasley" Blaise snarled "if you have a problem with me, I can live with that. I don't care what you think of me anyway. However leave Theo out of this!"

"Actually Zabini, I'm entitled to say whatever I want about your pet."

"Ron shut up!" Harry snapped at his friend.

"You're siding with him?"

"Theo has never said a bad word to you." Harry said "lay off a bit."

"Well I… oh ok. Sorry. But you two better keep out of our Common Room from now on."

"We'll try… but it's such a nice room; much cosier than our one."

"Your dingy dark green dungeon?"

"How do you know what the Slytherin Common Room looks like?"

"Erm…"

"Come on Blaise" Hermione said "let's go see Theo before we completely miss out on lunch."

Once separated from Ron and Harry Blaise led her through the dungeons. At first the route was similar to the one they had used to get to Blaise's Workshop, but soon Hermione found herself in unfamiliar territory.

"You know what Blaise?" she said "I was so tempted to tell Ron that Theo called him a wanker once. Though I guess that wouldn't have made things much better."

"Nah… but it would have been almost worth it to see the look on his face."

"Yeah… how do you Slytherins find your way through all these underground corridors?"

"It's not so bad. Nowhere near as many changing staircases to get us lost. Getting up to your tower was a pain. I have no idea how you Gryffindor's find your way up there every day."

"You get used to them quickly enough" Hermione said "speaking of you in Gryffindor though…,"

"I swore I wouldn't rat out the people how helped us" Blaise said "and you're a Gryffindor Prefect."

"Oh Blaise, I won't tell anyone."

"Sorry Hermione, but a promise is a promise."

"But Blaise… oh I'm going to die if I can't figure it out."

"Here we are" he said as they stopped before a seemingly normal piece of bare stone wall.

"How the hell can you tell that this is the right place?" Hermione asked "what if you walked past it just a little bit?"

"It's never in exactly the same place twice" Blaise explained "But it's always in this general area. You can tell because of the snake on the ceiling."

"The one looking down at us like it wants to attack?" Hermione said, looking up to see a terribly realistic stone snake looking down at them, its stone tongue flickering at them."

"It'll only attack if you give the wrong password" Blaise said "Fortunately it doesn't have fangs. They were removed over two hundred years ago when some kid bled to death."

"It actually killed someone?" Hermione gasped.

"One person in a thousand years is a pretty safe record" Blaise said "and they've banned it from making passwords in Parsletoungue too. Yummy Blood."

Hermione saw the snake back off, and the stone wall slid open.

"Yummy Blood?" Hermione asked.

"Well it is a snake" Blaise resend "Let's go see Theo shall we?"

He led her into the Common Room. It was a low-ceiling, dungeon-like room with a strange green glow to it. Hermione noticed that there were quite a lot of skulls everywhere; from skull candle-holders to skulls decorating the columns. As they approached the centre of the room, Hermione looked up and saw a high dome, and a large chandelier made of human bones.

"No wonder everyone thinks Slytherins are evil" Hermione said "what is the fascination with having human bones everywhere."

"Haven't you read Hogwarts a History?" Blaise asked indignantly "the whole bone house thing was a huge joke by Godric Gryffindor."

"I know" Hermione said "Salazar Slytherin wished for his remains to be kept in the Slytherin Common Room, but Gryffindor was mad at him and placed a bunch of other skeletons in the room with him."

"Mad at him for being a Pureblooded arsehole and leaving the school" Blaise said "so than he placed the remains of ninety-seven other people in here, and then mixed them all up so that no-one would know which bones were Slytherin's. Now the Slytherin students at the time didn't want to be walking amongst human remains, but they didn't want to chuck out their Founder's bones. So they developed this rather gruesome interior decorating. And admit it Hermione, it is pretty cool."

"Cool isn't really the word I'd use" Hermione said "I guess if I wanted to be nice, I'd say it was pretty resourceful."

"Well I'll accept that. Guess it's better than being 'evil'. Come on lets go downstairs."

As Blaise made his way towards a staircase going down, Hermione couldn't help but noticing the strange looks she was getting from some of the students scatted around the room. Trying not to look afraid, she followed Blaise downstairs to the boy's dorms.

They arrived at the sixth year door, and before going in, Blaise grabbed her hand."

