“You kept this?”

“You kept this?”

“You kept this?!” Blaise demanded. He shook the incriminating letter in his fist, shame and embarrassment flooding him in equal and unusual waves.

Blaise Zabini did not get embarrassed. Blaise Zabini was never shameful- not to himself, not to his mother, not to his name. Every choice Blaise made in the last eighteen years had been shame-free.

Not that others would consider it shameless, merely that Blaise himself was not ashamed.

Until now.

His mother sat on the settee beside their Christmas tree in her silk dressing gown, looking the image of calm and collected, two things Blaise did not share in that moment.

To any other, Juliana Zabini would appear an innocent, if beautiful, woman. She sat elegantly, as she did most things, with her long dark legs crossed and a single manicured nail tapping lightly on the settee armrest.

Blaise was not any other. Blaise could see the hint of a smirk on her lips, the lowered eyelashes that indicated her amusement. Juliana could not hide from him, Blaise knew her too well.

For a villa filled with secrets, nothing had ever been kept secret from Blaise. He knew all of his mother’s secrets just as she knew his.

Even if this had been one humiliating secret that Blaise never intended to share. It had been a drunken mistake back in Blaise’s third year. He’d hardly worked up a tolerance to shots as he had now and he had sent his mother a letter.

A letter he thought she burned, as she did most of her correspondence.

Juliana arched a thin black brow at him as her smirk grew to a smile.

“Of course I kept it, mi amore.” Juliana summoned the parchment straight from Blaise’s hand with nothing more than a snap of her fingers. “I believe it Is called incentive, yes?”

Blaise clenched his jaw and stared hard at his mother.

“It won’t work,” he admitted in a tone that was both furious and humiliatingly defeated. “It is hardly as if I’m the only one interested, Mother.”

Juliana must have seen the genuine heartache that accompanied Blaise’s statement because she got to her feet and swept him in a soft hug.

“Have any carried a torch as long as you have?” she asked while she ran a hand over Blaise’s cap of black curls.

Blaise considered Draco Malfoy and Ginevra Weasley. Draco who had been obsessed since the moment he stepped off the train back in first year. The same could be said for Ginevra, though since Blaise (thankfully) did not share a dorm with the girl, he was unsure how deep her longing went.

“Yes,” Blaise admitted.

Juliana pulled away and kept her hands on Blaise’s shoulders while smiling at him.

“Well you simply must show him that you are the superior choice, mi amore. Unless you would prefer me to simply mail him a copy of your charming letter?”

Blaise suddenly had an understanding of what his six stepfather’s must have felt on their deathbeds. Betrayed by the beautiful woman they loved so deeply.

“Blackmail, mother, this is blackmail,” Blaise hissed.

“Yes,” Juliana smiled brightly. “I suppose it is. You have nearly six months until graduation, yes? I believe in you.” She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Blaise’s aching head. “And if not, then I will mail this to Mister Potter, simple.”

‘Simple’.

As if convincing the Golden Boy, the Boy-Who-Lived, the Chosen One, the Man-Who-Conquered, that Blaise Zabini would be an acceptable courting partner would be anything aside from a wretched headache.

Upon returning to the castle, Blaise felt none of the glee that he’d felt before leaving for the Christmas break. Although Hogwarts had been a literal war zone during Blaise’s seventh year, it was far from that for his returning eighth year.

As if the upper years had taken a vote, they had seemed to unanimously decide that they should spend the year following the war partying as much as was humanly possible. A sentiment that Blaise adored and had suited him quite well, as he’d been partying since his first year and his peers were now catching up.

It helped that Headmistress McGonagall gave the eighth years their own wing of the castle. It was much easier to coordinate parties and hookups when they had a common room and six dormitories, three for either gender, to theirselves.

Blaise shared a dorm with Draco and Theo, despite the Headmistresses tsk at the three Slytherins sharing a room. In Blaise’s opinion, she hardly had room to complain when it was quite the public secret that Potter shared a room with Weasley and Granger.

“Good holiday?” Blaise asked his dormmates when he arrived back in the castle and made his way to their wing. It was on the sixth floor of the castle, conveniently hidden behind a tapestry that had a password simple enough for them all to remember even at their most intoxicated.

‘Live’.

Rumor was that Potter himself had chosen their location and the password when he assisted in rebuilding the castle over the summer, but Blaise hardly believed every rumor about Potter that he heard.

Especially not the one that said Potter was seeing Draco behind everyone’s back. For one, Blaise knew that Draco simply would not stop bragging if he began seeing Potter in any way aside from the relatively friendly way the older students all saw each other recently. For another…

Blaise eyed Draco shrewdly where the blonde was laying sideways across his bed with his hair in his eyes and a grimace on his face…

Blaise thought Potter could do better.

“Quite terrible,” Draco said dully. He ran his hand through his hair, making it even messier than it had been.

Blaise thought of his mother’s blackmail and grimaced as well.

“Exceedingly awful,” he drawled. He raised a brow at the quieter of their trio. “And yours, Theodore?”

Theo looked up from the book he’d been hiding his face behind over at the desk they shared.

“Adequate,” he said simply. “I told you both you should stay. We had a party on the 24th, exchanged trinkets, drank a frankly ridiculous amount. The usual, you know.”

Blaise and Draco nodded in tangent, they did know.

“Not much of a party, was it?” Draco sat up and crossed his legs, propping his body against the bedpost and giving Theo his attention. “I thought it was only Pansy, Finnigan, Thomas, and you?”

“Mm.” Theo’s attention was already wavering as his eyes continued to flick downward to the textbook he held. Blaise cocked his head curiously at the design on the cover. It looked to be an Astronomy text, with the stars and planets, and yet he had never seen an Astronomy textbook that had a photo of a muggle rocketship on the front.

“Potter came back not two hours after leaving and the sidekicks were back by the next morning,” Theo said absently. His round brown eyes were aimed at the open book once more and Blaise knew he had perhaps one more question before Theo was lost to his reading for the evening.

