Thanks to everyone for reviewing I'm really glad you like it, you all get your Blaise Zabini shaped cherry, apart from vagrantben who gets his Hermione shaped cherry (sorry about that, and if you really feel like sacrificing something then I would lean toward the cookies, you would get the next chapter extra fast!).
Okay, here you all go, next chapter. Not a great deal of Blaise/Hermione interaction, but I don't want it moving to fast you know!
Again warnings of impending slash, even if it is not yet imposed, so be warned!
I own zilch of anything!
Hermione sat cross legged on table at the back of library, eyes searching the very small section on languages Hogwarts held. In actual fact, it amounted to two shelves, two very small shelves. So small in fact, that if one was to be searching for a simple dictionary on a popular language, say for example Italian, in theory, it would be rather simple to find what one was looking for.
Well, Hermione had tested that theory and come up disappointed. She could not find a simple Italian dictionary and phrase book in the entire library and was thoroughly annoyed! She had been in the library ever since she had managed to regain the use of her limbs and unglue herself from the chair in the charms classroom, where her best friends had been staring at her as if she had grown horns. Of course, it had still taken some time after she had regained the use of her body, for her mind to catch up.
At first, once she had gotten over the butterflies in her stomach, she had been entirely confused as to why Zabini had just called her Cara. The bemusement had thus turned into anger when she realised that this meant he could not even remember her name. The anger had not lasted very long and quickly gave way to embarrassment when she realised that he had, in fact, been speaking Italian.
Never one who was able to hide her emotions well, she imagined her face had looked not unlike one of a lunatic as she worked her way through Zabini's words.
'Well' she thought 'that would probably explain why Harry and Ron were staring like constipated moose…..'
"Urgh!" she seethed, "Damn it!"
She was missing Lunch for this! And she had heard a rumour the house elves were planning on their famous spaghetti. And Damn it, did she love spaghetti! This was all Zabini's fault, she thought, stupid Italian, with his stupid language and stupid accent which made her stomach go all fluttery. I mean fluttery; she was not in any way the fluttery type. Nope, Hermione Granger could not remember a single moment in life in which she had, even remotely, fluttered.
But she didn't get very far in her (well in her opinion) very insulting mental tirade on Zabini, when Harry ran into her line of vision. He didn't appear to have seen her at first, looking around wildly for what looked like an escape point. His tie was askew, his hair was even messier than usual and he was panting like he had just run a marathon.
When he finally set eyes on her he ran straight up and grabbed her shoulders, eyes still darting around uncontrollably.
"Harry, what is it, what happened" she rushed, her mind full of death eaters and mental pictures of the school under siege.
"Hermi…Seamus…trying to…. Get me" he pushed out, still out of breath.
"What do you mean Seamus is trying to get you?" she asked in complete bemusement.
But before Harry could get anything out, Seamus Finnegan came running round the corner with a distinctly evil glint in his eyes. Harry jumped away from Hermione and backed into one of the shelves, arms out in a defensive position.
"No…you….don't" he stuttered.
Hermione looked between the two boys still completely confused.
"Aw, c'mon Harry, whatdya say, eh? I know y'wanna…" said the Blonde Irish boy, advancing on Harry slowly.
Harry squeaked pathetically and jumped behind Hermione, who was struggling to keep her laughter in, finally understanding what on earth was going on.
Seamus Finnegan was a notorious flirt. More than that Seamus Finnegan was as gay as two pink canaries in leather trousers, and he had made a reputation for himself around the school as a bit of a playboy. It was rumoured that his conquests amounted to more than you could count on five people's fingers.
Hermione rolled her eyes at Harry's pathetic attempts to keep Seamus at bay.
She was quite sure he had nothing to worry about. Seamus, though quite forward, was nothing but a harmless fool with the sex drive of a gigantic rabbit. And since Harry had managed to fight off Voldemort on several occasions, the chances were that he could take on Seamus Finnegan. But no, Harry was still hiding behind her as Seamus drew closer wearing what he obviously thought was a charming smile, though it ended up making him look rather like a lecherous old pervert.
She smiled to herself, deciding to intervene before her poor Harry had a nervous breakdown. She drew out her wand and pointed in straight between the fair headed boy's eyes, feeling rather sorry for him even as she did it. It was enough to make Seamus stop in his tracks.
"Now Seamus, I think Harry has made it quite clear that your intentions are not welcome at this point in time and I think it is probably for the best if you leave him alone." She said in her best teacher tone.
