(BZ) Gula

Blaise looked upwards and stared at the ceiling.

He wished he had never initiated any sort of communication with the Head Girl; letting his guard down, allowing her to glimpse into his life... There was no real justification for his careless behaviour. He would just have to learn to live with it.

"Am I stupid?"

"No, mate, you're just overworked," Draco replied.

They were standing at the conjured bar in the middle of the Slytherin common room, drying the last chalices and tumblers. Everything was ready for the party.

Blaise's grip on the glass tightened; even in the supposed safety of the Slytherin dungeons, he wasn't safe from Hermione Granger's constant presence. The party was a covert birthday party Draco had devised when he had realised his co-Head wasn't going to celebrate her own birthday.

"Isn't she Muggle-born?" Blaise asked for the umpteenth time. "Don't they do something for their eighteenth?"

"I think Bulstrode mentioned something about that."

Blaise was past caring before his friend had finished replying.

He still remembered the first time he had been allowed to take part in the Slytherin parties; the kaleidoscopic lights, the drinks, the music and, clearly, the girls. Third-year Blaise had never really appreciated female beauty before that night, not until an older student had asked him to dance. Or even later on, when somebody had kissed him as the lights flickered.

He had soon grown tired of that, though, and had soon applied for the position he still held. Serving drinks behind the bar, he could lapse into his favourite hobby of observing those around him. His, of course, was also the duty to stop the other Slytherins from getting too inebriated.

"Well, I'm off!" Draco called, dropping the towel on the counter.

He was the real leader of the show; no party was complete without Draco Malfoy. As his friend, Blaise enjoyed a privileged status, but the girls preferred the original to 'the friend'.

Blaise didn't mind; he had had his share of romance, if you could call it that. His relationship with fellow Slytherin Vivian Runcorn had lasted a few months. In the archive of his mind, she was classified as being a brilliant and beautiful brunette. According to Vivian, it wasn't really her fault if Blaise 'showed no hint of emotion'; thanks to Draco, that had now become a legendary phrase.

Vivian had been right, to some extent.

Blaise hadn't made any audacious, romantic deed to sweep her off her feet and he most certainly had never been caught mooning over her. He had other priorities, but he had needed a date for the Yule Ball. He had not planned to keep it up after that and had been at a loss about how to break loose.

He was reminded of it all when Vivian sauntered into the common room, a younger Slytherin boy trailing after her. Luckily, for both of them, she avoided him these days.

"Two Gillywaters, please!"

Blaise nodded and served a third-year girl; he was meant to stay alert tonight and not ponder his non-existent love life. He heard another order and began mixing drinks for another housemate.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a group of three approach the counter: Draco, Granger and the Weasley girl. Blaise shook his friend's hand, and then supplied the boy with the drinks.

"You brought friends," he remarked in what he hoped was a bored tone.

"The more the better."

When Ginevra Weasley agreed to dance with Draco, Blaise was left to observe the Head Girl fend for herself. As he was serving the umpteenth assorted drink, Ralph Harper approached her with predatory eyes. That caught Blaise's attention. The boy was one of the students Theodore tutored, but aside from that, Blaise could safely say he ignored Harper most of the times. Not counting the hexes he had joined in throwing at the young Slytherin whenever he tried to promote himself to the older years dorm for some random shagging in between classes.

"Zabini, a Firewhiskey for this exquisite lady."

Blaise could only just make out his words and he didn't like them in the least. This was Harper's typical technique: get the girl drunk, drag her somewhere quiet and have his way with her.

He scowled.

He continued observing them while tending bar and checking the grandfather clock of the common room. Blaise would have liked to deny he was worried for Granger's safety, yet he couldn't keep his eyes off her. And after the third Firewhiskey, when he could tell that she didn't hold alcohol very well, and that Harper had increasingly diminished the space between them.

Blaise growled, and almost squashed a tumbler in his hand.

As luck would have it, a vapid but pretty Slytherin stole Harper's attention from the Head Girl, and Blaise could finally relax enough to notice that curfew was etching near. He started getting rid of several drunkard students asking for more spirits, and Pansy appeared amongst them. Blaise took a moment to contemplate how messed up her life had turned out to be after her break up with Draco.