"Blaise?"

"Sorry, but you need to be touching either Theo or me to get in" He explained "we finally got that selective shielding device I was working on up and running."

"The force field?" Hermione asked in amazement "but didn't you say that you'd need a pretty big generator to get that working?"

"Yah, we keep it under my bed. It's a bit uncomfortable at times, but pretty warm."

He opened the door to reveal a doorway divided into a red half and a green half. He pulled her through the red half, and suddenly they were in a fairly normal looking dormitory.

Theo was laying on the top of his bed; patting Leia and her kittens while shovelling chocolates into his mouth. He sat up quickly as they entered, and Hermione noticed that for the first time since she had met him he had his hair tied back and out of his face. Probably to keep it out of the boil pass she reminded herself.

It was the first time she had really noticed his eyes. Sure she had noticed that they were pale green before, but when he had his fringe in the way they just didn't look as nice as they did now. Just as she was thinking that, Theo turned his head a bit more towards them and she noticed a large red pimple just below his left eye.

"Hermione?" He asked "You're umm… are you alright?"

"Yeah I'm great" she said "I just, I want to make sure your alright. I'm really sorry I hit you."

"Oh I'm fine. Guess I deserved it a bit. I mean well… I'm sorry."

"Oh Theo!" Hermione sighed, going over to his bed and finding a space to sit down on that wasn't already occupied by a kitten. "You don't have to be sorry; I think it was very sweet what you and Blaise did. It's not like you were trying to look at me naked."

"I know" he said as he picked up one of the squeaking kittens and started patting it "but we ruined your birthday, and I'm sorry about it."

"You didn't ruin anything" Hermione said, and before she knew what she was doing she pulled her friend into a tight one armed hug. He almost dropped the kitten he was holding and went bright pink.

"I think I'll go stand guard outside" Blaise said "don't sit on any of the kittens… or else Leia will really ruin some faces."

Blaise quickly left and Hermione released Theo from the hug. "I've had a great birthday so far" she said "it was a bit well, mortifying at first, but I think I can see the funny side. I think that it was pretty sweet of you to come and give me breakfast in bed."

Finally realising that he wasn't in trouble anymore, Theo smiled that happy smile of his that showed that little gap in his teeth, however this time it made his new boils seem more prominent. For a brief second Hermione was torn between feeling disgusted and happy. Before she could think too much about it though, she found herself smiling along with Theo.

One of Leia's kittens wandered close to her. This one was a little white fluffball just like it's mother. There were four kittens in all; one white one and three gingers. All were fluffy and had their eyes shut.

"Thanks for the bookcase" Hermione said "I've been using a bottomless bag to carry them, but they get knocked about so much when I Accio them out that it's damaging them."

"Yeah" he said as he nodded along "I've never had that problem myself, but Blaise always dog ears the pages if he reads a book. He tries not to with mine, but you know what it's like when you're absorbed in a good book."

"Yeah" she agreed "you just get caught up in it. I bet he forgets that it's your book and dog ears the pages right?"

"Yeah… maybe I'm being a bit anal about it, but even little things like dog ears or knocks and stuff… I guess I just like looking after books. Figured you'd be pretty similar."

"Yes, I am. That bookcase is perfect. All my books are going to be very well looked after now."

"That's good. I'm glad you liked it."

"It's perfect. Thank you again. Hay, do you have one of your own?" Hermione asked. Instantly she regretted it. She didn't know much about Theo's financial situation, but from a few comments between him and Blaise over the years she could figure out that the Zabini's provided for most of his basic needs. She also knew that Infinite Bookcases were expensive. Of course he wouldn't have been able to afford two.

"Yah I have one" Theo said "Want to have a look? Blaise thinks it's a bit evil looking though, but what can you expect from a Nott family heirloom?"

"Oh wow, let's have a look."

Theo put the ginger kitten he was holding back with Leia and the other kittens, and then reached into his cupboard to pull out the bookcase.

'A bit evil looking' seemed to be a good description of it. Theo's Infinite Bookcase was made of a dark black wood, and the very grain of it formed menacing faces. On the top was a wooden serpentine dragon. Fortunately it was immobile, but the fangs and ruby eyes did scream evil.

"Wow, that is pretty evil looking" Hermione said.

