AU: Blaise Zabini was the Black King, just as his mother had been the Black Widow; behind his back they called him Black Death. But he may have finally met his match. Warnings for slash. Blaise/Harry.
NOTE: NO VOLDEMORT, SLTHERIN!HARRY, BLAISE/HARRY, WARNINGS FOR SLASH.
For my 200th reviewer of 'World Enough and Time', Dreamers0rule0the0earth, who requested a Slytherin!Harry and this fantabulous pairing (o: Hope you enjoy!
Rating: M
Italics - thought-speech
Chapter Three
A cold nose nudged at a particular sensitive spot beneath his ear. He didn't know when the bloody pest had found the time to drape himself all over his back. Blaise resisted the urge to swat the man away and instead settled for snapping, "Do you want me to drop the wards on you?"
A rather gentle, if reprimanding nip came at the nape of his neck, but the other touches subsided. Blaise took a deep, shuddering breath, and summoned up the family magic.
A true guest? There hasn't been one in so long a time.
Zabini Manor was singularly unique in that it was created from the cthonic powers of his ancestor's Fury companions. Wild magic coursed through every brick and marble slab, causing it to be more than adequately sentient. It looked more like a Greek temple than an actual house, but for Blaise it had always been home.
And the Manor spoke true; there hadn't been a true guest for more than a decade now. Blaise's own father had been the last one before his fall from grace. All the others were acknowledged by him and the rest of the family to be nothing more than tools for the object of conception; the manor could be just as cruel as his ancestor like that. Blaise would never have troubled his manor with this formality for them. He still didn't know why he was doing this for someone he had met less than once.
His name is Harry James Potter, he told the house. Treat him well.
Let us taste his magic.
"Potter," he rasped. "your hand." He found a large palm extended on his right, and grasped it by the wrist. Ignoring the taut muscle and flesh he was holding, he instead concentrated on the trace amounts of magic he knew would be running through his veins. What he hadn't expected was for Potter to be brimful of the stuff, nearly spilling out and over. The Manor chuckled at his surprise.
This is a strong one. He will make a good companion, we think.
I hope, he allowed himself to whisper, before withdrawing his mind from the wards.
The sudden transition from power surge to abrupt loss made him stumble back briefly, but warm hands rested on either side, bracing him easily. "The wards will allow you access to the grounds," Blaise croaked, and then cleared his throat. "But should you arrive on your own, either remain on the grounds or wait in the foyer, and I will meet you there to bring you into the house. Do not, under any circumstances, try to enter the manor proper."
Potter hummed thoughtfully, and traced an appreciative line along the gates as they crossed them. "These are amazing wards. When you took my hand- I could feel their power." He looked at Blaise questioningly. "You don't have any house-elves? I would've been sure- with your wealth-"
"For the other properties, yes, but there are no house-elves here. When you arrive, the Manor will inform me. I have no need for their presence here. The Manor wouldn't allow it, would probably slaughter them the moment they cross the threshold." He allowed himself a small smile as they strolled through the luscious grounds. "She is proud, you see. She doesn't take lightly to mere brutes trying to show her up." He felt an appreciative warmth from the wards, and let his smile widen that much more.
"You make her sound like a person."
"Don't ever underestimate her," he warned. "Even I dare not, and I am supposed to be master here. She has made it quite clear that there is only one true mistress." He favoured the expansive double-doors that were the entrance of the house itself with a fond touch. They swung open the moment his fingertips brushed their smooth surface.
Zabini Manor had been resplendent in the days of yore, and continued to be as monumental even in modern times. The floor was a single sheet of highly polished black marble with veins of semi-precious stones threading through it. Extraordinary frescoes decorated the walls and ceilings.
"It's beautiful," Potter said simply. There was not much more to add. The awe with which he gazed about spoke whole volumes for him.
"It is home," Blaise replied. Potter kissed him in the middle of the first story landing, in front of a painting of Circe and Odysseus. Unlike its other wizarding counterparts, the portraits in the Zabini Manor rarely ever moved. For one, there were too many enough of them, and their constant movement would drive anyone insane after awhile. And for another, they were gods, goddesses, divine beings. They would hardly deign to trample about each others' frames like common riffraff.
