See part one for disclaimers.
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Section 6:
Blaise hadn't meant to fall asleep, but it had been a rather exhausting night. Fortunately, Kelly (he had found her name on her identification when searching for her address in her handbag) was disposed of easily enough. Blaise's gifts lay more in stealth and cunning than in wand work, but there was no such thing as a Slytherin spy worth his salt who didn't know how to cast a strong stunning spell and a successful Obliviate. He had her cleaned, dressed, and completely unconscious in a bit under twenty minutes, just in time to apparate her to her apartment and deliver her to her roommate, the nurse, promptly at four in the morning when she arrived home from her shift.
Blaise played his role perfectly, explaining that Kelly had passed out after having a few too many drinks at the pub, and that he had taken the liberty of making sure she got home safely. The witch even thanked him for being such a gentleman as she mobilicorpused her snoring roommate into the flat. When Kelly woke in the morning, she would, at most, remember meeting the famous Blaise Zabini and having a few too many drinks with him. After that, her memory would go blank.
Arriving back home, the first order of business was a quick shower. He ached to talk to Hermione, but he needed to wash away the traces of that damnable perfume first. Just because he didn't stand a chance with her didn't mean that he wanted to go into Hermione's room smelling like a cheap whore. But once he had showered and put on clean clothes and brushed his teeth and combed his hair and changed his shirt a few times and changed the sheets on his bed and started contemplating whether now would be a good time to organize the books in his bookcase, he realized that he had fallen into stalling tactics. Yes, he wanted to talk to Hermione. More than anything in the world, he wanted to talk to Hermione. He wanted to find out what was wrong, and comfort her, and make it better, and take care of her and protect her and love her until the end of time... And that was the problem.
For the first time in his life, so far as he could remember, he was embarrassed. Yet another new emotion that he had learned from knowing Hermione, he realized with a rueful smile. In his former, closed-off life, he had never been embarrassed because there was no one whose opinion he valued highly enough to worry what they thought of him. But he was embarrassed enough now to make up for the lack of it in all the years before. He was ashamed to face Hermione after the way that he had behaved. No wonder she didn't love him. Who could love someone who was so inconsiderate to their friends? How could he ask her to trust him with her heart when he had proven so adeptly that he could barely be trusted with her friendship?
She was always there for him. Even in the very beginning when she barely knew him and had absolutely no reason to trust him, she had still been there, to warn him not to eat anything from Fred or George, to explain to him the ridiculously complicated hierarchy involved in selecting a video for an evening in, to show him where they hid the Chocolate Frogs from Ron, or to explain what to do when the taps made that funny clanking noise when he turned on the hot water.
He'd never forget the first mission he performed for the Order. It had been routine for him, barely dangerous at all for a spy of his skills, but it had placed him in potentially hazardous territory for a considerable period of time. When he finally returned back to Grimmauld Place at three o'clock in the morning, successful and unscathed but dirty and exhausted, Hermione had been there waiting for him with a tired look on her face but a warm smile of welcome and a hot pot of tea. He lost count of the number of times after that when he found the energy to persevere with an assignment by remembering that when he returned safely, Hermione would be waiting for him with a pot of tea and a smile just for him to show him that she was happy that he returned, and that she'd thought of him while he was gone. He couldn't imagine anyone being a better friend than Hermione was to him.
And he, on the other hand, was such a crappy friend that the girl had to literally break down in tears before he could be brought to notice. And even though it hurt worse than any hex to hear Hermione cry, it hurt even more to know that it took her tears for him to notice that something was wrong. He should have noticed that she was upset before that, and been there for her, just like she was always there for him. When he had taken Kelly over to say goodnight to the gang before heading back to Grimmauld Place, Luna had told him that Hermione had left earlier and that her mouth had been bleeding. Luna had rambled on something about vampire beetles, but Blaise knew the truth. Hermione chewed on her lip when she was upset. She did it all the time. He could, however, count on one hand the number of times he had seen her bite down hard enough to draw blood. Hermione's mouth had been bleeding when she left the bar earlier. She'd been upset. And he'd been too busy reeling in a Hermione look-a-like shag toy to stop and notice.
Merlin only knew what Hermione thought of him now. He knew she never fully approved of his love-them-and-leave-them lifestyle, but he'd never let it get in the way of his friendships before. And of all nights to be ruled by his libido, he had chosen this night, when Hermione was upset, and his shag of the night had the IQ of a rabbit. He'd blown Hermione off for an idiot and he was darn near ashamed to look himself in the mirror, much less face Hermione. He'd fucked up royally so far tonight, and if his track record didn't get better, he just might end up ruining the first, best friendship he had ever found, not to mention torching any chance he might ever have of someday earning her love. He knew, of course, that Hermione deserved someone a dozen times over better than he could ever be, both as a lover and as a friend, but he... he just didn't want to think of what his life would be like without her in it.
Which meant that he needed to get his embarrassment under control and be the friend that she needed him to be. He needed to leave his room, (which he did,) he needed to walk down the hall, (which he did,) he needed to stand in front of Hermione's door, (which he did,) and he needed to knock on it, (which he... didn't). He stood in front of her door with his hand in midair, poised to knock, and wondered what on earth he was going to say when she opened the door. Should he immediately apologize for not noticing she was upset earlier? Or should he start by asking what was wrong? Would she want to know why he had been too distracted earlier to pay attention to her? What would she do if he admitted the truth? He just couldn't bring himself to knock. He wasn't sure how long he stood there, simply staring at the door and at his fist and wondering why it was so difficult to bring one up against the other when he was distracted by a crashing sound coming from the front entranceway of the house.
"S'alright!" a familiar slurred, drunken voice announced, the voice carrying loudly up the stairs. "M'fine."