Seamus looked between her and Harry obviously trying to work out whether one of Hermione's famous curses were price enough to pay to get into Harry's trousers.
Evidently the price was too high, as Seamus backed away but not before shooting a wink and a smile in Harry's direction.
"Just think about it Harry, we'd be good together y'know!" he said as he turned and left the two.
Hermione turned back to her still ruffled best friend, trying in vain to hide her grin.
"Now Harry, I want you to calm down, take a deep breath and tell me what happened." she said.
Harry proceeded to take a very deep breath and let it out slowly, his eyes still glassy, making her want to give in to her laughter.
"Harry…" she started to ask again.
"He…he…that…that boy! He…" Harry started, blowing himself up and looking completely bonkers, as though a threat had just been made to his life.
"He MANHANDLED me!" Harry stated dramatically in a very loud whisper.
Hermione gave up her act, clutching her stomach, giving in to her laughter.
"It…it's not funny Hermione! He practically jumped my bones on the third floor corridor! Right there, in the hallway." Harry was flaying his arms around to exaggerate his point, but only ended up making him self look more comical.
"Kept muttering to himself about being a better suitor for me, and that, that he would show me…me…things!"
Hermione found her self unable to answer due to being currently incapacitated on the library floor trying to fight the growing pain in her stomach, imagining Harry trying to fend off a randy Seamus Finnegan.
Finally she calmed down, mostly due to the death glare Harry was sending her way, and partly due to the fact that Hermione Granger was not the type of person for fits of unrestrained giggles.
"Well you know Seamus Harry, he's well, he's…."
"A crazy Irish bastard who likes to manhandle innocent victims in darkened corridors?"
"Harry" she admonished, at his use of language.
Her typical Hermione reaction though, did seem to put a grin back on the boys face.
"Now" she said, "what did you say again about all that suitor stuff Seamus was babbling about?"
"I don't know, he just kept mumbling on about he would be so much better for me, that we had more in common and stuff."
"Hmmm, better than whom for you I wonder?"
After about a moments thought, both friends looked at each other in shock.
"You don't think he…" Harry started.
"Knows about…?"
"He couldn't, please no, unless you….?"
"No I haven't, I wouldn't….." she said looking bewildered.
"But then how could he…"
"Unless someone overheard about…"
"Malfoy" Harry finished, looking rather lost.
"Potter, I know your obsessed and everything, but really, I thought we got passed this" drawled an amused voice from their right.
Hermione turned round to see a rather amused Draco Malfoy lounging against the foreign language section, glancing between both her and Harry.
"Malfoy…I…" Harry started, obviously at a loss for words, again.
"Potter, have you ever considered elocution lessons?" Malfoy said slowly, obviously finding the situation more amusing by the minute.
'He has a point' Hermione thought, 'Harry really is rather terrible at explaining himself, oh well, Hermione to the rescue again.'
"We were just discussing a little rumour Malfoy, a rumour that concerns you in fact…." Hermione stated meeting the Blonde's eyes.
"Oh really Granger?" he said, raising one brow at her.
She simply raised one back, nodding.
"And pray tell, what might that rumour be?" Malfoy started examining his perfectly clean fingernails for dirt.
"That a certain person and his friends have been disowned by their fathers and are currently under the protection of the headmaster." She said, causing him to look up sharply from his hands, fixing her with a steady gaze.
A tense moment passed before Malfoy replied, in which she could here Harry gasp beside her, holding his breath.
The corner of his mouth began to twitch just slightly.
"You know Granger, I never had you figured for the type to jump on the rumour bandwagon, really, you disappoint me." He stated, though for the first time, his grey eyes held no malice.
She narrowed her eyes at him as he took one last look at Harry and turned to leave.
"Though you know Granger" he said turning back, "I think you'll find Blaise has in no way been disowned by his family, a good job really, as I would find myself missing the long summers at his father's house terribly." He added before sauntering out of their section of the library.
She turned to Harry, who looked confused.
"Does that mean they're all still evil?" he asked scratching his head.
Hermione rolled her eyes and smacked him upside the head.
"Honestly Harry, when did you morph in to Ron? It means that yes, Malfoy and Nott have been disowned, and that the Zabini's were never death eaters in the first place." She said, reverting back to her teacher voice.
"Oh" Harry said, eloquence obviously failing him again, though an indignant look began to form on his face.
"How come he is the one that always gets to saunter out of here like some guy in a James Bond film?"
Hermione snorted in a very unladylike fashion as they got their things together, heading out of the Library.
"I mean seriously, why do I never get to be Mr Suave…?"
