Draco stood up and walked over to his friend who was stood by the door still. He had never seen Blaise cry before and he wasn't sure how to act.

"Blaise, look at me." Draco whispered standing in front of him. Blaise was staring at the floor now, the tears falling freely. Why was everyone crying lately? Blaise glanced up staring at Draco through his light brown fringe.

"Oh Draco! Please don't hate me, please!" Draco almost fell over backwards when his friend threw his arms around him. Draco awkwardly patted his back.

"Erm? Blaise? I think we should talk, try and calm down mate, you're going to make yourself ill." Draco said, well he wasn't going to coo over him!

"But Draco, you don't understand!" Blaise sobbed into his jumper. "You're going to hate me. Please don't hate me!"

"Blaise! Please you're starting to worry me!" He was, seriously, all this emotion was driving Draco mad. Blaise Zabini never acted like this. Where was the laughing, the jokes? Blaise rarely had a serious moment! And Draco had never received a hug from any of his friends either, only Pansy and even that had been a tap on the back hug. But here he was, Blaise Zabini clinging onto Draco as if his life depended on it.

"I just, I…" Blaise just snuggled deeper into his friends shoulder. Draco, forgetting his pride and remembering how much his mystery girls comfort had helped him, bought both his arms up around his friends waist and hugged him, closing his eyes and leaning his head into the side of Blaise's. But this just made Blaise cry harder into his shoulder and he pulled him closer tightening his grip he had around his neck.

Draco, who would have been highly disturbed at a boy being this close to him on normal circumstances, just hugged his friend. And after a while, his sobs started to slow down.

"Okay you crazy fool, what's wrong? Come, sit down." Draco said as Blaise pulled away from him and Draco grabbed his wrist and led him to the bed. His mind laughing at him for leading a BOY into his BED and closing the bed curtains. Yeh you guessed, he ignored it, like everything else.

Draco and Blaise sat crossed legged opposite each other in the dark before Draco 'lumos'ed and put his wand in front of him.

Blaise was avoiding eye contact and wringing his hands together nervously. Draco waited patiently for his friend to talk. In this time, Draco sat and thought about all the things that could have got his friend in this state and the only thing that came to his mind was… the dark mark. Because Draco would hate him for that. There was nothing else that could make him hate Blaise. Nothing.

Draco leaned black against the pillows and stared at Blaise. He was trembling all over, his breath deep and shaking, his hair was sticking to his face with the tears and he looked so pained. He was looking everywhere but Draco. Then he recognised what he was seeing: guilt.

"What's wrong, Blaise?" He spoke softly, not wanting his friend to start crying hysterically again.

"I, I," He stared down in his lap as he spoke, still wringing his hands. "I've been keeping a secret from you."

Silence.

"How long?"

"Since the start of this year."

"Oh, is it a bad secret?" Draco continued to speak quietly, not wanting to get mad under any circumstances; he would stay calm with him. Blaise screwed his face up and bit his lip as a fresh set of tears wracked their way through his body and he nodded his head.

"How bad?"

"I, I've been seeing someone, Draco…" Blaise spluttered out. Then started crying into his hands.

Draco was confused. And he didn't mask it because it was pure mind baffling confusion. Why was he crying then?

"Well… I know." Draco said slowly. Wondering where this conversation was going.

"No, no you don't."

"Yes I do, because yesterday you said 'I've got places to be going and people to be doing' and I called you a twat and laughed at your slip up." Draco replied.

"No, you don't understand, I've fell in love."

"Blaise you … what?" Draco swallowed hard, but his throat suddenly felt like sandpaper. Blaise nodded into his hands.

"I'm so sorry Draco, I didn't mean to, it just happened!" Draco was shocked, but still very, very confused.

"Blaise? I don't get it, it's a shock, but why is that bad?"

"Because I only wanted you to be happy!" Blaise shouted at him.

"WOW Blaise NO! PLEASE TELL ME IT'S NOT ME! YOU CAN'T LOVE ME!" Draco yelled back then remembered his promise to keep calm. He watched his friend sob harder into his hands, frantically shaking his head no. Well, that was a relief.

"Don't hate me Draco, please don't hate me." Draco scooted in front of Blaise and hugged him around the shoulders.

