Edited 20th February 2014 to remove review responses and superfluous author's notes.
7. Meetings and Morality
Amongst the celebrating students sat a girl with pale brown eyes, staring pensively into the fire. It was not that she was not happy about the result, merely that she was tired. It had been her first match as a Chaser, and it was harder work than it looked. People, particularly her brother, tugged on her arm occasionally to try and get her to try this drink, or join in with this song, and she would oblige them quietly, and then return to her relaxed state of relieved fatigue.
She was a remarkable girl. As the adult swan so little resembles the 'ugly duckling' from which it grows, so this fifth year was markedly different from the little girl who had first walked through the castle doors. Almost no one in Gryffindor had noticed it, because they saw her every day, but she was a pretty girl now, in some lights almost beautiful, with her lion's mane of rich, red hair cascading down her back. It was little wonder that she had poor Blaise mesmerised.
Ginny Weasley was thinking about him, too, though she did not know it. His name would draw a complete blank with her, but she was thinking about him, the odd Slytherin boy who had seemed happy that his team had lost. She might not even have seen him had she not gone into a fifty foot dive to catch the plummeting Quaffle. Once she had caught it and passed it on to the next Chaser, she found herself just in front of the Slytherin stands when the crowd erupted. Just before she pivoted back to see Harry clutching the weakly struggling Snitch, she had caught sight of a small, thin, dark boy like a shadow, with a small but definite smile playing over his chiselled features.
She had felt puzzled only for a moment, and then she was swept off into the team celebrations. The thrill of victory passed through her small body, making her feel light headed, and as the team shot off for a victory lap of the pitch, she forgot all about the mysterious dark haired boy in the stands. She was far too busy clinging on to her broom, for fear that the raging winds would blow her off as she blazed off in pursuit of her jubilant team mates.
She had no chance to think about him now, either. Finally tiring of his sister being boring, Ron seized her firmly by the wrist and tugged her from her refuge in the armchair.
"C'mon, Gin, don't you care that we've won?" he half-shouted. The word 'won' provoked the other Gryffindors present to erupt into cheering. By this time, anyone who was not interested in Quidditch had left the common room. Hermione, for example, had fled to the library as soon as she had noticed that the team were preparing to make a night of it. Had she not been a team member, Ginny would probably have followed her.
"Of course I care, Ron," she said, smiling. She didn't justify herself or plead tiredness. Faced with the sheer joy on Ron's face, that would have been cruel. She stood up and went to join the rest of the team, settling down to an evening of Butterbeer and song, but longing only for the oblivion of sleep.
Down in the underbelly of the school's dungeons, in the Slytherin common room, Blaise sat alone in the semi-darkness, his face occasionally illuminated by the fire and the flickering lamps. The other Slytherins had retired early, depressed by yet another Quidditch defeat. Draco Malfoy had been visibly boiling with rage every time he looked in Blaise's direction. He knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, that crossing Malfoy had not been wise, but his elation of keeping his secret and his sanity flooded out all lesser emotions.
There was one very slight discord in his happiness and that was that Daniel was nowhere to be found. Not that it worried Blaise particularly; his friend was, after all, Head Boy, and was probably needed for something far more important. Solitude had never particularly frightened him anyway; he was perfectly happy to sit alone in a comfortable chair and slumber. Far happier than he would have been to descend the stairs and share a dormitory with the murderous-looking Malfoy…
It was not until the next morning that Ginny Weasley remembered the odd-looking dark boy, and that was because she saw him in the corridor on her way to Charms. When she did see him, she completely forgot herself and shouted:
"Hey, you!"
Blaise Zabini cursed whichever malevolent God had made the stupid vixen notice him… until he turned and he saw her. He met her eyes and an involuntary shiver passed the whole length of his slender frame.
"Yes?" He tried not to sound bothered, and was pleased with the air of detachment that he managed to achieve.
She drew closer and lowered her voice. The boy would not thank her if other members of his house heard what she was about to say. "You… you're the one I saw in the stands at the end of the game. You were smiling when Slytherin lost. Why?"
It took all of five seconds for Blaise to decide to tell her. It was the first chance he'd had of proper conversation with her. "Oh, because I hate Draco Malfoy," he replied, trying to keep the bitterness out of his tone. "And because he tried to blackmail me into playing Chaser for the sole purpose of knocking Harry Potter out of the air. It just seemed just that he should lose so badly. It was a personal victory."
Ginny was shocked. "That's cheating!" she said, scandalised. "You wouldn't have done it?" she asked, hurriedly.
