Author's Note: This chapter has been beta-ed! Can you imagine? And by the best beat ever, namely ebonyink!!
This chapter and the following chapters are dedicated for her!
Blaise was happy. That was happening more and more often this year.
During sixth year, he started to date a Ravenclaw girl who wasn't popular at all. She and her best friend, Emmilya, were known as two strange girls with equally strange hobbies.
They hid it well, of course, and the main lunatic of the house was Luna Lovegood anyway. Luna believed in things that didn't exist, and said strange things.
But Mariann Reglissa and Emmilya Flowerthorn were more of the Slytherin sort. Mariann was always smiling, but her eyes glowed with a strange sparkle, and her voice was always filled with some strange second sense, which only she and Emmilya could understand. She had a dark and macabre sense of humour.
Emmilya didn't talk often, but always stared at you. Her big, pale blue eyes were too big for her face, and when she widened them, it looked like the eyes were eating her face. Her dark blond hair and pale skin made her look like a doll. A psychopathic doll with brain rape tendencies.
Blaise had really noticed them for the first time in the middle of his fourth year when Mariann had to bring a note to Professor Sprout during one of his classes. Her dark brown hair was flowing down to her elbows and her robe was embroidered with strange patterns.
While Professor Sprout had gone searching for the required plant, she had discreetly snatched some deadly nightshade from a nearby pot, no one noticing but him.
Mariann had thanked Professor Sprout before leaving like nothing had happened. It such a normal, banal occurrence that no one had taken notice of it.
He had asked Basil if he knew the girls. Then, almost unknowingly, he had started to spy them.
Both of them were always together, eating together, hanging around together, and talking together. Once he had surprised both of them in the middle of something important, and both of them had fled, dropping a notebook.
He had taken it and read its contents. It was a strange little book they had made. It was a story about a strange little girl who killed everyone and was schizophrenic. It was more of a picture book than a real book, because every second page was drawn.
Fascinated, he had brought the notebook back to the girls, and started to talk with them. He had asked both of them to the Yule Ball, and both had accepted. Blaise had had a very pleasant evening, talking with both of them.
Basil, in the beginning, didn't like them all that much, but then he had found some common interests with Emmilya, and both had begun dating after that.
Blaise had always had a bit of a crush on Mariann, but he was a bit shy, and didn't talk about it. He finally told Mariann the beginning of this year, and she felt the same way.
Normally, Blaise would have immediately raced dow to his friends, but this time he walked slowly. Blaise had time to see the figure of his Godfather's visitor before he had disappeared.
He was ready to cut off his left hand if it wasn't Hermione Granger. After seven years, Blaise would have recognized the girl anywhere. But what was she doing there?
Severus didn't know about her coming to his place. If it had been planned, he wouldn't have let Blaise be there for something trivial.
Then Severus had recognized the knocking on the door. It had to be some one important to him, but a person in whose company he couldn't be seen.
A person who looked a great deal like Hermione Granger.
Suddenly Blaise started to wonder if Mariann hadn't been right after all: something big was coming.