Title: Lightning Strikes
Author: Emily
Pairing: Blaise/Hermione
Rating: PG-13
Dedication: To the glorious, fascinating, endlessly wonderful Inell. Happy anniversary, darling, and may there be many more to come!
Disclaimer: They all belong to JKR, alas...
Distribution: IATQO archive and If anyone else wants it, just let me know. I always say yes!
Spoilers: Includes definite spoilers for OotP. Read at your own risk.
Summary: It's no use knowing what you want when it's something you can't have.
It was a dark and stormy night. The wind howled through the treetops, rattling against the shutters, and creeping through every crack and crevice of the battered old house. The girl seated on the sofa in front of the fireplace shivered and tightened the blanket around her shoulders, wondering why the house always felt so much colder on stormy nights when she was there all alone. For a moment, she debated going to her room... but no, she wouldn't let a little chill drive her away from the firelight and her book.
She determinedly tightened the blanket a bit more, and returned her focus to the book in front of her, willfully ignoring the ominous chill that permeated the air around her, and clearly unaware, in the noise of the storm and the uncertain light of the fire, that she was not alone. The room where she sat was oddly shaped, with far too many nooks and crannies hidden in the shadows away from the flickering firelight, hiding the dark figure who watched her silently for several long moments before beginning his slow approach.
His footsteps were silent on the carpeted floor, and not so much as an audible breath betrayed his presence. Blaise Zabini was, after all, the most skillful and invisible of spies. They called him Lightning when they spoke of him, always in hushed tones of awe, because his enemies never saw him coming. The captures he had made and the wizards he had trapped were the stuff of legend. And now, at last, the opportunity he had been waiting for was finally at hand. Hermione Granger, witch extraordinaire and one of the leaders of the Order of the Phoenix, was rarely found with her guard so thoroughly down. This was his chance. Capturing her would be sweet revenge, delicious payback for all the times she had foiled him in the past, and he was so close to finally trapping her, he could almost taste it.
He crept closer, then closer still, his eyes never wavering from the unmoving figure of the girl sitting so innocently and obliviously before the fire. His eyes lit with a spark of triumph as he approached. Nearly there... nearly there... his hands reached out to touch her, when—
"You're back early," Hermione stated calmly, without looking up from her book. "Didn't you have a nice time with Caroline?"
Blaise stopped in his tracks, thinking back. "Was that her name?" he answered after a minute. "Huh." He slipped around the sofa and sprawled himself next to her. "Maybe that's why she got so annoyed when I kept calling her Catherine."
Hermione rolled her eyes and marked her place carefully in her book before closing it. "And herein," she said, amusement coloring her voice, "is the reason why Lightning never strikes twice."
Blaise shrugged and smiled at her winningly. "It's not my fault that I've yet to come across a girl who holds my interest past the second or third date."
"Or for the whole of the first date?" she replied with a smirk.
Blaise shrugged. "Details."
Hermione laughed in spite of herself. "You're hopeless," she scolded.
"Not me, I never give up hope! That's why I keep trying."
"Isn't that the truth," Hermione muttered under her breath. Persistent didn't even begin to describe Blaise. And speaking of which...
"How did you know I was behind you?"
Yep, right on cue. He asked every single time. When it came to most matters, Blaise was as laid back a wizard as you could find anywhere in England. There was very little that could get him riled up. But one thing that inevitably got under his skin was when someone knew something that he didn't know. Secrets drove the man berserk. In a chicken-or-egg kind of manner, Hermione often wondered which came first: was Blaise's need to know everyone's secrets the result of annoyance that anyone would be able to hide anything from such an infallible spy, or did he become a spy in the first place so that no one would be able to keep secrets hidden away from him? Either way, it drove Blaise crazy that Hermione had a secret. She had to have a secret. She had to have some kind of trick, or spell, or gadget, or something because Blaise Zabini was the king of spies and not once, not ever had he ever been able to sneak up on her. He kept trying, of course. And he kept failing. And every time he failed, he asked again.
"Magic," Hermione answered, with a faint, impenetrable smile, just as she always did. It was the only answer she ever gave.
Merlin knew, she wasn't about to tell him the truth. There was a reason why she could always tell when he was approaching her, and while it had nothing to do with a trick or a spell or a gadget of any kind, it was, in truth, her most deeply held secret. The secret was that she was in love with him.