Blaise pulled away after the brief touch and pointed at the painting above their heads. "Not here. That is a bad omen." Circe seemed to be smirking on her throne as she held a goblet up high to the Odysseus at her feet. It was almost as if she were mocking them with her raised glass.
Potter looked amused, but didn't refute it. He followed Blaise deeper into the manor. "The tale of Circe and Odysseus?"
"She wasn't just a trickster; she was also a jealous shrew with altogether too much power. I would rather not consummate any union beneath a symbol of hers."
"Do you know them all?" Potter was talking about the old myths. There were paintings of nearly every one of them on his walls. His ancestor had enjoyed watching them all come true, and had instilled in each one of her descendants an instinctive understanding and appreciation for them.
"I must," Blaise replied simply. "It would be folly to ignore them. Modern divination has nothing on a visitation by a true god."
He pulled them into a large room that was almost startlingly austere. The floor was the same veined black marble, but the walls were of bare plaster. Their only adornments were brackets for torches and shallow reliefs of pastoral scenes below the cornices.
"Is this your room?" Potter was surveying the empty walls with an unreadable look in his eye. The shepherdesses and their stable boys on the relief looked back at him curiously. They would have never seen another human being outside a Zabini. His wives hadn't warranted the intrusion of privacy into his personal rooms, and as for Potter...Blaise did not think Potter would settle for anything less.
"For now," he said. "It changes whenever my mood changes. It doesn't matter; after all, I am the only one living here."
"You don't find it too lonely?" Potter asked.
Blaise looked at him derisively. "Too many these days place unnecessary important on what they deem 'good company'. The Manor provides as much conversation when I want it, or the portraits do. There are stables outside for when I need to get out. Sometimes solitude is a good thing, especially when people surroound you and stifle you all at the same time."
Potter smiled faintly. "I remember that feeling from my days before Hogwarts."
Blaise stiffened almost imperceptibly, and turned to him with narrowed eyes. Surely Potter would've known he would have seen the pictures in the Daily Prophet-
"Constantly being talked about while constantly being ignored." The other man flashed his host a smile. "Your audience had a different motivation though, I'm sure, but essentially their intents were all the same."
Blaise realised that Potter was taking the first step. He had said he'd offer up himself to Blaise in return- it was Blaise's fault for not having seen this. He mentally shook his head, berating himself for this oversight. Being the Slytherin he was he should be delighted at this intimation. After all it'd been him who'd instigated this exchange by bringing Potter here in the first place, by bringing him right into the heart of Zabini Manor.
He was startled out of his thoughts by a hand on his chest.
"You're thinking too much," Potter whispered, and a part of Blaise's mind told him the man was suddenly much too close, while his body was all for pulling him even closer. "Just let me touch you, let me feel you."
"I don't submit," he stated.
"I'm not asking you too," Potter murmured, lips almost there but not quite. "Just let it go."
It was like they'd never been kissed. Potter's lips were chapped, and he could still taste the lingering traces of chocolate. Chastity was a thing of the past; this was no virginal touching of lips. Potter's mouth opened for him in welcome. The shepherdesses and their stable-boys looked down upon them kindly from the walls.
Strong hands slipped up his back to push the lapels of his coat from his shoulders. Blaise let it fall, knowing the manor would tidy up after him. The flesh of Potter's middle was much firmer than he was accustomed to, the hair leading from his navel much coarser and that much more present. He undid the buttons in his shirt bottoms-first, scraping the cloth aside to reveal the flat chest beneath.
Their lips met again, and Potter's mouth was warm and wet against his jaw, and then his neck, and then his shoulder, taking large bites out of his skin. His turtleneck was pulled over his head and their bodies pressed skin against skin. Blaise thought he rather liked Po-Harry's- large hands on the small of his back, pushing him into a gentle arch that thrust his hips forward. Harry muffled his moan with his mouth. Blaise rather thought he liked that as well.
