Chapter 1
Blaise felt weird…really weird.
He didn't know how to explain it. He didn't have the energy to even try to. He just knew he felt different.
He thought back to three months ago when he was sitting in the same exact spot in this exact train compartment heading home for the summer holidays. He felt different than too, just different from how he did now.
The ‘different’ he felt then was like a buzz around his skin, sounding at a frequency that only he could hear and affecting only his outer layer. Very quickly that changed. Now, his differentness was a heavy boulder in his body, taking place in every lower through that was inside of him. It sunk into the bottom of his lungs, the bottom of his stomach, his intestines, everywhere. It was like a heavy mud-like slush that infected every single thought and action of his.
Now, he felt as if he looked the same as everyone else but now he felt different than everyone else. Along with this new feeling was the paranoia. Wondering if every person that looked at him knew, knew what he did. They didn't, obviously, how could they? His mother respected his wishes and made sure to keep it a secret from everyone. But the paranoia still lingered, still festered in the heavy parts of his body, intermixing with the sludge.
His mind was speaking way too loud and when people looked a little too long at him as they passed his compartment he wondered if they could hear his thoughts too. He wondered if his friends could. They were all talking amongst themselves for now and didn't seem to notice his silence.
Blaise was especially paranoid about Draco. Draco seemed to know everything. Even if he didn't know it, he knew it. Somehow.
He was a snake through and through. His sharp eyes would cut through your soul and it felt as if he was digging through your brain as you spoke to him. He had blonde, nearly white, hair that only made his pale skin stand out. He looked like a prophet and he knew Blaise inside and out.
Blaise and Draco always told each other everything. They never kept things from each other. It was a little pathetic how five minutes with Draco could make Blaise spill all of his personal secrets but luckily it seemed that he had the same effect on Draco. Blaise knew slightly more than he would like to about the boy.
Blaise knew the second they were in a room alone together he would tell Draco what he did this summer. He knew Draco would look at him disappointed and saddened, if he didn't already know. Blaise knew he would feel that uncomfortable feeling of guilt and self-hatred he felt when he woke up in the hospital to see his mother asleep on the chair next to his bed looking as if she hadn't left his side in days and hadn't stopped crying either.
Suddenly Draco’s eyes snapped to Blaise’s and sudden attention made Blaise want to crawl out his skin and hide behind it just to avoid the questioning look. Blaise flushed with shame and looked away. Draco never let him get away that easy though.
Interrupting Pansy's in-depth description of her uncle's summer mansion, Draco asked. “So what did you do this summer, Blaise?”
‘Oh nothing much Draco, spent a week of it in the hospital, another two weeks on suicide watch, then for the rest of it I was in and out of therapists offices trying to to diagnose what the hell is wrong with me. But, oh! I went on the yacht of a guy my mother is currently romancing so that was pretty cool!’
Blaise couldn't answer with that. He looked at the other two in the compartment to see if he could get away with just a shrug. He wouldn't be able to. Pansy didn't even complain when Draco interrupted her talking and was looking at Blaise with genuine curiosity. Even Theo Nott, the notoriously nonchalant boy, was looking at him with genuine care and interest.
“My mother and I visited family in South Africa for a week, that was really fun. My mother's been romancing this new guy. He's rich in oil, from Australia. He got me a new car and we were able to go on his yacht, also fun. Then I bummed around for while,” Blaise shrugged.
The others seemed to eat up his vague description. Pansy and Theo started talking about how cool all of that was and expressed their excitement about the whole situation. Draco wasn't as moved. He kept his piercing eyes on Blaise and asked another question. “You seem less talkative, you okay?”
If any other person said this it would seem sweet and caring. Not with Draco. He asked it as if he was a detective trying to get a confession out of a murderer. Blaise felt his expression harden at the accusation. The familiar unwarranted anger started to rise in his chest and cloud his mind. How dare Draco treat him this way? As if he had anything to be ashamed of. As if he were different.
“I'm fine Draco, maybe I just don't want to talk to you when all you talk about is yourself,” he snapped.