It had happened gradually. Very gradually. In fact, for the first three years at Hogwarts, she had been completely unaware of his existence, aside from a vague recollection from the Sorting ceremony first year that someone in her year had a last name beginning with a Z. The first time she became truly aware of him was fourth year. Snape had been late getting to class one Friday afternoon and there had been, inevitably, an argument between Malfoy and Harry while they waited in the hallways.
There was nothing startlingly new about the argument itself, of course. It was just a rehash of the same old nonsense, as always. And par for the course, the Slytherins had gathered behind Malfoy while the Gryffindors backed up Harry. Hermione was scanning the hall, hoping that Snape would swoop in soon and break up the argument before it turned into another duel, when the sight of him caught her eye.
If she hadn't been looking, she wouldn't have seen him. He blended in with the shadows so well that she thought, at first, that he was a ghost. It was only after careful mental run-through of Hogwarts, a History that she remembered that there were no male, Slytherin ghosts in her age range. The fact that he was alive made him much more intriguing. Ghosts were commonplace in Hogwarts, but living Slytherin boys who stood to the side when there was a fight with Gryffindors were far more rare. There was no denying that Malfoy was a vile little rodent, but the boy still carried considerable clout in his house and when he lined up against Harry Potter, the rest of his house lined up with him. All the other Slytherins, male and female alike, were standing within three paces of Malfoy, ready to jump in at his command on a moment's notice. All of them... except for this boy, who stood nearly twenty paces away, hidden in the shadows.
Snape arrived soon, deducting points liberally and ushering the students into the classroom, and the fight was soon forgotten. But Hermione was unable to forget the glimpse she caught of that most unaccountable of Slytherins. After that, she found herself looking for him. She didn't actively seek out his company, but her eyes would scan the Slytherin table at mealtimes until they fell on him. She'd make an effort to spot him in the hallways, in the Quidditch stands, in the classes Gryffindor shared with Slytherin.
That was the beginning of her immunity to Blaise's spying skill. A spy's aptitude depends on his or her ability to blend completely with the background. The best way to do that is to stay under the radar. No one will see you if they have no reason to look for you. Blaise spent most of his life living in the shadows, and no one noticed. But Hermione looked for him. She always looked for him. She didn't approach him; she didn't even really watch him. She simply noticed him. Noticed, most of all, the way that other people didn't notice him. Noticed the way he used that to his advantage and knew, somehow, that he would never be able to use it against her. He would never be able to slip around her undetected and find out her secrets in spite of herself, because she'd notice him if he did. She always noticed him. She didn't love him, yet, but she noticed him.
Over the years, she slowly began to notice more. Noticed the intelligence he never publicly displayed. Noticed the grace in his movements that allowed him to keep hidden. Noticed the handsome features blurred by the shadows he seemed to prefer. Noticed the way she responded to the sight of him, the way she couldn't help but smile when she caught him in an unguarded moment, the way she tingled a little when she saw one of his smiles. She still didn't love him; at most, it was a crush; but it wasn't just cold-blooded observation anymore. She was aware of him in a way she'd never really been aware of any man before. It unsettled her, though she hid it well. No one, not even her closest friends, suspected her secret. She justified keeping it to herself on the grounds that it wasn't important enough to matter. When they left Hogwarts, she was certain that she'd never see him again, and that the tiny bit of a crush she had formed around him would fade. She was wrong on both counts.
He had shown up on their doorstep six months after the Hogwarts end of term. The fact that he was able to find their doorstep was an impressive enough feat on its own merit for them to be willing to talk to him. Blaise refused to tell anyone other than Dumbledore how he had gotten around the Fidelius Charm, but the fact that he had somehow managed to do so made the Order members very willing to listen when he offered his services as a spy. After a battery of tests to make sure he wasn't lying and didn't intend to turn Order secrets over to Voldemort, he was accepted into the Order. More than accepted, he was asked to move in.
Despite the number of bedrooms it held, only seven people lived at Grimmauld Place on a permanent basis before Blaise arrived. There were spare rooms for when people needed to spend the night, but for the most part, most of the Order's members stayed in their own homes. It helped maintain the house's security if too many people weren't constantly coming and going. As a result, the house held mainly the orphans or the outcasts: the ones who had nowhere else to go.