“Anything exciting happen? When everyone drank,” Blaise added when Theo gave him a blank look. Theo didn’t drink, bad memories of a drunk father with a cruel tongue and crueler hands. He also never cared to hookup with anyone, sweet little asexual that he was. It made him rather a bore on occasion, but an excellent source of unbiased gossip.

“They decided to snog at midnight, as if it were the new year,” Theo scoffed. Blaise and Draco both gave him their rapt attention, prepared to hear about the usual pairs and the unusual ones.

“Weasley kissed Granger—”

Obviously.

“Finnigan and Thomas—”

Blaise hardly needed a recap on the couples who arrived for their eighth year already ridiculously in love. He wanted to hear about who—

“Potter snogged Pansy.”

Theo smirked at his textbook and relaxed in his chair with his feet propped up on the desk after Blaise and Draco both quickly made excuses and left their dorm. He would feel guilty for how Pansy was undoubtedly about to be attacked with questions, perhaps attacked in general, but she knew the risks when she snogged Potter.

“Why are you so interested?” Draco muttered an hour later after Blaise and Draco were rather forcefully ejected from Pansy, Daphne, and Bones’ purple decorated and heavily perfumed dorm. Pansy and her minions, as Blaise privately called the girls who seemed to do everything with Pansy, had been terribly amused by Draco’s questions.

Blaise hardly had to do anything aside from lean in the doorway with his arms crossed and plaster a look of patient exasperation on his face.

It hadn’t been until Draco refrained from asking a key question that Blaise had to step in.

“He doesn’t mind that you’re a Slytherin then?” he asked as he pretended to buff his nails on his robe sleeve.

Pansy and the girls had tittered, the three of them easily reading through Blaise’s nonchalance.

“Get real, Blaise,” Bones laughed as she ran a brush through her bouncy red curls. “Harry hardly holds house grudges, does he?”

“The real issue was that I once attempted to give him away to the Dark Lord, but that seems to be in the past as well,” Pansy mused while applying a layer of mascara to her eyes. “Goodbye, gentlemen. Go simp elsewhere.”

“You don’t even like Potter,” Draco practically whined as they wound through the bustling corridors to the Great Hall for dinner. It was oftentimes jarring, seeing the corridors so filled with bubbly and energetic students. It hardly had been that way the year prior with Headmaster Snape and the Carrow’s around.

All changes for the best that they were gone, in Blaise’s opinion.

Blaise barely refrained from shouldering Draco in the stone wall, bruising his pale skin, for implying such a thing.

As if there were a soul in the castle who didn’t ‘like’ Potter. Potter was effervescent in his charisma and immortal in the glory that followed him. It was neither of those things that made Blaise’s heart pick up it’s pace when Potter was near though.

It was the way he had never backed down from a challenge nor a taunt. Not in their second year when it had been a running jest that Potter was the Heir of Slytherin (Blaise had seen paintings of Salazar Slytherin, he hardly produced the line that created Potter). Not when he had been entered in a tournament where he faced both childish taunts and torturous tasks (Blaise had his first fantasy of Potter the night after seeing him face off against a dragon and walk away with his head held high and a smile lighting him up from the inside out).

It was the way Potter never bent, never caved. He stood his ground, as his own person, and never relented as he pursued his goals and his interests. Not always in the unbearable moral way Gryffindor’s tended to act, either. Potter had offered up his own list of crimes when he testified on many people’s behalf’s, including Draco and Narcissa, as proof that the winners hardly won without bending the rules.

And the entire school, the entire world once it had been transcribed for the papers, heard Potter taunt the Dark Lord before ending his life and winning the war.

Potter was a marvel and Blaise had wanted him since their second year. Not as long as Draco, perhaps, but much stronger, he was certain. Blaise had never given in to the childish antics Draco had and Blaise had never chased him as blatantly as Ginevra had in their sixth year.

Blaise had a plan to perhaps approach Potter after graduation. Strike up a casual friendship that would grow intimate over time and then, possibly, they would begin courting when they were in their thirties if Potter was still single. It was a patient plan, cunning and not at all fear based.

And Blaise’s mother had ruined it.

Wretched woman.

“I’ve changed my mind,” Blaise said lightly, hiding his smirk at Draco’s sudden look of shock. “Potter’s rather fit. Intelligent enough. I could grow to enjoy his company.”

Blaise loved him already, but that was nothing to tell Draco.

“You just want a shag,” Draco hissed hatefully. “Potter is worth more than an easy conquest.”

Blaise laughed mockingly as he shook his head at his friend.

“Potter would hardly be an easy conquest, would he?”

And Blaise would never disrespect him in such a way as he did the countless others he used as means to an end. Blaise would cherish Potter, allow him to set the nature of their relationship at his own pace. If Potter wanted to save his innocence for their wedding night, Blaise would respect it. If Potter was as sexually disinterested as Theo was, then Blaise would make due with his hand if it meant a life with Potter.

Blaise rather fervently hoped that Potter was not asexual. It would be a shame, as he had a body meant to be worshipped.

Draco remained silent and pouty clear to the Great Hall where they took their seats at the end of the Slytherin table.

It was another open secret that Draco always sat between Blaise and Theo and directly across from Pansy. When they had first returned, as was court ordered for Draco, their group had been the target for many hexes and jinxes and other annoyances and assaults that many teachers seemed to not notice.

It has been especially insulting as Draco had been the only one of the five to bear a dark mark. But the message had been clear by those below seventh year, Slytherins were unwelcome, eighth year Slytherins all the more so.

Potter had ended it, typically.

He must have seen Draco looking particularly pathetic one day early in October because the next morning, the wizard was on the warpath with all the righteous anger as he had when he faced the Dark Lord.

Potter waited until the Great Hall had been full before standing from his seat in the middle of the Gryffindor table and drawing every set of eyes as he strolled over to the Slytherin table. Potter stopped right at the end of the table, inches away from Blaise, and gave them a crooked and charming smile.

“Hey, Draco, how many of your mates fly?”

Draco had ducked his head, skittish and terrified of direct retaliation by Potter as he had faced every day for a month.