"Yeah, it used to hold a collection of books on Dark Magic that had been passed down throughout the ages." He explained "Dad once said that the oldest book was over six hundred years old, and that even Voldemort used to come around and borrow books from our collection."

"Oh" Hermione said "that… must have been a pretty evil book collection."

"Yeah" he agreed "When I was five I wanted to read all the time. I read just about everything I could get my hands on."

"I was the same when I was that age."

"Yeah, only problem was that well… there was never really that much money for new books. I finished reading all of Alice's, and then I went looking for more and found the evil books."

"You read the same books as Voldemort, when you were four?" Hermione asked, not sure whether to be impressed or disturbed.

"Yah… well they were a bit hard, but I looked at the pictures a lot. some were pretty disturbing, gave me nightmares. Others were meant to induce nightmares. One actually tried to kill me."

"Whoa!"

"Yeah, after that Alice started reading a bit, and at that stage she had become really ashamed of the whole Pureblood Death Eater thing. Anyway she was worried about me reading them and I was by then quite terrified of them. So while Dad was passed out we took the whole thing out the back and emptied it. I swear there must have been thousands of books. Then we set the whole thing alight."

"You burnt all those books?" Hermione gasped. The thought of book burning was so repugnant to her that even though these books obviously deserved to be burned she couldn't help but think about those six hundred years of lost history.

"All the ones that didn't turn out to be indestructible" He explained as if reading her thoughts "There are a few still there. It was a really stupid thing to do. Voldemort used those books to gain his power, if Alice and I hadn't destroyed all that information then someone might have been able to use those books to destroy him. Not to mention it was also stupid because a lot of the books fought back, and we ended up destroying quite a large portion of the house."

"Oh my god. That must have been terrifying."

"Yeah. We got in so much trouble then. But Alice always stood by what we did. Anyway, bad news; six hundred years of knowledge that could potentially stop Voldemort and part of our house destroyed. Good news though, I got a new bookcase to keep my Tales of Beadle the Bard in."

"Beadle the Bard?" She asked.

"Yeah, the book with all the kids stories."

"Never heard of it" Hermione said "I was raised by muggles, so I guess we have different children stories. I never really thought about that before. Can I have a look?"

"Of course" he said, opening the hatch of the bookcase and then saying "Tales of Beadle the Bard." The shelves inside resorted themselves, and then the book Theo wanted popped out like a slice of toast. He handed it to Hermione.

The book seemed worn out and old, but to Hermione that made it appear more loved then neglected. She opened the first page, and saw that someone had written a note on the cover in messy handwriting.

To my little brother Theo,

This was my favourite book growing up. I think you need it more than me though. Take good care of it.

Love Alice.

"Alice gave it to me after the book burning incident"

"Wow, it must be really special to you"

"Yeah, it is. Hay, do you want to borrow it? Have a read of the stories Wizard children grew up on?"

"Yeah that would be great. But are you sure? I mean, Alice gave it to you."

"Its fine. I know you'll look after it."

"Thanks Theo" she said as he handed her the book "I'll get it back to you as soon as I'm finished. No dog ears."

"Thanks, take as long as you want to read it though. Don't rush."

"I don't have to rush to get through it quickly."

Hermione placed the book in the front pocket of her bag, and then they heard the door open. Thinking it was Blaise Hermione turned around with a smile on her face, only to be greeted by the sight of Crabbe and Goyle in the other part of the room.

"What the hell is this?" Crabbe said pointing to Hermione.

"My friend" Theo said "and if you say one more bad thing about her while she's here I'll take down the force field. Do you think the two of you can take on both of us in a duel?"

Crabbe remained quiet, but nudged Goyle and winked at him. After the third nudge and wink Goyle seemed to get the message.

"Hay Mudblood, how did you get here?"

"You were only talking to me Nott, not Greg."

"Just leave" He said, getting up and edging towards Blaise's bed.

"Fine, take down the force field" Crabbe said "we could probably beat you two. And if not, everyone will know that a Gryffindor beat us. Beat us while in our dormitory."

"Yes, and while I'm in detention you can impress Daphne Greengrass and all those other girls with the story of how a Mudblood beat you big strong Purebloods" Hermione said.

"Shut up mud-bitch!" Goyle snapped.

