"Well, Neville, you've settled out pretty well," Ginny told him with an envious smirk when he sat down on the couch across from her. "Finally a part of the Golden Trio. Or, at least, as close to the Golden Trio as anyone could possibly get."
Neville smiled happily. "Harry's so amazing," he replied, eyes shimmering.
"You're love-sick," Ginny said plainly.
"And proud of it," Neville countered.
He felt a weight settle beside him, and an arm hooked around his waist. "Proud of what?" Harry asked.
"Proud of my amazing boyfriend," Neville replied, leaning into the taller boy's frame. Harry dropped his head so it rested on Neville's, while Ginny made a disgusted face.
"You two are awful," she sniffed. "Two perfectly good men who are taken off the straight spectrum." She sighed and got up to leave.
Blaise settled into his desk for Potions class. He slung his knapsack across the back of his chair and rummaged around for a quill, unaware of the scene occurring in the front of the classroom. He slipped a poetry book underneath his desk, away from Snape's prying eyes, and thumbed through it to the page he had last been on.
"…Mr. Longbottom, I see that you've managed to not blow up your cauldron in a remarkable entire week, thanks to your celebrity boyfriend," Snape sneered towards Neville's general direction.
Neville mumbled something unintelligible.
"What was that?" Snape hissed dangerously.
"Uh-um," Neville stuttered, "I-I said that it really i-isn't fair of you to treat Harry l-l-like that…Professor Snape, sir…"
Snape's eyebrows rose into his hairline. "Oh really?" he replied, thoroughly taken aback but quickly regaining his composure.
"Y-Yeah," Neville said, gaining a little bit of confidence. "Harry isn't anything at all like what you make him out to be, and it hurts him whenever you c-cut into him like that. I w-would really appreciate it if you w-would please stop."
"Take a seat, Mr. Longbottom," Snape intoned, pinching the bridge of his nose. Neville nodded and began walking to his chair, which was set diagonally from Blaise's desk, when Snape called, "And don't presume to tell me what to do if you plan on staying in this class."
Neville plopped onto his chair, scowling at the back of Snape's head.
Harry scurried into the classroom, seconds before the bell rang to begin the period. Before Snape could make any snarky comments toward him, he took a seat in front of Blaise.
"Hey Nev," he said, slightly out of breath, as he got out his things.
"Just because you think you're better than the rest of the students, Mr. Potter, does not mean that you can talk out whenever you so wish," Snape admonished. He strolled along the front of the rows, handing out vials of belladonna.
Harry stayed silent, not wanting to get into any more trouble this period.
Neville, however, turned to Blaise and whispered, "I hate that man!"
Blaise merely quirked an eyebrow upwards while Snape remarked, "I heard that, Mr. Longbottom. Ten points from Gryffindor for slurs against a teacher."
A chorus of groans went up from the Gryffindors of the classroom, while a silent but effective cheer went up from the Slytherins. "Good going, Longbottom," Malfoy hissed happily. Blaise kept his eyes on the poem he was reading and did not look up.
Not even when Harry asked Neville to recite him a poem, and when Neville happily complied.
"You need to tell him," Daphne informed Blaise when he sat down at the Slytherin table for lunch that day.
"No, I don't," he replied.
"You're going to be miserable for the next six months if you don't, Blaise-y, and you know it. I'm not going to put up with you if you're going to be miserable. You know my mother's personal trainer says that bad energy, even radiating from another, is bad for your inner spirit," Daphne said coolly. "And do you really want to be accountable for harming my inner spirit?"
Blaise chose to ignore his best friend and attack the piece of chicken that had settled upon his plate.
"Fine, don't talk to me," Daphne said, flipping her long brown hair behind her shoulder crossly. She got up and left without another word, leaving Blaise by himself.
He didn't question where she was going, as very frankly she did this quite often when she was upset at him (which was once again, quite often). He figured that she was probably just going to vent at Millicent Bulstrode, who would sit there and absorb the information without so much as an 'okay' being emitted from her mouth.
Daphne told him that was why she loved confiding in her quiet friend, she could trust her not to spill any of her secrets. Blaise knew that she only ever said that to make him jealous of her and Millicent's 'friendship' and also knew that it never really worked.
What Blaise did not know, however, was that Daphne was not going to vent with Millie, but instead was making her way towards the Gryffindor table, where Harry Potter was sitting with Seamus Finnigan and Parvati Patil.
Good job, guys. You reached the review askance, which give me all the more faith to ask you this time for five reviews before I update.
Bon chance!