Chapter 4

If he thought it was hard to hide his growing interest in Tomoko before, it was now close to impossible. After the Levicorpus incident, Pansy became quite sore and never failed to make snippy remarks when Tomoko happened to be nearby. Draco attempted to ease Pansy's nerves by being extra supportive whenever she began to show signs of feeling unnoticed or irritated in Tomoko's presence. Crabbe and Goyle, well, they just did what they normally did, which was do Draco's bidding if necessary.

Even when he ate his meals in the Great Hall, Blaise forced himself to be cautious whenever he lifted his head to look over at her at the Ravenclaw table. The last thing he needed was for Pansy to rat him out at the table for possibly crushing on her latest love-to-hate target. Transfigurations was a little easier as Blaise would pretend that he was looking at the front to listen to McGonagall when he was really looking at Tomoko's back as she wrote on her parchment.

The scrap of parchment that contained the quick sketch of him from Tomoko had been fished out of his book bag and smoothed out under the cover of darkness behind closed curtains of his bed. It had ended up on the underside of the lid of his trunk, now stashed under his bed. It was a nice sketch and he wondered whether she drew often.

Before he knew it, the Christmas holidays arrived which meant most of the students leaving for break or vacations. He sighed deeply as the morning post flew in, the day prior to the start of Christmas break. He watched as Pansy tore open a letter from her mum saying that they were going to Paris for Christmas and New Years. All of the other Slytherin girls seethed as they congratulated her through false smiles and clenched teeth. Draco's eagle dropped off a rather heavy parcel containing Christmas presents which were to be opened on Christmas morning.

Blaise took a sip from his goblet and blinked briefly as one owl soared toward him and dropped off a letter for him. He put down his goblet and picked up the envelope, immediately recognizing his mother's scrawling script. He tore open the letter and skimmed its contents which said his mum married some new git who was loaded and was spending Christmas in the tropics with him. That was it. No wishes of a Merry Christmas to him or any invitation to go on vacation with her. Typical.

He felt his friends' eyes on him as he tore the letter in small pieces and scowled in contempt.

"Staying here for the holidays?" Draco guessed as he watched Blaise sulk.

"Another suitor?" Pansy asked.

"Husband," Blaise corrected Pansy. "And yes."

Both Slytherins suddenly fell silent and awkwardly tried to find some way to change the subject. They knew better than to talk about Blaise's mother since it was a very touchy subject. The relationship between them was tense as Blaise was ticked that he never knew his real father. The other men that his mother married, never seemed to be great father figures and he didn't want any of them to try to fill his real father's shoes whatsoever.

"And that's all for today students!" Professor Flitwick squeaked. "Have a safe and wonderful holiday!"

Blaise stretched his arms out in front of him and yawned, grateful that classes were over, for now. When he got back to the common room to drop his books off, he saw that Pansy had already departed along with most of the Slytherin students. He smiled to himself as he threw his books into his trunk and closed the lid quickly. With Pansy gone for the break, he possibly stood a chance trying to get to Tomoko, that is, if she stayed for the break too.

He slid his trunk back under the bed and headed to the Great Hall for lunch. When he got there, he saw that the 4 long House tables had been consolidated into 1 long table, as few students decided to stay for the holidays. He shoved his hands into his pockets and took a seat somewhere in the middle, sneakily looking out of the corner of his eye for her. Sure enough, he spotted her approaching the table with Dean Thomas following her. He could feel his blood pressure soar at the sight of them and he bit his lip. What was that Mudblood doing with her?

"Why not? I think it could be good for both of us?" Dean asked.

Tomoko shook her head fiercely and tried to get ahead of Dean. It failed as Dean was much taller and took longer strides to catch up and stop her.

"Is there a reason why you won't work with me?" he whined.

"Dean look," Tomoko said, "I think you're nice but you're not what I'm looking to draw at the moment."

"Uh but you drew my mate Seamus last week!" Dean pointed out.

"That's because Seamus wanted to be raunchy in his drawing and felt that it would safer to ask me instead of you," Tomoko replied.

Dean continued to block her way. "What about Harry then?"

