Disclaimer: Spoilers - I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.


Chapter 37

Harry was angry. He was angry at Draco for entering their lives at all, Hermione for getting involved with Draco, and Snape for being himself. He was still angry with Dumbledore for the things he'd put him through in the past; and now for continuing to look so apologetic every time they saw one another. He even felt anger at Ginny and Ron for not understanding his anger. Then, as he put his books in his bag and began to head up to lunch, Harry realized he would have to sit at the same table as the best friend of his worst enemy and felt the anger rise like bile in his throat.

Initially, he and Blaise had made a pact to avoid confrontation at meals by not speaking unless forced to do so. Unfortunately, their forced closeness and all the time they spent in the Head's Room together soon made that pact unrealistic and they found themselves talking, reluctantly about school issues, the students at their table, and classes. It hadn't been as difficult as Harry had thought it would be, as Blaise was as intelligent as he was stubborn and they often helped each other with difficult class assignments. As intelligent people they found it mutually beneficial to collaborate over meals rather than fight.

But, after having witnessed Draco and Hermione's confessions to one another, Harry didn't think he could handle sitting with Blaise and pretending like life was perfectly fine. Blaise's dislike of Hermione was as strong as Harry's of Draco. It was the one subject each avoided around the other and the one thing Harry knew they wouldn't be able to talk around that day. With a beleaguered sigh, he slung his bag up on his shoulder and turned to the door, where he found himself facing Blaise. What he saw in the other man's face shocked the anger out of him.

Blaise looked defeated, beaten and sad.

Harry swallowed and took one step towards the darker man. "Um, time for lunch. You coming?"

Blaise shook his head, "No, I…not hungry." He moved towards the door and said over his shoulder, "Potter, do you ever feel like…never mind."

Harry asked, "What?" although he was unsure if he really wanted to know the question.

Blaise turned and looked at him for a long moment before he sighed, "Nothing. Just tired."

They both walked out of the classroom and silently started their trek up the dungeon stairs. Harry couldn't ignore the look he saw on Blaise's face and decided to try again. He thought he knew what Blaise was feeling, as he'd felt it too often himself.

Harry didn't turn his head as he asked, "Do I ever feel like I have no control over my life and no idea how I lost that control?"

When Blaise didn't answer, Harry continued, "Do I ever feel like there are days I want to scream until everyone and everything starts making sense again?"

Blaise released a small grunt and Harry, encouraged, continued, "Do I ever feel like everything would be perfect if everyone would just stop doing things that piss me off?"

Blaise finally joined the conversation as they reached the top of the steps, "Yeah. I mean, I know things have changed, I know things are, I guess, better. But, why does it have to get rubbed in my face? Why can't people just leave things well enough alone for a while?"

"Exactly!" Harry nodded.

Blaise pushed open the door to the Great Hall and continued with his voice pitched so only Harry could hear in keeping with their promise to not fight at meals. "I just got my head wrapped around the whole war and all that shit and now I have to deal with my best friend being in an unholy, unnatural relationship with that, that…HER!"

Harry sat down next to him and said, "Hey, watch it! That's MY best friend you're talking about."

"Whatever, Potter!" Blaise rolled his eyes. "You don't like it any more than I do."

"True, but only because I can't see what a witch with so many options open to her sees in your ferret-faced, freak of a friend."

"Now you watch it, Potter," Blaise hissed. "She's lucky he would give her the time of day. She's a disaster!"

"Oh really?" Harry asked in a hushed voice. "I've seen you looking at her, Zabini. She may be like a sister to me, but I'm a bloke, too. Disaster, my ass."

"Just shut it," Blaise snapped.

Harry shook his head with a small laugh and attacked his sandwich. If only Hermione knew. Harry shook his head as he realized the anger he'd held onto for so long had somehow abated a bit. Just having someone agree with him, even in a partial way, made him feel a bit better. He still didn't like Draco, and the thought of Hermione throwing her love away on someone like him, sickened Harry. But still, he felt better, lighter. The anger he'd carried around like a banner had dissipated and for the first time in weeks he felt he could breathe again.

