Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

ANCIENT RUNES IN THE MODERN WORLD
Chapter Four: In Which Blaise Has Trouble Sleeping

Pulling a face, Ginny asked, "Ron, didn't Mum teach you any manners?" When Ron failed to look up from his bowl of porridge, she said, "You probably weren't listening, anyway."

Ron blinked up at her. "Did you say something?"

His sister sighed. "You've got something on your chin," she said wearily. He wiped off a blob of porridge with his sleeve.

"You alright?" he asked.

"Fine. I was up late last night studying for OWLs."

"I don't know why you bother." He wrinkled his nose.

"Because I want to get better grades than you." Ginny stuck her tongue out at him.

Sliding into a seat, Hermione commented, "It's too early for bickering."

"Late night?" asked Ginny, a mischievous smile creeping onto her face. Hermione glared at her, reaching for a jug of pumpkin juice. "Lavender Brown said you didn't get back to your dormitory until late."

With a bacon sandwich in front of her, Hermione said, "I was with Blaise and Harry discussing the DA."

Ron looked confused. "But Harry got back to Gryffindor about nine o'clock."

"Ooh-er." Ginny looked pleased, rubbing her hands together. "You and Blaise spending some 'private time' together?"

Hermione, however, was saved from having to reply to Ginny's insinuation by the sight of a furious-looking Pansy who had just stormed into the Great Hall. "Been fighting with your other half?" she asked in a low voice, elbowing him. He glanced over his shoulder at the Slytherin girl and seemed to shrink in size at the sight of his girlfriend.

"It wasn't me," he hissed in a defensive whisper. "I've never seen her like that."

Evidently, Millicent had spotted Pansy's anger and was attempting to calm her friend down. This obviously did not work, as Pansy's irate voice drifted over to the Gryffindor table.

"She's a purebred cat for more generations than I can count! I can't believe this has happened!"

Hermione looked to Ron for an explanation. He shrugged. "Sounds like it's something to do with her cat, Delilah."

"Kittens!"

Ginny snickered at Pansy's vehement exclamation. "Her cat's been knocked up."

Staring sullenly at his porridge, Ron said, "Yeah." Hermione narrowed her eyes at this.

"What's the problem, Ron?" she demanded, her breakfast momentarily forgotten.

He shrugged. "I had a weird dream last night, that's all. Nothing to worry about."

Seeing that there was still half of his breakfast remaining, Ginny commented on this and said, "Something's definitely wrong."

"What was the dream about?" Hermione probed gently, trying to get the information out of him. She pushed her hair behind her ear, having only hurriedly brushed it before going down for breakfast.

Ron ducked his head. Speaking in a low whisper, he said, "It was about Harry." He paused. "And You-Know-Who."

"What?" Hermione spluttered, having just taken a mouthful of pumpkin juice. "What about?"

"They were playing chess."

"Who was winning?" Ginny asked.

Ron looked embarrassed and hastily began eating his breakfast. "Ginny, what sort of question is that?" Hermione chastised Ron's sister, who merely shrugged.

"I dunno. Maybe the dream was prophetic or something." The redhead looked at Ron. "Are you going to tell Harry about it?"

Ron shook his head. "Are you mad? Course I'm not going to tell him. You know what he's like when it comes to dreams."

Taking a seat next to Ron, Lavender Brown looked at him with an interested expression. "Dreams?" she repeated. "Who's been having dreams? Do you want me to interpret them? That's what we're doing in Divination at the moment." Ron groaned and pretended to bang his head on the table.

"No thank you, Lavender," said Hermione with as much politeness as she could muster. "It's nothing."

"Are you sure? Because we've just covered nudity in dreams. It's really interesting. My dream books says…"

"Dream book?" asked Ron. "Were there pictures?"

Lavender pulled a face. "Pervert."

Blaise stretched out his legs, resting them on the chair opposite him. It was nearly eleven o'clock and the common room was nearly empty, save for himself and a couple of fifth years girls who were fretting over a mock Defence Against the Dark Arts OWL that they were to have the next day. He yawned, flicking over the page of his Charms textbook and trying to focus on the information in front of him.

In retaliation for the his blue skin, Malfoy had put a curse on Vincent Crabbe which had given him an unnaturally deep baritone. His voice was so deep, in fact, that it had become an almost intelligible rumble. It had also made his snoring fifty times worse that normal, and Blaise was not going to go to bed any earlier than necessary. Anything he could do to avoid that atrocious racket was a good thing.

It was getting hard to stay awake, though. He yawned again, glancing at his watch. The description of the Protego Charm - fifteen pages long - was simply leaving his memory as soon as he read it. It would probably be easier to just ask Hermione about it, he decided.

Thinking about Hermione was not helpful, however, as it reminded him that he still had to prepare a list of Slytherins that he thought would be suitable to join the DA. She should have just asked Pansy and Daphne. Anything that those two girls did not know about the inhabitants of Slytherin was not worth knowing.

After yawning for the third time in as many minutes, Blaise placed his bookmark, as silver and green ribbon, between the pages of his book and proceeded to his dormitory. Stood outside the room, the door shook with the vibrations of Crabbe's snoring.

Bracing himself, Blaise entered to find that Crabbe was the only sixth year who was sleeping. Well, Malfoy had his head under his pillow, but the way that his shoulders were rising and falling told Blaise that he was not asleep. Nott and Goyle were playing Exploding Snap.

"Evening," said Goyle sullenly.

"Can't sleep?" Blaise asked as he put his Charms book back on his bookshelf, although he already knew the answer.

"I don't think anyone can," Theodore said, just barely audible above the snoring.

Blaise flopped down on his bed. "What 'bout Malfoy?"

Goyle glared at the other boy's bed. "Prat's too stubborn to take the curse off."

Shaking his head in disbelief, Blaise said, "Why doesn't anybody go to Snape? It's been three days - this is getting ridiculous!"

"We need Malfoy back on the Quidditch team," Goyle said. "We'll just have to put up with it."

Blaise pulled his pillow over his head with a groan, although it could not be heard over Crabbe's snoring.

The next day in Ancient Runes Hermione had to keep prodding Blaise. "Are you alright?" she whispered.

"Tired," he mumbled, lifting his head off the desk.

"At least try and look like you're awake," Hermione said quietly, giving his arm another nudge with her elbow. Sleepily, he rubbed his arm and forced his eyes as wide open as possible. They began to water and he blinked, forcing himself to concentrate on what Professor Mayfair had written on the blackboard.

"I need coffee."

"You can borrow my notes later." Giving him a small smile, Hermione turned back to the professor while Blaise tried to see if he could sleep with his eyes open.

After the lesson, Blaise haphazardly stuffed his notebook back into his bag, nearly spilling his bottle of ink. Shaking her head in amusement, Hermione screwed the lid on tightly, handing it to him. "Why are you so tired?" she asked, concerned.

"Malfoy cursed Crabbe. The snoring's unbearable."

She looked thoughtful at this. "Do you remember what the spell was?" Buried somewhere under the fog of his present state of mind, Blaise managed to remember the spell and scribbled it down on a scrap of parchment that he used as a bookmark. "I'll see if I can find a counter spell. Why don't you try and sleep now that it's lunchtime?" she suggested.

Blaise nodded, stifling a yawn that made his yaw tremble. "Yeah, I s'pose."

Hermione beamed. "I'll give you the notes later - you're coming to the sixth and seventh year DA meeting, right?"

"Course."

"Sweet dreams."

Hermione wandered out the classroom, intent on heading to the Library so that she could check on a couple of spells before that evening. It had been Ron's idea, actually, to hold a DA meeting just for the older students. With the growing ranks it was getting difficult to teach everyone together, and so Ron had suggested that they get some of the other students to help run the meetings, splitting up into smaller groups.

However, after catching a whiff of lunch as she passed the Great Hall, Hermione decided that the spells could wait until after her afternoon lessons. It was strangely liberating, she decided, not to do something straight away.