He shuddered as Harry began pressing him backward with his ever-roving hands and lips, until the back of his knees hit his bed frame and he sat, holding the dark head in place as Harry suckled at his chest and stomach. Blaise had never been attended to like this, and couldn't shake from his drunken head the odd reversal of roles. Harry was chewing on his hip now, his hands deftly snapping his belt out from its loops and baring his lap. Then he shucked his own trousers and they were both equally naked, with Harry on his knees in front of him.
Harry first took tiny tender nips out of the inside of his thigh. Almost kind ministrations, circling predatorily about his cock even as his mouth drew ever nearer. And when it finally descended, with all the delicacy of an axe-blow, Blaise erased all thoughts from his mind and gave himself up to pure feeling.
Harry looked ludicrous like that, on his knees between his knees, a rather roguish grin lighting up his eyes as he licked his lips clean. Despite the recent…meal, he still looked ravenous. "That wasn't quite so bad, was it?"
Then he slunk up and over him, giving Blaise no time to rest as he pushed him onto his back and slid them backwards till they rested in a heap of pillows. He pressed their bodies together, his wide hands moulding their way down his body. Blaise could feel his unattended cock pressing rigidly into his hip, and felt the stirrings of desire uncoil within his belly for the second time that evening.
Suddenly he flipped them over, and straddled the bemused man across his hips. Harry looked up at him with glowing emerald eyes, his mouth slightly parted, and his hand slid up his hip to grasp his waist. Blaise wordlessly summoned a vial of oil, and Harry's eyes widened briefly with undisguised desire. His cock was twitching crazily against his bare arse, and Blaise could feel the muscles in the other man's thighs working at contracting and relaxing in eagerness. So perhaps Harry had a right to be surprised when Blaise poured half the vial onto his own hands and moved past his thigh and up, working his own self open.
"I thought you said you didn't submit-"
His entire body was rolling in long, languid motions as his fingers struck up a rhythm of movement in and out of him. His cock was fully erect again, standing proudly at attention, straining against its fleshly bounds to ascend to some higher plane.
"Poor little Potter," Blaise purred, obviously knowing how to use his fingers to work himself into that heightened state of pleasure. "Did you really think that penetration gives you true power?" He didn't hold back his moans as he thrust a fourth finger within, splaying his legs apart awkwardly and rocking his hips just over Harry's unflagging erection. Then he took the remaining vial and doused the erection before him with it.
Beneath him, the man whimpered uncontrollably, trying desperately to thrust up, and yet unwilling to buck Blaise off. Painfully slowly, Blaise swivelled his hips down, the tip of the blunt cock just breaching him. His body swallowed in the head with an obscene slurp.
"God, Blaise, please…" Harry begged unabashedly, rough fingers groping his hips. Blaise didn't up an inch, even when his chest acquired a rosy flush from the exertion. He looked disdainfully down on the body writhing beneath him, ignoring the beads of perspiration trickling down the side of his face and the small of his back. Harry was trembling with tension by the time he was finally fully seated.
"God, Blaise…" Harry moaned. He gave a slow rock of his hips, watching Harry's lips gasp for breath. The pace was undulating and relentless, but never forced, never rushed. He reduced Harry to a quivering pile of mush sobbing for an orgasm, holding firm even as his thighs trembled and his chest ached from an unseen pressure. By the time orgasm came, he had so blown the other's mind that his body just sagged with relief from the ordeal that was over.
Harry drew him down and kissed him, bumping their sweaty noses together. He was laughing softly. "Alright, you've proved your point. You obviously have me whipped in that department."
"Conceding defeat so soon?" he scorned, but the soft petting of the man's riotous hair belied his harsh words.
Harry's laugh was full-throated and merry. "Hardly," he exclaimed gently, nuzzling at the hollow of his throat.
Blaise let out a low rumble as Harry easily manoeuvred him around, tucking him into bed beside him. Truth be told, he was actually getting a little sleepy now. That one round had taken a lot out of him…
"You obviously know the value of a soft touch. How about the value of just being taken care of?"
