AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hi everybody, I'm back. I can't sleep so I might as well get something done. Here's the next chapter. It's kind of crazy. And kind of short. And I may or may not receive a few assassination attempts via email (not quite sure how that works yet, but am positive would be v. nasty indeed) for the ending, but hey, it's what I live for. I hope you like and I hope you don't shoot me bangitty-bangitty-dead on the streets if you don't.

DISCLAIMER: Not mine if it belongs to J. K. Rowling.

Mistaken Liaisons

Chapter 7: Inebriation Consequences and A Ton of Bricks

The next day Blaise wished he hadn't woken up. He didn't quite know why…it was an average day…not too rainy and mushy out, but still it was no sunshine-ridden day in the Caribbean. The weather had nothing to do with Blaise's feel towards the day, as he woke up immediately wishing he could just go back to sleep.

Oddly enough, he had barely slept, and what little he had gotten hadn't been nearly decent. For someone worn out from a day hard at work managing and shagging till two in the morning, he should have slept like a ton of bricks…yet he couldn't grasp onto sleep. It was dancing just out of his reach the whole night. Even if he did manage to get a hold of it, it was plagued with bizarre dreams of no meaning and strange, alien faces.

But that had nothing to do with his wanting to go back to sleep. No, the real reason he desperately wanted to drift back into unconsciousness was that when he rolled over to talk to Ginny and discuss his vaguely odd dreams, he discovered the bed to be just as empty as when he'd last checked it.

Uncharacteristically angry at Ginny for no good reason other than the fact that she wasn't there and he needed to talk to her, Blaise finally worked up the will to slide from the bed, no longer hanging in semi-conscious sleep limbo.

Trotting glumly into the kitchen he noticed a stack of cold pancakes. Taking a few bites, he wondered when Ginny had made these since she didn't appear to have gotten home last night. Drenching the flapjacks in syrup, Blaise scanned the Daily Prophet, content with the knowledge that Ginny was safely tucked into whosever bed she had rolled into last night and that she would come back home just as soon as she woke-

Blaise's eyes flew open and he knocked over his coffee cup.

Ginny wasn't with anyone right now. She didn't have a current flavour of the week…she just had Malfoy, who wasn't quite…

Slamming to his feet, Blaise raced through the supposedly empty apartment and flung the door to his room open. Draco was in the bed, apparently still asleep, his bare back to Blaise in the doorway. Blaise was about to put his overactive imagination down to nerves and bad coffee when Draco rolled onto his back.

A pale arm was slung across his chest.

Something red peaked out from the spot near Draco's ear, and as Blaise stepped further into the room, he saw that it wasn't just some random red-headed shag off the streets…it was his Ginny. My Ginny… the thought was so very unexpected that Blaise stopped his franticly palpitating heart-beat counting for a moment to study it.

His Ginny. The flashes of jealousy that had inundated him throughout the endless night came rushing back to him as he saw Ginny's perfect arm draped over Draco's chest in a manner they had never even managed as best mates. Close best mates. The best of best mates…

Oh shite…Blaise thought with dawning horror as the world spun, snapped, and collapsed around him.

I'm in love with by best mate…

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Blaise was sitting listlessly at the kitchen table, stirring a spoon in his frigid coffee for the nine-hundredth and sixty-eighth time when someone he heard a screaming sound, followed by a thud that made the floorboards shake underfoot.

Stumbling in a trance, it seemed, totally unattached from what was going on around him, Blaise made his way back to the two people he was both anticipating and dreading waking.

Waking wasn't a problem, he realized as he stepped once more into the room. They were both awake and surprisingly quite vocal.

"What the bloody hell are you doing in my bed?" That was Ginny, not entirely wrapped in covers, on the floor, hair mussed and eyes wide. It was all too apparent, to Blaise who cringed mentally, that she wasn't wearing knickers.

"Your bed? This is where I sleep! What are you doing in my bed?" Draco was still on the bed, the sheets wrapped firmly around his very naked waist. Blaise coughed hesitantly from the doorway. Draco looked up, eyes wide and hopeful for some kind of prank-joke-like explanation to solve the mystery of how he ended up in the same bed as Ginny Weasley.

Ginny just looked sick and horrified.

"Blaise, what-?"

"Zabini, you little-"

"What the hell did you two do last night?"

Both Ginny and Draco cut off what they were saying at Blaise's weird question. Flashes of broken memories skipped through their now-fully-conscious brains as they exchanged glances that increased in horror and realization as the seconds dragged on.

"Oh dear gods." Ginny breathed, staring at Draco as if he had sprouted horns and pronounced his love for Harry Potter in an old-fashioned singing telegram method. Draco's gaze was similarly not adoring.

