Disclaimer: Nope, still don't own any of it.

Chapter 5- Surprises and Stolen Moments.

As the two teens drove down the long driveway, Hermione was momentarily struck dumb at the sight before her.

The Zabini family 'Vacation Home' was more like a small castle. In the center, there was a glass wall that was three stories tall. Going off either side of the main area were there were three balconies, each leading to French doors guarding the rooms beyond. In front of the glass walled Great Room, the doors that were leading in and out were almost invisible baring the inside from the massive deck that had a very elaborately made built-in Barbeque and a beautiful patio set.

"Wow." Hermione whispered to herself, leaning forward closer to the windshield so she could see better as they pulled up to the front of the giant house. The sight of Hermione in awe with her mouth wide open made Blaise smile and laugh inside as they came to a stop behind their parents' parked car.

"I think that it's safe to say and assume that you like the house, coming from your 'wow' in the car." Blaise stated as they went to the back of the Lexus to unpack the food and decorations.

'Boy is that a major understatement.' Hermione thought to herself. "Oh my god, Blaise! I've never seen such beautiful homes since meeting you. This place is beyond amazing." She replied, arms full of boxes of food.

The first room she saw inside the house, over the boxes of food she was carrying, was rather ordinary when it came to decorative styling seeing as it was the laundry room. Through the door at the far end, however, she found a door next to some stairs on her left that was labeled: 'POOL' in a high polished brass plate

"You have a pool?"

"In-door and we have a hot tub." Blaise replied, continuing up the stairs and into the large area Hermione had seen from the car.

In this room, it was, indeed, as big as it appeared from outside. The entire room stretched to both the front and the back of the house, letting light and beautiful views in on both sides. The main decor in the living room had a definite Mediterranean feel to it, with a lot of warm chocolate browns, sandy tans and cranberry reds. On one side of the expansive room, there was a large, white marble fireplace that faced an equally large brown leather sofa, which was on top of a very ornate rug, which protected the hardwood floor from the scratching legs.

"How many staircases are there?" she asked as they came up the stairs with their fifth load of supplies, looking at the curving staircase that was opposite the fire place that led to a bridge that went all the way across the room, linking the two second story halls.

Blaise lifted his head in thought. "I think there are…at least six, maybe seven or eight."

"This place will never cease to amaze me." Hermione said as their parents came down the stairs across from the fireplace, having just finished placing everyone's luggage in their respective rooms.

"Nor us, dear." Said Blaise's mother, Aileen Zabini as she came down the stairs, arm-in-arm with Hermione's mother.

"Is all the food and decorations in the house, Blaise?" His father, Thomas Zabini, asked as he, too, came down the stairs.

"Almost, one more trip should do it."

"Alright, well you and I can do the rest while Hermione gets settled into her room upstairs."

"Excuse me, Mr. Zabini, but could Blaise show me to my room?" Hermione asked sheepishly, warmth rising to her cheeks.

"Of course. The rest of us can handle the last of it. There can't be much more."

With this said, Blaise led the way up the curving staircase and to the left, going across the bridge, to a set of rooms.

At first, Hermione thought that she would see many doors, leading to the rooms beyond, considering how long the sides of the house looked from the outside. When they started walking down the hall, there were only three doors on each side. As they stopped at the second door on the right, Blaise reached out to the double doors and opened them, stepping out of the way and taking a bow as Hermione passed him, giggling at his butler behavior.

Hermione knew that she shouldn't be surprised when she entered her room to find that it would be as beautiful as the rest of the house, but she still stared in awe at its own beauty, giving kudos to Mrs. Zabini for decorating the entire house with so many different themes. The walls were white with burgundy red starting at waist height, moving down to the same type of hardwood flooring as down in the living room. On the wall opposite the door, there was a large window with a cushioned seat, over looking a large pond that was covered in ice and snow covered mountains in the distance.

When Hermione got over the effect of the beautiful view, she looked around and found a large, cedar four-poster bed, covered with a royal purple down comforter with gold accents around the edges. Hermione also found a cedar desk and chest of drawer with a matching vanity mirror across from her bed. After looking around, she took a moment to just smell all she could. She enjoyed the cedar smell from her furniture, her light scented perfume and a slightly masculine smell that she couldn't quite place; all made one highly intoxicating smell, overtaking her senses and giving her a slight high.

