Chapter 32: More truths to the lie
He waved the bottle of Ogden's Old in front of her then promptly popped off the lid and took a swig, a myriad of sensations flitting across his face as the liquor swarmed his senses. Taking it from his lips, he wiped the mouth piece and held it out to her. She stared back at it. "You said you could need it." He nudged it forward until she gingerly grabbed the neck of the heavy flask and unthinkingly led it up to her mouth, partly aware of Blaise's dark eyes following the motion. She took a swig of the amber liquid and grimaced at the burning sensation against her tongue and throat but swallowed it nonetheless. It instantly warmed her insides and she took another swig. "Thatta girl," Blaise chuckled without mirth. He took the bottle from her loose grip and sat down, leaning against the cabinet and bringing the bottle to his mouth once more.
It wasn't so much the picture of his long, elegant body sitting there on the floor, in that pristine, pressed shirt of his, that was striking. It was his demeanour. It seemed wholly disconnected from the model of bored composure he usually presented.
She came up and slid down next to him. "Some day, huh?" She winced at her own words. That's certainly one way of putting things, Gin. Blaise said nothing, just stared unseeingly into the space in front of him. "I mean," she tried again. "At least, now you know..."
"What? That my friend is an addict; possibly prostitutes himself for drugs and is part of a larger drug ring on school? Couldn't have been a better turn-out of the day, if you ask me," he jeered despondently and put the bottle to his lips. She watched his Adam's apple bob along the elegant arch of his throat, conveying the generous gulps he was taking, and swallowed in turn. Eventually, he took the bottle from his lips and tipped his head forwards with a low groan. After a second, he heaved a deep, painstaking sigh and tipped his head back to rest against the cabinet, eyes looking skywards before closing.
Ginny took in the sight of him and something twisted within her chest. Not knowing what else to do or say she leaned back against the cabinet as well and closed her eyes, listening to nothing but Blaise's quiet breathing, sensing his warmth emanating from beside her.
Belatedly the thought struck her: They were actually having a moment's peace in each other's company. No snark. No goading. Only... silence.
"Did I ever apologize to you?"
His quietly spoken words cut through the empty air and her dulled musings, and she looked befuddled up at him. Blaise Zabini... apologizing? "Apologize? For what?"
He kept his dark eyes trained on the indeterminable space in front of him as if trying to solve a mystery within the darkness; his voice low, stripped of its usual smooth pride. "You know what."
All she could do was stare back at him. Did he mean the incident with Dean? What happened in the Prefects' Bathroom way back at the beginning of the school year? Or something else entirely?
Lingering on his profile, she noticed the dark circles under his eyes, marking his high cheekbones as slightly harrowed but no less arresting than usual. His broad chest rose and fell oddly laboured. Not even a hard Quidditch match had ever made him look this tired. It was as if every breath he took marked a battle of something he could no longer control. She knew how that felt.
"I think I have as much to apologize for as you have."
With a furrowed brow, his eyes snapped to hers. Perhaps grasping her meaning, he returned to contemplating the rug at the edge of their feet for a bit. "Maybe we both said and did something we regretted."
Tucking a lock of hair behind her ear and stretching out her legs on the floor, she concurred. "And something truthful."
He peered over at her down-turned face.
She lifted her head. "If it's any comfort, I forgive you," she attempted lightly.
Blaise shifted and placed his arms on his bent knees, bottle dangling loosely in one hand. By now, she had learned he was able to hold his liquor without a scratch to that polished, innate reticence of his. But now... His guard seemed down. As if he didn't care and was determined to get drunk. Not out of anger or desperation this time, but more from a sense of powerlessness. A muscle along his jaw twitched. "And if it's any comfort – though I doubt it – I no longer believe as I once did," he rumbled and cleared his throat as if the sentence left a bitter aftertaste in his mouth.
"Really? All of it?" Admittedly, she had trouble believing him. Some things were too ingrained in Wizarding aristocracy to be absolved so 'easily'.
