A/N: Written for Hermione's Haven Personal Library competition in 2018. It was a drabble competition and we were required to stay between 500-1000 words.

Inspirational Quote: He stepped down, trying not to look at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking. - Anna Karenina.

Pairing: Hermione Granger/Blaise Zabini

Summary: Blaise watches from afar until he works up the courage to actually speak to her.

Rating: T

The Wandling

Blaise Zabini had always enjoyed Muggle literature. Blame it on his fifth step-father, Five, as Blaise called him. Five was a Muggleborn whose father had been a literary professor specializing in Russian literature, and his mother had been a famous Opera singer, which explained why Blaise's mother had been attracted to him. Five had given Blaise a taste for the classics, especially the Russian classics. Anna Karenina wasn't Blaise's favorite book, but it was the one that always reminded him of her.

Five had also been the one who was around the longest. None of them were around for too long, but Five had been around for close to three years. And he took an active interest in Blaise. He was the only one to have done so. Which was another reason Blaise had liked him the best of them all. But Five had died, just as the rest of them. Mother was on Nine now and Blaise barely saw her. She preferred the climates of Italy, while Blaise preferred the climate of London.

Well, that wasn't entirely true, he preferred the nightlife of London. Particularly his own corner of it, The Wandling. A dance club on the corners of Diagon and Knockturn Alley that he owned and managed. He had other restaurant properties, but the Wandling had been his first, and thus his favorite. The best part of the Wandling was who came into every single Friday evening with her co-workers. She would arrive looking harried and harassed, but a few drinks in and she'd take her hair out of the tight knot she kept it in, and hit the dance floor. He loved watching her dance. His office was on the second floor of the club, and it afforded him a view of almost everything.

Had anyone told Blaise that he'd be lusting after Hermione Granger when they'd been in school a few years ago, he would have laughed himself silly. Granger wasn't beautiful. She wasn't even conventionally pretty. But when she let down her hair and danced with abandon, Blaise found his mind going numb. She was like the sun, he both desperately wanted to look at her, but knew that if he looked too long, he'd get burnt.

It took almost six months of looking and not looking for Blaise to finally descend from his office overhead and approach her. Her friends had left and she was back at the bar, nursing a drink. He sat next to her and waved to the bartender.

"Zabini," her cool, smoky voice said, without looking at him. Blaise felt his heart rate speed up as the bartender slid him his usual, a firewhisky with a single ice cube.

"Granger," he replied, hopefully just as coolly, but he feared his voice trembled.

"You come here often?" she asked, finally turning to look at him. Her eyes were the color of the whisky he was drinking and Blaise thought for sure that he'd drown in their depths.

He smirked at her, "Most days."

She seemed surprised by that answer and just watched him as she took another sip of her drink. Blaise didn't know for sure, but it looked like a gin and tonic. Maybe she didn't know that he owned the place? Or that he'd made it a habit to watch her as she let her hair down and danced her frustrations from the week away. He hoped she didn't know that last bit.

"I've never seen you," Granger said finally.

Blaise's smirk crept up into a smile, "That's because I'm usually working when you're here."

"You work here?" she asked incredulously. Blaise wanted to laugh. Did she think all Slytherin's just sat on their arses after graduation like Draco?

"I own the Wandling," he informed her with a small bit of pride.

"Ahh," she hummed and turned back to her drink.

"Would you like to grab a late dinner?" Blaise asked finally. The whole point of him leaving his elevated office had been to ask her out. And now he almost shook in trepidation that she would refuse him.

"I'd love to," she said turning toward him once more and gifting him with a large smile. Blaise thought right then that she was the most beautiful witch he'd ever laid eyes on. He stood and held out his arm. When she grabbed it lightly, he guided them both from the club and into the world beyond.