House: Ravenclaw

Year: 3rd Year

Category: Drabble

Prompt(s): [Date] October 15, [Pairing] Slytherin/Hufflepuff

W/C: 494 (Google) / 493 (Word)

Notes: Let's just call this AU and be on our merry ways. Also, there are two F-bombs.

Read & Enjoy

I didn't mean to fall in love with her.

Today's edition of the Daily Prophet has a wedding announcement for Hannah Abbott and Neville Longbottom. Married on October 15, 2001 - Hannah's birthday. I suppose she needed something to help her forget. Damn, I think, wish I could forget.

We snogged for several hours after our Yule Ball dates ditched us. My date went off to dance with some Durmstrang boy. Hannah's friend started to come onto her date, and it ended as badly as one might expect. She looked beautiful despite being angry, and I told her as much. That was the beginning of our unusual relationship.

For the next two years, Hannah and I had our stolen moments. We did homework, ate our favorite treats, and gossiped about people we didn't like at school. She complained about how she was regarded as important by purists for her blood status, and I complained about people who should be my friends.

We were the same in our respective ways. I just wanted to make it through my years at Hogwarts without making enemies of powerful people, and Hannah wanted to fit in at all costs. Neither of us tried to make waves. We just wanted to be ordinary.

When our seventh year came, and I was stealing as many of those moments as I could with her. A kiss in the shadows, a handwritten note of my affection, and gifts whenever some meaningless holiday passed; I realized that I wanted to be her proper boyfriend somewhere in between it all.

On her birthday, October 15, 1997, we met by the Black Lake to get away. I had taken along some hot cocoa while we enjoyed some time away from the ever prying eyes of the Carrows. I found her silence warm, as if we only needed to be together to escape the darkness plaguing the world. The cool breeze rolling off of the lake, the crunching leaves beneath our feet, and the joy of being next to her… I had to let her know how I felt.

Hannah Abbott was my light, my everything. I blurted suddenly, "I love you."

Hannah tried to smile but shook her head before it formed. "I'm sorry, Blaise" she said. I quit listening, though, because I knew what lame excuse would follow those two words. Many of my Slytherin comrades dumped girls with this pathetic, dishonest method. I had decided long ago that it was the most cowardly way to end a relationship.

And Hannah only cemented this in my mind.

I glance at my pristine copy of the Daily Prophet, hovering in front of me to display the announcement. Angrily, I sit my cup down on the table, swipe the paper from the air, and walk briskly to the fireplace. Fuck October fifteenth – 1997, 2001, 2005 – fuck them all.

"I need a drink," I grumble before ripping up the newspaper and tossing it into the flames.

Acknowledgements:

Shout out to my BETA readers: TheCrownprincessBride and nottheonlyfangirl.