He shook his head, and secured the alcohol in a cupboard with a spell.

"To-oo m-many Firewhis-skies," Granger managed to say when he made his way over to her.

Notwithstanding her apparent discomfort, Blaise couldn't keep himself from smirking at having the Head Girl inebriated at his bar. She was light, and he needn't making too much of an effort to carry her. She, however, resisted his chivalrous attempts at picking her up. He gave her his best stern look, and she giggled.

She giggled. Hermione Granger giggled.

As a rule, Blaise shrunk from giggling girls, but he forgot all about that in front of her. For a moment, he thought something might happen; she was looking up at him with twinkling eyes (Firewhiskey-induced, he reasoned afterwards),her hand in his, standing quite close.

Blaise could smell an unmistakable flowery perfume.

"Where is Ginny?"

He snapped out of his foolish reverie, and pointed at a red-headed student arguing with someone else in the distance.

"Ready, are you, Head Girl?" he asked then.

Another rule was to avoid direct physical contact between him and any other human being whenever possible – people tended to read to much into it. He didn't let go of her hand though, as he led her out of the common room, because an inebriated Head Girl roaming free around the castle was not a good idea. He told himself that, and tightened his grip.

She yelped.

Blaise stole a glance at her, at how nicely she filled her dress, how austere and licentious at the same time she came across. He shook his head with vigour, trying to clear his mind, and as soon as the reached the entrance to her quarters, he let got of her hand.

The portrait swung open and they set foot into the common room, only to find that he wasn't prepared in the least for the sight that presented itself before them.

"Draco! Take a room! My eyes!" he cried.

As soon as Miss Clothes-Are-Beneath-Me left the room, Draco, who had been attempting to regain his usual poise, glared at his friend.

"If you wanted Granger that much, Pascal..."

Blaise didn't even smile. With his next words, he tried to convey how cumbersome it had been to deal with the consequences of Harper's lack of manners, namely the damsel in distress behind him.

"Then again, who knows what she might hide under that pretty dress of hers?"

He hated when Draco used sarcasm to wriggle out of his responsibilities.

"Do behave for once in your life."

Blaise made to stay. He had a common room to put back together though and, well, Granger was in decent, if not good, hands.

Bubbles erupted from the pewter cauldron and a faint citrus smell filled the air. On the bedspread, a book laid open, and words and pictures moved onto the page explaining how to brew the potion correctly. Blaise didn't need to look at it. His Sobering Potions were renowned amongst Slytherins; they'd badger him after every party without fail.

His eyes on the cauldron, strands of hair screening his gaze, Blaise mused that this was no ordinary Sobering Potion. It wasn't meant for a Slytherin student, but for Hermione Granger, Gryffindor Golden Girl. He chuckled. I love alliteration, he thought.

Draco had come to him in the early hours of that Saturday morning, moments after he had lain himself in bed, and had asked him to brew the potion "in a jiffy" because the Head Girl's pals were invading his quarters and he had yet to get any sleep. Blaise had wanted to argue he needed to rest too, but one look at Draco's shadows under his eyes had convinced him to stay put.

So there he was, losing his sleep over a potion meant for the enemy.

His lips curved into a leer smile.

Draco was the kind of person who referred to Gryffindors as the enemy, not him. Blaise thought of inter-house rivalry as a childish thing; something first-years relied on when they didn't know how to explain they didn't like someone. Nonetheless, Slytherin were feared. When he had tried to help a Hufflepuff boy who had bruised his knee, the only answer he had received had been a scared look and footsteps running away. Whenever it was possible, Blaise didn't wear his cloak; he didn't like being despised because of the crest on his robes.

"Zabini!" Pansy shouted. "I have a headache!"

She sauntered into the boys' dormitory with her hair sticking out at odd angles; she was wearing that emerald robe that made her look older than Mémé. Blaise knew it was a gift from her father to secure she looked proper even in bed, but his daughter would have been better off without it.

"And how can I help you?"

He added some chopped mint to the solution; it was almost ready, and Blaise expected Draco to arrive in a jiff.

"You could give some of that potion, for example," Pansy said in her haughty voice.

She wasn't half bad, nine times out of ten, but headaches got the worst out of her in Blaise's opinion. As he started to explain whom the potion was meant for, Draco entered the scene and glared at the girl.