Harry lived there, obviously. It was the only home he had after finishing Hogwarts. Hermione lived there as well, once it was decided that the best way to protect her parents was to obliviate their memories of her. Remus lived there, since the few places that would rent rooms to werewolves charged more than he could comfortably afford, and Mundungus lived there in theory to help keep an eye on the children, but in reality so that the Order could keep a closer eye on him. The Patil twins moved in after their parents were killed during a surprise raid on Diagon Alley. Justin Finch-Fletchley showed up a month later when Voldemort's forces left him an orphan in their program to get rid of the parents of muggleborn witches and wizards. Blaise was the eighth and last person to join their household during the war.
It should have been odd. In a house mostly filled with Gryffindors (with the token Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw), a Slytherin should have stood out like a sore thumb. But he didn't. It was almost bizarre how well he blended. Everyone had braced themselves to "make the best of things" and "learn to live with the Slytherin" and it took a few days for them to realize that no adjustment was necessary. Blaise was, simply, a very unobjectionable housemate. He did his share of the chores without complaint, and didn't spend too long in the bathroom, and never left a mess in the kitchen sink. He had a good sense of humor, a strong sense of tact, and an unparalleled sense of discretion. The houseful of people expecting to have to tolerate him surprised themselves by actually liking him. Within a week, he was helping with the grocery shopping and responding to the inside jokes and challenging Justin to a marathon of exploding snap.
It helped that he had been so anonymous at school. No one had any personal grudges against him. No one had any personal memories of him, other than Hermione, and she kept those very thoroughly to herself. They had no reason to dislike him, and it wasn't long before he started giving them very concrete reasons to like and value him, partially because he was a pleasant housemate, but mostly because he was very good at what he did. When one of his spying missions saved George Weasley's life, he earned the very vocal and vehement support of the whole of the Weasley family, and with the weight of their backing behind him, it wasn't long before he had earned everyone's trust. By the time he had been there for a month, he was trusted completed.
The only thing that was held back from him was Hermione's one, small secret that she positively refused to share: she no longer noticed him, she no longer had a crush on him; she had finally fallen in love with him. Somewhere between seeing that sleepy smile on his face when she handed him his first cup of coffee in the morning, learning to appreciate his keen mind as they debated every topic under the sun, growing to trust and value his cunning as he laid out plans to end the dark war, watching him save her friends' lives with his highly toned skill and indomitable courage and discovering he made a really good chicken curry, she'd fallen for him, head over heels. And she had stayed that way, ever since.
Of course, she knew she didn't stand a chance with him. In the aftermath of the war, girls had done everything short of send Blaise their knickers by owl post. Every time he went out, there was always a string of girls eager to take him home, and Blaise never put up much of a fuss about accepting. Why would he? He was a man, after all, and what man wouldn't say yes to a beautiful girl who wanted to take him home and ravish him? And they were always beautiful girls. Beautiful, confident, experienced girls with silky hair and perfect figures. Girls that he had never seen with a bad case of the flu or covered in mud from a botched attack or hexed purple for a solid two weeks from a mispronounced prank. No, Hermione knew she didn't stand a chance.
But she knew she was important to him, and she tried to tell herself that that was enough. After all, Blaise would never forget her name the way he had with Caroline/Catherine. And he'd never forget her birthday. Or that she loved daisies and chocolate chip brownies and sleeping in on Sunday mornings. And those girls would never know him like she did, either. They'd never know that the tops of his ears turned red on the rare occasion when he blushed, or that he pouted like a five year old when anyone tried to make him eat lima beans. No, they'd never be as close to him as she was.
So there was no reason to let it bother her, as she told herself countless times. There was no reason to be jealous just because those silly girls knew how his hands felt trailing up their legs while he stared into their eyes with an expression that was half teasing and half challenging. There was no reason to envy them their knowledge of the husky sound of his voice as he whispered in their ears how badly he wanted them, nor should she covet their memories of the way his body felt on top of theirs, skin to skin. She shouldn't hate them just because they had the one thing she wanted more than anything. She should just... just enjoy the piece of him that she got to have for herself and remind herself that even if she had the choice, she wouldn't give up what she had with him in exchange for one night of pleasure. And she should try not to let it hurt quite so much that even the option of one night of pleasure with the man she loved was something she'd never have.