A/N: I'm really spoiling you guys with all these updates. But your reviews are like crack - I want them so bad that I just have to keep going!

After a terrible night's rest, Blaise was still pissed.

He was so, so pissed.

Draco Malfoy really did seem to have it made this year.

Blaise got a very, very small amount of satisfaction from knowing that all these special privileges were actually working against Draco in the long run…but it was a very, very small amount. After all, that little shit got to enjoy all these perks while being blissfully ignorant of the big picture.

He knew Draco had left for a weekend trip with 'special permission' once this year for his mother's birthday, but he didn't realize that the dumbfuck actually got to leave whenever his mum asked for him, even if was just for lazy Sunday tea. That was a ludicrous privilege. If Blaise didn't know the circumstances he would have filed a formal complaint against the school.

Blaise glared at everyone he walked past on his way to breakfast.

When he spotted Malfoy at the Slytherin table in the Great Hall he was tempted to turn around and leave. But he didn't. He just glared at the badge pinned to the front of the robes with absurd intensity.

"What's wrong with you?" Draco asked him as he sat down across from Pansy (who looked ridiculous, for she'd recently taken it upon herself to examine Draco's split ends).

"Headache," he grunted, giving the Head Boy badge another death glare before grabbing a piece of toast.

"Pity. Well, as I was saying, I was halfway through my Transfiguration essay when some stupid Hufflepuff tripped and spilled his ink bottle all over my parchment!"

"How terrible! Did you hex him?" Pansy cooed, still examining the ends of Draco's hair.

"No, that vulture of a librarian was watching. I just took ten points off instead."

"I would have taken more than that. You know that sixth year Hufflepuff, Shelby White? Well, that bitch had the nerve to tell me my hair-"

"That's great, but back to me…"

Blaise stopped listening. He needed new friends.

He glanced over to the Gryffindor table. Granger was chatting animatedly with Potter. She was a weird one, for sure.

Her whole plan seemed wholly unsafe. He'd agreed to it in the heat of anger, not stopping to think how stupid it all was. Did she really think it was a good idea for someone like her to just sneak into a giant Death Eater ball? The girl was supposed to be smart and this plan reeked of stupidity.

Seeming to sense his train of thought, the Head Girl suddenly looked directly at him, raising an eyebrow at catching him watching him. He just shook his head and went back to his toast.

He was going to have to convince her to abandon this plan.

Suddenly feeling like it was very urgent to do just that, he looked back at Granger in the hopes of catching her eye. It was his lucky day – after a few seconds, she looked back at him, and he pretended to scratch his ear while jerking his head the slightest bit in the direction of the doors. Without waiting for her response, he uttered an obligatory bye to his housemates and strode out of the Great Hall.

The Entrance Hall was currently empty, but Blaise didn't fancy his friends walking out of breakfast to find him in deep conversation with a girl they all hated, so he stalked off to the farthest corner, just right of a staircase.

He wasn't surprised when Granger came into the Entrance Hall a few moments later. Unfortunately, she wasn't stupid enough to miss the hint and save him from what was surely going to be an argument. It took her a few moments, but she finally spotted him in his shadowy corner.

"What?" She hissed, stepping into the shadows with him, nervously looking over her shoulder.

"Your plan sucks, that's what."

Granger's mouth fell open.

"I'm serious. It's a terrible idea."

"It is not a terrible idea!" She said, puffing up indignantly.

"Yeah, it is. Well, at least for you it is," he said, scowling down at her.

"Why, because it's dangerous? You have no idea how many dangerous situations I've been in. I think I can handle myself."

"This is different-"

"How?"

Blaise blinked down at her as if she were highly stupid. "Because it's the Malfoy Manor, that's why."

Blaise sharply looked over head, his heart skipping as he saw Crabbe and Goyle exiting the Great Hall. Not wanting to be seen, Blaise grabbed Granger's arm and pulled her with him under the staircase. "Crabbe and Goyle" he muttered at her.

She looked at appalled at just having been roughly pulled under a staircase by a Slytherin, but didn't say anything. She glared at him as she shook her arm out of his hand.

Waiting until he heard Goyle's guffaws retreating down the passage towards the dungeons, Blaise went on the attack again. "Think of a new plan."

"No," she shot back immediately.

"You don't understand, this place is seriously dangerous for muggleborns-"

"No, you don't understand. Listen, Zabini: you have no idea what I've done."

Blaise glared down at her. She glared back. "Granger, this is diff-"

"It is not different. I know what I'm doing, okay? So stop trying to talk me out of it!" She looked as if she were barely able to keep her voice down. She looked like she was almost insulted that he thought it was too dangerous, and she was glaring at him even more fiercely than she already had been.