"Hands off," he hissed.

"No need to be rude, you know," she glared back at him.

The staring match lasted less than a minute, then Pansy left; she was in no mood for arguing. Draco huffed and lay down on Blaise's bed, inquiring after the potion.

"In a minute," he answered. "We've got a minute to talk."

"What about?"

Blaise turned to him. "What is troubling you these days?" he asked, "Being Head Boy can't be that much stressful already."

"Oh, the usual really," Draco said. "Potter, mum, Potter again, Weasley, perhaps the mere existence of the Weasleys as a whole, did I mention Potter?"

He looked tired due to the party, Blaise observed, but he also looked tense. Teso come una corda di violino, as his father would have said. His nerves on the edge.

"You haven't had a girlfriend in ages," he let slip, hoping to get a reaction.

Draco gave a little twitch, then sat upright on the bed and looked at him. He smirked.

"The minute is over, I believe," he said.

Blaise shook his head, and put some of the potion into a small vial; he stared at the liquid to check it one last time.

"Don't exaggerate with the dosage, she might get a fever," he warned, handing it over.

The other nodded and left. Blaise was surprised Draco hadn't asked why it had been him who had taken the responsibility to get the Head Girl back to their quarters, why he hadn't relinquished the task to some Gryffindor. If he had though, Blaise wouldn't have known what to answer.

"Anything left for me?" Millicent called from the threshold.

She looked the same as ever; the same 'tomboy geek' Blaise had first classified her as.

"Yes, come in."

She approached him, fumbling in her pockets for some Knuts.

"I saw Malfoy leaving in a hurry, you two had row?"

Blaise chuckled as he took another vial from his supply.

"Pansy was here," he said.

Millicent smirked, but didn't comment. They were silent while he filled the vial with Sobering Potion; Blaise gave it to her and was given the sum of forty Knuts.

"Is this for you?" he asked puzzled. "You do know the counter-effects if taken sober, don't you."

"No, and yes," she replied. "It's for Theo." She sighed. "He always want to give these parties a try and, well, frankly I'm getting tired of picking up the pieces."

After Millicent left, he wondered if he should be complaining too; it hadn't been his place to rescue the Granger girl from the party, so why had he done it?

"Evanesco," he muttered with his wand drawn out over the cauldron.

He grabbed his cloak and decided it was early enough for a quick flight. No one would be up for a few hours, and he was desperate to spread his wings. Blaise had found one spot he liked to visit on the school grounds; down south, past the faulty fountain thirsty students had learnt to stay away from, an immense oak tree had taken root in the Middle Ages – at least that was his personal opinion. It was so out of everyone's way that Blaise could unleash his alatum nature and rest on its large branches; he had yet to be discovered there. However, he had come to realise somebody else liked the spot. Granger. She would sit beneath the oak at random times in spring and disrupt Blaise's schedule.

Not today, he thought with a smile, she's recovering from a hangover today.

His smile turned into a smirk as he stepped out of the dungeons and into the light of the upper levels.

As the school weeks went on, as September gave way to October, Blaise knew she must have done something to him. He had cursed himself for caring, but he had wanted to give Harper a piece of his mind nonetheless; he had been fair, he thought, for he had just hinted at what the Board would say if they got word he had gotten the Head Girl tipsy, on purpose. However, Draco was the real problem. If his truce with Granger hadn't sounded suspicious, their increasing friendliness certainly did; he sent her off to deal with their Heads duties, but was quick in asking for forgiveness in their quarters. Blaise knew it all, because he was always there.

He clenched his fist.

He wondered why his cool attitude deserted him around her and he felt stupid. He had to get back in the saddle, reclaim his shadowy caricature of a life. At times, he thought he had finally wriggled free of Granger's pull, only to find himself staring at her. It was this way that he had come to realise just how much she had changed from the previous year.

A withdrawn witch had replaced the bossy bookworm of their younger years; her hand raised less and less in class, and her high-pitched laugh was never louder than a quiet chuckle now. It was an unexpected metamorphosis; Blaise suspected that something huge had to have happened to her, but she acted as if nothing had changed with her friends. Her questionable interest in Draco was one of the few giveaway factors.