"I could never hate you Blaise, just calm down and we'll sort this all out okay." Draco whispered into his friends' hair. A voice in Draco's head praying that Jason wouldn't come back yet, this was a really compromising situation…

But all Blaise whispered was, please don't hate me, please, don't I never meant for this to happen, I'm sorry so sorry over and over again.

"Blaise, seriously, what's wrong, just tell me I'm not going to hate you." Draco tried to reassure his friends by rubbing the top of his back. "I won't judge you whatever it is, you're an amazing friend. I won't hate you. I promise!"

"I fell in love,"

"Yeah you said that." Draco was trying his best not to lose his patience but it was so difficult with this damn soul expression.

"And it clouded my judgment." Draco nodded, Blaise had moved up and was hugging him back, crying into his shoulder like earlier.

"They say love is blind…" Draco whispered into his ear. Blaise nodded.

"And I did something bad." Draco barely caught him whisper it. But he had heard.

"To the one you love?" He shook his head no. Draco was dreading what was coming next. Had Blaise put himself in danger?

"It just got out of hand I didn't mean for it to go so far. It wasn't even a joke, but then it got funny and I thought it worked, but it didn't now someone's found out and, and," Blaise was stuttering like mad trying to choke his words out.

"Blaise, what are you talking about? I don't understand."

"I only wanted you to feel it Draco! Know what it was like I never meant for it to go this far, I didn't mean for you to be put in danger! I didn't know it could reflect! I'm sorry, so sorry. I just wanted you to feel! I didn't want you to be alone forever! I wanted you to love and feel. I didn't want you to turn into your dad!" Blaise sobbed into his shoulder. But some time in those words Draco had stiffened. It was Blaise. Blaise had done it. It was his entire fault. Everything was his fault. Draco breathed deeply.

"I'm sorry Draco, please don't hate me, I only wanted you to love…" Blaise carried on sobbing. Well, Draco understood all the tears now. Draco squeezed his eyes tightly and let the tears fall, gripping tight onto the boy that was changing his life.

"Thank you." this time Blaise stiffened. And slowly pulled away, his eyes puffy and red and looking a complete mess but he didn't care.

"What?" he whispered.

"Thank you, Blaise." Blaise was shocked to find Draco jump on top of him hugging him tight, both boys fell back and Draco was on top of Blaise. "Thank you so much, thank you, thank you! I could never hate you, you've saved me, thank you."

It was just at that time, as in all compromising positions, that Karma decides to bite you hard. Draco's hangings were thrown back and both boys looked up to see Professor Snape standing with an eyebrow raised, looking really shocked. Both boys sprung apart and went bright red.

"This isn't what it looks like Professor, I swear!" Draco and Blaise said at the same time.

"I'm sure it isn't boys. Just keep it in the dorms, okay?" Draco and Blaise went to protest but he put up a hand signaling for them to stop talking. "You didn't reply to my letter Draco, so I decided to come back to school early."

"What letter?" Draco mumbled still bright red, and it really looked funny on him. Snape glanced at his bed side cabinet where a letter was laying.

"Oh, that came at breakfast," Blaise said, "But you got dragged to practice so I bought it up and forgot. " Blaise muttered equally as red.

"I figured that one of you children would haves suspicions of other pupils with a soul expression, but it seems your extremely… preoccupied at the moment." Snape then shut the hangings again walked out leaving Draco and Blaise to will themselves to die right at that moment.

"Can I just confirm? … This friendship is completely platonic…." Snape heard Blaise say as he closed the hangings. He looked over at the letter on the bedside cabinet and picked it up examining it, couldn't leave any evidence around that could be… incriminating. He pocketed it and walked out of the dormitory smirking.

Fanfiction is by Faith Valconbridge. These stories hosted on this website contain characters created and owned by J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Scholastic, Inc. and AOL/Time Warner, Inc., and may incorporate characters, locations and things created and/or owned by other third parties including but not limited to Joss Whedon, George Lucas and/or Lucasfilm, Fox, Paramount, Random House, Pengun Putnam, Inc., Ballantine Books, and a lot of other people. No permission has been given and since no money is being made here, no infringement is intended.