“Daphne and I do,” Blaise answered for Draco when it became obvious that the constant attacks had became too much for Draco’s anxiety.

Potter turned his smile directly on Blaise, knocking the air from his lungs in the face of such beauty.

“Brilliant.” Potter’s voice rose to a near shout. “Since we’re all mates now,” Potter’s eyes narrowed then as he shot filthy looks at the other tables. How those children didn’t cower beneath Potter’s displease, Blaise would never know. “I thought maybe we’d go flying?” Potter suggested, all warmth despite the tiny flicker of unease Blaise saw in his eyes.

It had been a relief when Pansy spoke up with all the cutting sarcasm that Blaise adored in her voice.

“Or, perhaps since ‘we’re all mates now’, we do something that doesn’t sound like a one way trigger trip to the Janus Thickey ward?” Pansy said with her own bright, but false, smile.

Potter’s shoulders slumped a few degrees, in relief, Blaise had been certain.

“That would be great, Parkinson,” he said with a less bright, but more genuine, smile. “What were you thinking?”

Pansy smirked up at Potter and offered her hand to him, the first of the Slytherins to do so.

“How do you feel about spin the bottle? And call me Pansy, darling.”

And that had been that. It began the endless parties for the upper years and ended the attacks by the younger years.

It was mere habit to sandwich Draco between himself and Theo still.

“Party tonight,” Daphne told them immediately when they sat.

“Shocker,” Theo muttered. He ate quickly, undoubtedly eager to return to the library where he spent the majority of his sparse free time. Unlike Blaise, Theo had chosen to take as many courses as he could.

Of course Theo, also unlike Blaise, had no family or vault of gold to fall back on after graduation. The Nott fortune, much like the Malfoy, went toward war reparations. It was unfair for Theo to be punished for his father’s choices, but so was life.

“You’re not coming?” Blaise asked Theo. He chose to ignore Draco, it was for the best until he either brought it up once more or dropped it.

Blaise would prefer he dropped it, he would hate to destroy the little confidence Draco had rebuilt in the last few months.

“Where it being held?” Theo asked Daphne.

“Our common room.”

Theo swung his eyes to Blaise and raised his eyebrows. “Hardly seems as if I’ll avoid it,” he muttered.

Blaise ignored him to look thoughtfully across the hall to where Potter sat between his friends at the Gryffindor table.

A party seemed to be the perfect place to begin a new plan. One that apparently had to be done in five months rather than spaced out over the next fifteen years.

“You look… hot,” Draco said suspiciously when he saw the outfit Blaise chose for the ‘welcome back’ party being hosted in the eighth year common room.

As if they required a cause to enjoy their teenage years that were stolen by the war.

“I do, don’t I?” Blaise preened in the mirror he and Draco decorated one wall of their dorm with. It was a convenience to use when they both needed a mirror in the mornings and a delightful accessory when Blaise had company in his bed.

Blaise went simple with his outfit, choosing to mirror Potter’s own preferred casual aesthetic. He’d topped a fitted and artfully faded pair of jeans with a white t-shirt with a slight V-cut to the neck. It was exceedingly casual, and his mother would die if she saw him wear it, but Blaise thought it was the look Potter preferred in a partner.

Unassuming and plain; relying on natural looks as opposed to accentuating anything with clothing. It was a style choice Blaise hardly subscribed to, but worth a gamble.

“You’re trying to pull?” Draco asked uncertainly. He ran a nervous hand over his smoothed hair and glanced in the mirror.

Blaise hummed noncommittally and led Draco to the common room with a slight smirk on his lips.

The common room was decorated in a mismatch of house colors once more, leading Blaise to believe the Patil twins had a hand in it. It was rather packed, and incredibly noisy, when they arrived.

Blaise took a moment to look around the room, gauging the giggles and the shouts as a mix of sixth through eighth years mingled together. The open area in front of the fireplace had clearly been marked off for dancing, as Thomas and Finnigan were doing. There were others seated on the comfortably worn sofas and chairs, nothing like the Slytherin common room held, that created the semi-circle blocking off the dance floor with the flashing lights and pulsating music.

On the wall near the windows, there were a row of desks pushed together to create a table with a yellow tablecloth and a glittering variety of glass bottles filled with liquor across the top. There was a group of students, some standing, most of them sitting, over by the table with drinks in their hands. And, as that was where Blaise spotted Potter, that was the direction he moved.

“Evening,” Blaise said to the group of students. He smiled widely, ignoring Watson’s returning smile.

Watson had been an adequate distraction; and with his dark hair and glasses, he’d even been a reasonable stand-in, but Blaise was finished with that now.

Blaise also did not smile directly at Potter. The night was young, there would be plenty of others throwing themselves at Potter, Blaise could wait.

Everyone wanted a piece of Potter; Blaise wanted to give Potter every piece of himself. It was why he believed he would be successful in the end.

That and his superior looks, personality, and charms.

“Blaise, Draco.” Granger sat on the floor, quite buried in Gryffindor boys as Weasley had his head in her lap and Potter had his head on her shoulder, a half empty drink in his hand, and his eyes were staring blankly at the wall. “How were your holidays?”

Granger was the most diplomatic of the trio, an odd truth as she was undoubtedly the most discriminated against in the war. Sure, the Dark Lord wanted Potter dead, but hundreds of witches and wizards had wanted Granger dead. Still, it was Granger who greeted all her fellow students politely. Granger who helped to organize games for the parties they threw. Granger who once spent three hours discussing the functionality of fashion in duels with Pansy.

Blaise would never be so forgiving, but he admired Granger regardless.

“Adequate,” he said simply. He grabbed a smoking green cocktail of something mixed and leaned against the wall with Draco, who had grabbed a simple bottle of lager. “And yours?”

Potter blinked and Weasley curled his nose, but Granger smiled at Blaise politely.

“Adequate,” she quoted him. “And yours, Draco?”

Draco shifted comfortably and took a long drink of his lager. “Fine.”

Potter seemed to become mildly more alert then. He blinked twice behind his glasses before focusing on Draco. He opened his mouth, as if to speak, then blinked once more and looked back at the wall.

That was the thing about Potter, he was most alive when he had a cause to pursue. Evil Dark Lords or immature fourth years with a talent for tripping jinxes? Potter was a force of nature. Outside of that, Potter recently seemed to be sleepwalking the way through his eighth year and Blaise wanted to wake him up.

It hadn’t been obvious to Blaise, not at first. When term began in September, Potter appeared to be shockingly well-adjusted. He laughed with the others in the common room, participated in parties and games and made a ruckus in the corridors with his Weasley’s. They shared no NEWT classes, so Blaise’s view of Potter was limited in a way, but he had seemed… fine.

Then Blaise returned to the common room in the middle of the night, after being rather unceremoniously thrown from his date’s bed (as if calling a person by the wrong name during a passionate moment was the worst possible transgression), and there Potter had been. He sat on the floor in front of the fire, wrapped in a heavy comforter, appearing so lost that Blaise’s heart had clenched.

Blaise had wanted to speak with him, but he’d been rather certain that his company would be unwelcome, and so he hadn’t. He did pay attention after that though.

Potter spent a lot of nights in the common room alone, and Blaise doubted if the loyal-to-literal-death Granger and Weasley had been ejecting him from their shared dorm. Potter went to every party and he laughed and played games, but he drank heavily and was one of the first to excuse himself at the end. He bantered loudly with his friends at meals, but he hardly ate.

Potter acted fine, but Blaise understood it to be a mask.

It was another reason why Blaise hadn’t wanted to lavish Potter in praise, affection, and attention just yet. He’d been a boy who ended a war, he deserved time to process all that he lost, all that he won, and all that he saved before he could look to the future.

An ideal that the other students refused to adhere to.

“Hiya, Harry.” Justin Finch-Fletchey slid up beside Potter and plopped on the floor beside him.

As Blaise anticipated, Potter sat up immediately and plastered on his charming mask.

“Justin, how are you?”

Blaise turned and entered a conversation with Padma Patil and Andrew Brooks about their current Divination course and attempted to eavesdrop as Finch-Fletchey struck out with Potter.

“The way the magic interacts with the salts to create the pathway to Jupiter in the crystal is terribly interesting,” Padma said.

“Do you want to dance?”

“No thanks, Justin, I’m not much of a dancer.”

Potter only ever danced with Ginevra Weasley, Lona Lovegood, or Ronald Weasley.

Strike one.

“What would be fascinating is if you replaced the salts with another component, would it change the planet it sought? Say brimstone? Which planet would that reach?” Blaise mused to his classmates, half involved in the truly interesting hypotheticals they had been exploring in class. He watched from the corner of his eye when Finch-Fletchey bumped his shoulder against Potter’s, causing Draco to scowl and Blaise to smirk.

Potter preferred casual touches to only come from Ronald Weasley or Granger.

Strike two.

“We should do that for our NEWT project!” Watson suggested eagerly. “Let’s see… we can use brimstone, and something from the forest, and perhaps find an element of air for Saturn?”

“What about Hogsmeade next weekend?” Finch-Fletchey asked Potter. “We never did get a chance to go together.”

“Who wants to play a game?” Granger asked loudly.

Strike three for Finch-Fletchey.

“Never have I ever… said the wrong name in bed.”

Blaise winked at Sanders, arrogant berk, before throwing his drink back, one of only two to do so.

“How… how the hell do you say the wrong name?” Weasley asked as he looked between Blaise and Pansy.

Blaise refused to do something as mundane as blush, but Sanders’ pointed round had drawn a set of curious green eyes. And Blaise would rather Potter be curious about something less… vulgar.

“Accident,” Blaise said smoothly with a winning smile for Weasley. “Common names, you know.”

Not that Spencer Sanders sounded similar to Potter in the slightest, but it had been similar to Flanders, which is who Blaise pretended to be moaning for.

As if Blaise would fantasize about Flanders. He was three hairs away from sporting a unibrow and carried himself as if he were Morgana’s gift to earth.

“Whereas Ron just says ‘baby’ so he never mucks it up and calls Hermione ‘Rosmerta’,” Ginevra said from the spot on the floor she sat beside Potter and Lovegood.

The dozen or so of them who decided to mix shots with secrets all laughed at where Weasley lounged on his girlfriend with a good-natured scowl aimed at his sister.

“Theo’s turn,” Daphne announced, looking to Sanders’ right side and smiling at Theo. “Fascinate us, Theodore.”

There were approximately a million things that Blaise knew Theo had never done and had no desire to ever do. Most of which he probably had.

Blaise was one of the few who had drank nearly every round. Potter had as well, but only when the comments were wild in nature as opposed to sexual. Between the two of them, it seemed as if they had lived a full life in eighteen years.

Theo, who was as sober as Lovegood, sighed when he looked around the circle of students.

“Never have I ever… had a one night stand.”

Blaise threw his drink back, as did the majority of the students, including…

Oh praise Mother Magic herself. Potter was not asexual.

“Potter?” Draco choked on his drink and sputtered when they all saw Potter quickly throw back a shot.

Potter turned a rather appealing shade of red as his friends exchanged knowing smiles and Potter seemed determined to look anywhere but at the others.

“Ooh, the Man Who Conquered in the bedroom,” Pansy snickered. “You hardly seen the shag ‘em and leave ‘em type.”

Potter quickly accepted a refill on his shot glass, which he threw back quickly before relaxing and leaning against the wall he had been holding up ever since the game began.

“You should sell that story to the prophet,” he said with a bland smile. “A new nickname is just what they need to boost sales.”

The others laughed, Blaise didn’t. Blaise saw the way Potter’s smile hardly reached his eyes, the way his fingers twitched where they were curled in the plush grey rug.

If Blaise had someone he could bet with on such a thing, Blaise would bet that Potter was one shot away from excusing himself. It was hardly a fools bet, as Blaise believed he was one of three experts on ‘Potter-isms’. Blaise, Draco, and Ginevra would never exceed Ronald or Granger’s knowledge, but Blaise was no novice either.