He shook his head.

He was doing it again, thinking about her when he was supposed to focus on his homework. Blaise stared at the parchment, but her distracted gaze kept popping up in his mind. He strayed to think of the day she had received a package with the morning post; the look on her face upon reading the address it had come from had confounded him. Granger had looked angry.

"I'm quite fine, thank you, Blaise," she had said in a clipped voice when questioned about it.

Her answer said she wasn't in the mood to chitchat, but he had focused on the way she had said his name. It was foreign to her and her tongue wasn't accustomed to the rolling rhythm of French; it had sounded so different from the way everyone else said it. Blaise was intrigued. He wondered what would happen if he said her name.

"What about the box you received this morning?"

He had betrayed himself then, he realised. Never before had he acknowledged he had been looking at her more than was seemly.

"Have you been watching me?"

Granger wasn't stupid; she had taken notice of his less than chivalrous behaviour, but she had waited to hear the truth from him when she could simply have made a scene in the hallway. Struck by her discretion, Blaise had almost confessed his sins before years of standing in the shadows had reined him. He had delivered his answer with his customary detachment, cursing inwardly.

"I happened to be observing you, Head Girl," he had said.

Blaise's dilemma had stopped there. He had sworn to himself she'd be out of his head before the month was over, and it hadn't been that hard to avoid her. He would see her in class and when visiting Draco, and apart from those ordinary occurrences, they never crossed paths. Granger didn't visit the oak tree in the colder seasons of the year, a practice Blaise had come to appreciate. Even inside the school, whenever he felt his eyes stray in her direction, he would look away and think about something else. Quidditch worked, but his DADA teacher was a fine distraction too.

Because of his new self-assurance, he was walking towards his meeting with Professor Mackintosh with his head held up high. The professor had asked Blaise's father's permission to study his son; apparently, researchers had tried to reproduce the alatum gene with zero effect, and Professor Mackintosh was eager to inspect a genuine angel-shifter. To Blaise, it meant an awful lot of late Wednesday nights.

"You ready, Mister Zabini?" the teacher asked from his chair at the far end of the empty classroom.

Blaise stared at him and considered that the situation looked ridiculous, but he spread his wings with as much grace as he could muster, only to fight back a snort at the man's look of amazement. Professor Mackintosh started circling him in a hurry; he took notes every five seconds and asked questions non-stop.

"Doesn't hurt, does it?"

"Not at all."

He wrote it down in his notebook.

"How high can you go?"

Blaise pondered this. "Not as high as an aircraft, that's for sure."

"Aircraft?"

He didn't know what to write, puzzlement clear on his young face. Professor Mackintosh was a pure-blood wizard who had obviously never found Muggles interesting; otherwise, how could he not know about their means of travel par excellence? Giulia, on the other hand, had taken to instruct Blaise over the holidays. Beauxbatons called for a two-hour minimum of Muggle Studies – no exceptions – and trips into Muggle cities. Needless to say, Blaise's grandparents in Italy were not over-enthusiastic about the school plan; the Zabinis were a respectable wizarding family, pure-blood to the core.

"Mister Zabini? I think it's time to go," Professor Mackintosh said, waking him from his reverie.

He retracted his wings and put his shirt on, eager to leave the room that now looked too tiny and too dark for his tastes. He had half his mind set on calling in on Draco as he opened the door, but that slammed due to the open window inside the empty classroom and Blaise found himself looking at the body of one Hermione Granger lying on the stone floor.

"Merlin, Miss Granger! Can you stand?"

Professor Mackintosh helped the girl up and her eyes intertwined with Blaise's. His own gaze lowered to her hands and he felt blood drain from his face.

She was clutching a white feather; one of his.

Blaise heard his father's voice rang through his mind. Never show yourself. He had broken the number one rule, hadn't he? Or so it seemed, for the brightest witch of his age stood in front of him and she wouldn't take a random feather off the ground for no reason.

She must know. Dread filled his heart and soul; he neither noticed the Head Girl leaving nor Professor Mackintosh wishing him goodnight and departing. His alarm at being discovered was rapidly becoming a maniacal train of thought on how to restore the status quo.

[1] gula, gulae: gluttony, or selfishness in Latin.