He glanced up at the Head Table and saw Professor Dumbledore looking back at him in question. And, for the first time since school began, Harry smiled at his former mentor.

xxxxxx

"It seems he has finally found some peace," Professor Snape said softly to the wizened wizard next to him.

"I think so," Professor Dumbledore answered with a nod, as he looked back down at his plate.

"One would think you were unhappy with this turn of events," Snape pressed. "Is it not what you have wanted all year?"

Dumbledore sighed as he nodded, "It is. And, I hope it continues. Merlin knows he has been through…I have put him through too much."

"As you used to tell me," Snape answered without looking in Dumbledore's direction, "Sometimes things happen as they are supposed to, no matter how much we wish them otherwise. Perhaps it was his fate to go through all he has, to become the person he is to become, as it was mine to lose what I did to make it possible."

Professor Lupin, who sat on Snape's left, joined the conversation uninvited, "I should document this date. You almost sounded like you didn't hate Harry there for a moment. Don't compare yourself to him!"

"Remus!" his wife Tonks admonished. "Don't start."

Snape sniffed and sat back to fold his arms over his chest as he glared at the man beside him. "As we were having a private conversation, I do not see where anything I have to say is of concern to you, werewolf!"

"Severus!" Dumbledore warned from his right.

"Piss off, you great bat!" Remus grunted.

"You are the one who entered my conversation, without invitation I say again, so I believe it is you who should…piss off, as you say!" Snape hissed.

"Why are you watching Harry?" Remus pressed, his eyes relaying his protectiveness of his friends' only son. "He has done nothing to you!"

"I don't answer to you!"

Remus moved forward until his nose was almost touching Snape's hawkish one and growled, "He is my family. Anything that concerns him, concerns me."

Professor Dumbledore decided it was time to intervene, "Stop this now. Students are watching. Severus, let it go. Remus, drop it."

When both men huffed and sat back from one another, Dumbledore continued quietly. "For different reasons we all care about him in our own ways. No, don't deny it, Severus; it is too late for that. Just as Harry is starting to find some peace in his life, I think it is time we do the same. We can't change the past, not the near past nor long past, and it is time we all stop living as if we could. We have preached to the students that now is the time for change, for new beginnings. It is time for us to all stop pretending and start doing as we have asked them to do. Change must begin with us."

Both Remus and Severus rolled their eyes and looked away, but Dumbledore knew they'd heard his words and would heed them.

"Just think on what I have said," he smiled and turned back to his own meal.

xxxxxx

"He said it in front of the whole class?" Pansy asked in shock from the girls' table across the room.

Ginny nodded dreamily, "It was so sweet. Hermione was crying and smiling. She just looked so happy."

"Maybe the smoke got to him," Luna said as she forked up her salad. "It's a proven fact that certain vapors can cause your brain to malfunction."

"Luna!" Ginny admonished. "I'm sure it wasn't the fumes that made him tell her he loved her."

"Hmmm," Luna answered nonplussed.

Pansy rolled her eyes at Luna and then turned to Ginny, "How did Ron and Harry take it? What did Blaise do?"

Ginny spooned some soup and shrugged, "Harry and Ron? As well as can be expected, I guess. I mean, Ron was fine with it. He didn't even seem to care all that much. And, Harry…well, he's not happy about it, but he didn't lose it or anything."

"That's an improvement," Pansy smiled. "I would have thought he'd try to hex Draco."

"I'm sure he wanted to, but he's sticking to his word. He promised Hermione a week ago that he wouldn't interfere or say anything against them. And, he swore on their friendship that he wouldn't start any more fights with Draco, as long as Draco doesn't start anything with him."

"And, Blaise?"