His mouth tightened and he glanced away. "Depending what you mean." He took a large swig and held the bottle out to her again. She took it and brought it to her lips, not bothering wiping the top where his lips had just been.
"And what do you mean?" She asked, sipping from the liquor, sensing his eyes follow the bottleneck to her lips from beneath his eyelashes as she released it. For a second stilling the moment in a slow swallow and an intake of air, he reached over and placed a hand on top of hers around the bottle, and they both stared at the contrast of their connecting hands.
"As I have mentioned before," came his voice, clear and deep. "You managed to knock some sense into me..." Then he seemed to recover; grip sliding up and tightening around the bottle itself to indicate his turn and she relinquished it.
"And that is?" She watched as in slow-motion how he brought the liquor to his lips once again, savouring it against his throat, not taking his eyes from hers.
"Something I might have known for a long time now." He left the words hanging in the air and she swallowed. The nice burn of the whiskey had started fluttering through her system and out into her nerves; a particular heady sensation on top of an emotionally taxing day. Her throat came up parched from the harsh liquor.
She tore her eyes away. "You know," she mused aloud, idly tracing the patterns in the wooden floor between them. "Theo... He might not seem alright right now, but he will be. You are clearly willing to help and listen to him. That's... all he really needs right now. Trust me."
She felt the weight of his eyes but didn't dare to look up. The words seemed to settle somewhere between them, knowing there was more to them and trying to figure out what to do now; what all this meant. With a sigh that turned into a suppressed whimper, she lean her head back, exhausted, worn out.
"I'm bushed," she murmured, eyes closing and her head unwittingly rolling to the side, coming to rest on his shoulder. She felt his torso rise and fall slowly in step with hers while the buzzing waves of the alcohol rolled through their veins, prickling along their skin. With a slight grunt, she wriggled her head into the space between his shoulder and the hard cabinet door.
"Merlin's balls, we're pissed," he chortled and, what seemed instinctively, accommodated her motions by throwing his left arm around her shoulders in order to get more comfortable.
With a content sigh she settled back into the nook of his arm, blearily reaching out between his bent legs towards the bottle still dangling from his right hand. "And I have every intention of getting even pissier," she stated.
Blaise snorted at her garbled wording and handed her the half-empty bottle. "Right you are."
"Shut up, Zabini," she groused with no real bite and put the bottle to her lips. Some of her hair had gotten into her mouth as she drank and Blaise raised a hand to brush it away.
"We're really a pair, the two of us," he observed.
She swallowed and tiled her head to look at his profile before fastening her gaze on the fireplace ahead and the orange-hued flames licking the logs, crackling lightly. "We are, aren't we?"
He hummed and reclaimed the whiskey, taking a swift draught, and she felt the muscles bunching in the arm her head was lolling against.
She hummed as well. "It's been a long day."
He expelled a low chuckle. "Indeed it has."
With a small twist of a smile, she turned her head to watch him. He mirrored her movement and for a moment they just gazed at each other, leaning against the cabinet in the Room of Requirement, drunk and half out of their minds. She couldn't help laughing to herself and Blaise responded in kind; an easy, warm sound that rolled from his chest, and Ginny tried not to acknowledge that it was suddenly a little harder to breath.
A flash of memory mentioning his grandmother flitted across her mind; recalling the rare moment where his guards were momentarily taken down, something warm and reminiscent filling the blankness, and an unbidden sensation bubbled up inside her. Only... she wasn't sure whether her disconcerted swirl of emotions regarding him could only be contributed to solving a mental enigma anymore. Maybe the alcohol?
Concurrently, Blaise roamed her face, his bottomless eyes perhaps trying to find something there, something she wasn't so sure he'd find. She was no mystery. She wasn't even old Ginny anymore. Like there was a blank space within her. Maybe someday she would come to fill and enjoy this part; however, right now, she felt no sense of profound fascination with this shadowed version of herself. It sounded convoluted and childish in her presently addled brain, but she had no other words for it.
