A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviewed! I'm sorry this has been so long in coming, and I'll make these notes brief.
At the request of a reviewer (and because it just makes sense), I will no longer be including Review Responses here in my authors' notes. Instead, they will be available on my blog, which can be accessed on my website, SolarDreamer (Google it or go through my page here at FFNet). To make things easier, I will include a list of reviewers who I've specifically responded to for each chapter, just so no one feels like I've wasted their time by making them go to my site if I haven't said anything to them. This should streamline things a bit, and put the focus back where it belongs: on the story. The Review Response List will be posted at the end of each chapter from now on.
One Important Note to All: They did not have sex in the last chapter. Other... interesting... things, yes. Actual sex (defined by penetration), no. No blowjobs, either. Think hands. Much with hands. Everything else is too much fun to just skip, yanno? When it shows up, it will be written. In detail. On a site that is not FFNet. Thank You for Your Attention.
Thank you all for being so patient, and I hope you enjoy!
000ooo000ooo000ooo000ooo000ooo000ooo000
Chapter XXIX -- Blaise Zabini
000ooo000ooo000ooo000ooo000ooo000ooo000
The door of the Slytherin Sixth Year boys' dormitory shut with a click. Theodore Nott would not return from his shower for at least twenty-five minutes, perhaps more if there was a line.
"What's going on?"
Draco, half-finished with the process of dressing for bed and his mind somewhere much higher and on the other side of the castle, suddenly found himself cornered by a rather annoyed-looking Blaise Zabini. He blinked calm, grey eyes at the other Slytherin.
"What ever do you mean, Zabini?" He returned, keeping an absolute poker face. Blaise scowled.
"I mean, where do you keep sneaking off to? We've been here three days, Draco. Three! And all three of those mornings, you have not woken up in this room. You may have Nott over there fooled, but not me! What, is it a girl or something? Because I'll cover for you, Draco, you know that, but I can't cover for you if I don't know where you actually are!" Blaise's eyes were drilling holes in Draco's skull.
"It's not a girl." Draco cut off Blaise's rant before he could really get started. The other boy didn't stop staring him down, however.
"Then what is it? You have to- I mean, half the House was going insane this morning, when you didn't show up for breakfast! No one had seen you since last night, and no one saw you for half the morning! You can't do that! You know you can't!" Blaise backed off just slightly, but not enough to let Draco escape. The blonde was not getting off the hook, this time. "This House needs you. Not me, not Theo, not any of the girls. You. So you had better have an explanation for why you've been leaving." His dark eyes were staring into Draco's with more intensity than the blond could ever remember his housemate bothering to conjure up before. He was dead serious, and Draco knew it.
"It's not a girl, Blaise." Draco shot him a very meaningful look, hoping that he would be quick enough to get it without Draco having to explain. The not-entirely-self-proclaimed King of the Slytherins was not stupid. Blaise already knew; he had made that much clear on the train several days before, even if he hadn't quite made the connection yet. He was just being thick. It took a moment for the entire point to sink in, and when it did, it showed clearly on the boy's face.
"Oh." Blaise backed off entirely, now, and sat down on the edge of the nearest bed (which, luckily enough, was his own). He wore a 'thinking' look for a moment, then broke out in a wide grin.
"You're shagging Harry Potter!" There was a high note of glee in his voice, promising a quick-moving rumor that would have the entire school talking and a column in Witch Weekly. Gone was the worried intensity, which fulfilled one of Draco's goals. This, however, was not much better.
Draco pounced before the other boy could get too happy, pressing him down against his comforter with a forearm across his throat. He put on his most threatening glare, and though Harry claimed it no longer worked on him, it certainly still worked on Blaise Zabini. Draco watched the boy's grin fade as he struggled for air.
"One:" he hissed, "I am not 'shagging' Harry Potter. And if I was, it would still be none of your business! Two: If I hear one word about anything I'm going to tell you out of someone else's face, you will not be happy when I'm done with you. Are we clear?"
Blaise nodded, gasping as Draco released the pressure on his throat. It was, actually, quite rare that Draco was serious with his threats. Oh, he threatened, all right. But he also knew that injured or hexed followers were disgruntled followers. And disgruntled followers were worse than enemies. Draco threatened, but only to make a point. This time, however, Blaise could tell that the blond was ready-and-willing to carry out his threats.
All in all, this was looking to be quite the entertaining year for Blaise Zabini. He smiled a little to himself as Draco shut the door, then locked and silenced it magically. Blaise cackled silently to himself at the rumors that would be running around the common room tomorrow after the rest of the House saw Nott sitting outside a locked, silenced dormitory door.
"It started this summer..."
And though Blaise knew that that was a whopping lie, he let Draco continue anyway.
000ooo000ooo000ooo000ooo000ooo000ooo000
"Blaise knows."
"Ermf?" Harry mumbled into his pillow, staunchly ignoring the fact that morning was approaching. Draco kneed his thigh lightly beneath the covers, a little smile flitting across his face.
"I said 'Blaise knows'. About this. Us."
Harry was awake, then, his green eyes wide.
"What?" He looked scandalized, and maybe a little betrayed. "You told Blaise Zabini?" Harry quite honestly couldn't believe it. He had thought that Draco understood the need for discretion about this. They hadn't ever really talked about it but... Draco's slender fingers threaded through the raven locks at Harry's temple; delicately, as in silent apology.
