Edited 20th February 2014 to remove review responses.

Author's Note: This chapter can be considered a prime example of what happens when you let a scene run away with you and blind you to the actual facts of the source material. I am aware that Blaise's story doesn't fit with the canon, but fixing it now would be more trouble than it's worth.

10. Obsessions

The silence tormented him. Blaise had always loved silence and solitude before, preferring his own thoughts to other people's words. But now his only thoughts were troubling him. He couldn't sleep. Finding that girl, Leonora, dead such a short time after talking to her had shaken him up inside. No one wanted to talk to him about it. They were so tactful that it was almost painful. Couldn't anyone understand that he wanted to talk about it? That it might actually help him if they listened to what he had to say? Daniel might have understood, but once again he was nowhere to be seen. He was probably with a girl, thought Blaise, bitterly.

He hated himself for being jealous. It was highly unlikely that he was with Ginny; Daniel knew how he felt. He could have practically any girl he wanted, so why would he pick Ginny? He wasn't malicious enough to try and break his best friend's heart. Blaise wished he could stop thinking about Ginny, but he couldn't. Not after that dance at the Halloween party, when she had let him hold her, and for an instant had stared so deep into his eyes that he thought she had surely seen his soul. That had made him shiver, but her response to that had been to draw him even closer, as if she imagined that he was cold.

He leant back in the armchair, knocking his head against the high back. This was even worse. All he could think about was death, or living torment. He didn't know what made him feel worse: thinking about the murder victim, or finding himself incapable of doing so. When Ginny absorbed his thoughts, and he forgot the poor, innocent girl that he had sent to her death, he felt terribly guilty. It wasn't a feeling he was used to. He was finally feeling sorry for someone other than himself, and found that he didn't like it one little bit.

Ginny pulled the gold-trimmed red quilt up to her chin, and shivered. Murder was not something she had ever envisaged could happen at Hogwarts. How had they dared to slip into the school grounds and kill a girl under Dumbledore's nose? And even more curiously, had they been aiming to kill that particular girl, or would anyone have done? If she had stepped outside for air, would she have met her end? Something Blaise had let slip today made her think that the dead girl had been specially chosen, but he would not say why.

She pushed the thought of the white corpse away – she had not seen it, but it seemed to haunt her thoughts anyway – and thought about Blaise instead. People were still leaving him alone now, but they left him alone in a different way. Whilst before it had been because of their complete indifference, or because they had no idea who he was, now it was intentional. People were studiously avoiding him, and she could see that it hurt him, although he had never told her so.

It was funny, she thought, that she should think about him as much as she did. After all, she had only danced with him at Halloween to annoy Ron, and she had only continued to be friends with him partly for the same reason, and partly because she felt so sorry for him, finding a dead body and then being treated as if it was his fault. But when she was with him, she felt that same strange drawing force as she had when they had met. It worried her. The last thing that she wanted was to fall in love with a Slytherin.

Harry had looked very grim since Halloween. There were rumours flying about that the Dark Lord was going to come to Hogwarts to find him. It would be an audacious move; the only person he had ever feared, and the only person who could defeat him were both to be found at the school. True or not, though, the stories were disturbing. Ginny didn't know whether she should believe them or not, but if Harry was worried, it was surely best for her to be on her guard.

Ron was still not really speaking to her. He was convinced that she was seeing Blaise, and she had stopped arguing about it. It made her feel like she was insulting the boy, and anyway, Ron was not going to believe her. She could practically hear him grinding his teeth whenever she spoke with Blaise while he was near. She was not intimidated by her brother. If anything it made her more determined to keep her new friend. Ginny wriggled slightly, and then settled in a curled position, closing her eyes and hoping that thinking of Blaise would help her to sleep…

Draco Malfoy had just entered the Slytherin common room, and Blaise was watching him, carefully. The reason he was following Malfoy with his eyes was because he was worried. The room was almost empty. It was never very full. And because there was hardly anyone else there, he was worried that Malfoy might pick on him, simply to amuse himself. Blaise didn't care what Daniel thought. Malfoy might not be evil, but he was cruel.

His heart sank when Malfoy crossed the room to sit in the armchair that was roughly facing Blaise's. Even the image of Ginny defending him could not lift his spirits at that moment in time. But there was something different about Malfoy, he noticed. The other boy wasn't smirking, or sneering. That had to be a first, thought Blaise, numbly, just staring at the silver-haired youth in the green padded chair.