"Harry I really don't think you're the Suave type."
"Hey! I could be Suave." he said, doing his best impression of a 'Malfoy Saunter' out of the Library doors.
"Harry, you look like a constipated chicken"
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Blaise was sat at the end of the Slytherin table to avoid any trouble with his Slytherin peers, even though it was the end of lunch and the table was all but deserted. He was just finishing the last of his Spaghetti, which held no contest to his Grandmothers by the way, when he heard a bang near the entrance.
He looked up to see Draco and Theo sauntering toward the table, Draco looking rather like he'd just claimed the title of "King of the Universe". His head was held high, and Theo was looking coolly unperturbed as they headed his way.
'God' thought Blaise 'do we always look that arrogant?'
The answer, he knew, was of course yes.
But, hey! It worked for them.
"What's up with you?" he asked as Draco sat down to the left of him, quickly grabbing a bread roll, "Let me guess, you just found out that your father has kindly restored your impossibly large inheritance and you don't even have to mark your perfect skin with that unsightly black tattoo?"
Draco simply raised a brow in his direction and continued to eat his bread roll with a look on his face that suggested he knew something Blaise didn't.
Obviously, Blaise was not going to get anything out of Draco any time soon, so turned instead to Theo who had took the seat opposite him.
Theo rolled his eyes in Draco's direction muttering something that sounded rather like 'drama queen', which led to Draco vehemently denying being a queen of any sort, before going back to the bread roll he called Lunch.
"He" Theo said, nodding a head in Draco's direction, "seems to have had a little run in with Potter and Granger in the Library earlier"
Though his pulse quickened slightly at the mention of the bushy haired wonder, he thought he had better keep the conversation on track.
"Drake, tell me you didn't have another fight and undo everything all over again"
At this Draco looked up from his bread roll.
"Me? Fight with Potter? Do you really think me that uncivilised Blaise? We merely had a little discussion, of course, that was after I had listened a little into theirs." He said with a satisfied smirk.
"And?" Blaise said, just as the alarm sounded for their next lesson.
"That's for me to know and you to find out" Draco teased as he threw his bag over his shoulder and began to saunter back out the hall.
Blaise and Theo ran to catch up.
"Come on then, what about after that, what did you and Potter talk about" Theo pushed.
"Well, to be honest, it was more Granger that I conversed with."
Again Blaise felt a little jolt in his stomach.
"What's a matter B? Jealous? Thinking that maybe your little display in charms wasn't enough to capture Grangers attention." He smirked.
"No, what? I, just…well, what did you talk about anyway." Blaise eventually ground out, stopping with Draco in the middle of the hallway.
"Oh you know" Draco said flippantly with a casual wave of his hand, "Rumours, death eater fathers, how lovely the Zabini mansion is in the summer…"
With that he continued to strut down the hall, leaving a very confused Blaise Zabini in his wake.
"Malfoy, so help me Merlin, get your skinny arse back here…."
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It was a flustered Blaise who made his way into the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, following a still sauntering Malfoy to his seat. He had managed to get a basic outline of the exchange he had with Granger, but the blonde was still keeping completely quiet about whatever he had found out while listening to Potter's conversation.
Draco's eyes were still alive with whatever he secret he now held and that soft smirk of his never made its way off his lips. This was perhaps the most annoying thing about Malfoy; he always maintained his composure whatever the situation. While Blaise was to some extent very good at it, he was, in the end, far too easily stirred up. He supposed it was the Italian blood in him or something, and the fact that he had managed to take the seat right behind Granger was certainly not helping.
Though, granted, his little display earlier was rather dramatic, it certainly wasn't embarrassment he was feeling.
No it was something else.
Something that seemed to be reserved entirely for Granger. Well, Hermione.
He supposed he should at least begin to call her by her given name in his head. After all, she tended to dominate his thoughts far much more than he would like these days. He supposed it was the challenge that she posed that really made him crazy. It was of course that which had first drawn him to her. She was his intellectual equal, if not his superior, and Blaise simply wasn't used to that. It was also the way she never backed down from a challenge. The fire in her brown eyes when she stared at him in class. He could always feel her willing him to look up at her with those eyes. You could literally feel the tension pouring off her. She was so very easy to read, and never tried to hold her emotions back.
Now many people, mainly the boys of Hogwarts, would consider Granger passionless bookworm with a one track mind. But this was where they were missing out. Granger was one of the single most passionate people Blaise had ever met. Granted, that passion was not usually directed toward the opposite sex, but Blaise had a feeling that if it was it would be something to behold.
Perhaps she was not the most conventionally beautiful girl in the world; she bothered little with potions and creams to make her self up. But her face was perfect to Blaise. It was clear and creamy, unblemished by any useless sunbathing, with a slight pink tint to her cheeks that always made her look like she had just returned home on a windy day. Her features were quite small, and if anything made her look slightly younger than her age. But any such thought would be diminished the moment you looked into her eyes, which held a wisdom and fire which were beyond her years. He supposed her wild mane of hair was an acquired taste, but it was his taste, and he wouldn't have it any other way. It suited her.
She hadn't noticed him yet, though he had at least got out of Theo that Draco had found her and Potter in the foreign languages section of the Library. He allowed himself an inward laugh at that. She never could stand not knowing something, however small and insignificant.
Her attention was turned toward Potter at the moment, who was looking down at his desk, shaking his head. He was certainly not his usual calm and collected self, and Blaise was sure it had something to do with whatever Draco had found out about Potter over Lunch. Sure enough, when he turned toward Draco, he found him looking directly at the back of Potters neck, a small smile on his lips and a sparkle in his normally stormy eyes.
Blaise knew that look, and it was never a good omen.
Draco Malfoy was up to something.
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Defence against the Dark Arts had passed without much drama. The werewolf, Remus Lupin, was back to teach the class, and it was certainly not something Blaise was complaining about. He rather liked the man, after all he was the only teacher worth his weight in salt that they had ever had during their years at Hogwarts. Hermione's attention was focused between taking furious notes and what looked pitying glances toward her famous friend. Though, he did manage to get in a sly wink in her direction when she passed him on her way out of the classroom. He pleased to see that same blush creep up the back of her neck.
All in all it was a rather satisfied Blaise Zabini who made his way back down to the Dungeons with his two friends at the end of the school day. Draco was still obviously scheming something or other, and Theo seemed content to roll his eyes at the two of them all the way down to the common room.
Once back in their dormitory, Blaise pulled out his potions essay. It was due in tomorrow and he needed to conclude it and read it over. After all, one couldn't pass up a chance for getting one up on a certain Gryffindor Prefect.
"Ow! Get your elbow the hell away from there….."
Blaise looked up from his essay to see that Draco had plopped himself pretty much across Theo, who was sprawled out on his bed with a book.
"I'm comfortable, why on earth would I want to do that?" asked an unconcerned Draco.
"Well, I'm actually rather fond of them and would like to keep them fully functioning if you know what I mean." Theo said, throwing the smaller boy onto the floor.
"Hmph" Draco muttered, looking up at Blaise with a smirk.
"Whatcha doooing?"
Blaise huffed and took off the glasses he usually wore for reading.
"I am attempting to finish my potions essay; you might want to try it"
"Sev isn't exactly going to fail me for it" he said with a nonchalant shrug.
"The whole Godfather thing isn't going to sail you through your entire NEWT you know Drake." Theo added without looking up from his own book.
"Yeah besides, you don't have any time to do it later. You know well enough that were moving on to a new assignment tomorrow, I just hope for the sake of my grades I don't have to pair up with you" Blaise said, trying to carry on with his essay.
Draco ran a hand through his hair, a strange look forming on his face.
"What do you mean paired up?"
"I mean" Blaise said irritably, "that we are being paired for a potions assignment tomorrow, the one that counts toward 30 of our grade."
Draco didn't say anything, but the strange look slowly gave way to the blonde's previous scheming expression, only this time a full blown grin covered his face.
It was, in Blaise's opinion, highly disconcerting to see any Malfoy grin in such a manner, and when that Malfoy was Draco, you just knew something bad was about to happen. Theo seemed to be thinking along the same lines, as he started to edge further away from Draco.
Draco just continued to grin like a maniac, before jumping up and grabbing his cloak.
"I'll be back" was all he said before darting toward the door.
"Where are you going…?" Blaise tried, but their Slytherin friend was already out of sight.
He looked up to his dark haired friend who just shrugged.
"You know sometimes, I think he's one crucio short of a straight jacket." He said, giving Blaise a bemused look.
"You wouldn't be wrong."
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A/N: Not as good as the last ending I know. But please review anyway; I need to know if it's worth me carrying on! Also, the read and review ratio is about 1 review for every hundred people who read this story according to my stats, so please do take the time to do it, even if you hate it .
Oh and feel free to email (on my bio), or leave your email and a question in a review if you have any stuff you want me to answer, I want to reply to all your reviews but it takes up space!