"Because I wanted to practice drawing heroism and a guy in glasses," Tomoko shot back. "And if you're about to ask about Ginny, its because her mom wanted the portrait badly since she rarely gets to see her daughter in a soft, serene moment."

Blaise relaxed a bit at his seat at the table and accepted a tray of fresh roast beef slices from the person seated next to him. Then, Draco slid into the seat to his right and smirked as he watched Dean and Tomoko argue.

"Bit of a show here, eh?" Draco remarked as he removed a roll from the bread basket. "Sounds to me like Thomas there wants more than just a drawing session with her."

Blaise tore his eyes away from the scene and frowned as he looked at his friend. Draco's smirk grew and he explained that Tomoko drew a lot for relaxation.

"You can't just force her to draw you, she has to be in the right frame of mind," Draco explained. "I saw her turn down Finch-Fletchley when he tried to describe what he wanted and how it was supposed to look."

Blaise nodded faintly and began to eat as he watched to see what was going to happen.

"Dean, I need to be inspired and I'm not inspired by you at the moment," Tomoko said. "By the way, the train's leaving soon so you better go." She walked away before Dean could get a word in and joined the table to eat.

Blaise watched as a dejected Dean walked out of the Great Hall with his trunk dragging behind him, while Tomoko ate slowly and seemed very distracted.

"That Mudblood likes her," Draco interrupted Blaise's thoughts. "I fancy that he'd like to draw her nude if he could. But then again, if I could draw, I'd want to see her naked as well."

"Whatever," Blaise said as he cut a piece of beef.

Draco turned his head and crossed his arms over his chest. He studied his friend and remarked, "You're not fooling me with this I-don't-care act. I know you like her."

Blaise bit his tongue at Draco's words and his eyes darkened as he focused on his friend. He knew he was caught but the last thing he wanted to do was to admit that he liked a blood traitor.

"Look Blaise, blood-traitor or not, she's a fine one and nice to look at," Draco said. "I might approach her about drawing me...over the holiday."

Blaise dropped his knife onto his plate which made a loud clattering noise. He rose from his seat and tossed his napkin on the table before leaving the Great Hall for some empty corridor. Blood rushed to his ears and he was nearly livid. Was he that damn obvious? He didn't want Draco chasing her down for a drawing session as he'd try to smooth talk and seduce her into his bed. Draco couldn't have her, she was his. He was so preoccupied with the recent train of events that he didn't hear a girl's voice from behind him.

"Hey Slytherin guy, why are you storming off in a huff?" Tomoko asked as she came up behind him.

He froze when he realized that someone was talking to him and he turned around to see it was her. She had her arms crossed over her chest and was staring curiously at him.

Blaise almost told her that it was none of her business and that she was just a blood-traitor but quickly reminded himself that the latter was the last thing to say to her.

"What are you doing here still?" he asked her.

She shrugged her shoulders. "Just didn't want to go to home to Japan," she replied. "Although my mom would want me to stop making her miss me but I keep reminding her that I need space."

"Yeah same," Blaise mumbled.

"Guess we have more in common than I thought," Tomoko replied. "So uh, you got my quick sketch I saw."

"Oh...yeah, yeah that. Thanks."

"You're welcome," she said. She looked at his eyes, face, and probably the rest of his body for a few minutes before she spoke again.

"So um...yeah I'm Tomoko Kajiwara," she said. "You have a name so I can quit calling you Slytherin guy?"

Blaise snorted at her makeshift nickname for him.

"Sorry, its all I could come up with," she replied with a shrug of her shoulders. "So really, what is your name so I can just call you by it?"

"It's Blaise, Blaise Zabini," he replied. "I saw that you turned down that Mud- I mean Thomas."

"Yeah he's nice but sometimes it borders on too nice," Tomoko stated. "He's got skills with art too but I can't force myself to draw him this time around. I need something edgier, something different, something-"

"Something darker?"

"Yeah exactly," Tomoko replied. She looked at him with a new interest as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"Actually...I was kind of thinking about drawing you," she prompted. "So...what do you say?"