"This is one of my favorite rooms in this entire house." Blaise said as he put his hands in his pockets, shuffling his feet back and forth, his eyes watching them intently.

"I can definitely see why. It's amazing! But I don't understand why you would want to have me sleeping here because then you wouldn't get to come in whenever you wanted."

"It's ok, Hermione. I put you in this room because it is close to my room and…" He paused, trying not to turn red. "It fits you."

In the awkward silence that followed, Hermione blushed enough to make Ron's hair jealous.

Deciding to break the silence, Blaise continued with a slight crack in his voice. 'Is puberty coming back??' clearing his throat, he said, "Anyways, I think I'll, um, head to my room to unpack. Unless you want me to stay. If not, my room is across the hall and two doors down if you have any questions."

Before Hermione had had an opportunity to respond, he had backed his way out of her room, closing the doors behind him. What Hermione didn't know was that after the doors were closed, Blaise leaned back against the doors, heaving a great sigh.

'Wow, what am I going to do?' he asked himself. 'She's my best friend. So I shouldn't be getting so nervous around her, right?'

"Blaise, honey, are you alright? You don't look well." Echoed his mother's voice from down the hall where she was just coming up the stairs from the living room.

Standing up straight abruptly, he smoothed his shirt hurriedly as he replied, "Yes mom, why do you ask?"

"Call it a mother's intuition. Come with me Blaise. We're going to have a little talk."

Blaise couldn't disagree with her even if he had wanted to, for she had just wrapped her right arm firmly around his shoulder to steer him into his room.

"You think I WHAT?! That's absolutely insane!" Blaise exclaimed, throwing up his hands, after his mothers two minute 'Little talk'.

"It's pretty obvious that you like her Blaise."

"Okay, so let's say your theory is right and I do like her. What do you propose I do about it, oh wise mother of mine?"

"Talk to her, dear son, who's-sarcasm-needs-practice."

"Mom, you and I both know that I've never been able to talk to girls about stuff like that. With my ex-girlfriend, that was a mistake. I didn't really like her as much as I thought."

"Except you can talk to Hermi…"

"Yes, I can talk to Herm…NO! Mom, the two of us are just friends!"

"Deny it all you want, son, but please ask yourself this. Why do you stutter around her and twist what ever cloth is nearby when you talk to her? I'm your mother Blaise, I'm not dumb. I notice these things as per requirement for the job of being a mom." She added quickly when he tried to make a remark. She ended with a knowing smirk, knowing that she had, indeed, got him with that one.

Blaise sighed in defeat. "Touché mom. However, I still don't know what to do about this. I don't want to risk our friendship. Everything has been so wonderful these past couple months."

"Maybe you should ask her out first. Like to the Christmas party? Then go on from there, and just follow your heart."

Hermione paused in mid knock. It had taken her three minutes after Blaise had left for her heart rate to slow, when she heard someone shouting loudly down the hall, sounding a lot like Blaise. Curiosity getting the better of her, she left her room and moved towards where Blaise had said his room was to hear him talking to someone inside.

"…Why do you stutter around her and twist what ever cloth is nearby when you talk to her? I'm your mother Blaise, I'm not dumb. I notice these things as per requirement for the job of being a mom."

She heard a sigh. "Touché mom. However, I still don't know what to do about this. I don't want to risk our friendship. Everything has been so wonderful these past couple months."

"Maybe you should ask her out first. Like to the Christmas party? Then go on from there, and just follow your heart."

Blaise liked someone? Why didn't he tell me? These questions and many more passed through her mind as tears started to well in her eyes for reasons she couldn't explain.

Hermione was awakened from her thoughts when she noticed that the handles in front of her were starting to turn. Her eyes suddenly grew wide and panicked; she turned on her heel and ran as fast and as quiet as she could, back to her room and closed the door before anyone noticed. She hoped…

The same thought of why Blaise didn't tell her about his feelings for this girl continued flying through her emotions like an annoying fly as she moved around to finish unpacking. As she finished unpacking one bag and was about to start on another, a noise caused her to drop the bag she was holding on the floor.

