Title: Concerning Invisibility Cloaks

Summary: Professor Trelawney is in charge of Valentine's Day this year. What happens when she bewitches roses to lead you to your soul mate? (Slash)

Genre(s): Fluff, Slash, Romance

Books Referenced: None in particular

Warning(s): Contains slash.

Disclaimer: Not mine. *points to JKR* Hers.

A/N: I've finally worked more on the story! Go me! So, sorry to do this again, but if you've read the story already, you may need to reread it since I've changed it a small bit and tweaked a few things.

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Blaise Zabini snuck off to the washrooms on the second floor of the castle, completely aware of Draco Malfoy following him. He entered one of the stalls and rummaged around in his bag, pulling out a silvery Invisibility Cloak. Just as he threw it on and crawled out under the stall door, Draco entered the washroom. Blaise ducked out of the door as it swung shut. He smiled as he listened to the faint sounds of the blonde Slytherin searching the stalls, then cursing as he realised Blaise had escaped; it was just too easy to manipulate predictable people. Blaise was known throughout the school as a gossipmonger and he knew that Draco knew it – that was why Draco was following him.

Blaise continued down a corridor with the Invisibility Cloak on. He found himself suddenly at the end of a hall, staring at a painting of a lady in pink. Blaise was about to turn to go back the way he came when the painting swung slowly away from the wall and several dozen students emerged from a hole behind it. The students were wearing red and yellow scarves. *Gryffindors,* Blaise thought, smiling to himself. *What luck some people have!*

As the last people exited the hole, Blaise scuttled forward and squeezed through as the portrait hole closed. After walking down a short stone tunnel, he emerged into a round oak room paneled with highly polished oak. All around were squashy armchairs, heavily upholstered in red with gold trim and a crackling fire danced merrily in a fireplace on one side of the room. Blaise spotted a stairway on the far side of the room and crept carefully toward it. So intent was he on getting to the stairs that Blaise stepped on a pile of 'Witch Weekly' magazines. The glossy magazines slid out from under him. Blaise went down hard. From above his head, he heard an annoyed 'meow'.

"Crookshanks!" came a voice. Blaise look up at the speaker and saw that it was Potter's bushy-haired Mudblood friend. He held his breath and clutched the Cloak tighter as two hands reached down and gently picked up the cat. "What are you doing down here? You're supposed to be in the dormitory! Come on, then, back upstairs with you!" The voice faded as she walked toward the stairway. Blaise let out the breath he had been holding, picked himself up off the floor and continued toward the stairs.

As he reached the landing, he collided straight into the girl coming down the stairs. Blaise cursed inwardly and fled up the stairs opposite the ones the girl had been coming down; he hoped they led to the Boys' Dormitory. The girl he had bumped into stood staring after him, nonplussed.

"Harry?" she asked. Blaise ignored her and ducked into the door at the top of the stairs. After all, the girl knew he was there already; there was no point in pretending he wasn't. Blaise yanked off the Cloak and slid down the door to sit on the floor, breathing heavily.

"So....Potter's got a cloak too, has he?" he said to himself. "Best let the Mudblood think I'm Potter and be done with it." Blaise let himself catch his breath for a moment, then stood up. Moving from bed to bed, he finally located Potter's. "Alohamora," Blaise whispered, unlocking the trunk at the end of the bed. After rifling through it and taking note of the numerous dragon sketches, he closed the trunk and locked it with his wand.

Next, Blaise crept carefully out of the dormitory and into the girls' one. He knew that the bushy-headed girl usually carried a lot of books around, so he searched for the trunk with a lot of books in it. Once he found it, he rifled through that trunk, too. Just as Blaise was about to give up and leave, a small scarlet book in the corner of the trunk caught his eye. Blaise picked it up and opened it to the bookmarked page.

"Artists often use common symbolism to represent hidden desires. Dragons often symbolise the masked desire for change, often change that once done cannot be undone. So that's what's with Potter and the dragons. Isn't that cute? Looks like a little Gryffindor is in love with a Slytherin." Blaise smiled wryly and replaced everything he had moved. Picking up his cloak and throwing it around him, Blaise left the room. Fortunately, he managed to get out of Gryffindor Tower without any further mishaps.

***

Ten minutes later, Blaise was back in the Slytherin dungeons, reviewing all the information he had collected. A noise from the doorway drew him out of his thoughts. Standing in the doorway was Draco.

"Where've you been?" asked the blonde Slytherin. "You were gone all evening."

"I've been doing research," replied Blaise coolly, aware of the suspicion etched subtly on Draco's face.

"Yeah?" Draco asked, a bit too casually. "This research included going into washrooms and disappearing, does it?" Blaise arranged his face into a practised look of polite confusion.

"I'm sorry," he said, "but I've not been to the washroom since breakfast, and I believe you were with me at the time." (A/N: NOT like that....unless you want. ^_~) Blaise stood and drew the shutters closed around his bed. "Why do you ask?"

"Idle curiosity," Draco replied with an equally practised smile. "You know it's time for dinner, right? Let's go on down for dinner; I'm hungry."

"Okay," said Blaise, moving toward the door. Draco began to head out, then turned back toward the room.

"You go on down, I need to grab a library book. I'll be down in a moment." Blaise shrugged and went down the stairs. As soon as he was gone, Draco rolled his eyes and turned to Blaise's bed. Draco had not missed how Blaise had closed the shutters when Draco glanced over to Blaise's bed before. The boy was obviously hiding something. Draco touched the shutters. There was a 'click' as an un-openable lock locked itself. Draco removed his hand and the lock unlocked.

"Clever, Zabini," Draco said to himself. He walked over to his own bed and withdrew his broomstick from his trunk. He mounted it and rose to the ceiling. Draco flew to the bed, hovered upside down over it, and dropped onto the bed. "But not clever enough."



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TBC