Hermione sat nervously on the chair in McGonagall's office, twisting her hands in her lap.

"Have a biscuit, Miss Granger."

"No, thank you, Professor McGonagall."

The Head of Gryffindor gave a nod and took a seat behind her desk. "Very well. Now, I think it's time that we had a serious talk."

"Why is Weasley tap-dancing?"

Blaise yawned, taking a seat next to Hermione. She shrugged, leaning back on her chair. "I think that Pansy was trying to prove a point."

"He's quite good."

"You should have seen him waltzing earlier." Hermione grinned, reaching up to tighten her ponytail. "Did you sleep well?"

"Well enough." He rubbed his neck - apparently, he had slept in an awkward position. "You didn't happen to find a counter spell, did you?"

She handed him a slip of parchment.

"Thank you!" He was so relieved that he could have kissed her; he restrained himself. Thinking that like was not going to get him anywhere, he knew that much.

There was a thud as Ron finished his tap-dance with a flourish and promptly fell to the floor.

Harry started talking about their plans to split the DA into smaller units, and Blaise forced himself to listen. He was acutely aware of Hermione's close proximity - there was something different about her, he was sure of it. Blaise cast a sideways glance at her, but she was busy reading over her notes. When she noticed that he was staring, she gave him a small smile and continued with what she was doing.

Blaise picked at a cuticle after being told that he would be helping to supervise some fourth year students. That did not seem to be too bad; he could think of worse things.

After nearly an hour, Harry finally dismissed them, handing them all a piece of parchment with instructions and a spell so that they could read them. Blaise shoved the apparently blank parchment into the inside pocket of his robes, planning to read it when he was more awake. Hopefully, the spell that Hermione had provided him with would give him a good night's sleep.

He pulled Hermione to the side as they were leaving the Room of Requirement. The corridor was quiet. "What's happened to you?"

She looked at him in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"You. You've done something to yourself." He narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "Who are you and what have you done with Hermione."

Hermione shrugged off his hand in annoyance, rolling her eyes. "I am Hermione, Blaise. Honestly, I don't know what's come over you."

"Sorry. But I can tell that there's something different."

She looked thoughtful. "Well, McGonagall gave me the antidote today. You know, so that I can…"

"That's it!" Blaise's eyes widened. "It's like… you're more tangible than anyone else. More real," he added quietly. He moved closer, fingers brushing against the collar of her shirt; she gasped softly.

"You're sleep deprived," Hermione said quickly.

"It's difficult trying to keep my focus on anything else."

Hermione nodded, swallowing. "I had the same feeling," she said, quietly. "But why has it only just started happening?"

His fingers caught the end of a stray lock of hair from her ponytail. "Maybe because that potion put a block on your Animagus ability. Now that it's been taken off and I've completed the transformation, maybe it's affecting us."

"That's a good theory," she agreed, moving forwards. "I should do some research."

"Yes. Research. That would be good. Because this is distracting."

"Very." Hermione licked her bottom lip. "Distracting."

"Indeed."

He kissed her, lips crashing down on hers. Hermione staggered backwards, her back hitting the wall. Her nails raked down his chest, still sharp despite the layers of fabric. His hand clutched desperately at her ponytail, trying to pull her closer.

With a gasp, they broke apart, Blaise stumbling backwards.

Hermione's lips were red. "Blaise?" she asked nervously, breathlessly. "What was that?"

Blaise ran.

Thank Yous: Thank you to everyone who reviewed chapter three: seventhofseptember, Dagon ng Likha, Spizzy the Headless Spaz, Broadwaypoetess, slytherinphoenix7, gremlyn, homestar-fan, Trixie7, katherose, Liam MacGivern, Isadora, sortinghat086, Gremlyn, shatteredimmortality, death is only a phase, Flavagurl, matilda, HogwartzBoizRHottiez, Procella Nox-noctis, kiss-of-cuteness and Doodleflip.

Love and hugs and coffee,
silvernatasha