Ginny shrugged again, "He didn't do anything, so that's something. He looked like he wanted to hex them both into oblivion, but they left too quickly for him to get to do it."

"I would assume he values his Head position more than he wants to keep his old ways alive, as it's something he can hold onto that's his, not just a vague theory. He may not like the way things have changed, but he'll have to accept things eventually." Luna said in her far off voice, even though she looked at neither of her companions as she spoke.

Pansy shook her head a little as if to clear it, "You are so brilliantly strange some days, Luna."

When Luna simply nodded knowingly, Ginny laughed lightly, "I guess modesty is not a Ravenclaw quality."

Luna shrugged and Pansy laughed a little, "Did you, in your wildest dreams, ever think we'd be sitting here like this, Gin? I mean, we're all friends now, I'm not marrying Draco and I'm dating your brother. Hermione "know-it-all, poster girl for the light side" Granger is with Draco "I'm the pureblood dark magic mascot" Malfoy. The boys are all civil to one another. Heck, Theo and Harry are like soul mates or something some days. And, the other day I found Greg and Ron in the library playing wizard's chess like they'd been doing it for years! Even Millie's eased up since she's started dating Greg. Who would have thought it?"

Ginny shook her head in wonder, but before she could answer, Luna re-entered the conversation.

Her voice held a hint of otherworldliness as she said, "Sometimes from the biggest trials and pains, come acceptance and love, life's biggest gains."

Then she shrugged and went back to eating as if she hadn't spoken. Neither of her companions knew what to say and simply stared at her in wonder.

xxxxxx

"What I meant, Quirkie, was I wonder if you want the honor of me taking you to the Halloween ball."

Orla "Quirkie" Quirke, a pretty sixth year Ravenclaw raised an eyebrow at the Head Boy as they stood outside of the Divination classroom and waited for class to start. Then she laughed in his face, "The ball is in three days, Beans. Thank you so much for asking, at the positively very last possible minute, but I do have a date already. Wait? You don't have a date?!"

He crossed his arms and looked down his nose at the girl, "I was narrowing down my options."

"Oh, come off it, Beans. We've known each other since we were babies. I can read you like a book remember?"

When he simply rolled his eyes and looked away from her, she continued, "You know, if I saw you that way, I would say you were nice-looking enough. We both know you're pretty smart. You've got money. You used to be quite the catch. Now, now you're just pissing it all away. You're letting your anger get the best of you. And, you're acting like a ruddy first year Hufflepuff wearing your damn heart on your sleeve all the time like this!"

Blaise huffed and started to interrupt, but she poked him in the chest and continued, "You know you did this to yourself, right? All this pigheaded carrying on you've been doing. For cripe's sake why can't you let it go? You're fine. Your mom is fine. Heck, my father says she's already planning to marry her muggle boyfriend. Everyone is trying to forget all that…unpleasantness from last year, and all you do is walk around like the poster boy for bringing back that dark magic maniac!"

"I do not!" he answered heatedly. "I just don't see why I have to change just because all of you got brainwashed over the summer!"

Hermione leaned back against the wall with a heavy sigh. She'd gone up the stairs to deliver a message to Professor Trelawney from Professor Sprout. But, as she'd been about to round the corner to the classroom she'd heard hushed voices and stopped. It wasn't so much nosiness, as much as habit from a year spent sneaking around looking and listening for clues. She winced at the venom in Blaise's voice and stood still to await the rest of the conversation.

"I was NOT brainwashed, you idiot!" Orla hissed as she slapped his arm.

"Stop that!" Blaise flinched. "And, you were, too. You, Greg, Theo, Pansy, even Draco! You're all acting like this is the way things are supposed to be; like Dumbledore was right or something."

"First of all, you knew how I felt about things before that stupid war. You knew I never had anything against non-purebloods."

Blaise nodded, but persisted, "Okay, yeah, but you still hated Granger and her lot and all their happy bullshit."