KNOCK KNOCK

"Who is it?" She called timidly; extremely nervous as to whom it might be as she bent down to pick up the bag she had dropped.

"Hermione? It's Blaise. Can I come in?" Came the voice from beyond.

"Oh…sure." She called back, deflated and more bitter than she would have wanted.

"Are you alright?" Blaise asked as he entered the room.

"Yes. Why wouldn't I be?" She replied, turning back to her suitcases.

"You seemed agitated just now when I asked to come in. Would you like to talk about it?"

"Talk? Talk?! Now you want to talk??" She said, finding her voice rising as the clothes in her hands were thrown to the ground. "Why didn't you tell me? I thought we were able to tell each other about anything."

"Hermione, what are you talking about?"

"I heard you talking to someone in your room just now. You said that you liked someone and they said you should ask them to the Christmas party."

"You heard that?"

"How could I not? You shouted something and I had gone to see what was wrong."

"You did?"

"Well…yes."

He just stared at her for a moment as if making a decision. In a split second, Blaise quickly walked over to Hermione, put his hands on her cheeks and brought her into a kiss.

Hermione was totally taken aback, putting her hands up slightly in shock, but that feeling quickly left her as her arms opted to go up and around his neck as he moved his own down around her waist, bringing her closer. As he did so, he slowly moved her backwards to her bed, where he slowly and carefully leaned her over the side, one of his arms leaving her side to help him bring them down to lay on the bed, all the while never separating their joined lips

In her subconscious state, Hermione wasn't sure what to think about while Blaise's lips were on hers. At first, she was mad at him for not telling her. However, when he kissed her, everything, every bad feeling of hurt meant for him, every bit of sadness felt towards the thought that he may like someone other than her, and every question she had for him, went away. Then thoughts having to do with 'wow' and 'I've never been kissed quite like this' started flashing through her brain. The negative came back at instantaneous moments with thoughts of 'we're just friends, I don't want to ruin everything' and 'why would someone like Blaise want someone like me?' Thankfully, those last remaining weeds were destroyed from her mind when Blaise carefully leaned her back onto her bed and parted her lips so their tongues could dance.

Hermione wanted to curse herself for needing to breathe, but it was quickly becoming an issue. When she broke the kiss and looked up at Blaise, he was very flushed, even through his inherited tan.

"What's wrong?' he whispered, slowly opening his eyes to look down at her.

"Many things are. However, the immediate issue is breathing." This caused Blaise to chuckle.

"Not that I'm complaining, but why did you do that?" She asked him a moment later.

"Because, Hermione. That girl I was telling my MOTHER about having feelings for…was you."

"M…me?"

"Yes. I couldn't tell you because in the two short months you've been at Roseburg, you've become my best friend, and actually, I've kind of had a thing for you since we shook hands on that first day you came to RHS."

"Really? But you never had problems talking to me before…"

"True, but those times were through instant messaging and over the phone, so technically I wasn't speaking to you in person and it took a great amount of strength not to show my true feelings when we would talk or work together in class."

Blaise was stunned into silence from what she just heard. Shaking herself out of her momentary state of shock, she looked up at him again.

"You should have said something earlier."

"Why? Do you already have a boyfriend that you haven't told me about?" He asked, anger starting to form under the threat of unshed tears.

"No! No no. Wasted time. Since that day we touched for the first time, I've also had a crush on you. When we shook hands, I don't know if you did, but I felt a shock run through my body. Ever since then, I've been so nervous around you when we're together in person. Always wanting more with you, but rather die than ruin our friendship."

"Wow."

"Yeah. So…what are we going to do now?"

"I think, personally, we should make up for two months of wasted time."

"I think, personally, that you are right." She mocked, Blaise laughed as he leaned back down to capture her lips.

snickers So what did y'all think? I would really like to know ) I hope there was enough tension and detail, but then, how would I know if you don't review? REVIEW!! Please??