Blaise snorted derisively. "What are you, my own personal house-elf?"
"Frankly, I hope not, because I'd hate to think you'd do what you just did with me with a house-elf."
Blaise swatted him across the chest. "I don't believe you just mentioned house-elves and sex in the same sentence. That's disgusting."
He could feel Harry's smile pressed into the side of his jaw. The man was like a warm presence covering his torso and hip, calloused hands running up smooth flesh.
"Well, got your attention, didn't I?"
Blaise didn't know what he was doing. He didn't know why he permitted Harry Potter some of the luxuries even his mother had never conceded to his father, whom he knew she had loved, if but briefly.
He stared at the person looking back at him in the mirror. A rather slender face looked back at him, with carefully even brows arched elegantly over large, almond-shaped eyes the colour of polished mahogany. He had a strong jaw that gave more definition to his face rather than overpowered it, and tapered off into a soft chin. His dark skin made him appear sleek and exotic, and he knew people found his emotions hard to read. His wavy hair was the same chocolate of his eyes, just that much longer than polite society deemed proper. Of course that minor transgression only made him seem more appealing. Beneath his well-tailored clothes was a perfectly lean, supple body. There wasn't a spare ounce of fat on him.
He was still staring in the mirror when Harry began to stir from their night together, and, rising, came around behind him. Bright green eyes that sparkled despite their patina of sleep looked straight at him.
"They say I look like my mother."
Blaise's whisper was nearly lost in the still morning air. The words evoked another image that overlaid with the one reflected in the silver glass.
An equally slender face, and even more delicate brows hemming in the most beautiful eyes he'd ever seen on anyone alive. His mother's eyes had been pale green, but flecked with little bits of blue and grey. They looked like glittering gems in the starlight. When he was younger he had thought no one could ever compare to the beauty that was his mother. He had never found anyone since.
"You don't talk about your mother much," Harry murmured, resting his hand lightly on Blaise's hip. It was a gesture intimate not because of their nudity, but because of the implied camaraderie in it. Blaise couldn't decide if he liked it or not.
He shrugged. "What is there to say? The Black Widow- does her title not speak loud enough?"
Harry said nothing. He calmly watched him in the reflection, patiently, seeming to wait for something else to be said, something more to be added.
"She looked young enough to be my sister," Blaise offered, "and yet everyone knew us, knew of us; our reputations preceded us wordlessly. While she may have looked young enough," he repeated, "no one ever mistook her for anything other than my mother."
"I find myself a little jealous," Harry admitted quietly. "I never knew my mother, never knew someone with that same intimacy."
Blaise tensed slightly at the word. Did he suspect-
"You are obviously dedicated to her memory," he continued, and if he'd noticed Blaise's discomfort, he said nothing. "I have to respect that. No one honours the dead these days."
"No?"
Harry snorted derisively. "They would hardly applaud a year-old baby on the anniversary of his parents' deaths for being a murderer otherwise, wouldn't they?"
Blaise couldn't disagree with that. Then Harry shrugged, good humour inexplicably returning. "I can't keep bringing that up though. The universe doesn't revolve around me."
"Unfortunately," he drawled sarcastically, rolling his eyes.
Harry was laughing. "Unfortunately," he agreed good-naturedly.
Breakfast was an exquisitely prepared meal of delicate Italian meats and finely kneaded breads. Harry picked up a roll of nine-grain bread. "What would your universe be like, then?" he asked.
Blaise glanced up, surprised. "Your universe," Harry repeated. "your world. If you could have anything you wanted, anything at all, what would it be?"
"…a life different from my mother's."
He could tell Harry wanted to ask, but refrained from it. He was inordinately grateful to the man's discretion. Honestly speaking, he hadn't meant to let so intimate a detail slip, but the cold cuts reminded him of her and their Italian heritage and days when they had spent the mornings alone, together, his latest step-father dying of some obscure poison in a bed hundreds of miles away.