Orla sighed, "Not really, Blaise."

"You did!"

"No, I didn't. I don't like Hermione Granger. That's it. I have nothing against the rest of them. Never did."

"See! You hate that mudblood bitch as much as I do!" He crowed triumphantly.

Hermione, still standing around the corner felt like she'd been slapped. Tears welled in her eyes and she swallowed to hold back the sniffle that threatened to give away her hiding place.

"First, don't ever say that repulsive word near me again or you will have lost the last friend you seem to have. Second, as she is not a dog in any way, I will ask you to not compare her to one!" Orla snapped at him.

Blaise was shocked, "But? But, you said…"

"I said that I, Orla Quirke, don't like her, Hermione Granger. I didn't say or imply that I didn't like anyone because of something as stupid as their blood. It's all the same color when you're bleeding on the floor! I didn't say I didn't agree with what they fought for last year. And, I didn't say I thought Professor Dumbledore was wrong! And, I will thank you to not put words in my mouth. My issues with her have to do with her wasting that brilliant mind on a bunch of useless nitwits, such as her Gryffindor friends. She had such potential. She could have been one of the greatest minds of our time. She could have solved life's greatest mysteries. She could have taken Ravenclaw to a whole new level! But, no, she allowed her brain to be used like a communal library by that Order group and those buffoons she calls friends. And then she entered into that base, disgusting war like a common person!"

Blaise stepped back a bit from the girl's anger, "Well, she was kind of fighting for her life, Quirkie."

"And? What gave her the right to risk that mind?"

"Well, it is hers," he shrugged.

"Are you defending her actions?!" Orla hissed.

"No, no. But Quirkie, she didn't really have a choice. She would have been killed," he explained carefully. He hadn't seen his friend let loose her anger in a long while and it unnerved him.

"And, what about allowing herself to be used! Like a damn library book!" Orla snapped.

Blaise was completely boggled, "She was strategizing for them. I would've thought you would understand that."

Orla stepped closer and poked his chest, "So what? Just because she was doing it for a greater good gives her the right to risk destroying all that potential?"

Blaise stepped back and shrugged, "Well, yeah."

Orla persisted, "Are you trying to tell me that just because she was doing what she thought was right, I should not hate her?!"

Blaise, tired of being pushed and poked bit out, "Yes, dammit. That's what I'm saying. Now, stop poking me!"

He watched as she stepped back and smiled triumphantly up at him. She then reached down to pick up her bag, "Point made."

Before he could respond, the door to the classroom opened and Professor Trelawney beckoned them into the room. Orla was through the door in a blink along with the rest of the students and Blaise was left standing alone in the hall with his mouth still hanging open. Or, so he believed until he heard a sound at the corner. When he looked he saw a long brown curl caught on the stone wall.

With a heavy sigh he said, "Do you always stick that bushy head of yours into other people's business, Granger? How very Slytherin of you."

He heard her gasp before she stepped out from around the corner. He noticed her flushed face and wondered how much she'd heard.

Then instead of looking sheepish as he expected, Hermione raised her chin proudly and said, "Draco must be rubbing off on me."

Blaise opened his mouth to retort, but realized she'd stolen his line and snapped it closed. The respect for her that he'd kept a tight rein on all year fluttered up once again and he smiled a bit at her before he turned away. With a shake of his head he walked into the room before he let loose the chuckle that threatened to escape.

xxxxxx

"And, then he almost laughed!"

Draco smirked at the look of shock on his girlfriend's face, "Are you going to be okay?"

"I'm serious, Draco!" Hermione snapped. "He smiled. AND, he almost laughed. It was like we had a…a moment or something."

Draco slung an arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer. They sat near the lake hidden from view by a large grouping of trees. It had been his idea to go outside for a walk after supper as it was a nice, warm night, and with winter coming there wouldn't be too many more like it. "Don't be so devastated, luv. He couldn't go on hating you forever, now could he?"

