A/N: Guilty pleasures??? GUILTY PLEASURE IS THE PROMPT????? I ALREADY HAVE ENOUGH GUILTY PLEASURES IN THIS STORY!!!!!!

*headdesk*

"You like this stuff. Admit it."

She's right. I really can't lie about this one: Daphne's warm milk concoction is delicious.

"Fine. You win. But it still doesn't beat Honeyduke's chocolate."

She raises an eyebrow. "You know, the more I talk to you, the less you seem like Blaise Zabini. I would have thought that you are obsessed with some exotic chocolate from some strange place like Africa or Finland."

"Actually, Finnish chocolate is delicious. But Honeyduke's is my guilty pleasure. In fact, is there any here?"

An elf, the same one who cleaned up after Daphne when I explained to her the trials of being a man, curtsies, runs away, and returns in a wink with a plate of assorted chocolates. It makes my day.

As the conversation continues, the chocolates disappear as though they've been shrouded by an invisibility cloak. Daphne takes the last one, and somehow catches my fleeting expression of disappointment.

"Oh, get over it. There were at least twenty on this plate, and I had three. You've got some on your chin, you know."

Alarmed, I take a napkin to wipe below my mouth, but nothing comes off.

"Kidding," she laughs. "Bothering you is my guilty pleasure."

I ball up the napkin and throw it at her head, marvelling at how relaxed I feel around her. I've never opened up this way to anyone, even Pansy. Perhaps I have changed. Perhaps Eddie did break me.

I'm still not gay.

"Slughorn's having a Christmas party in three weeks."

"Sounds . . . fun."

"Not really. It's just good for my ego." I'm not even kidding. "We're allowed to take someone, so I was wondering if you'd like to come."

She freezes in the middle of licking her fingers (Daphne never was a lady). Slowly removing them from her mouth, she tries to speak. "Like, er . . . you mean . . . like a date? Wouldn't that bruise your reputation?"

"No one's cursed you for weeks. I think Malfoy's too wrapped up in his own things to bother with attacking me, verbally or otherwise. And it could be a way to sort of . . . practice before my mother's wedding."

Another spoonful reaches her full lips, which I know by now means she's thinking it over. Finally: "I'll do it . . . on one condition."

I hate conditions. "What condition?"

"You have to give up Honeyduke's chocolate until after Christmas break."

I cringe. "Do you know how much chocolate my mother gives me on the holidays?"

"That's what makes it fun."

Daphne Greengrass deserves to be burnt at stake. "So you're still trying to ruin my life."

She beams. "Pretty much."

We're both quiet for a time, and then she speaks into the silence. "What happened between you and Eddie Carmichael?"

I stiffen. "What makes you think something happened?"

"Oh, come on, Blaise. We've been meeting nearly every weekend since November. It doesn't take much to get the logistics of it. You lot broke up."

"We weren't exactly 'together' in the first place."

Her eyes are boring holes into my head. I sigh out loud for the first time since I was ten years old. "I don't know what happened, Daph. I just don't get it."