Even then, their fates had hung over them like a cloud. Every moment spent together was another moment lost in the hourglass counting down their days. Sooner and sooner, one would die, and the next would take their place. In time, he, would also die, and his child would be his successor. The only mercy their ancestor granted them was the promise of a quick, painless death. He could ask for nothing more.
"What would you like to do today?" Harry's voice stirred him from his inner reverie. Blaise allowed a sly smile to caress his lips.
"Haven't you caused enough waves in English society from your appearance yesterday?"
Harry snorted. "It wasn't like they even recognised me," he retorted, but there was a faint blush on his cheeks. It amused Blaise that this worldly man before him could still be embarrassed by so mundane an occurrence. Every time he walked down a street there came the same whispers and stares. He barely even noticed them anymore.
A brush against his cheekbone made him rear back. He stared imperiously at the intruder with dark eyes. The look in Harry's eyes was wry.
"Am I that boring?" he drawled. Blaise at least had the grace to murmur a half-heard apology. This level of inattention was new, even for him.
"That attention could've been yours to do with what you wish. The vox populi already worshipped you. It wouldn't have taken much effort for you to convert them to your cause. A true Slytherin would have-"
"I'm sure we can find at least a hundred snakes to swear that I was the worst possible choice for a Slytherin," Harry interrupted calmly. "Or maybe perhaps that I'm not all there."
Blaise scowled at him, but sat back in his chair, waiting for the man to finish his piece.
"I couldn't have come out a moment sooner, don't you see?" Harry's voice had taken on an almost coaxing, pleading tone, begging for him to understand his rationale and approve. "For all the power they claim to assign me, they would have used every arsenal in their power to prevent me from actually using any of it for my own agenda, instead harnessing it all to forward their own ploys. A cunning Slytherin aware of the power at his disposal is a threat.
"Better to remain nondescript, forgotten, until I was finally able to legally harbour all of the political sentiment for my own use and my own cause."
Blaise had thought of something like that when he'd pondered over their circumstance, and couldn't help but be impressed by the plots of a Muggle-raised-and-abused eleven-year-old. It was no wonder then, in retrospect, why exactly the Sorting Hat had thought him a Slytherin.
"…and the invisibility?"
Harry's mouth twisted derisively. "It has nothing to do with magic, and it is my best achievement to date."
Considering this was coming from the man who had destroyed the greatest Dark Lord in history, fooled an entire wizarding world for six years, and recently foisted the most powerful Light wizard since Merlin from his podium, this was no small praise.
Harry's next words transfixed him.
"I would have died otherwise."
There was nothing at all Blaise could say to that. When he tried to imagine his obnoxiously confident lover as the miserable cretin he barely recalled from Hogwarts, he found it impossible. He tried to think back even further, to before Harry had even entered Hogwarts, and shuddered at the abuse he must have been showered with as a child. Something of his inner turmoil must have showed on his face, because Harry somehow found it his duty to pry him from his dark thoughts.
And when he spoke again, it was from a place much closer than the last.
"Must I employ the same methods from last night to recapture your attention?"
The hot breath ghosted across his face, and Blaise couldn't ignore the stir of hunger in his belly for another kind of food. He kissed him, lips cool and dry, but oddly sweet and spiced from the meat. Their tongues tangled lazily around each other, teeth clacking like rattling pearls, and hands roved over cloth-stifled skin. Harry's eyes were glowing with an odd light when they pulled back.
"Let's go then," he said, sweeping to his feet. Blaise eyed with him fond disdain.
"And just what horrors do you think you're subjecting me to to-day?"
Harry laughed, and the sound swept into the dining hall like a fresh-blown gale. Blaise shuddered as it seemed to seek out the crevices in his non-existent heart, and even the Manor herself seemed to curve over her guest in interest.
"A torture of your own devising, of course," he said, taking Blaise's hand and prying him to his feet. "We'll go to Diagon Alley."
Greetings from the Frisco bay! Just a reminder guys, this is a five-chapter fic, including the prologue, which means that the next chapter is the last (o: