Sobriety was overrated. The only time I ever really had fun was when I
was drunk, I mused as I tried to find the stairs down to the Slytherin
Common Room. Of course, it normally ended in tears anyway, but it had
never bothered me before. Unfortunately, lack of sobriety was becoming
a problem for me; I no longer recognised the stone walls around me, and
the floor was definitely unfamiliar. But my trusty broom and trunk were
still with me, and in case of emergency, I could always fly out. How
that was possible when I didn't know where I was hadn't managed to
penetrate my momentarily thick scull.
Finally, after almost breaking my nose on the rough stone walls of the castle, I gave up and sat down on the floor, trunk in a depressive heap beside me, and my broom having been abandoned in the hands of a suit of armour some feet away. I sat slumped against the wall, and my alcohol- induced delirium gave way to a more depressive mood. The reality of what had actually happened within the last twelve hours began to sink in, now that I was alone, and it did not leave me anywhere near happiness. I was now, basically, a homeless, broke freak with only a tenuous hold on my magic and my sanity.
I've always despised having to sit alone and hear my thoughts echo, which was all they ever seemed to do, so the light footfalls of someone walking down the corridor was more than welcome. Even if it was Filch I'd love him for it. But around the corner came not the flaming torch of of the caretaker, but a tiny hand holding a fluttering candle. The hand was closely followed by an arm and a body wearing the school uniform, with a Prefect's badge pinned to it, to which was attached a head with an all too familiar bushy brown hairstyle. It was just my luck that Granger would have rounds when I stumbled drunk and miserable through the castle. Deciding to bite the bullet this time, I didn't even bother trying to think of a story to explain away my sitting there. I was too drunk, too depressed and much too tired to care any more.
"Who - ? Zabini?" She stuttered somewhat, spinning around when she saw my discarded trunk.
"'Lo." I hailed her by tipping and imaginary hat towards her. Come to think of it, I had my real black hat in my trunk. "I would say something about the weather and how nice it is, except that right now, nothing in the world seems nice, so I'll just pass."
"What are you doing here? You're supposed to be in your Common Room, asleep!" Granger pointed out, snapping, "But – you've got your cloak on, and your trunk, and your broom. What the heck is going on? Why do you reek of alcohol? Are you drunk, Zabini?"
All this came out in a flurry of speech, as she spun around, taking in everything; discarded trunk, thrown-away broom and me on the floor like a thin streak of misery. If it wasn't for the particulars of the situation, I would have smiled. The severe lack of sobriety might have done something too. She finally stopped spinning and I could see her lips move as she put two and two together and did not quite come up with four.
"Zabini, are you running away?" Turned out the came up with the complete opposite of reality. Not too far off, despite that. Only a drunk me could ever see logic in that argument.
"Nope. Have a seat, the floor is quite comfortable," Taking her arm, I pulled her down on the floor. Not even Granger seemed too bad when high on alcohol. "You don't strike me as a daft person, Granger, yet you just showed an amazing amount of dimwittedness. Why should I run away from Hogwarts of all places? This place is more or less my version of a security blanket."
"But, but - "Granger stammered, sitting down weakly, "You've got your trunk, and your broom, and you've got your cloak, and who wears a cloak unless they plan on going outside? You are running away."
"Not away," I said, opening my trunk, "Back. Hat?"
"Hat?" She asked incredulously as I pulled out my black hat from my trunk. "Why do you keep a hat in your trunk?"
"Because it's a friendly hat." I replied, putting it on her head, noticing with a certain drunken satisfaction that it made her look rather wilder than she was. "There, looks smashing I'd say. You look, what do you call it, elvish. Nah, that's not the right word."
"Zabini, you smell like a brewery," Granger waved her hand in front of her face and winced, "What do you mean, you're running back to Hogwarts?"
"I just came back after visiting my wonderful family." I waved vaguely in the air, "And smelling like a brewery is an after-effect of drinking in a bottle of Firewhiskey. Christmas always makes me depressed. Speaking of, is it still Christmas?"
Granger checked her watch, pushing the hat further up so that it wouldn't slip down and cover her eyes. Distantly, I wondered how she kept a Muggle watch working at Hogwarts, where the natural magic usually cancelled out any Muggle apparatus. It was amazing how good she looked in my hat; it looked as if she was born to wear it it. Firewhiskey is the best way to the completely plastered without nasty side-effects, come to think of it. I had to be plastered; there was no way I'd think Granger looked good otherwise.
"Yes. It's still a few minutes till midnight." She said. "Why?"
"Good! Still time to open presents then!" I started going through my trunk. "I didn't have a chance to open them before, so I'll do it now. Let's start with, here, Millie's."
Millicent had a habit of wrapping my presents in plain white paper, because apparently, it was a Japanese custom, or some other Eastern country, for showing you wanted the receiver dead. It was usually accompanied with a snatch of a morbid poem by Poe. My presents to her were wrapped in black paper with the simple word "Die" on it in white letters. All in jest, of course, but it had become a tradition. I ripped the paper off, and the present revealed itself to be a book. A heavy book, with silver writing on black background.
"I can't believe it! She managed to get me a copy of Twisted Reality!" I was nearly squeaking with excitement. Twisted Reality was the only wizard- written novel I'd ever enjoyed; all other books just seemed autobiographical, all about how the author had had a lot of adventures and was so great. Twisted Reality was just that, and I was probably the only kid in the world who ever read it as a bed-time story when I was ten. "Hope the crystal-plant I sent her will be enough."
"May I?" Granger asked, gesturing to the book.
"Sure; I've read it a million times; go ahead. Everyone should read it at least once." I said, "Oh, look, Pansy got me a wrist-sheath for my wand. How nice. Gaspar got me a textbook. What a surprise." I dead-panned, "If only it was for a subject I took, instead of Practical Application of Divination. Cain got me a small bag of marbles. Original, if nothing else. Hopefully, I'll get an explanation of what I'm supposed to do with them. Agnes gave me a diary. Useful if I need to remember something. Will be checked for hexes, curses and spells later. And now, let's see what kind of animal Theo has drawn this year."
Carefully unwrapping Theo's gift, because I didn't want to rip it, Granger leaned over my shoulder to see what it was. What came out of the wrapping wasn't what I'd expected. Instead of the usual dragons and unicorns, this one was frighteningly simple by comparison. On a plain, white sheet of paper, Theo had drawn my eyes. I could easily tell it was mine, because no one else had one blue and one green eye. What amazed me was the careful attention to detail; in my green eye, I had a speck of black close to the edge of the iris, which he had painstakingly painted in. Granger whispered something, too low for even me to hear, even though she was inches away from my ear.
"My, Theo's skill's improved." I said, after a while. "I think I'll put this up on my wall. Brightens up an otherwise gloomy Christmas, doesn't it?"
"It's beautiful," She replied, apparently not realising that it was my eyes in the picture. "We really shouldn't be out here; Filch doesn't patrol as often over breaks, but he still does, and he'll be turning up any minute now."
She stood up, and I stuffed all my things back in my trunk, though I was exceedingly careful with the picture, and stood up as well, picking up all my discarded belongings. Before I had time to say anything, she'd handed me Twisted Reality and was off down the corridor. I stood there for a moment, smiling, before I turned and walked down the stairs. Always a safe bet when trying to find the dungeons. Sooner or later, I'd find the Common Room.
'
The Common Room was dark and empty; but for Theo's sleeping form, there was nothing there but old furniture and marks of generations passed by. Quietly, I walked up the stairs and dumped my trunk on the floor and my broom on Goyle's bed. The picture of my own eyes was tacked up on the wall, and my cloak thrown in a crumpled heap vaguely in the direction of the clothes pile the House Elves were supposed to remove every morning.
Rubbing my eyes, I yawned so hugely that my jaws popped. It had been a day much too long. Now, back at Hogwarts and finally able to relax somewhat, my hands shook and my muscles cramped. Trying to steady my hands, I slipped out of my shirt and my trousers, and crawled into bed tiredly. No other place could feel as safe as my bed at Hogwarts; the strange silent sound of snow falling and the soft pillows of the bed comforted me more than a whole bottle of Firewhiskey ever could. In the morning, things would be shot to hell, but not now. All I wanted to do now was sleep.
My restless mind took some time settling down, and flitted across a million things. It avoided the topic of my mother, and circled around things such as Vlad's blood on my hands, and Hermione in my hat. She'd looked so cute, and the ease with which she'd watched me open my presents and talked to me was astonishing for a Gryffindor of her degree. In certain ways, she was a bone-deep Gryffindor, in others, she was much different from them. Where they shunned studying unless they had to, she did it for fun, and sometimes it seemed, compulsively. It was as if she had to prove she was good enough to be at Hogwarts, good enough for the likes of Draco Malfoy, better even. The nervous need to show that she wasn't as dumb as all Slytherins said they were was an outbreak of this.
Too many times I'd ridiculed her for it, but I could understand her, in a fashion. Proving oneself and proving how strong you were was a way to win things in the Snake's Den. You could never show just how strong you were, keep them guessing and you were on the safe side, but you couldn't go through seven years here passively. Kick or be kicked, would be a decent metaphor. I imagined the Gryffindor way was similar, but not quite. There, it was be heard or be forgotten. If you kept in the dark, on the sidelines, you would never be more than a name in a yearbook. Hermione Granger was much too proud and much too focused to settle for that. She wanted her name in history books, if only to prove that Muggleborns have the right to attend Hogwarts.
Too bad Slytherin didn't accept Muggleborn in their ranks. She would have made a wonderful Slytherin, as soon as we'd taken the naïve belief that everyone was good deep down out of her. The image of her in Slytherin colours flashed before my mind's eye, and I couldn't keep from smiling. She was the only person I could ever remember liking, outside of Slytherin, that was. The Hufflepuffs were nice, in a safe, secure way, but I didn't know them, nor did I know the Ravenclaws, though they were friendlier to us than other Houses.
The last though before I fled into sleep was that Hermione was on her way to her Common Room, still wide awake if I knew her like I thought I did, and looking out for Filch around every corner.
Still wearing my hat.
Life was good.
'
Theo looked like he hadn't slept very well, which when it came to Theo wasn't unusual, when I came down in the Common Room the next morning. He hailed me with a tired "are-you-back-already" and stood up from the couch. For someone with a terminal sleeping-on-the-couch syndrome, he didn't look too shabby. Most people look as if they've rolled around on a dusty highway and hit every branch of the rumpled tree while falling down, but he didn't. He just looked more tired than when he fell asleep, and there was this unease about him, as if he knew there was something wrong, he just couldn't say what it was.
"Well, don't you look happy," I said as we went to breakfast, "Who died?"
Instead of laughing it off, like I thought he would, he looked even more uneasy.
"I don't know. I had a nightmare last night, which, for me, is not that unusual, but this one was different." He said as we climbed the stairs, "Usually, it's – this one wasn't as personal as the others were." Of course I noticed how he skipped telling me of his other nightmares. I'm not stupid. I wasn't stupid enough to ask, either. "It was as if I was looking through someone else's eyes, and that someone wasn't having a good time. They got very dead."
"I've had dreams like that sometimes, and I'm sure this isn't exactly the first time for you to have one either, so what caused the worry?" Theo worrying about nightmares was unusual, to say the least; most of the time, he just ignored them.
"Everyone's been walking around looking as if they're being stalked by rabid monsters since Lucas came back," He gestured. "When he came back without you yesterday, it seems longer somehow, I got worried. When he told me you'd be coming back on your own, I calmed down a bit, but things have been jumpy since you left. Granger's been climbing on the walls."
"She has?" This surprised me greatly; I was not Granger's favourite person, from what I'd gathered. "Why?"
"Couldn't say. You know she's the only Gryffindor who stayed over Christmas, so of course she's getting jumpy, and when you go away and she doesn't know why, it's only logical she'd assume kidnapping. Dumbledore calmed her down, though it didn't stop her pacing."
"Odd. She caught me when I came back last night. Thought I was running away. If I hadn't been here for, what is it now, three days, then how am I supposed to run away?" I snorted, "Didn't seem so strange then, but then again, I was drunk."
"Must've been Firewhiskey, or you'd be vomiting now," Theo laughed, looking a little happier. "but maybe it's delayed hangover; don't throw up on Granger at breakfast though, or she might hex you."
We walked through the doors of the Great Hall, and the statement of not vomiting on Granger suddenly made sense; in my absence, the House tables had been put along the walls, and a surprisingly small table was left in its wake. Just big enough to fit the staff, Theo and I, Granger, three Hufflepuffs and two Ravenclaws. Lucas was there, talking to Sinistra, who looked as if death might be an improvement, and McGonagall sat silently beside Dumbledore, with new lines on her face. Even the perpetual twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes seemed to have gone missing. Something was wrong.
I sat down in the only available seat, since Theo snatched the one between McGonagall and Sinistra. I got stuck between Lucas and Granger. Just my luck, I sighed to myself as I reached for the coffee pot. Stuck between the girl who probably believed I was stark raving and the man who drove me there. Theo nearly burst out laughing looking at me, and I grimaced in his general direction. Maybe coffee would help matters some. Lucas and Granger certainly weren't. Lucas was cutting his toast into soldiers, seemingly unaware of the rest of the world, while I could practically feel Granger shaking.
Nervous, she was. Must think I was crazy after last night's spectacle. I would, that was for sure. The Hufflepuffs were talking so quietly to each other that no one but a teacher might hear them, and the Ravenclaws looked as if they'd pulled an all-nighter, and were preparing to go to bed after breakfast. I never understood pulling all-nighters just for the heck of it. Staying up all night was something you did when you were going frantic studying for O.W.L's or N.E.W.T's, or when you were just high on sugar.
As breakfast went on, the silence slowly became unbearable. Lucas moved on from his toast to his tea, and with extreme care swirled some milk into it, out most concentrated on his task. Granger struck up a conversation with the Ravenclaws, trying to save herself from the silence, I suppose. There was nothing for me to do but talk to Lucas unless I wanted to go even more mad than I already was.
"Professor?" I queried, trying to get his attention.
"Yes?" He dragged his attention away from his tea.
"We're halfway through the year now, and despite what any healthy and sane student might want, the exams are approaching," I held back a smirk when I heard Granger gasp at my veiled insult. "And I was wondering: you told us at the beginning of the year that you had an exam planned for us that was out of the ordinary. Will we be taking that exam, or a normal textbook one?"
"The Headmaster is still considering, Zabini," Lucas said, looking at said Headmaster in something akin to amusement. "Though I expect that you are all perfectly capable of passing the exam with flying colours. Not that I do not understand his apprehension. The exam is certainly, how shall we say, unconventional."
"Would a list petitioning for an unconventional exam help?" I asked, wondering what exactly he had in mind for us.
"It wouldn't hurt." Lucas shrugged.
Nodding silently, I searched my pockets for a quill and a piece of parchment to write on. The heading became "Protest List for Better Exams" and my name scribbled on in green ink. I liked green ink, even if it was horribly stereotypical. I'd stolen it from Pansy anyway. She never used it; she favoured the lurid purple one for some reason. I passed it to my left, to Granger, along with my quill. I had others. After scanning the beginning to a list, Granger took the quill and resolutely wrote her own name underneath mine, with the same green ink. It felt odd to see her name written in green, since she seemed to red-and-gold through and through. She passed it on to Terry Boot, who was reading it over her shoulder, and twirled my quill between her fingers.
Satisfied with what I'd started, I didn't bother claiming my quill back, and returned to my cup of coffee. Theo raised his eyebrow and nodded towards Granger questioningly. I shrugged and sipped my coffee. Let him wonder. Lucas raised his eyebrow at me as well, and I put on my best hell raising-grin. Starting trouble was a favourite activity of mine.
Breakfast went faster after that, as whispering spread, whispers about the list. Terry signed it, as did Finch-Fletchley, before the list returned to Granger. She took it and after a glance at me, she excused herself and headed out the door, mumbling something about owls. It seemed as if she was sending the list off to her friends to sign, even before they came back to school. Efficient that girl is.
"What was that all about?" Theo asked as we left the Hall.
"Protest list for a different exam than usual." I grinned again. "We don't know what it is, but Lucas promised it would be unconventional. Since conventional calls for three hours of scribbling on dusty parchment, I'd say I'll go for the other option, whatever it is. I don't enjoy boredom."
"I do." Theo looked pensive, "I like boredom. It lasts."
Trust Theo to ruin a perfectly happy moment by stealing my modus operandi and being depressive. Well, he could have it for a moment. I could be depressive tomorrow. Speaking of tomorrow, that would be a good time to reclaim all the things of mine that Granger had at the moment. My hat, for example.
Maybe I'd let her keep it. It would be fun to watch her try to explain its presence to her Housemates.
'
Ending Notes; Blaise is being eeeeeeeeeevil. Well, maybe he doesn't deserve all the extra "e"'s, but he's at least Hellraiser!Blaise at the moment.
Finally, after almost breaking my nose on the rough stone walls of the castle, I gave up and sat down on the floor, trunk in a depressive heap beside me, and my broom having been abandoned in the hands of a suit of armour some feet away. I sat slumped against the wall, and my alcohol- induced delirium gave way to a more depressive mood. The reality of what had actually happened within the last twelve hours began to sink in, now that I was alone, and it did not leave me anywhere near happiness. I was now, basically, a homeless, broke freak with only a tenuous hold on my magic and my sanity.
I've always despised having to sit alone and hear my thoughts echo, which was all they ever seemed to do, so the light footfalls of someone walking down the corridor was more than welcome. Even if it was Filch I'd love him for it. But around the corner came not the flaming torch of of the caretaker, but a tiny hand holding a fluttering candle. The hand was closely followed by an arm and a body wearing the school uniform, with a Prefect's badge pinned to it, to which was attached a head with an all too familiar bushy brown hairstyle. It was just my luck that Granger would have rounds when I stumbled drunk and miserable through the castle. Deciding to bite the bullet this time, I didn't even bother trying to think of a story to explain away my sitting there. I was too drunk, too depressed and much too tired to care any more.
"Who - ? Zabini?" She stuttered somewhat, spinning around when she saw my discarded trunk.
"'Lo." I hailed her by tipping and imaginary hat towards her. Come to think of it, I had my real black hat in my trunk. "I would say something about the weather and how nice it is, except that right now, nothing in the world seems nice, so I'll just pass."
"What are you doing here? You're supposed to be in your Common Room, asleep!" Granger pointed out, snapping, "But – you've got your cloak on, and your trunk, and your broom. What the heck is going on? Why do you reek of alcohol? Are you drunk, Zabini?"
All this came out in a flurry of speech, as she spun around, taking in everything; discarded trunk, thrown-away broom and me on the floor like a thin streak of misery. If it wasn't for the particulars of the situation, I would have smiled. The severe lack of sobriety might have done something too. She finally stopped spinning and I could see her lips move as she put two and two together and did not quite come up with four.
"Zabini, are you running away?" Turned out the came up with the complete opposite of reality. Not too far off, despite that. Only a drunk me could ever see logic in that argument.
"Nope. Have a seat, the floor is quite comfortable," Taking her arm, I pulled her down on the floor. Not even Granger seemed too bad when high on alcohol. "You don't strike me as a daft person, Granger, yet you just showed an amazing amount of dimwittedness. Why should I run away from Hogwarts of all places? This place is more or less my version of a security blanket."
"But, but - "Granger stammered, sitting down weakly, "You've got your trunk, and your broom, and you've got your cloak, and who wears a cloak unless they plan on going outside? You are running away."
"Not away," I said, opening my trunk, "Back. Hat?"
"Hat?" She asked incredulously as I pulled out my black hat from my trunk. "Why do you keep a hat in your trunk?"
"Because it's a friendly hat." I replied, putting it on her head, noticing with a certain drunken satisfaction that it made her look rather wilder than she was. "There, looks smashing I'd say. You look, what do you call it, elvish. Nah, that's not the right word."
"Zabini, you smell like a brewery," Granger waved her hand in front of her face and winced, "What do you mean, you're running back to Hogwarts?"
"I just came back after visiting my wonderful family." I waved vaguely in the air, "And smelling like a brewery is an after-effect of drinking in a bottle of Firewhiskey. Christmas always makes me depressed. Speaking of, is it still Christmas?"
Granger checked her watch, pushing the hat further up so that it wouldn't slip down and cover her eyes. Distantly, I wondered how she kept a Muggle watch working at Hogwarts, where the natural magic usually cancelled out any Muggle apparatus. It was amazing how good she looked in my hat; it looked as if she was born to wear it it. Firewhiskey is the best way to the completely plastered without nasty side-effects, come to think of it. I had to be plastered; there was no way I'd think Granger looked good otherwise.
"Yes. It's still a few minutes till midnight." She said. "Why?"
"Good! Still time to open presents then!" I started going through my trunk. "I didn't have a chance to open them before, so I'll do it now. Let's start with, here, Millie's."
Millicent had a habit of wrapping my presents in plain white paper, because apparently, it was a Japanese custom, or some other Eastern country, for showing you wanted the receiver dead. It was usually accompanied with a snatch of a morbid poem by Poe. My presents to her were wrapped in black paper with the simple word "Die" on it in white letters. All in jest, of course, but it had become a tradition. I ripped the paper off, and the present revealed itself to be a book. A heavy book, with silver writing on black background.
"I can't believe it! She managed to get me a copy of Twisted Reality!" I was nearly squeaking with excitement. Twisted Reality was the only wizard- written novel I'd ever enjoyed; all other books just seemed autobiographical, all about how the author had had a lot of adventures and was so great. Twisted Reality was just that, and I was probably the only kid in the world who ever read it as a bed-time story when I was ten. "Hope the crystal-plant I sent her will be enough."
"May I?" Granger asked, gesturing to the book.
"Sure; I've read it a million times; go ahead. Everyone should read it at least once." I said, "Oh, look, Pansy got me a wrist-sheath for my wand. How nice. Gaspar got me a textbook. What a surprise." I dead-panned, "If only it was for a subject I took, instead of Practical Application of Divination. Cain got me a small bag of marbles. Original, if nothing else. Hopefully, I'll get an explanation of what I'm supposed to do with them. Agnes gave me a diary. Useful if I need to remember something. Will be checked for hexes, curses and spells later. And now, let's see what kind of animal Theo has drawn this year."
Carefully unwrapping Theo's gift, because I didn't want to rip it, Granger leaned over my shoulder to see what it was. What came out of the wrapping wasn't what I'd expected. Instead of the usual dragons and unicorns, this one was frighteningly simple by comparison. On a plain, white sheet of paper, Theo had drawn my eyes. I could easily tell it was mine, because no one else had one blue and one green eye. What amazed me was the careful attention to detail; in my green eye, I had a speck of black close to the edge of the iris, which he had painstakingly painted in. Granger whispered something, too low for even me to hear, even though she was inches away from my ear.
"My, Theo's skill's improved." I said, after a while. "I think I'll put this up on my wall. Brightens up an otherwise gloomy Christmas, doesn't it?"
"It's beautiful," She replied, apparently not realising that it was my eyes in the picture. "We really shouldn't be out here; Filch doesn't patrol as often over breaks, but he still does, and he'll be turning up any minute now."
She stood up, and I stuffed all my things back in my trunk, though I was exceedingly careful with the picture, and stood up as well, picking up all my discarded belongings. Before I had time to say anything, she'd handed me Twisted Reality and was off down the corridor. I stood there for a moment, smiling, before I turned and walked down the stairs. Always a safe bet when trying to find the dungeons. Sooner or later, I'd find the Common Room.
'
The Common Room was dark and empty; but for Theo's sleeping form, there was nothing there but old furniture and marks of generations passed by. Quietly, I walked up the stairs and dumped my trunk on the floor and my broom on Goyle's bed. The picture of my own eyes was tacked up on the wall, and my cloak thrown in a crumpled heap vaguely in the direction of the clothes pile the House Elves were supposed to remove every morning.
Rubbing my eyes, I yawned so hugely that my jaws popped. It had been a day much too long. Now, back at Hogwarts and finally able to relax somewhat, my hands shook and my muscles cramped. Trying to steady my hands, I slipped out of my shirt and my trousers, and crawled into bed tiredly. No other place could feel as safe as my bed at Hogwarts; the strange silent sound of snow falling and the soft pillows of the bed comforted me more than a whole bottle of Firewhiskey ever could. In the morning, things would be shot to hell, but not now. All I wanted to do now was sleep.
My restless mind took some time settling down, and flitted across a million things. It avoided the topic of my mother, and circled around things such as Vlad's blood on my hands, and Hermione in my hat. She'd looked so cute, and the ease with which she'd watched me open my presents and talked to me was astonishing for a Gryffindor of her degree. In certain ways, she was a bone-deep Gryffindor, in others, she was much different from them. Where they shunned studying unless they had to, she did it for fun, and sometimes it seemed, compulsively. It was as if she had to prove she was good enough to be at Hogwarts, good enough for the likes of Draco Malfoy, better even. The nervous need to show that she wasn't as dumb as all Slytherins said they were was an outbreak of this.
Too many times I'd ridiculed her for it, but I could understand her, in a fashion. Proving oneself and proving how strong you were was a way to win things in the Snake's Den. You could never show just how strong you were, keep them guessing and you were on the safe side, but you couldn't go through seven years here passively. Kick or be kicked, would be a decent metaphor. I imagined the Gryffindor way was similar, but not quite. There, it was be heard or be forgotten. If you kept in the dark, on the sidelines, you would never be more than a name in a yearbook. Hermione Granger was much too proud and much too focused to settle for that. She wanted her name in history books, if only to prove that Muggleborns have the right to attend Hogwarts.
Too bad Slytherin didn't accept Muggleborn in their ranks. She would have made a wonderful Slytherin, as soon as we'd taken the naïve belief that everyone was good deep down out of her. The image of her in Slytherin colours flashed before my mind's eye, and I couldn't keep from smiling. She was the only person I could ever remember liking, outside of Slytherin, that was. The Hufflepuffs were nice, in a safe, secure way, but I didn't know them, nor did I know the Ravenclaws, though they were friendlier to us than other Houses.
The last though before I fled into sleep was that Hermione was on her way to her Common Room, still wide awake if I knew her like I thought I did, and looking out for Filch around every corner.
Still wearing my hat.
Life was good.
'
Theo looked like he hadn't slept very well, which when it came to Theo wasn't unusual, when I came down in the Common Room the next morning. He hailed me with a tired "are-you-back-already" and stood up from the couch. For someone with a terminal sleeping-on-the-couch syndrome, he didn't look too shabby. Most people look as if they've rolled around on a dusty highway and hit every branch of the rumpled tree while falling down, but he didn't. He just looked more tired than when he fell asleep, and there was this unease about him, as if he knew there was something wrong, he just couldn't say what it was.
"Well, don't you look happy," I said as we went to breakfast, "Who died?"
Instead of laughing it off, like I thought he would, he looked even more uneasy.
"I don't know. I had a nightmare last night, which, for me, is not that unusual, but this one was different." He said as we climbed the stairs, "Usually, it's – this one wasn't as personal as the others were." Of course I noticed how he skipped telling me of his other nightmares. I'm not stupid. I wasn't stupid enough to ask, either. "It was as if I was looking through someone else's eyes, and that someone wasn't having a good time. They got very dead."
"I've had dreams like that sometimes, and I'm sure this isn't exactly the first time for you to have one either, so what caused the worry?" Theo worrying about nightmares was unusual, to say the least; most of the time, he just ignored them.
"Everyone's been walking around looking as if they're being stalked by rabid monsters since Lucas came back," He gestured. "When he came back without you yesterday, it seems longer somehow, I got worried. When he told me you'd be coming back on your own, I calmed down a bit, but things have been jumpy since you left. Granger's been climbing on the walls."
"She has?" This surprised me greatly; I was not Granger's favourite person, from what I'd gathered. "Why?"
"Couldn't say. You know she's the only Gryffindor who stayed over Christmas, so of course she's getting jumpy, and when you go away and she doesn't know why, it's only logical she'd assume kidnapping. Dumbledore calmed her down, though it didn't stop her pacing."
"Odd. She caught me when I came back last night. Thought I was running away. If I hadn't been here for, what is it now, three days, then how am I supposed to run away?" I snorted, "Didn't seem so strange then, but then again, I was drunk."
"Must've been Firewhiskey, or you'd be vomiting now," Theo laughed, looking a little happier. "but maybe it's delayed hangover; don't throw up on Granger at breakfast though, or she might hex you."
We walked through the doors of the Great Hall, and the statement of not vomiting on Granger suddenly made sense; in my absence, the House tables had been put along the walls, and a surprisingly small table was left in its wake. Just big enough to fit the staff, Theo and I, Granger, three Hufflepuffs and two Ravenclaws. Lucas was there, talking to Sinistra, who looked as if death might be an improvement, and McGonagall sat silently beside Dumbledore, with new lines on her face. Even the perpetual twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes seemed to have gone missing. Something was wrong.