"Weasley. Ginny," he said her name unwaveringly, quietly, which was odd given how drunk they were, and she deflated a little, looking away. Yes, she knew; her words echoing in her head. Maybe someday. His voice reached her, this time closer, softer, deeper, like you could sink into it. Feeling herself being pulled towards him by unknown forces, her eyes fluttered shut in response. He tipped his head, so close that their foreheads could touch, and exhaled calmly, a warm scent of spices and burnt resin from the whisky enveloping her, mixing with her own breath.
They were drunk, oh-so-drunk.
She opened her eyes slightly and leaned back, seeing the flicker settling behind his retina, igniting something in her stomach (though she wouldn't let herself admit that out loud). His eyes looked so dark, it was physically impossible. Leaning closer, his warmth encircled her oversensitive skin through her clothes, and then all it took was a small push...
Pulling an inch away from his mouth, she gasped dazedly. "W-What are we doing?"
"I don't know," he rasped, leaning towards her mouth again.
She giggled as they both seemed overly affected by this sudden wave of sensations – in a silly manner that would once have disgusted Ginny and Blaise alike, because they were not people prone to silly things. None in the least after the war. But now – now everything seemed far away – far, far away, like a dream – and they had for once woken up to a reality they wished to stay in instead. She felt old beyond her years, yet so incredible young and unfinished.
He hummed and pulled back. "We're drunk." A thumb rested delicately on the line of her jawbone as if he was intimately familiar with it and, simultaneously, as if to stave her off.
"Yes."
He cleared his throat.
"Yes. I know. We shouldn't be doing this, I know." She pulled back, his arm slipping from her shoulders. It wasn't like the other times. This was different somehow, but she hadn't the energy to dwell upon it at the moment. She licked her lips and decided to broach the subject, somewhat hesitantly. "How long – how long do you suppose we should be playing this game?"
He looked at her for a moment, the silent question forming between them, between the lines; prompting them to regard each other for a moment longer, searching deep for the answer, or, at least, the reason behind this undeniable pull towards each other that they could no longer ignore (had they ever?), before pulling away again, clearing their throats awkwardly and painfully aware of each other's closeness.
He sat back against the cabinet. "It seems... we've gotten ourselves into a deeper mess than we expected." He threw her an askance glance. "I don't blame you for wanting to get out. Theo is my problem." He averted his gaze, his tired countenance cemented by the hand he dragged across his face.
She retreated, worrying her lower lip. "I... I don't know. I feel like I should be involved now that I know. There's no reason for me not to. I mean," she gestured vaguely into the air, "if this goes beyond Nott and involves the school..." a resolved glint appeared in her gaze and she squared-off her jaw, "then it's my duty as Head Girl to stay involved and solve this." He observed her with a raised brow. Then he shook his head with a quiet huff. "What?"
"I don't know why I should be surprised," he muttered, mouth twitching. "Seems the old Gryffindor lion can still roar." She couldn't help smiling herself, a bit bashful at her overzealous proclamation.
"And you... don't have anything against that?" she posed timidly.
He absently picked at the old bottle label, fixated on the words of the label like they bore some crucial meaning to the question. "No."
Studying him, she found herself none the wiser about his inner mode. Pressing her lips together, unsure how to proceed, she resorted to tease him a bit instead. "Well, I don't think I mind a bit of old-fashioned Slytherin either."
The comment drew a wry chuckle from him. "No?" He eyed her sideways. "Not even for all my slithering?"
"Well," she prolonged the word in mock-consideration. "Personally, I would go for once in a while instead of constantly." She shrugged coyly. "Since you ask."
"Ah." A smirk threatened to emerge on his lips. "I see."
They sat back once more, slipping into the companionable silence while waiting for the flames of the fireplace to die out. Her mind felt strangely sharpened despite the rest of her was swaddled in the lulling effects of the alcohol and the stillness of the room. She wondered if Zabini felt the same.
"What are we going to do?" she breathed out at length.
A weary sigh escaped him. "I haven't got a clue."
"Are we going to tell McGonagall?"
"Honestly? I'm not sure," he deliberated. "I'd like to deal with Theo first myself, but if this is related to the whole school, we can't keep McGonagall out of it for long." He exhaled deeply. "It'll only bring more suspicion to our table if we do."