Hermione ignored him as she continued, "It was all just so strange. I mean, I've always known Orla didn't like me, but I had no idea why. I thought it was because she's a pureblood and I'm not, but now…"

"But, now you realize there are thousands of reasons to not like you, other than your blood," Draco laughed.

"Would you stop making jokes!" she demanded. "This isn't funny!"

Draco shook his head at her and took her hand in his, "Would you calm down. And, yes, it is."

Hermione tried to pull her hand away, but he held on tightly, "What exactly do you find so bloody funny about any of this?!"

"Oh, I don't know. How about the fact that you're more affronted that she doesn't like you because of your brain, than because of your birth? Or, the fact that Blaise is starting to finally come around and that's flipping you out? Or, the thing that I find the most amusing; that you're upset that a mere Ravenclaw could get through Blaise's thick skull in one reverse psych talk, while you with all of your many speeches couldn't."

Hermione succeeded in pulling her hand away and crossed her arms petulantly, "Stop acting like you know me so well! And, none of that is funny!"

Draco smiled, but held back his laugh. He thought it was all pretty funny, but he knew pushing her would only make things worse. She absolutely hated being wrong and it never failed to tick her off when things didn't go exactly as she'd planned. She was, without a doubt, a control freak. But, he loved that about her.

"Well, I do know you," he smirked. But, when her eyebrow rose imperiously he added, "Aw, come on Hermione, stop pouting. At least he's thinking about it now, regardless of who made it so. That's a good thing, right?"

"Of course, but…" she started.

He continued, "And, there will always be people who don't like other people for a wide variety of reasons, good and bad. At least Quirkie's honest in her dislike of you wasting that brain of yours."

"I am not wast…"

"And, who cares what she, he or anyone thinks of you. Isn't that what you're always telling me?"

"Well, yes, but…"

"So, now we can stop talking about them and talk about us."

Hermione blinked at his bright smile and shook her head. It was always during their disagreements when she was reminded how very Slytherin he could be. He wasn't cruel with it anymore, but he still maintained his way of twisting words around so they worked in his favor.

Besides, she reminded herself, he was actually right.

"Fine," she sighed as she lay back on the ground and looked up at the stars. "But, Draco, should I go talk to him or something?"

"No," he answered as he stretched out on his side next to her and put his hand on her stomach.

"No?" she asked, her eyes wide and shining in the moonlight.

"No," he smiled. "Blaise needs to think this through on his own, just like the rest of us did. He's getting there, but don't push him."

"I wasn't going to push, I was just…"

"Going to push," he answered with a small laugh. To soften the remark, he gave her a quick, soft kiss, "Love, you know I love the way you take charge of things. And, more often than not, it helps get things done. But, I also know Blaise. Just leave it okay?"

Hermione looked up at his light eyes, realized his sincerity and sighed, "Okay."

"Good," he smiled. Then his smile turned to a playful leer, "Now, can we get off the topic of Blaise and get on to more pleasurable things?"

She giggled as his hand slid up her stomach and his thumb moved back and forth under her right breast. "What exactly did you have in mind?"

"I can think of a thing or two," he laughed.

xxxxxx

Author's Responses: You are all too good to me, but oh so good for me! Thank you.

Yes, the next chapter starts the M-Stuff. For those who asked about where to find the more mature version of the upcoming chapters, you can thank TBLUNT for providing an excellent answer. :-D "For those who asked about affnet, google adult fan fiction, enter the site, choose the harry potter section on the left, then across the top run your mouse over Member tools and choose search, then enter Harryginny4eva and search, she's the top author of the 2 it will list."

Rebecca: Thank you, hon! Sorry Snape ruined the mood, but they are going to get over it rather quickly. lol

Laendra: Thank you. I am glad you are still enjoying it.

Dracosfan: Your writing is fine and I thank you for reading and reviewing. That was quite a compliment, thank you.