"I should have talked to you first. I'm sorry about that. But he had most of it worked out on his own, and he was getting suspicious about why I wasn't around in the mornings. You don't know Blaise, so just trust me that it's better for us this way. He's like a dog with a bone, if you leave him to it. Now that he knows, it'll be easier to deal with him. And he's not going to tell anyone else." Draco delivered the last line with enough determination in his voice that Harry worried exactly what methods he had used to gain that certainty. Harry sighed and wrapped his arm across Draco's waist, trailing his fingers across the top of his pajama pants and down to the dent at the base of his spine. Draco shivered.
"It's okay. I trust you." He murmured, loving the feeling of the soft skin beneath his fingers. "What does he know? Just this, or...?" He let the question trail off, not knowing precisely how to explain what he meant.
"None of that stuff." Draco murmured back, brushing his index finger over the choker around Harry's neck. Then his eyes narrowed playfully. "And what do you mean by 'just this', Potter?" Before Harry could even register the movement, Draco was lying flush on top of him, his platinum hair framing his face in Harry's vision. He propped himself up on his elbows, looking down on Harry with a mischievous grin.
"What do you think I meant, Malfoy?" He grinned; a lopsided, little-boy grin that Draco found too adorable for words and too tempting not to kiss away. He lowered his lips to meet Harry's softly in a series of quick, light kisses. Harry's hand had found that spot again, the one right above the cleft of his arse, and he knew that if they didn't stop soon they would be in no fit shape to go to breakfast, let alone to class after. That and the fact that one Ronald Weasley, currently snoring in the next bed, would probably wake the Tower with his screeching if he heard them. Draco's tongue dove into Harry's mouth, seeking its mate to touch and caress softly before retreating. He pulled away from Harry, admiring the slightly flushed look that graced his features and was probably mirrored in Draco's own.
"I have to go before..." He jerked his head in the general direction of the damned alarm clock. Harry nodded, though with obvious disappointment.
"Yeah." He leaned up to capture Draco's lips one more time before allowing the blond to roll off him and fish the invisibility cloak out from its new home in Harry's pillowcase. Harry sat up as Draco's body disappeared under it, its folds creating the odd sensation that only parts of Draco were there. He snagged part of the cloak in his hand just as Draco was about to open the hangings, pulling him back enough that Harry could lay one last kiss in the hollow where Draco's neck met his shoulder. "I'll see you at breakfast." He whispered, his lips moving against Draco's skin. The blond tilted his head and nuzzled Harry affectionately.
"Mm."
Then he was gone, the hangings swinging shut again behind him. Harry sighed and lay back down to await the cacophony of a Gryffindor morning.
000ooo000ooo000ooo000ooo000ooo000ooo000
It is a curious fact of life that when one is spying on someone, they are far more likely to notice someone else spying on someone than they would be if they had not been spying on anyone at all. Of course, a few spies are too wrapped up in what they are doing to notice, but sometimes their counterparts are not. That was the case on this particular Thursday morning.
'Girls are too obvious.' Such was Blaise Zabini's assessment. He had spent half of breakfast that morning watching the silent, across-the-room interaction between Draco and his Gryffindor boyfriend, and the other half watching the other two people who were watching the same pair. Granger and the Weasley girl had their heads together through a good portion of the meal, though what they could possibly have found to talk about, Blaise had no idea.
So far all he had seen the two engage in was a brief look when Draco walked through the doors of the Great Hall with his entourage and sporadic glances in each others' directions throughout the meal. Basically, he synthesized, exactly the same thing they had been doing for the past five years, just for a different reason. He was tempted to sigh, but held it in as such an action would raise Draco's suspicion, as well as alert the rest of the table to the fact that he was not simply staring into space but was actually thinking about something.
The next thing Blaise realized was that the two Gryffindor girls needed a lesson or two in covert operations. They had quite obviously never had to spy on someone seriously before- listening at doors and walls with your ear to a glass was all well and good in Nancy Drew books (which, incidentally, Blaise would never admit to having read, ever), but as you got older it became more and more important that you knew how to observe a target properly, secretly. And besides, without such skills you would never have blackmail on anyone, and then how would your homework ever get done?
The mail arrived, then, distracting everyone in the Great Hall with the rush of wings overhead. Draco's owl (which he had quite proudly shown off in the Common Room in their first evening back) swooped in to land on Draco's outstretched arm, hooting affectionately as he removed the note from its leg and fed it a piece of his bacon as a reward. Satisfied, Zephyr nipped at Draco's fingers and then took off again for the owlery, leaving Draco to read his note. Blaise watched with some interest as Draco smiled- actually smiled, not a smirk or that self-satisfied look he got sometimes- and slipped the note into his bag.
Blaise Zabini now had two ideas. One was rather simple. The other required finesse. Both were probably necessary. Blaise Zabini was going to have a fun time, indeed.
000ooo000ooo000ooo000ooo000ooo000ooo000ooo000
Review Responses (See My Blog!):
Soleil & Abi; Kerei Kitsune; shadowcat15; Alice Midnight; juniper; SilverDragon1610; Fiery and Proud; silvrfoxfire; Misori Chan
Please R&R! Questions and ConCrit are always welcome!