Blaise bit back a chuckle. Potter was an absolute disaster when he was drunk. The boy had the tolerance of a house-elf piled on top of his complete inability to think clearly after ten in the evening.
A rumpled head of black hair appeared mounting the stairs and soon Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived came into view, looking very much like a sleepy, drunken porcupine with all his clothes askew and his hair sticking out in three hundred and sixty different directions. Harry's confusion was readily apparent as he looked at Blaise.
"What're you doing here?" he slurred.
"I live here, Potter," Blaise retorted. "I have for years, remember?"
"Thought you went home with a girl," Harry mumbled.
Blaise sighed. "I did. Didn't end well."
"So you figured that since the copy didn't work for you, you might as well have a go at the real thing?"
"I— What— No! I mean... I have no idea what you're talking about!"
"I'm not stupid, Blaise. I'm just drunk. Wasted. Sloshed. Pissed. Arseholed. Rat-arsed. Shit-faced. Bladdered. Plas—"
"Alright!" Blaise cut him off. "I get the point. You're drunk."
"Drunk, yes," Harry agreed, nodding until the head-bobbing movement nearly made him fall over. "Quite drunk. But not stupid. You're in love with Hermione."
"I... how did you know?"
Harry shrugged. "Fancied her m'self, once. I recognize the signs."
"So, what did you do about it?" Blaise asked tentatively.
"Shagged every girl I could find who looked like her until I completely cocked up any chance of being with her," Harry answered glibly. "No, wait a tic, that wasn't me; that was you!" Harry laughed drunkenly at his own joke for a few minutes until he realized that Blaise wasn't laughing with him. "Eh, lighten up, mate. No bloody sense of humor, these Slytherins."
When Blaise still didn't respond, Harry finally answered the question. "I told her, of course. And she hugged me hard and told me that if she didn't already have feelings for someone else, she'd be all over me. Then she told me that she had caught Padma looking my way. The rest is history."
Blaise nodded distractedly. Hermione liked someone else? Who? Did he know him? Did she still like him? Could he kill him? Would Hermione be angry with him if he quietly and efficiently disposed of her love interest? Would he stand a chance if he was able to get the prick out of the way? Could he—
"You should tell her."
"Do—" Blaise's voice caught in his throat and he cleared it impatiently. Now, of all times, was not the time to turn into a Hufflepuff. He had more self-possession than this, damn it! He could manage to choke out a simple question without making a fool of himself for Merlin's sake. "Do you think I stand a chance?"
What little craftiness Potter possessed completely fled him when he was drunk, and Blaise knew for certain that he would get an honest answer.
"I don't know," Harry said, speaking through a yawn. "I never could understand girls. Not even Padma, unless Hermione's there to explain her." Harry shook his head which nearly caused him to fall over. "Girls are nutters. They don't make any sense. 'Specially when it comes to blokes. 'Specially when it comes to Hermione and blokes. I may be her best friend, but every one of her relationships has caught me completely..." he staggered into a wall, apologized to it absently, and seated himself in a tumbled heap on the floor, "... off-guard. But you should still tell her."
"But what if she doesn't feel the same way? What if she tells me that she'll never feel the same way and that she could never be in love with me?"
"Then she'll never speak to you again, demand that you move out, burn everything she owns that reminds her of you and have her memories of you obliviated," Harry stated, very seriously. That is to say, he appeared very serious while he said it, and for about two seconds afterwards, until he dissolved into helpless giggles at the gobsmacked look on Blaise's face.
"Very funny, Potter," Blaise grumbled. "How lucky I am to have you to turn to in my time of need."
Harry's giggles turned into snorts. "All you need, mate, is a good kick in the arse. This is Hermione we're talking about! She loves you. Now, I haven't the foggiest idea if she's in love with you, but I know that she cares about you, and nothing you confess will ever change that. I'm seeing double and even I can see that."
"I just don't want to do anything to jeopardize our friendship," Blaise said softly.
"Bollocks," Harry replied, surprisingly crisply for someone with slurred speech. "She'll always be your friend. You know that. But if you want to take the shot at making her something more, then you'd best do something about it because it's not going to happen on its own." Carefully, he staggered to his feet. "Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll head to my room and wank off to Padma's picture."
Blaise grimaced in distaste at the mental picture, but helped turn Harry in the proper direction for his bedroom and kept a careful eye on him as he staggered down the hallway. When Harry finally entered his room and shut the door behind him, Blaise inhaled deeply, held his breath, turned to face Hermione's door, and knocked.
Silence. Not just silence in response to the knock, but silence from the knock as well. His knuckles rapping against the door made absolutely no sound at all. Biting his lip in confusion, Blaise raised his hand to knock again. Silence. He knocked harder. Still silent. He banged his fist against the wall, hard enough to bruise his hand, and it didn't make so much as a sound. Curiouser and curiouser. Pulling his wand out of his pocket, he cast a careful revealing charm on the door, and his eyes widened in shock at what he saw. Hermione had managed to cast a silencing spell so powerful, it had penetrated through to the other side of the walls. Not only would no sound from the hallway enter the room, no sound would even exist within the depth of the four walls surrounding the room. In spite of himself, Blaise smiled admiringly at the magnificent power and focus of the girl that he adored. The smile faded as the situation returned to him.
He could parade a brass band through the hallway and Hermione wouldn't hear it until she either took off the silencing spell or opened her door. And that meant that getting her to open the door and hold a conversation with him was out of the question. Blast. And right when he'd finally made up his mind, too. Seating himself on the floor, he leaned his head back against Hermione's door. He may not be a brave Gryffindor, but he was every inch a stubborn Slytherin. Now that he had finally decided to talk things out with her, he wasn't going anywhere until he had his chance. And that was precisely where he stayed, until Hermione's opened her door the next morning.