Draco was tired. He was also scared. He knew what was about to happen, and he knew what his father had planned for him. He didn't want to do it. He had never wanted to be evil. Looking into Blaise's infinitely deep, dark eyes, he could see that the wraith-like boy did not want him there. He was uncomfortable around Draco and he had every right to be. But Draco felt something he had never felt before in his life, and that was guilt. Was being a half-blood really enough to condemn a man to barbed words and emotional torment?

Blaise saw the self-doubt in Malfoy's eyes. He would give anything to know what was running through that aristocratic head. Had Daniel hit on the truth? Was Malfoy really just a wounded soul, torn between his father's wishes and his own inclinations?

There was only one way to find out. Fully expecting to be snubbed completely, but burning with curiosity nonetheless, he said, gently, "Knut for your thoughts, Malfoy?"

Draco looked up. There was a little concern in Blaise's eyes, but the driving force behind the question was just interest, he decided. He fought back his desired answer, which contained multiple swear words and considerable use of the words "filth" and "half-blood". If he truly wanted out of the trap his father had laid for him, he would have to leave such prejudices behind.

"I'm worried, Blaise," he said, truthfully enough. He saw the thin, black eyebrows shoot up in surprise at the civil answer. "They say that he will be coming here."

"And you don't want to join him?" Blaise asked; the surprise in his voice perfectly obvious to Draco. Somehow it saddened him more than it angered him. He was surprised at the level of Zabini's intuition. He had always known that the boy was a genius, but surely he shouldn't have a monopoly on the sixth sense as well?

"No, I don't." It felt good to finally say it to someone. Blaise's eyes widened, but Draco got the feeling that he could trust him.

"Don't, then," was Blaise's laconic answer.

Draco was more than a little annoyed now. How could Zabini talk so simply about such a thing? He couldn't understand what it would mean for him, openly defying the Dark Lord and, far worse, his father. It wasn't that simple in real life.

"You can't talk like that," Draco said, coldly. "You don't understand."

"I do," replied Blaise, with a slight shake in his voice.

"You do?" Draco was nonplussed. Was he mad? How could he even begin to understand a thing? He wasn't the sort that the Dark Lord called. When could he have had to make such a choice?

"Yes, Draco, I do. However unbelievable it might seem to you, I had to tell my father that I wasn't going to be a Death Eater. I don't know why I'm talking to you like this, but it might help you, and perhaps there's more Gryffindor in me than I thought. I've gone through worse than you will ever have to face. I told my father when I was ten, okay? Can you imagine that? I knew exactly what a Death Eater was since I knew I was magical. And I hated it. Before I'd got my acceptance letter or anything, I told him. He didn't like it. But he didn't disown me. And so he died for my faithlessness." Tears were freely streaming down Blaise's face. Draco was stunned. "Do you understand, Malfoy? My father died because of me, because of something I believed!"

Draco understood, now, why Blaise was so quiet. If he blamed himself for his father's murder, then it was little wonder that he had distanced himself from the rest of the world. He felt a stab of guilt himself. If Zabini had already hated himself when he arrived at Hogwarts, how much worse must he and his cronies have made him feel? Draco fought the feeling; Malfoys did not feel guilty. He cursed himself silently for still thinking that way. He was not just another Malfoy; he was Draco.

"Your father was a Death Eater?" Draco asked, trying to compose the jumbled mass of thoughts in his platinum blond head. "I never knew."

"I'm a half-blood, Malfoy," Blaise said, sadly. "My father was a blood traitor. A pureblood, but he married a Muggle. It's called love, I've heard." The tears might have stopped, but now Blaise was shaking. "He felt like a traitor. Other purebloods made him feel that way. So he became a Death Eater, to compensate. How he could do it, how he could separate his wife from the people that he killed, I can't imagine. I could never join him. It would have been like murdering my mother. The Dark Lord was keen, when I was born, that I join them. He's a half-blood himself, but his father abandoned his mother. Maybe he saw in me the happy ending he never had. Maybe he just wanted a half-blood whipping boy. I don't know. I'll never know."

Draco looked at Blaise. The boy was an emotional wreck. I helped to do this, a voice in his head told him, and he felt completely wretched. Blaise was crying freely again; he was so distraught that he didn't fend off Malfoy's clumsy attempt to comfort him. Draco fought down the impulses that told him to drop the dirty half-blood, screaming at him that emotion was weakness and that Malfoys didn't comfort. He watched the tears roll down the tanned face and shook his head. Some happy ending.