"Fine," Blaise ground out. He glared back at her, vaguely aware of the rush of air against his neck as she breathed in relief.

"Now that that's settled, I really do need get to class," Granger said, immediately reverting to nose-in-the-air form. "Oh, and don't forget to get yourself invited to that stupid ball. It would be really annoying if I had to put up with all of your whining only to have you drop the ball."

Blaise glared at her she haughtily sniffed in disdain and pushed past him to briskly walk across the Hall.

Stupid Gryffindor.

Feeling as if he'd just wasted a good ten minutes of his life, Blaise stormed out from under the staircase towards the dungeons, rubbing he neck as he went.

"They're dead. They don't stand a chance. I mean, you almost want to ask why the hell they're even bothering to get involved, don't you?"

Harry snorted at Ron's blasé speech about the pointlessness of the Hufflepuff Quidditch squad.

"Ron, just because they're not as good as we are doesn't mean you have to put them down like that," Hermione scolded, throwing Ron a condescending look over her Ancient Runes book.

"Come on, Hermione! They're dreadful – worse than usual, I mean."

Hermione rolled her eyes at him and went back to her book.

"I feel like you've been reading that same page for hours now," Harry said, giving Hermione a quizzical look.

Hermione silently cursed. Was Harry usually this observant? She really had been looking at the same page for quite awhile now – her thoughts were all on her plan to crash a Death Eater ball, not Ancient Runes.

"Yeah, we're covering some really hard material," Hermione fibbed quickly, using her book to hide her reddening face.

"That sucks," Ron said, looking delighted at the idea of Hermione not breezing through her homework for once.

"Yeah, it's pretty hard," Hermione replied, an idea quickly forming in her mind. "We have this huge project due next month, and it's going to be the death of me, I swear!" Sighing dramatically (or at least she hoped), she put her book down to massage her temples.

"I'd offer you help, but I honestly don't think I'd be able to help all that much," Harry said sheepishly, not looking one bit sorry that he would be unable to help her.

"Thanks, I think. The worst part is the amount of research we have to do! I've already checked out as many books as you're allowed, and Pince is breathing down my neck to make sure I don't stay in the library past curfew."

"How does your teacher expect everyone to get the work done if you need more books than you're allowed to check out?" Harry asked, being annoyingly astute again.

"Oh, well, you know me. I like to make sure everything is right," Hermione lied, throwing in a self-deprecating shrug for good measure. "It's just annoying that curfew of all things is threatening to derail my work – if I could just get a few late nights in the library I'm sure I wouldn't be worrying as much."

"You know, you could stay as late as you want, if you ask nicely," Harry whispered conspiratorially, sending Hermione a wicked grin. Ah, just the reaction she'd been hoping for!

"Are you sure? I mean, it's kind of trivial…"

"No, really. I don't really need it at the moment. It's all yours!"

Hermione beamed at Harry, feeling a twinge of guilt at having to lie to her friends.

"Granger, we have a problem."

The Head Girl jumped about three feet in the air and nearly fell into the bookcase as Blaise came up and hissed in her ear.

Knowing he'd probably find her in the library since she wasn't in the Head's quarters where he'd been talking to Draco, Blaise had rushed there as soon as he'd finished getting himself invited to the ball.

He knew she probably wanted to scold him for waiting three days to get back to her on progress, but he had no interest in hearing it. He'd been willing to go along with her plan, but there was no way they could do it anymore. No. Way.

"What is it? Are you afraid Dumbledore won't let you go with Malfoy? I already asked about it and said it was fine. Fine for you, of course, because I didn't include the bit about me tagging along," she said quietly, throwing him an annoyed look before scanning the aisle to make sure no one else was around to listen. "Did Malfoy say you couldn't go?"

"No, he said I could go. But there is no way in hell you can go."

"Not this again!" She said, flaring up immediately.

"I'm serious – you can't get in."

She blinked up at him. "Can't get in?"

"That's what I said, isn't it?"

"How can I not get in? Do they have some wards system preventing muggleborns from entering their sodding manor?"

"Something like that. They have wards that identify entering muggleborns through their wands."

Blaise felt a sick sense of satisfaction as worry spread over Granger's face. It really did take a ridiculous level of danger to put her off, didn't it?

"We can still do it," she whispered, straightening her shoulders and looking absolutely resolute in her decision to be stupid.

"Are you shitting me, Granger? You're really going to walk into a Death Eater bash without any sort of weapon to save yourself if you get caught under your stupid cloak?"