"I told you not to talk like that!" Theo said "the force field comes down in Ten… Nine… Eight…"

"Hay Nott, have you done something to your face?" Crabbe asked "you look much prettier than normal."

"You scumbags!" Hermione said, reading her wand.

"Five… Four…"

Crabbe had his wand ready, and looked ready for a fight. Goyle meanwhile seemed to have doubts. Meanwhile Leia, who had until then been nursing her kittens, jumped off the bed with her hackles up, prepared to join the fight.

"…Two…"

"Come on Vince" Goyle said as he grabbed his friend "this isn't worth it. We'll come back later. After the Mudblood smell has gone."

Crabbe gave the students and cat one last snarl, and then let his friend lead him out.

"Well I guess Goyle is a bit smarter than we give him credit for" Hermione said "but I sure am glad I won't have to explain to Snape what I'm doing in the Slytherin Boy's Dormitory."

"Yeah… perhaps you better get going before they decide to go and find Snape though."

"I guess so" She said "Hay have you had lunch yet?"

"I'm a bit full on chocolate actually."

"But that's not lunch! Why don't you come get something with Blaise and me? If Blaise is still around. I thought he said he'd be keeping guard."

Theo's face went pale and he looked towards the door. "I hope his alright" he said, before taking off to the door. Hermione followed him out the door and up the stairs. Fortunately they didn't find Blaise's hexed body at the base of the stairs, but there was no sign of him at all. Hermione scanned the Common Room.

She saw Crabbe and Goyle sitting with some fifth years, and at a table not far away Matt Powers was playing exploding snap with the three Slytherin's that had been worried about his parents the other week, as well as Dennis Creevly. The two youngest DA members saw her and waved. She waved back; glad she was not the only Muggle-Born, or even the only Muggle-Born Gryffindor in the Pureblood lair.

"There he his" Theo said, pointing to a couch by the green fireplace where Blaise was engaged in a pretty intense make-out session with Xanthe.

"Typical" Hermione said "well, looks like it's just the two of us for lunch."

"Well actually…"

"Yeah?"

"I well… look at me! I'd probably just put people off their food."

"Theo!" Hermione said. She had forgotten about the boils, why couldn't he? "They're just boils"

"Yeah but… sorry. I think I'll just go back to the dorm. I promise I'll get Blaise to bring me some real food for dinner, ok?"

"Theo…" Hermione couldn't stand the thought of Theo sitting alone in his room "well how about the two of us have lunch in the kitchen then?" She asked.

"But – "

"I have a strong stomach. Your boils won't put me off my food. I don't think any of the House Elves will care either."

"Well…"

"Come on Theo. Think of it as a birthday lunch with me. To make up for the birthday breakfast."

"I thought you weren't angry anymore."

"I'm not too angry about it."

"Well… ok. If you're sure you want to have lunch with me."

"Of course I do. And anyway, I'll need you to help me get to the kitchens."

She saw him give off his little smile, and together they left the Slytherin Common Room.

:Later:

"Ron you need to eat something" Ginny said, noticing that her brother was nervously toying with his food.

"I can't" he complained "I just can't concentrate knowing that Hermione and that poser are off alone doing god knows what."

"Come on Ron" Harry said "they're just going to see Theo. What's the worst that could happen?"

Ron looked towards the Great Hall doors for the millionth time. "What's the worst that could happen? They could probably be going at it like rabbits, that's what. Or worse, going at it like Ginny and Dean!"

Dean gave Ron his 'innocent' look, where's Ginny just got the most horrified look on her face. "Ron how dare you claim to know about what Dean and I do in private. For your information, we are not at it like rabbits! And what do you care if Hermione and Zabini are? Do you like Hermione or something?"

"No!" Ron said "I don't like Hermione. Not in that way. But she's my friend; and I think I have a right to be worried if she's going out with a complete jerk."

"You don't know that his a complete jerk" Harry said "His never done anything bad to any of us. And his mother is a teacher."

"Forget it Harry" Ginny said "you can't reason with him when his like this. His just jealous and these nothing we can do about it."

"I'm not jealous!" Ron said "I just don't feel comfortable with Hermione snogging Blaise Zabini."

"We've never seen him and Hermione do any snogging" Harry reminded him.