I sat down in the only available seat, since Theo snatched the one between McGonagall and Sinistra. I got stuck between Lucas and Granger. Just my luck, I sighed to myself as I reached for the coffee pot. Stuck between the girl who probably believed I was stark raving and the man who drove me there. Theo nearly burst out laughing looking at me, and I grimaced in his general direction. Maybe coffee would help matters some. Lucas and Granger certainly weren't. Lucas was cutting his toast into soldiers, seemingly unaware of the rest of the world, while I could practically feel Granger shaking.
Nervous, she was. Must think I was crazy after last night's spectacle. I would, that was for sure. The Hufflepuffs were talking so quietly to each other that no one but a teacher might hear them, and the Ravenclaws looked as if they'd pulled an all-nighter, and were preparing to go to bed after breakfast. I never understood pulling all-nighters just for the heck of it. Staying up all night was something you did when you were going frantic studying for O.W.L's or N.E.W.T's, or when you were just high on sugar.
As breakfast went on, the silence slowly became unbearable. Lucas moved on from his toast to his tea, and with extreme care swirled some milk into it, out most concentrated on his task. Granger struck up a conversation with the Ravenclaws, trying to save herself from the silence, I suppose. There was nothing for me to do but talk to Lucas unless I wanted to go even more mad than I already was.
"Professor?" I queried, trying to get his attention.
"Yes?" He dragged his attention away from his tea.
"We're halfway through the year now, and despite what any healthy and sane student might want, the exams are approaching," I held back a smirk when I heard Granger gasp at my veiled insult. "And I was wondering: you told us at the beginning of the year that you had an exam planned for us that was out of the ordinary. Will we be taking that exam, or a normal textbook one?"
"The Headmaster is still considering, Zabini," Lucas said, looking at said Headmaster in something akin to amusement. "Though I expect that you are all perfectly capable of passing the exam with flying colours. Not that I do not understand his apprehension. The exam is certainly, how shall we say, unconventional."
"Would a list petitioning for an unconventional exam help?" I asked, wondering what exactly he had in mind for us.
"It wouldn't hurt." Lucas shrugged.
Nodding silently, I searched my pockets for a quill and a piece of parchment to write on. The heading became "Protest List for Better Exams" and my name scribbled on in green ink. I liked green ink, even if it was horribly stereotypical. I'd stolen it from Pansy anyway. She never used it; she favoured the lurid purple one for some reason. I passed it to my left, to Granger, along with my quill. I had others. After scanning the beginning to a list, Granger took the quill and resolutely wrote her own name underneath mine, with the same green ink. It felt odd to see her name written in green, since she seemed to red-and-gold through and through. She passed it on to Terry Boot, who was reading it over her shoulder, and twirled my quill between her fingers.
Satisfied with what I'd started, I didn't bother claiming my quill back, and returned to my cup of coffee. Theo raised his eyebrow and nodded towards Granger questioningly. I shrugged and sipped my coffee. Let him wonder. Lucas raised his eyebrow at me as well, and I put on my best hell raising-grin. Starting trouble was a favourite activity of mine.
Breakfast went faster after that, as whispering spread, whispers about the list. Terry signed it, as did Finch-Fletchley, before the list returned to Granger. She took it and after a glance at me, she excused herself and headed out the door, mumbling something about owls. It seemed as if she was sending the list off to her friends to sign, even before they came back to school. Efficient that girl is.
"What was that all about?" Theo asked as we left the Hall.
"Protest list for a different exam than usual." I grinned again. "We don't know what it is, but Lucas promised it would be unconventional. Since conventional calls for three hours of scribbling on dusty parchment, I'd say I'll go for the other option, whatever it is. I don't enjoy boredom."
"I do." Theo looked pensive, "I like boredom. It lasts."
Trust Theo to ruin a perfectly happy moment by stealing my modus operandi and being depressive. Well, he could have it for a moment. I could be depressive tomorrow. Speaking of tomorrow, that would be a good time to reclaim all the things of mine that Granger had at the moment. My hat, for example.
Maybe I'd let her keep it. It would be fun to watch her try to explain its presence to her Housemates.
'
Ending Notes; Blaise is being eeeeeeeeeevil. Well, maybe he doesn't deserve all the extra "e"'s, but he's at least Hellraiser!Blaise at the moment.