Sure enough…

“Last round for me.” Potter stretched his arms over his head, causing his plain black shirt to ride up as he feigned a yawn.

“You take a turn then,” Bones said. She had Pansy curled in her side and looked rather lazily content. In fact, Blaise subtly reexamined the circle and saw that many of their housemates had partnered up to offer physical comfort to one another.

Even Ginevra and Lovegood were touching hands behind Potter.

Potter contemplated his empty glass for a moment while the others waited patiently.

“Never have I ever… faked an orgasm.”

Blaise let out a startled laugh while many of their housemates drank. It was unlike Potter to choose a vulgar comment, but he saw Potter’s scheme as soon as Ronald and Granger began having an argument after Weasley took his shot and Potter slipped out the door to the corridor.

He was rather cunning for a Gryffindor. Another thing Blaise admired about him.

Blaise excused himself not long after Potter did, having no desire to watch the snogfest that their drunken games inevitably led to. He went out to the corridor, planning on fabricating an excuse to linger until Potter returned, only to find him right outside the tapestry.

Potter sat on the floor, his knees drawn to his chest, and his cheek resting on them as he stared down the corridor silently.

“If you need a quiet place to hide, I believe the girls are all having a sleepover in Pansy’s room tonight. Surely Abbott and the Patil’s would allow you to use theirs.”

Potter startled at Blaise’s voice, though he had attempted to speak softly. He lifted his head from his knees and blinked heavily at Blaise before tipping his head back against the wall.

“I just needed some air,” Potter said casually. He fixed Blaise with a playful smirk. “Off to the Ravenclaw dorms?”

Blaise was both delighted that Potter noticed his recent activity and minutely mortified that Potter believed him to be some uncouth playboy.

“We broke up,” Blaise said simply, implying that there had been a relationship to begin with. He sat beside Potter, close enough to share body heat but far enough away to not spook him. “I also needed air.”

Potter waved a hand around grandly. “Plenty of air out here, Zabini.”

“Blaise.”

“Hm?”

Blaise smiled when Potter turned his head to look him.

“You should call me Blaise.”

Potter glanced down at Blaise’s proffered hand and slowly reached out to shake it.

“Just Harry then,” he said.

Blaise felt the loss of Harry’s hand the instant he dropped it to return it to his legs.

“Do you prefer Just Harry Potter or is it Just Harry Potter Then?”

It was a lame jest born of Blaise’s brain desperately trying to find a conversation with Harry, but Harry chuckled all the same.

He was rather kind.

“Whatever you want to call me, Blaise,” he said.

Mine.

“Harry works,” Blaise said lightly. He watched for a moment as Harry relaxed against the wall and closed his eyes.

“You look tired,” Blaise observed in a soft tone. One you might use to speak with a twitchy creature. Harry did appear tired, the bags under his eyes, ones Blaise hadn’t seen in the common room, were large enough to carry even Draco’s luggage.

“Long week.”

Blaise let out a skeptical sound that Harry didn’t bother to refute.

“Who’s name?”

“Pardon?” Blaise had become accustomed to the silence and Harry’s sudden question caught him by surprise.

Harry’s lips curled up just enough to technically call the look a smile, yet the dull look in his eyes was quite the counter claim.

“Geoff said you called him by the wrong name, or it seemed that way anyway. So whose name did you call him?”

Blaise was rather bemused by the seemingly random question.

“Who is Geoff?” he asked, mystified.

That earned him a laugh that showed all of Harry’s teeth.

“You shagged Sanders and don’t know his first name?” Harry clicked his tongue. “Rude, Blaise.”

Blaise would one day kill Geoff Sanders for putting him in such a terribly situation with the boy whose name he accidentally moaned.

“He’s hardly interesting enough to merit me remembering his name,” Blaise said as smoothly as he could before deftly changing the subject. “Not such as you and your string of one night lovers?”

Harry’s smiled twisted in a grimace and he rested his head and his eyes once more.

“A string implies more than one,” he hedged quietly. “Suppose Pansy was right, I’m not much of a love ‘em and leave ‘em type of person.”

Blaise wouldn’t be either, if he had the right partner.

“So why did you?”

And when did he? And who was the partner? And were they in Hogwarts? And did Harry still think of them?

Blaise’s possessive thoughts were cut off by Harry’s soft sigh. A quiet sound, yet heavy in its implication.

“You ever just feel alone? Empty?” Harry mused. He looked Blaise in the eyes, knocking the air from Blaise’s chest. His eyes weren’t dull anymore, they were burning.

“Sometimes I feel like nobody knows me, nobody outside of my friends, and I see what everyone else has and I wanted it for myself,” Harry told him, honesty laced in his words. “I just… I wanted someone who wanted just me. I didn’t find it with him, so I didn’t try again.” He laughed then, a mirthless laugh. “Ignore me, I’m drunk.”

Blaise watched as Harry got to his feet in one fluid motion, wished him goodnight, and returned to their common room.

Harry didn’t sound drunk, he sounded like the loneliest bastard to haunt the castle.

And Blaise had an idea for how to begin courting Harry to be with him and how to find life in those green eyes once more.

Monday morning Blaise watched as carelessly as he could as one of the school owls delivered a parcel to Harry at the Gryffindor table. He saw Harry narrow his eyes with a moment of suspicion when the owl dropped the parcel in front of him before flying off with the others.

Harry hesitated, tapping the box with his wand. Granger also cast a few charms on it before shrugging and mouthing something to Harry that Blaise couldn’t make out from across opposite the room. He could see when Harry slowly opened the box, peeking inside.

Blaise fought a smirk when he saw Harry let out what had to be a single bark of laughter that brought Granger and Ronald’s heads bent toward him.

“I wonder what he’s got?” Draco murmured, blatantly watching Harry as opposed to subtly as Blaise was.

Harry snagged Blaise’s short scroll and read it, a small grin flitting about his lips as he did. When Harry looked up, it was directly to Blaise.

Blaise winked, Harry laughed.

Draco pouted, but that was hardly Blaise’s problem.

Harry caught up with Blaise outside Flitwick’s office before lunch.