He stood up and snatched his jacket off of the seat and stormed out of the compartment. He felt as if he was racing through the train hallway. He felt the ground underneath him shake as he stomped to the back of the train. He felt his soul leaving his body behind him. His vision blurring and mixing, sounds faded and were amplified as blood pumped through his ears and through his head. He only came back to earth for a split second when he bumped into someone.
“Oh!”
He heard a voice from slightly below his eyeline. He looked down to see pale blonde hair and captivating blue eyes staring back up at him. If he were more sane then he would be flustered at the girl looking at him. But he was halfway to a panic attack and needed to go find a place to sneak a cigarette.
“Watch where you're going,” he scoffed, his voice a little too high and pinched for his liking, before shouldering past her and continuing his path.
He vaguely heard a “sorry!” shouted from behind him but he was too out of it to notice.
He only came down from his high when he had taken a few drags from his cigarette. Suddenly a wave of exhaustion and embarrassment came crashing down over him. He sat down on the floor over the weight of it all and focused on taking deep breaths as his therapist had advised him to when things got too loud.
He focused on the sound of the train chugging along the train tracks and the sound of the wind whipping as the train traveled too fast for it to keep up with. He focused on the smell of burning coal and the smell of the English countryside.
Why had he said that to Draco? It wasn't even true. Sure, when you first met Draco he seemed to be one of the most self-centered boys you've ever met. He appears to be just another one of those pure blooded losers who only cares about himself. But if you spent more than an hour talking to him you'd realize that he cares so much for everyone in his life. He's grateful for every privilege, every gift, every single thing he has in his life.
He's honestly one of the most well behaved and most generous people that Blaise had ever had the pleasure of meeting and it was all thanks to one woman. Draco's mother. Narcissa Malfoy.
Blaise thought of his own mother and felt the urge to cry. He wished he hadn't done it. No. He wished he hadn't survived. He wished he never had to see his mother's face when he woke up from the hospital. The pure sadness and helplessness she displayed as she looked at him. Just wondering why.
He wished he could tell her it wasn't her fault. That it was him he was the problem. He just couldn't find the words. That was his problem, he never found the right words. Blaise sat there for a while before heading back inside when the sun started to dip beneath the rolling hills.
“You alright Luna? What took you so long?” Harry asked Luna when she got back to the compartment. Taking some of the candy she had out of her hands to help her settle down back into her spot.
“Oh, I just ran into somebody,” Luna smiled softly. She blushed internally at the thought of Blaise Zabini’s dark brown eyes and sat down politely.
“Oh, anyone we'd know?” Hermione asked while unwrapping a chocolate cauldron from the pile that Harry graciously bought them for them all. Courtesy of Sirius ‘I must spoil everyone I ever run into’ Black.
“Blaise Zabini,”
Everyone seemed to short circuit at the name. Hermione accidentally held her cauldron too tightly and smashed a side of it in. Ron made a weird noise in the back of his throat and nearly choked on the sip of soda he was taking. Harry's eyes widened a significant amount. Neville seemed to shift uncomfortably at the name. And Ginny smirked coyly.
“I didn't know you knew him, Luna,” Neville asked, trying to appear nonchalant about the whole situation but only appearing anxious.
“I don't, he ran into me in the walkway. Spilled my soda all down my dress, took a moment to recover,” She shrugged. The others didn't seem to like that.
“He's notoriously rude, y’know” Hermione commented.
“He's a great chaser though. He's got this amazing new model from last year and-” Harry was about to go on a rant that Ron seemed extremely interested in before he caught Hermione's eye and her disapproving look cut his speech short. “Sorry,” he coughed.
“He seemed troubled,” Luna pondered aloud.
Ron let out a scoff, “With friends like that who wouldn't be,” Harry let out a little laugh at that.
“Who knows, maybe he really needed a wee,” Ginny shrugged before taking a large bite of a pumpkin pasty and putting her ankles on her brother's lap. Ron simply wiggled her feet back and forth by the toes.