"That's because she's the other woman!" Ron said.

"You know, it is possible that they are just friends" Harry reminded him

"Blimey mate whose side are you on?"

"I'm on the side of truth and justice" Harry reminded him "I save kittens from Voldemort on a daily basis."

"Harry!" Ron said "you said… oh god you're turning into him!"

"Am I missing something?" Ginny asked.

"Oh on the Hogwarts Express Ron asked me whose side I was on and Blaise said something along those lines."

"Oh I see" Ginny laughed "yeah, I guess that does sound like a Zabini thing to say."

"Oh Ginny, don't tell me your captivated by his Veela charm too"

"If his family has any Veela blood in them, I'd say his mother got it all and you're the one that's been captivated. Blaise Zabini is a funny guy, and his nice enough. Just because you've never even been kissed before it doesn't mean you should take it out on him."

"Because I what? Well, I may not have been kissed as much as you" Ron said "but then again who has?"

"Well Harry got kissed by Cho" Ginny said "and Hermione and Krum kissed after the Yule Ball."

"WHAT!"

"Ron, just because you haven't been kissed doesn't mean you should take it out on Hermione and Zabini" she continued "though, if he is cheating on Xanthe for Hermione that would be pretty scum. I'm sure there's nothing going on though. And if Zabini and Xanthe ever did break up, I think he and Hermione would make a great couple."

"First of all they would not make a great couple; they'd be completely wrong for each other on several levels." Ron said "and for your information, I bet any girl in Hogwarts would be happy to kiss me."

"Any girl in Hogwarts?" Ginny asked "I never knew my big brother was such a lady-killer."

Harry turned away from the arguing siblings just in time to see Blaise and Xanthe enter the Great Hall hand in hand. Blaise scanned the Hall with a worried expression on his look. His gaze rested momentarily on Harry and then he turned back to Xanthe and said something. She nodded and then got on tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek before skipping over the Slytherin table. Blaise then made his way over to the Gryffindor table. He managed to get right up close to the four of them before Ron noticed him.

"Hay what are you doing here?" he asked "Where's Hermione? And what the hell happened to you?"

Blaise simply shrugged. His bouncy shoulder-length black hair was a mess, and his clothes were all rumpled up.

"That's actually why I came over" he said "I can't find Hermione or Theo anywhere. Theo wouldn't have voluntarily left the dormitory with those boils on his face, and Hermione would never be able to find her way back from the dungeon, so I'm pretty worried. Have any of you seen them?"

"No we haven't" Harry said "wait, you took her into the Slytherin Common Room to check on Theo?"

"Yah, of course" He replied.

"Have you completely lost it?" Ron asked in shock "taking the most prominent Muggle-Born in Hogwarts into Slytherin Common Room?"

"What's the big deal?" Blaise asked "Dennis Creevly goes there all the time to see Matt. And Hermione can look after herself."

"I'll have to have a word with Dennis" Ron said "As for… what's that?" he pointed to a red mark on Blaise cheek.

"Can we please stay on topic?" Blaise asked "Theo and Hermione are missing."

While all attention was focused on Blaise and Ron Harry quickly got the Marauder's Map out of his pocket and activated it. He soon found Hermione and Theo together in the kitchens.

"That's a hicky!" Ron exclaimed "what were you doing down in the dungeons?"

"Gentlemen don't kiss and tell Weasley" Blaise said with an obnoxious sly smile.

Quicker than Harry would have thought possible, Ron jumped up and punched Blaise right in the face.

"WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU AND HERMIONE DOING IN THE DUNGEONS YOU SMUG GIT!" Ron yelled.

"WHAT THE BLOODY HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?" Blaise yelled back "If I'd been making out with Hermione then I wouldn't have lost her now would I?"

"Well…,"

"Ronald Weasley strikes again" Ginny laughed.

"But…,"

"He'd have to be pretty talented to be doing stuff with Hermione since I've had him for most of the brake" Xanthe had snuck up to the Gryffindor table and put her arm around Blaise.

"But Hermione…,"

"She's in the kitchen with Theo" Harry said "she um, sent me a message."

"Oh that's good" Blaise said "I wonder how she got him out."

"Mr. Weasley" came the angry voice of Professor Zabini. "Would you please explain why you just hit another student?"