“Hey, Blaise!”

Blaise turned his head, feigning surprise as if he hadn’t heard Harry from the instant he entered the corridor with Granger. He left her behind though as he jogged up to Blaise.

“I’ll meet you later,” Blaise told Daphne and Bones. He hung back, allowing Harry time to reach him, before he began walking much slower toward the common room.

“How’s your day?” Blaise asked Harry politely. Harry looked reasonably well-rested, and as he hadn’t been in the common room the night before, Blaise had to assume he had slept some.

“Great. Aren’t you going to lunch?” Harry asked when Blaise turned toward the staircase to go to the sixth floor rather than the first.

“I was going to leave my bag in the dorm. I don’t have any afternoon classes,” Blaise explained with a smirk.

When Blaise had returned for his eighth year, he had signed on for as few classes as he could. Charms, Divination, Astronomy, and Defense. Only the ones he had an interest in, and none he planned on using in his future.

Blaise’s future had been planned since his conception. He would one day take over his mother’s position on the Italian Board of Magic, oversee the media representation for those groups represented on the board. It required no NEWTS, and Blaise had been training for it since birth. He was perfectly content with his future and would be all the more content if he found himself accompanied by the boy who walked beside him in that moment.

Harry, inexplicably, smirked right back at Blaise.

“Me either,” he said vaguely. “And Honeydukes.”

Blaise smiled at Harry’s verbal response to the parcel he had sent him that morning. It had been simple, a gift, a jest, and a question.

A cushion.

A joke stating that sitting on the floor constantly was sure to give Harry back problems.

And a question of what store in Hogsmeade was Harry’s favorite.

A way to catch his attention, show his interest, and get to know him in the way Harry so clearly wished someone outside of his friends would.

“Ah, I would have guessed Zonkos,” Blaise said. He was pleased when Harry remained by his side up the staircase and he angled his body to keep Harry between himself and the rail, less chance of him falling and breaking his neck that way.

“Because I’m a Gryffindor?” Harry asked him curiously.

Blaise quirked a brow up at Harry, marveling over his scrunched nose and bright eyes.

“Because you seem to be an honorary Weasley, I thought they were all required to be mischievous and ginger.”

Harry laughed and Blaise felt a warmth pool in his veins. He did that. He made Harry laugh so joyfully.

“Then you’ve never met Percy,” Harry told him while they approached the tapestry, pausing to allow Blaise to give the password and hold the curtain to the side for Harry. “He’s not mischievous at all.”

Blaise hummed as he led Harry toward his dorm and he wracked his memory.

“Head boy in our… third year, yes?”

“That’s the one.”

Blaise smiled broadly when he held his dorm door open for Harry, silently inviting him in. Harry ducked beneath his arm and looked around the room while Blaise shucked his school robe and backpack, depositing them both in his wardrobe.

“We met once,” Blaise told him. His fingers itched to smooth his hair, but he wouldn’t do so in front of Harry. Instead, he watched as Harry inspected through wall-to-wall mirror they had adorned their wall with. “I attempted to flirt my way out of a detention when he caught me out after curfew.”

Harry caught Blaise’s eyes in the mirror and raised his brows while he smiled.

“Did it work?”

Blaise sat on the end of his bed and smirked. “I think he was too uncomfortable to give me detention.”

Harry laughed and spun around, inspecting the rest of the room.

“You, Draco, and Theo?” he asked, pointing at each of the identical beds out.

“Correct. I presume you, Granger, and Weasley have a similar setup? Or do they share a bed?” Blaise asked in what he hoped was a teasing tone.

He hardly teased many people. It wasn’t the way he interacted with his friends. It was merely that he didn’t want Harry to be something as minor as a ‘friend’ and thus allowances were needed.

Harry’s shoulders tensed beneath his robe, causing Blaise to question his own ability to ‘tease’.

“We share a bed,” Harry muttered, sending Blaise’s eyebrows clear to his hairline. Harry spun around and crossed his arms defensively. “Why’d you send me that cushion thing?”

“Preventing you from a lifetime of spinal misalignment,” Blaise said smoothly. “It’s a rather under-appreciated field of health concerns.”

Harry leaned against Draco’s bed post, as close to being in Draco’s bed as Blaise hoped he ever got.

“And you care about my spinal alignment?” Harry scoffed.

Blaise cared about his everything.

“Obviously,” Blaise drawled. “We are friends now, are we not?”

Harry slowly sat on the edge of Draco’s bed, causing Blaise to internally grimace. He would simply never tell Draco that Harry sat on his bed; the boy would be insufferable and Blaise would not deal with it.

“Hermione doesn’t care about my back, or how often I sit on the floor,” Harry told him. “So why do you?”

“Does she care if you eat lunch? If so, perhaps we should leave?” Blaise offered, ignoring Harry’s question.

“You’re up to something,” Harry said suspiciously, clearly seeing through Blaise with his lifelong distrust of others.

Blaise paid it no mind though. He smiled as brightly as he could, hoping to merely dazzle Harry as a distraction.

“I hope you figure it out,” Blaise told him quite truthfully.

Harry lifted his chin and his eyes flashed with amusement.

“I always do.”

Blaise and Harry played two separate games over the next couple of weeks.

Blaise sent Harry a note at breakfast every morning, asking a question he didn’t already know the answer to, and Harry caught him around lunchtime to answer and guess at Blaise’s plot. Blaise occasionally included a small trinket, a non-addictive potion for peaceful sleep, a sweet he knew Harry enjoyed, and once he included Harry’s own Chocolate Frog Card simply to enjoy Harry’s blush when he saw it.

If you had to kill either Granger or Ronald, which would it be?

“I’d kill myself first and are you selling information to the daily prophet?”

“No.”

Why do you always put toast on your plate but never eat it?

“It looks good, then I get distracted by other foods. Are you planning some odd humiliation?”

“Absolutely not.”

If you could fly without a broom or be the most accomplished legilimens in the world, which would you choose?

“Tom Riddle did both, so neither. And if you’re listing super powers, I can already become invisible. Are you… are you just trying to be mates?”