She agreed. "I bet if Rowe and the Aurors weren't here, we could calmly approach McGonagall, relay the circumstances and perhaps be able to solve it quietly and without involving anybody unnecessary. But with those guys swarming the place, McGonagall would have to follow protocol and sound the alarm."
He wrung out a cynical groan. "Leave it to the saviours of our world to be the most inconvenient lot within living memory. Did it never strike you as odd that there should be so many Aurors, the Head Auror included, to catch one Dementor?"
"Don't forget the ex-Snatcher."
"Yeah, well –"
"And the cursed Bludger."
He grunted. "But that wasn't until after their arrival."
She blinked, his words falling into place in her mind. "No," it slowly dawned on her. Why hadn't she realized this sooner? "No, it wasn't, was it?"
They turned their heads, eyes meeting.
"You don't think...?" Hardly daring to contemplate such a thing, it would only mean they were in over their heads. To think of the consequences! It would signify corruption to the highest levels of the Ministry! "Weasley, you cannot mean..."
She threw up her hands, unable to stop the thought from formulating, maybe thanks to the whiskey in her bloodstream. "It would make sense, though, wouldn't it? How odd all this was from the beginning. Didn't you sense something was off from the start?"
He scratched his neck, his expression transformed into one of complete scepticism. "Well, I thought our little altercation in the Prefects' Bathroom back then was off, too, but it didn't exactly strike me as a liable part of a bigger conspiracy devised by the Ministry for that reason."
She let out a puff, cheeks reddening. "Don't give me that, Zabini! You know what I'm getting at here."
He gazed at her. "Do I?"
"Merlin's pants!" She sat up straight. "I thought you were a Slytherin! Where is your infallibly suspicious nature, Zabini? You were the one who suggested it in the first place!" An irritable flash appeared in his eyes and she was once more struck by how close they sat.
He pursed his lips and leaned his long torso forward. "Look," he started levelly. "Just because their arrival happened to coincide with the appearance of Dorne a couple of months later–"
"Don't forget the Bludger that tried to kill me!"
"Which could just as well have been some devious trick played by some student," he reasoned gruffly.
She bristled. "A student? I don't think so. It tried to. Kill. Me. Zabini. The very moment the Aurors were called away from the Quidditch pitch because of a false alarm. What part of that don't you understand?"
"I understand perfectly," he drawled as if explaining to a small child, having regained some of his infuriating overbearance. "But it didn't succeed and the case hasn't been solved yet, so we cannot actually know if that was the intention."
She sprung to her feet, incensed by his refusal to see what was right in front of him, and turned back towards him. "You cannot be serious!"
"Oh, but I am, Weasley." He rose as well, leaving the bottle behind, and faced her with a deadly calm, making her swallow. While sitting on the floor, almost at level with him, she had momentarily forgotten how formidable he appeared in upright stature. "Excuse me, if I am not about to jump to your hasty conclusions and rush ahead with some wild theories of a conspiracy that will have insurmountable consequences, not just for us but for the school and the Ministry. Do you get me now?"
She scowled up at him and waved her arms in the air. "Then why did you say that stuff about how odd it was with the hoard of Aurors around the place?"
His jaw ticked relentlessly as he glared at her. The atmosphere had certainly changed from the one just minutes ago. "Well, maybe I just found it odd. Did it ever occur to you?"
"No," she retorted curtly, arms folded at her chest. His excuse was frankly pathetic.
With a low growl, Blaise strode past her and she tracked him with her eyes as he stopped in front of the dying fireplace with a brooding mien. "You do suspect it!" She crowed, earning a wince from him.
"I am not dismissing the possibility nor am I conceding to it," he grumbled and turned to briefly pace the floorboard. "There's a difference."
She shook her head. "Doesn't matter. You can't let it go either, can you?"
Stopping for a moment, he faced her. "Fine. Let's say it is one possible theory. What do you propose we do about it?" He studied her sceptically.