“That or to buy a gun,” Harry snickered. Ron giggled. They're laughing reminded Harry that they needed to compare the new quidditch trading cards they had gotten over the summer and the conversations took off from there.
The rest of the train ride was spent talking about carefree subjects but strangely Luna couldn't get the sight of troubled brown eyes out of her mind. She felt drawn to them, as if they were important.
Blaise would have enjoyed the first meal back if Draco wasn't complaining through all of it. Unfortunately for the whole table Draco had had another encounter with the one and only Harry Potter.
The relationship between Draco and Potter was weird. Ever since first year Draco has hated Potter, for reasons unknown, but Potter has only ever tried to be friends with Draco and help him out. It was incredibly confusing.
It started off with Potter waving at Draco in the hallways and Draco rolling his eyes in return. Then, it advanced slightly, Potter would try to start conversation and interaction when they were partnered in class, Draco always scoffed and insulted him. This must have added fire to the ever growing Potter flame because he was determined to make Draco his friend by halfway through the first year.
Last year, whenever they went to potions class Draco's potion ingredients would already be at his table if Potter got there before him. He always had a textbook waiting for him at his desk on the days it was necessary. His broom was typically polished and waiting for him on game days. To anyone else this would look like Draco had befriended a particularly nice house elf but to the people who knew Potter and to the people who knew Draco, they would know it was no house elves doing.
At the end of last year was when this behavior changed. Potter had attempted to help Draco with his potion after finishing his own and Draco had finally had enough. He snapped and yelled at Potter that he didn't need his help, that just because his godfather was his Uncle didn't mean that they were friends. He yelled about how they would never ever ever be friends and that he should drop it before he embarrassed Draco anymore with his plots.
That was the last time Potter tried to befriend Draco. For the next week Draco practically skipped with joy at the peace he found of not being bothered by Potter. It was the second week that he realized how much he missed the boy's pestering. He missed not having to get his potion supplies, he missed not having to polish his broom, he missed not having to get up to get a textbook, but most importantly, very secretly, he missed that messy mop of unruly black hair that seemed to follow him around. Draco pushed those thoughts deep deep down though and only told Blaise about them one sad night and acted as if they had never existed.
Now, he was going on a rant about how uncivilized and how selfish Potter truly was.
He had described in-depth how Potter had cutted in front of him in the line for the carriages so he could snag his friends a good one. How unkempt!
Blaise would roll his eyes at his friend's dramatic behavior if he weren't so tired. He wished he didn't understand why he was. When he had gotten back to the train compartment earlier he had mumbled out an apology to Draco and said that he was tired so he was going to take a nap. He wasn't sure if they believed him but he laid down with his eyes closed for the rest of the train ride so that must have done something.
Now, Blaise had no appetite. He, shockingly, had no problems with his eating during the summer and during recovery but he could feel his sense of control slipping with the arrival of the new school year and he could feel his appetite wane. He didn't want this to be a problem and he certainly didn't want this to be an added stresser to his mother but he didn't know if he could eat full meals here.
Blaise wanted to crawl into his skin. Why was all of this so hard? Why was this all so difficult? What was wrong with him and more importantly how could he fix it?
Blaise got a sense that somebody was staring at him. He looked over his shoulder and his eyes met a pair of blue. Her robes made the hue stand out more and Blaise felt himself blush unconventionally at the small smile and wave she gave him when she noticed she got caught staring. Blaise looked away immediately, in his avoidance he caught another pair of eyes.
This time the eyes were bright green and they went with a messy, wrinkled pair of red Gryffindor robes. This gaze made Blaise way more uncomfortable. Potter was looking at him with pity, like he knew.
Blaise turned his head around and stared down at his plate, he was sure he looked crazy. A cold sweat broke out and he felt his heartbeat in his head. He tried to convince himself for the rest of the meal that he was paranoid, that it wasn't true. He wasn't able to. During the rest of the meal Blaise came to one conclusion.
Harry fucking Potter knew.