“Not quite.”

Blaise enjoyed sending winks and grins at Harry during a rather out of control party the eighth years held in Hogsmeade one weekend, a week after they began their peculiar game. It was just as enjoyable to see his blushes and eye rolls at the party as it was to sit beside him the following night in the common room, neither speaking as they watched the sun rise. Harry remained wrapped in his blanket, sitting on the cushion Blaise sent him, and Blaise remained by his side, lending silent support against whatever mental ghosts kept him awake and burdened.

Did you see a Mind Healer after the war?

“Sort of, but I got pissed and went off on them. They told me I was totally safe, which sounded mad, so I quit. Are you the only person involved in your scheme?”

“Yes.”

It seemed as if no matter where Blaise was, Harry had an ability to find him. Blaise even hid one day, loitering in an empty classroom, only to be surprised by Harry poking his head in not twenty minutes later. Blaise also found himself curious at what NEWTS Harry was acquiring, given his excessive free time he spent finding Blaise in the corridors.

What NEWTS are you getting? Aside from one in Hide and Seek.

“I give up!” Harry found Blaise in the back corner of the library that afternoon and threw his hands in the air before slumping in the chair beside Blaise. “What’s with the questions?”

Blaise laid down his astronomy textbook and smiled blandly. Harry lasted longer than Blaise assumed, as they’d been playing the game for nearly two months at that point. He had hoped Harry would piece together the mild flirtations Blaise sent him with his endless interest in even the most tedious parts of his life, but Harry seemed to be rather oblivious when it came to courting.

“I thought you always solved a mystery,” Blaise said, his voice low and amused.

Harry huffed and crossed his arms, his neck turning a shade of red that Blaise quite desperately wanted to track down his torso; preferably with his tongue and teeth.

“Not always without help,” Harry said mulishly, as petulant as Draco recently.

Poor darling Draco. Blaise hoped he accepted defeat and moved on shortly, he would hate to see him pouting for the remainder of their time as roommates.

Harry bat his lashes at Blaise, an innocent and endearing gesture.

“Tell me what your game is?” he asked. “What’s with the weird questions and potions?”

“Weird questions?” Blaise repeated, feigning ignorance. “You wound me, bello, my questions are interesting and well-thought out. What do your friends believe is the point of my game?”

Harry suddenly found his hands quite interesting as he studied them in his lap.

“I didn’t tell them.” He glanced up and frowned apologetically at Blaise. “Sorry.”

Blaise abandoned his homework altogether for the much more interesting conversation. He crossed on leg over the other and smiled slightly when he saw Harry’s eyes follow the movement.

“Whatever for?”

“Er… well it’s not like I’m hiding our…” Harry flicked his fingers, somehow including their entire irregular friendship in the single motion. “Whatever this is, or anything, it’s just… I dunno. It’s nice having something to myself.”

Blaise swooned on the inside that he was a thing that Harry wanted to have for himself.

“Interesting,” Blaise said with a quick grin. “I, of course, have discussed our,” Blaise flicked his fingers as well, “whatever this is with all of my friends. They’re quite amused.”

“Are they?”

“No,” Blaise laughed. “Draco is quite jealous, Pansy and Bones are rather confused, and Theodore told me ‘that’s nice’ and went back to his science books.”

Daphne though, Daphne listened to Blaise discuss Harry with a patience that his other friends hardly held. In fact, Daphne had been the one recently to recommend tiny trinkets to send Harry and places to hide from him at.

“Draco and I are friends, kind of,” Harry added with a frown. “He’s got no reason to be jealous?”

“He’ll be delighted when I tell him so,” Blaise said sweetly. “Do you truly concede defeat on our game?”

“If you’ll tell me what your goal is,” Harry said quickly. He leaned toward Blaise and smiled. “Come on, it’s making me mad.”

Blaise, in a moment of utter madness, leaned over and poked Harry on the nose lightly.

“No,” he said, relaxing back in his chair with a smirk while Harry looked surprised at the playful (and annoyingly impulsive) action. “Whose turn is it to plan the party tonight?”

“Er… mine,” Harry admitted. He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “So I suppose Ron and Hermione did it.”

“So we should expect it to be quite boring?” Blaise said with purposeful skepticism. He adored seeing Harry all lit up with indignation, he seemed so awake in those moments. True to character, Harry bristled and scowled.

“It’s going to be brilliant,” he said coolly. “Feel free to skip it if you think it’ll be boring though.”

As if Blaise would ever skip an event that promised ample times to taunt Draco with his closeness to Harry, soak up gossip from drunken classmates, or witness Harry in the little moments when he turned down their peers.

“Will you dance with me if I go?” Blaise asked him with a well practiced smirk and a wink. He hadn’t anticipated Harry saying yes, he merely wanted to hear one of his excuses he used on the others so he could banter with him for a while in the private moment they shared.

He was rather surprised when Harry stood up and nodded at him with a crooked smile.

“I’ll dance with you if you promise to tell me what your game is.”

“It’s fine.” Blaise smiled up at Harry as his chest filled with glee at the ‘not no’. “I’m enjoying the game.”

Harry stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels.

“Fine, I won’t dance with you,” Harry shrugged.

Blaise feigned indifference by lifting his textbook back up.

“Fine,” he said simply.

Blaise watched as Harry strode away and smirked to himself.

He was rather confident he could convince Harry to dance with him.

And he did.

Harry had stuck closely by Blaise’s side during the party, causing poor Draco to breakout in hives of envy, it seemed, and giving Blaise the opportunity to rescue Harry from an admirer pestering him for a dance.

“Come on, Harry.” Alice Hinkley, a pretty if rather boring sixth year, batted her lashes at Harry roughly an hour after Granger and Ronald’s quite rambunctious party began. “Just one dance?”

Blaise sensed Harry was going to cave by the sigh that escaped his lips before he stalled by taking a long drink of his cocktail.

“Apologies,” Blaise smiled sharply at Hinkley, allowing no false regret to be conveyed, “but Harry has promised me a dance, and I believe it is time he cashed in on it.”