"Well… I can't Professor" Ron said "I'm sorry."

"You should be apologising to Blaise" She said "now Blaise…,"

She stopped in mid-sentence, then reached out and grabbed her son's collar. Harry could see her eyeing a strange stain on the material that was the same shade of purple as Xanthe's lipstick.

"Mr. Weasley, twenty points from Gryffindor. And you have detention with me tomorrow night" she said "now Blaise, Miss. Rivers, I need to see you both in my office. We need to set some limits here."

Professor Zabini stormed out of the room with Blaise and Xanthe following sheepishly behind her.

"That was weird" Dean said.

"Extremely weird" Ginny agreed.

At that moment the bell rang, so Harry said goodbye to his friends and headed off to Transfiguration.

:Later:

Ron felt surprisingly nervous as he wandered through the library looking for Hermione. What if she's angry at me over the fight with Zabini? He thought or worse, what if she doesn't like my gift? He looked at the small package he was holding. It wasn't a book, but hopefully she would like it.

He found her in a secluded part of the library hidden behind a stack of books.

"Don't tell me you're studying on your birthday" he said as he sat down next to her.

"Ron! Don't scare me like that" She said "and of course I am; I can't let myself fall behind now can I?"

"There's no way you can possibly fall behind" Ron protested "shouldn't you have one day off just to have fun?"

"I have had fun" she said "today's been brilliant… a bit over the top, but still brilliant."

"I'm glad you've had a good day" Ron said "I thought that what happened this morning and going into the Slytherin Dungeons would be a bit of a downer."

"Well kind of, but going to see Theo was great." She said "It's nice to have someone to talk to who appreciates books as much as I do."

"Ah ok. So where is he now? Don't you two usually study together?"

"His not going to come out in public with those boils on his face" Hermione said "his just so shy."

"Well, at least his a good study partner right?"

"Yeah. Hey where's Harry? Shouldn't you two be messing around in the Common Room or something?"

"I have no idea where he is" Ron said "he just disappeared after dinner. Come to think of it he did that last week too. Anyway, I was kinda hoping to get you alone."

"Get me alone?" Hermione repeated.

"Yeah well, I didn't give your present to Zabini and I haven't really gotten a good chance to give it to you today" he explained, handing the small parcel out to her "I figured I'd come and give it to you in person."

"Wow thanks Ron" she said as she took the parcel and began unwrapping it. Once the wrapping paper was gone she encountered a plain cardboard box, which she opened to reveal…,"

"Oh Ron, that's beautiful" she said, taking the ornately decorated head band out of the box. It was bronze in colour, with a rose decorating it. She put it onto her head; pushing her bushy hair out of her face as she did so.

"Wow, I never really noticed how in my face my hair was getting" Hermione said "this is so much better. Thank you Ron."

"That's alright" he said as he took in Hermione's face "you look really nice like that."

"Thanks Ron."

They sat in silence for a while. Ron didn't want to spoil the mood, but there was a question that he just had to ask. He couldn't put it off any longer.

"Hermione?" He asked.

"Yes Ron?"

"I was wondering."

"About?"

"Well… what is actually going on between you and Zabini?" He said "I mean, are you two together? Or wanting to be together?"

"Of course not Ronald! Blaise is just a friend! And his with Xanthe. Even if I felt more for him, I'd be a bit too scared to steal Xanthe River's boyfriend."

"Yeah she is pretty scary" Ron agreed "So you don't feel anything warm and fuzzy for Zabini?"

"Not at all" Hermione said "His just a friend; just like you and Harry."

"And Nott?" Ron added.

For a second Hermione looked surprised, and then deep in though. "Yes" she said after a bit of though "just like Theo. They're both just friends. Is that what's been bothering you?"

"Well… I didn't want him to hurt you, but well, I guess I did get a little paranoid there."

"A little?"

"Well, a lot. But I guess as long as his not going to break your heart or anything then it's alright if his your friend."

"Since when have I needed your approval to be friends with anyone?"

"I'm sorry Hermione! I didn't mean it like that! I just well, I didn't want you to get hurt."

"Thanks for your concern Ron, but I'm fine."

"I know. I'm sorry. Hey, mind if I be your study partner tonight?"

"Oh alright. Help me sort through these class notes please."