"Me?" Blaise snorted. "I don't fly. Not since third year." As he spoke, his hand strayed involuntarily to the small scar on his cheek. Ginny's heart swelled with compassion for him, and she wondered what painful event in the boy's past linked the scar with flying. There was something mesmerising about Blaise, perhaps his uniqueness; he was enigmatic, and Ginny felt a sudden conviction that she could talk to him forever and not know everything.
He was not at all attractive in the conventional sense. His small nose was slightly crooked about halfway down, and his black eyes were a little too close together, not to mention that he was so slight in build as to be insubstantial. But there was definitely something about him. What that something was, Ginny couldn't tell, but she was inexplicably drawn to the older boy.
He was different from Daniel Fletcher, who was enchanting – there was a reason why all of the girls were mad about him. There was something about the way he spoke that made you want to listen; something about the way he listened that made you want to tell him everything. Other people might fall under that spell, but not Ginny Weasley. She had done just that in her first year, and she had vowed that she would never make that mistake again.
There had been an awkward silence, but then Blaise continued, "You fly. You play Chaser for Gryffindor. I saw you. You're good." Ginny flushed slightly at the praise, even though it came from a Slytherin.
"Thanks," she spluttered. She felt an overwhelming need to know this unusual boy's name, so she held out her little white hand to him, saying, "The name's Ginevra Weasley. They call me Ginny."
Blaise hesitated for a moment, and then took her hand delicately in his. "I might have guessed that you were a Weasley," he said, smiling, "what with that red hair and the Quidditch skills." He was rewarded by seeing Ginny colour slightly again. "I'm Blaise Zabini. No one calls me anything, because no one knows who I am." His dark eyes were filled with sadness, and again Ginny felt sorry for him. Why did no one know the boy? As far as she could tell, there was nothing wrong with him. She felt almost guilty for walking away from him. But she felt better when she turned her head back and saw him smiling.
"And so she said, 'That's cheating!' like that was the worst thing anyone could ever do!" Blaise was telling Daniel later. "I wasn't concerned with the cheating. I was more worried about the blackmail, and having to fly!"
"It's all to do with your point of view," said Daniel, quietly. "Ginny's a Gryffindor; they believe in chivalry and that sort of thing. Cheating's against their ethics. You, however, are a self-centred little Slytherin, and you were worried about blackmail because that was the thing that would injure you the most. That's why people like you and me and Malfoy are Slytherins. We look out for number one. Gryffindors think they can protect the world."
"Ah, House ethics," murmured Blaise, as if the whole world could be explained in those two words. "'The fool says: better the devil you know. The wise man says: better know no devil.' That sort of thing."
"You're heading into morals there, Blaise," cautioned Daniel, smiling as he said it. "Not a place it's safe to go whilst sitting in the Slytherin common room."
"But seriously, Dan," Blaise asked, suddenly, "is it even possible that she could do anything except hate me? I could see it in her eyes. The Gryffindor in her kept saying: he's a Slytherin. Don't trust him. Hell, I don't even trust myself sometimes. Especially when there're sharp objects about," he concluded, darkly. "And some of the rest of the time, she looked as if she felt sorry for me. Why is it that people think that their pity can help you when you're miserable? They can't, and I really wish that they'd just stop trying."
"What do you want, Blaise?" Daniel posed the question in deadly seriousness. "She can't help feeling sorry for you if she thinks you've suffered. She wants to understand you. Do you want her, or do you want some creature that you've invented that just happens to have her pretty face?"
Blaise snapped, "I want her. I just don't want her to try and understand me. I don't understand myself. But, Dan, what I wouldn't give to be like her; to care about other people, to have a heart, to feel sorry for someone else for a change. I'm tired of feeling sorry for myself. But I'll never get her, and I'll never change. That's why I'm in Slytherin. I just don't care enough to be a hero."
Daniel looked up and said. "We can't all be heroes like Potter, Blaise. Besides: every man is a hero to somebody."
"Emerson," stated Blaise flatly, mechanically. "Oh, I hate her, Dan. I never wanted anything before I saw her, except to be left alone. And now I want to be worthy of her, but I never can, because every step of the way, Harry Potter is there, playing the hero, reminding her and me of what I am not, and what I never can be."
"Never say never, Blaise," replied Daniel, enigmatically. "People do change. You just said yourself that you were different before you saw her. And if you do want to be a hero, wipe that sullen look off your face. A true hero never sulks, even when inches from death. She's that sort of girl, Blaise. You could die for her, but if you looked sour whilst you were doing it, she'd remember you as 'that funny looking boy who sulked all the time'."
"At least she'd remember me," said Blaise, dreamily.
Daniel rolled his eyes. "That's not the attitude to have, Blaise." His friend seemed pretty far gone. Although it was a very un-Slytherin thought to have, perhaps Blaise would die for Ginny Weasley, if the situation ever arose. But surely that wouldn't matter, for he would never have the chance.