Biting her lip, she sought out the scenarios in her head of what would likely happen if they did intervene. Admittedly, she hadn't thought this through. "I- I don't know," she gestured, frustrated. "All I know is I just can't stand by and watch it all fall apart either way. And I know you can't watch Theo go down with it as well."
His jaw ticked but he had no immediate retort, probably acquiescing to the point. Finally heaving a sigh, he gestured mockingly with one hand. "Then, by all means, tell me how this should go down: Are we to risk our 'good' reputation in favour of getting to the bottom of this on our own? Or do we drag in the whole menagerie, not knowing just how many of them are already corrupted, and face the repercussions? Because, either way, Princess, I don't think you'll like the outcome," he droned derisively.
She stewed. "I never said I did."
"Fine," he replied, his tone brusque. "Then which one is it?" There was a sharpness to his eyes as if he was testing her.
"I –" Her mind spun and she came up short. Still reeling from the whiskey, she felt in no position to make decisions of this kind of magnitude right now, despite having walked right into it.
He scoffed, unsurprised, voice turned hard as flint. "No, see, you Gryffindors have no real concept of comprehending the real-scale consequences of your actions, have you? All you think about in the moment is 'doing the right thing, screw the consequences'." His contempt was vivid from across the room, enhanced by the alcohol or her obstinacy or both. Still, he reined it in with a terrifying self-control.
She felt herself becoming defensive, coolly regarding him with one eyebrow raised. "Are you quite done?"
He continued his haughty glower. "What? You disagree?"
"Maybe. Maybe I don't." She shrugged airily, refusing to get into a Slytherin vs. Gryffindor debate with him now. "I just need time... to think, I guess," she demurred. If he was surprised by her answer, he didn't show it and quickly glossed over it with a low huff.
"Right."
They stared at each other, tense, indecisive.
"So..."
"I guess there's not much else to be done until then."
"I guess not." She exhaled and leaned against the back of the sofa on her left, facing away from him. Her body felt like lead and the effects of the alcohol had finally caught up with her brain. What a mess. The school year was almost over and she just had to get herself involved in something like this.
She heard his corresponding sigh behind her and then his steps as he sidled up next to her, leaning against the sofa.
"Guess we missed our classes." She clenched her eyes shut as his words hit her and muttered an expletive to which he responded with a mirthless chuckle. "Yeah. So much for prioritizing the welfare of the students on this school."
She stared into the floor, trying not to get too swept up in the overwhelming hopelessness of the situation. After a moment in silence, she finally roused herself. "We better get back." He gave a noncommittal hum and followed her.
They exited the Room and the door instantly disappeared behind them. Blaise looked over his shoulder at the empty space in the stone wall. "I wonder if we'll get to see that particular setting again," he mused out loud. "I would like to get another chance to finish that bottle of fine whiskey."
She frowned. It certainly sounded like he hadn't used the Room before. "You can, you know," she found herself rejoining. "If you want it bad enough."
His inscrutable gaze fastened on her again. "Is that so?" There was something beneath the question that she didn't quite dare delve into.
"Um, yes, well..." she mumbled, unsure where to look. "I think I've had my fair share of liquor today."
He emitted a rumbling sound from his throat. "Could have fooled me."
"Will you– just shut up, Zabini," she hissed between her teeth and he chuckled lightly this time, evidently pleased to get the reaction from her. She'd had enough. "See you tomorrow." She turned on her heel and waved a hand over her shoulder, not bothering to catch his mocking response.
However, her ears caught the low and faintly amused, "See you, Red"; the words having a slow, caressing note to them and she wondered if it was due to the alcohol still running through his system; if he had even intended for her to hear them. It made her want to pause and look back to see his expression. However, she wilfully resisted the odd impulse, instead letting her feet carry her down the corridor, careful not to stagger too much, until she passed the common room and finally reached her quarters; mind reeling with the implications of their possible discovery.
Some day, indeed.
A/N: As always, I look forward to hear your thoughts about the story so far and where it might be heading. Thank you for reading and reviewing.