As Ron gathered up a large pile of Hermione's class notes, he had to ask himself what he had just gotten himself into.

:That Weekend:

Despite having had to endure an embarrassing lecture about sex from her on Wednesday and having a detention with her later tonight, Blaise was glad that his mother was still happy to have a round of chess with him in the courtyard.

As she destroyed him on the board, they talked about family, friends, and schoolwork all in a friendly enough tone. She never brought up the incident on Hermione's birthday, or what she had dubbed his 'inappropriately intimate' relationship with Xanthe. Blaise was thankful for that; his mother was probably the only person at Hogwarts who could really challenge him at chess and he didn't want to lose that friendly competition.

Ok maybe not the only person he reminded himself though playing with Ron Weasley is hardly friendly.

Just as things were looking really bad for Blaise, he noticed an opportunity that his mother seemed to have overlooked and within three moves he managed to put her in checkmate.

"Wow Blaise" she said "you certainly are a Slytherin. So sneaky."

"Slytherin's are cunning Ma, not sneaky"

"Well you're sneaky anyway. Just don't use it to cause too much more trouble."

"I'll try not to Ma. But you know us Slytherins; were always in trouble."

"Well you try to get through this year without causing anymore pandemonium" she said as she got up "I love you Blaise."

"I love you too Ma. I'll try not to frighten any more Gryffindors."

She smiled and left; leaving him to pack up the finely carved muggle chessboard his Pa had given him on his last birthday. Before he made much progress with the packing up someone sat down opposite him. A tall someone with red hair and freckles.

"Hello Zabini" Ron Weasley said.

"Weasley" Blaise nodded in his general direction.

"Want to have a game?" Weasley offered.

Blaise still hadn't forgotten that he'd punched him on Wednesday, or how terrible the last game they had had together was. However something was different about him today; he seemed less obnoxious than usual, so Blaise decided to give him a game.

"Sure why not?" he said as he picked up both kings and shuffled them around behind his back before holding his fists out. After a look of confusion Weasley tapped his right fist which he then opened to reveal the white king. Weasley then took the king and started setting up his white pieces while Blaise set up the black ones and waited for the first move.

"e-Pawn to e4" Weasley said to the chessboard. When the specified pawn didn't move Weasley looked towards Blaise in confusion.

"It's a muggle chessboard" Blaise explained "you move the pieces by hand."

"Oh right" Weasley picked up his pawn and moved in to the desired position, and then Blaise made his first move.

"So you and your Mum both play Chess?" Ron asked.

"Yeah, she started after her sixth husband died."

"Her sixth husband?"

"Adriano Cipollone. He was a duellist. He died fighting."

"Wait, she was Adriano Cipollone's wife?" Ron asked "but Edglar Voss killed him in the European Duelling Championships twenty-two years ago!"

"You do realise I'm sixteen don't you?"

"Well… I know but your mother looks well, much younger."

"Perhaps we do have some Veela blood somewhere down the line. Now are you going to move or drool over my mother?"

"Sorry" Ron said as he moved his queen "it's just hard to believe that she's married and has a son my age. How did a champion duellist end up with a muggle mechanic anyway?"

"It was actually through chess" Blaise explained "After Cipollone's death she went to a park in muggle Rome to clear her head. It happened to be the same park my Pa went to every day to play chess. After a while they noticed each other, started talking, and then he offered to teach her how to play. Three years later they were married."

"Wow. I'll have to tell my sister that. She says that guys who play chess all the time will never get a girlfriend."

Blaise had to admit that although Weasley still seemed obsessed with his mother, he wasn't being vulgar or anything about it this time. Blaise had to wonder why he was acting so different. Guilt? He thought to himself or does he want something?

Blaise concentrated on his pawns and they both played the rest of the game in silence. Weasley won the game but he didn't act smug about it. Instead he just stood up and offered Blaise his hand. Blaise also stood up and took the offered hand in a good-sportsman's handshake. Did Hermione say something to him about the last game? Blaise wondered.

"Hay Zabini" Weasley started "I'm sorry about what happened the other day. Truce?"

Or maybe Harry said something Blaise though. "Yah ok" he said "Truce."

Weasley then nodded and walked off; leaving Blaise wondering what the hell had just happened.