"I will have a weapon," she said quietly, her eyes sparkling with insanity. At least that's what Blaise thought it was, because this girl was clearly insane.

"What? What kind of weapon could you possibly have that could replace your wand?" Blaise demanded, thinker her more insane by the second.

"Did Malfoy go to bed?"

"I think so, why?"

"Come with me."

Without waiting for his reply, she took off down the aisle towards the library doors.

Blaise let out a frustrated sigh. There was no way this was going to end well.

Sighing again, he took off after her.

Making sure to keep a healthy distance, Blaise quietly trotted through the halls towards the Head's quarters. She was waiting in front of the portrait hole, annoyingly tapping her foot in impatience.

"Don't give me that, Granger, you know I had to keep some distance."

"Whatever. Wait here, I need to check to make sure Malfoy's in his room. She disappeared through the portrait hole, shutting it behind her.

Blaise couldn't help but feel a bit excited as he stared at the portrait hole, waiting for it to open again. He really was quite curious as to what kind of weapon she could have that made her so confident.

The portrait swung back open. "Come on," she whispered.

Blaise quickly climbed through the portrait hole, nervously glancing at Draco's bedroom door before following Granger towards her room.

This was bizarre. He never would have thought he'd ever venture into Hermione Granger's bedroom. It was all just very weird. Giving himself a mental shake and throwing one last nervous look towards Draco's door, he followed her into her bedroom.

It was indecently organized. Well, he would have expected as much. It was Granger, after all.

She shut the door behind him and cast a silencing charm on the room. "Over here," she said, motioning him over to the chest at the foot of her bed. Blaise felt his adrenaline starting to rise as she kneeled to open the truck.

"See, I've got some cousins in America that are kind of crazy, real hardcore conservative types. My parents went ballistic when they sent me this as a gift, but I persuaded them to let me keep it, 'cause I figured it could come in handy. And Dumbledore already knows I brought it."

Blaise knelt down next to her. Granger was pulling some heavy books out of the trunk and putting them no the floor, which Blaise thought was weird (there was no way her weapon was a heavy sack of books, surely…) until she lifted what he'd previously thought was the bottom of the trunk and also put that on the floor.

He blinked down at what was left in the trunk. It was some type of metal slab with a handle, and there some packs of other metal bits all around it.

"Um, what the hell is that?" Blaise felt his excitement disappear. He didn't know what she was playing at. Was it some type of…heavy stick?

She actually laughed at him. That bitch.

"It's a gun, Zabini."

He sat back on his feet and glared at her. She laughed again. Did glares ever affect this girl?

"It's a Muggle weapon."

"I'd figured that much out, thanks. What does it do?"

"You use to shoot people."

"With what?"

"Bullets."

"What are those?"

"These," she said, reaching into the trunk and pulling out some smallish metal bits.

"What do they do?"

"They go through people."

"Go through people? What are you on about?"

"Yeah, Muggles use them to kill each other all the time. They're really dangerous, actually."

Blaise's mind was spinning. So her plan was to take some type of Muggle metal into Malfoy Manor?

"I don't like it," he said finally, shaking his head and leaning forward to get a better look. "It seems unreliable."

"Unreliable? Just because it's a Muggle weapon?" She bit out harshly.

"Well, yeah, actually," Blaise replied. Giving the gun a dirty look.

"Maybe if you see it in action you'll change your tune," she said acidly, standing up and going to her dresser.

"In action? What the hell are talking about? You're not going to use it on me!" Blaise shot up, backing nervously towards the door.

"No, I'm not going to use it on you," she said, clearly trying not to laugh at him again, pulling something out of her top drawer.

"Well, what are you going to do with it?"

"I'm going to show you how it works."

Blaise stopped backing up and looked suspiciously at the cloak she was holding in her arms. "Is that – is that Potter's cloak? The one you were talking about?"

"Yeah," she replied, picking something leathery looking out of the trunk and strapping it around her waist. She stuck the gun in the pocket hanging on the side and turned towards him, looking a little anxious.

"What now?" He asked nervously.

"Um, we have to go into the forest if you want to see it. Or you could just trust me when I say it's very effective."

Blaise took a minute to think. No, there was no way he was going along with the plan without knowing exactly what that thing did.

"I want to see it."

"Alright. You'll have to get under the cloak with me, though."

A/N: Oooh, what's gonna happen next?

In case you haven't noticed, the chapters are a little longer now that the plot is starting to kick in to a higher gear.

You all know I love reviews. Like I said, crack.