"Did we…?" Draco trailed, unwilling to finish the sentence. "Shag?" Blaise asked from the doorway, unwilling to take his eyes off Ginny as he waited for an answer, which Ginny was unwilling to give as she stared down at the sheet she'd finally pulled over her body.

"I guess so." She finally said, closing her eyes and shrugging dejectedly.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Breakfast was a trying experience. Once they'd established the fact that yes, Blaise had found them like this, not set them up as such for a joke, and that yes, it seemed they had slept together but were too smashed to remember, and finally, yes, those were Ginny's knickers hanging on the coat rack, they were ready to become mature adults and assume their responsibilities in life and for their actions.

After Ginny tried to strangle Draco with her bra.

Had Ginny and Draco (or at least Ginny) not been so preoccupied about sleeping with the enemy, they (or at least she) might have noticed that Blaise was worlds away, not listening to a thing they said or screamed at the top of their lungs.

After a while they settled down into a painfully silent lull that Blaise broke by asking them if they wanted pancakes. Ginny's hand flew to her mouth at the same time Draco gagged as they caught sight of the towering, slightly soggy, cold pastries together. Draco was right on Ginny's heels as she dashed for the bathroom.

Draco's voice demanding entry could barely be heard over unpleasant splashing sounds and retching from the bathroom. Blaise listened as, in addition to the melodic noise Ginny was making, heavy footsteps thundered frenziedly into Ginny's part of the flat, accompanied by more icky sounds.

The retching and vomiting in the bathroom stopped before Ginny called out, her voice somewhat hoarse and scratchy. "Malfoy, if you threw up in my room, I will kill you." After which more vomiting sounds infiltrated the bathroom door amidst Draco's fervent and repeated mantra of 'Scourgify, Scourgify, Scourgify…' from Ginny's bedroom.

They both emerged many puking spells and minutes later, looking dreadfully green and nasty. Blaise had busied himself in their absence in putting away any trace or suggestion of food. He avoided looking directly at Ginny, because for the first time in three years, he wasn't sure how to act around her. She had always, always been his best mate. That's just how things were. And yet…there was a possessiveness…a wanting that was entirely un-platonic. And he couldn't believe it had taken him three years to figure it out.

Hadn't he always told people that Ginny was the greatest woman on the face of the earth? Hadn't he set her up with multitudes of men? Hadn't he known that she was terrific? Of course he had…so why had he never thought that this could be the woman for him? He wasn't painfully attracted to her…though now that was changing a bit and he was careful to keep his legs crossed just in case…but he most certainly wasn't immune to her charm and beauty. He'd just…never considered it before.

She wasn't anything breathtaking…she wasn't ugly…she wasn't average either…she was just another woman…yet it was 'just another woman' who knew him inside and out without having to ask…'just another woman' who could answer his every question before he asked it…'just another woman' who he had to see and touch and give a quick kiss to once every day or else he went insane…'just another woman' he couldn't stand to be away from…'just another woman' who could only make him laugh more than make him angry…'just another woman' he was completely and utterly falling in love with.

Ginny was staring at her fingers, twiddling a ring on her left hand idly, staring off into the distance at the tabletop…which in her eyes wasn't a tabletop, but a vast expanse of her mind, mapped out onto a visible surface to analyze.

Blaise was acting awfully strange about this. Hadn't he said, just yesterday, that this was the greatest thing that could ever have happened? Hadn't he urged her on when she was so adamant that it not happen? Why was he so solemn and moody? Why, if he wanted and encouraged it, did it feel so wrong; like she'd betrayed him somehow?

She was so afraid that she might have fucked something up…she didn't know if she could live with herself if she'd screwed up her friendship with Blaise. Blaise was someone Ginny could talk to and he would listen. He was someone who would tell her when she was being stupid, or immature, or a complete and utter cow. He was someone who would make her laugh when she needed to with a sense of humour she could appreciate. He would soothe her when she got in her moods. Of all things, he knew how to handle her; and Ginny made no assumptions: she knew she wasn't someone easy to handle.

Likewise, Ginny knew just how to deal with Blaise. They'd know each other this close for three years, and yet Ginny knew more about his habits than any other person in her life. She knew when he wanted to talk about a girl or about work or just his life in general. She knew when he needed time alone. She also knew when to tell him to stop sulking and get up off his arse and do something. They matched; plain and simple.

And yet, here she was, sitting at the table in awkward silence as if she had 'Property of Draco Malfoy' branded into her forehead. And that didn't bode too well with anyone at the table. Ginny was wildly wondering whether or not she should say something…perhaps something about it being accidental, or the result of too many of Rythmi's infamous and practically deadly concoctions, about her not remembering a single thing from last night and how nothing might have happened, when Blaise broke the silence.

"Ginny? Is that a wedding ring?"