Chapter V

Disclaimer: I'm too young to be Rowling so there is sadly no way Harry Potter is mine…

Placing: After the second war.

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BOYFRIEND TIME

THE THIRD TRY

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Blaise Zabini was very nervous when he was asked to enter the room Greg and Gryffindor had entered before.

Inside, a man was waiting for him. The man had dark blond hair and blue eyes.

He scrutinized Blaise thoughtfully.

"So…" he said slowly. "You're one of our accidental acquisitions."

Blaise blinked.

"I'm an accidental acquisition?" he asked surprised and a bit confused. So… he hadn't been the target when he had been grabbed by the muggles? Well, hadn't been one of the targets. He clearly seemed to be useful or he wouldn't be here right now.

The other man hummed.

"We didn't plan for you," he agreed. "But I think we can manage with you, too."

Blaise wondered what a man like the one in front of him wanted from him. The man was clearly muggle with the black tuxedo he was wearing – and also definitely well off by the looks of the tux.

What would a man like that want from a poor student like Blaise?

But then, what did a man like that want from any of them?

"What do you want from me?" he finally asked when the man wasn't forthcoming and seemed to be contend to watch Blaise instead.

"Your basic information would be enough for now," the other man countered thoughtfully. "Like your name, your age, your occupation – if you have one – etc, etc."

Blaise blinked.

For a moment he contemplated what would be done to him if he refused, but then someone else piped up. "And if you lie, we'll find out," Blaise supressed a flinch at the second voice. He hadn't even noticed the second man in the room until that moment. The other man was leaning against a wall and looking Blaise over as intensely as the one sitting in front of Blaise.

"Mycroft is already running the information he has on you," the man who was leaning against the wall continued. "We will have your identity within the next twenty-four hours."

He sounded so sure that Blaise didn't even think about questioning him.

Blaise gulped.

"Blaise Zabini," he finally offered up, deciding that getting the whole thing over with might be the better idea. "I'm nineteen. I'm still a student thanks to the war."

The man in front of him hummed thoughtfully and then scrutinized him closely.

"You were fighting?" he asked.

Blaise shook his head 'no'.

"I wasn't," he admitted. "I didn't fancy the idea of fighting in any way or form."

The two men exchanged a glance.

"Do you abhor the idea of fighting or is it something else?" the one in front of him finally asked.

"I don't mind the fighting in itself," Blaise countered with a frown on his face. "It's more that… there was nobody I wanted to follow."

"Not a fan of the defeated wizard, then?" the man who was leaning against the wall asked interestedly.

Blaise shrugged.

"I think it would have been stupid to swear allegiance to him," he countered and when the man in front of him raised an eyebrow in inquiry, Blaise elaborated. "It's just… he was defeated by Potter when Potter was still in his nappies – so why did anybody expect another outcome now that Potter could wield a wand?"

The man leaning on the wall snickered. "That's one way to put it," he agreed, obviously amused.

The other man's lips twitched in amusement.

"So, why not join the opposition?" he wanted to know.

Blaise shrugged. "Those fighting on the Dark Lord's side were still my classmates and almost friends," he said. "I didn't feel comfortable to point a wand at them after I shielded their backs for seven years."

"Understandable," the man in front of him agreed, then he crooked his head thoughtfully. "What do you think of muggles and muggleborns?"

Since Blaise had just been kidnapped by muggles without being able to fight them he thought that anybody in his situation would be insane if he said something against muggles.

"I prefer our worlds to be separate," he finally settled on. "Otherwise, I don't really care about muggles at all."

He wondered how the two men in the room with him had learned about magic and why they had decided that kidnapping wizards was the right way to go.

"I also don't particularly like stupid people," Blaise said. "I normally lose composure with them quite easily. As long as the muggleborn in question doesn't fall under that particular kind of person, then I don't really care about their blood status. It's intelligence that should be counted, not the purity of blood."

The man in front of him hummed thoughtfully.

"Might be a good match," the other one said.

The man in front of Blaise hummed again. "Might be," he agreed and looked at Blaise thoughtfully.

"What do you think of Hermione Granger?"

Well, that opened a totally different can of worms.

"She's the worst!" Blaise declared before he could stop himself. The man's mien darkened, but Blaise couldn't stop himself from continuing even if he wanted to. "She's always besting me in class by only a margin! She's one of the most intelligent people I ever met but she hangs around Potter and the Weasel instead of with people who would appreciate her more! Merlin! If she just acknowledged my existence and sat down once in a while to learn with me, we could rule the school from the shadows within a month! Instead, she's looking at the Weasel!"

"Guess he's a good possibility," the man leaning on the wall said and snickered. "He's half-way there already, after all."

Blaise stopped and blinked in confusion.

"Huh?"

"So, I guess you don't mind that Hermione is mugglenborn?" the man in front of him said dryly.

Blaise shook his head, still confused.

"What about her ambitions?" the man in front him asked. "What if she wanted to radically change the magical world and the way it's run? Would you object?"

Blaise blinked, still a bit thrown, but answered anyway. "If she prefers to run the wizarding world from the shadows instead of the school, that would be fine by me, too."

The two men looked at him a bit amused.

"And if she doesn't want to rule?" the one next to the wall asked.

Blaise scoffed.

"She has ambition," he denied. "It doesn't matter if she wants to rule or if she wants to take over the Ministry or Hogwarts. She has ambitions – and whatever her ambitions are, she'll get far. But… if she just listened to me a bit, she'd go further."

The two men nodded at each other thoughtfully.

It was then, that it finally clicked in Blaise's mind.

"You're looking for a husband for Hermione," he said with dawning realisation.

"More like a boyfriend, right now," the man in front of him corrected. "She's insistent that she needs one and the last one she brought home was more than inadequate."

Blaise winced.

"The Weasel?" he asked.

"Not a fan of that boy?" the man next to the wall asked amused and Blaise shrugged.

"The Weasel is biased against anything Slytherin," he replied. "He's convinced we're all evil because a stupid twat and a power-hungry manic who ended up in our house by accident."

The man next to the wall snickered.

"I like him, James," he declared towards the man sitting in front of Blaise.

"Of course, you do, Clint," the man answered with a snort. "He knows your kind of language – just that he's a bit more distinguished while using it."

The man next to the wall, Clint, stuck out his tongue at the other man.

Blaise looked from one man to the other.

Now that he knew what to look for, he could see Hermione's features in both men.

"You're related, aren't you?" he asked and crooked his head.

"Close enough to decide that us going looking might be the better option than hoping that Hermione will develop a better taste in men any time in the near future."

Blaise gawked, then he took a deep breath and decided to dissuade the two men in front of him from the idea that he could be a good boyfriend for the clever Gryffindor.

"I'm pretty sure you don't want me to be Hermione's boyfriend," Blaise pointed out calmly. "My mother is a Black Widow."

He expected the other man to recoil. Instead, the man leaned closer.

"Oh," he said thoughtfully. "Another one. We have a few of those in and around the family as well."

That… wasn't the typical reaction Blaise was used to.

"She wants me to follow in her footsteps," he tried again.

"Hmm," the man said. "Might end up an interesting marriage… and a long one. I know Hermione. She wouldn't be the one who ends up dead."

He scratched his chin thoughtfully.

"I guess I can see it. Hermione is a danger addict with the mind of a genius… it might actually work. You'd keep her on her toes and she'd be able to try out anything and everything she wants to experiment with without you feeling weirded out by her."

Blaise stared at the man.

The man frowned.

"Might end up looking like a homage to the Addams Family for those not in the know, though," he said.

Blaise gawked.

He had enough of a muggle education to know what the other man was talking about.

"That's your take on all this?!" Blaise finally screeched. "I tell you I might end up trying to kill the girl and you–!"

"Part of her family 'dies' regularly just to take a holiday," the other man said with an eyeroll. "She has a Russian Black Widow as an honorary sister-cousin or whatever and her Aunt is Emma Peel. Not to mention that there are assassins and spies and superheroes in her relations. Believe me, you'd fit right in."

Blaise opened his mouth and then closed it again.

The nonchalant way the other man talked told him more than anything else that this was no joke.

He stared at the man, then he turned to look at the one behind him.

Said man grinned ferally and then pulled out a knife from nowhere to twirl it and throw it in the air just to catch it again.

Blaise slumped into his chair.

"She's dangerous, isn't she?" he asked in defeat.

"Just a bit," the man behind him said. "Our Widow has only been training her for about five years, after all."

Which meant that she was most likely way better than Blaise already…

Blaise wasn't an idiot.

He had heard about the Russian Black Widows. Saying 'Russian Black Widow' spoke of a Red Room survivor… and no matter how good his mother was, she'd never reach the abilities of someone trained in the Red Room… magic or no magic.

"Damn," Blaise said, but at the same time, he was a bit intrigued. There weren't a lot of girls who could hold their own against him after all and someone trained by a Black Widow…

"I guess I've really underestimated her," Blaise shook his head. "Alright. I'm definitely interested in dating her now – just to see if we'd end up a good match."

The man leaning on the wall snorted.

"Honestly, Brother," he said to Blaise's interrogator. "Are you sure about that? We might end up with a living and breathing Addams Family if we'd give him a chance – and I'm not sure if Mycroft or Daddy will ever forgive us for the headache they'll cause just by being who they are…"

Blaise's interrogator shrugged.

"At least she'd be occupied and happy for the rest of her life… and not even Sherlock would be able to say something against someone like him," he gestured to Blaise.

The man being Blaise shrugged.

"Sure," he said. "The boy has my approval – but you will have to break it to Mycroft and Daddy if Hermione and the boy hit it off."

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That was Blaise – also still in the running.

Sorry for not updating this for quite some time. This story, sadly, isn't coming as easily to me as 'Confession time'.

Hope you liked it anyway.

'Till next time.

Ebenbild