Harry quickly sat his drink on the table and snatched Blaise’s hand before smiling kindly— always so kind, Harry was —at Hinkley.

“He’s right, sorry, maybe— er… bye.”

Blaise pulled Harry to the makeshift dance floor, not allowing him to hide out as he was certain Harry would attempt to do.

“Life saver, you are,” Harry laughed, surprisingly allowing Blaise to hold his waist and dance with the crowd of their fellow students.

“I’m not dazzling hero, but I do alright,” Blaise said with a smile.

“You never did answer my question,” Blaise told Harry after Harry laughed at his quip. He could have shouted to be heard over the music, but he preferred bending his head down and putting his mouth right by Harry’s ear. It had the excellent side-effect of seeing Harry turn a sweet shade of pink.

“Er… what question?”

“What NEWTS are you taking?”

Blaise never doubted that dating Harry Potter would be a life time of discovering new things every day. And he certainly didn’t doubt it when Harry threw his head back with some of the most genuine laughter Blaise had ever heard. Blaise smiled at the sight of Harry just laughing so earnestly, his eyes bright, the baggage he carried beneath them diminished, the lights creating a kaleidoscope of colors on his face.

“Can you keep a secret?” Harry asked when he finished laughing. He had a wicked sparkle in his eyes and Blaise suddenly wanted nothing more than to know his secret, be in on his joke.

“Of course, bello.”

Harry leaned in then. He pressed his torso against Blaise’s and Blaise used a hand on Harry’s lower back to hold him there while the overwhelming scent of Harry assaulted Blaise’s senses and sent a thrill through his body.

“I’ve already got my NEWTS,” Harry whispered.

Blaise pulled his head back, keeping Harry securely pressed against him, to give Harry a bewildered glance.

“What?”

As utterly confused as Blaise was, it did nothing to lessen his adoration of seeing Harry so filled with life in the face of what he seemed to believe was an excellent joke.

“Professor Lupin, remember him? He told me the Ministry holds NEWT sessions in the summers, first of each month, because he knew I didn’t want to come back,” Harry told Blaise quietly, a smile still lighting up his face. “So I went on the first of July and asked to take them.”

Blaise did some quick math.

“Bello, are you telling me you went to the Ministry of Magic, four days after defeating the Dark Lord, and asked to take your NEWTS?”

“Yeah.” Harry had never seemed so smug, aside from the time Blaise had witnessed him winning the quidditch cup in their third year together. “So you might not be surprised to hear I got eight O’s, I didn’t even take Arithmancy.”

As he finally understood the joke, Blaise held Harry to him and put his face in the crook of his neck while his body shook with laughter.

“Cunning,” he murmured. Harry’s entire body seemed to shiver, a reaction Blaise had not been seeking, but a delightful one regardless.

Harry’s voice was breathless when he thanked him, and Blaise wanted to hear more of it.

“What do you do all day? Hide from the Headmistress?”

“Have tea and talk with her, actually,” Harry chuckled. “She realized I wasn’t actually enrolled in any classes the second week and she drug me to her office to chat. Now we just… talk about the war and stuff.”

Blaise had always admired the Headmistress, all the more so in that moment. It was hard to not admire such a fair and unflappable witch of Minerva McGonagalls talents.

Upon realizing that they had been standing still for a few minutes in the middle of a packed dance floor, Blaise began rolling his hips in semblance of dancing while he continued questioning Harry.

“Why did you come back at all?”

“Huh?” Blaise lifted his head from Harry’s neck and saw he had a slack look on his face coupled with pupils so dilated his enchanting green had nearly disappeared.

Blaise adored him. Blaise would die for him or kill for him or wrap him in a blanket and keep him safe and well-fed for an eternity. Currently, Blaise adored Harry’s minute reactions to his physical presence, something he eagerly explored.

“I said,” Blaise rolled his hips and lowered his lashes to a hooded gaze, “why come back at all?”

Harry bit his lower lip and subtly, perhaps without even realizing it, rocked in to Blaise’s hips, sending a hiss out between Blaise’s teeth.

“Them,” Harry said with a nod over Blaise’s shoulder. Blaise unwillingly turned his head to look and saw Granger and Ronald dancing together, heads bent together, giggles spilling from their lips, and a lot of identically knowing looks being shot toward where Blaise held Harry. Ronald caught Blaise’s look and gave him what seemed to be a cheery salute that Blaise responded to with a wink before turning back to Harry.

“They were going to leave me behind and I- I couldn’t do it,” Harry told Blaise, admitting his weakness and attachment for his friends as easily as he spoke of anything else.

“But you aren’t in class with them,” Blaise pointed out, smiling slightly as Harry rocked his hips in rhythm with Blaise’s. Harry was too genuine to be filthy, but Blaise’s thoughts were far from pure when he did such a thing. “Don’t you miss them during the school day?”

Harry smiled up at Blaise. His cheeks were slightly pink, but he looked so painfully earnest.

“How could I? I spend all my time lately having tea with McGonagall and tracking you down in the corridors.”

Blaise was used to making calculated expressions- a smile here, a wink there, a smirk to drive home a jest. He was not used to returning Harry’s smile without even considering it. How could he not though? When Harry smiled so brightly and said things so sweetly?

“You will have to tell me how you find me so easily,” Blaise told Harry. He ducked his head and let his lips barely graze Harry’s ear when he added, “Unless you believe we are just destined to find each other.”

It was hardly a smooth line, one that Blaise hadn’t counted on working for him in the slightest. Harry’s responding jerk of his hips and quiet groan was an absolute indecent delight.

“Maybe I’ll show you tomorrow, if you tell me what your game is,” Harry told him breathlessly. “Please? I’m going mad not knowing.”

Blaise kept his mouth directly by Harry’s ear, nearly kissing it in his closeness, but refraining for the sake of respecting Harry. He did rock his hips against Harry while his hand tightened on Harry’s back, allowing the erection Harry’s rocking hips gave him to press against Harry very briefly.

“Do you still not know?” Blaise breathed.

Harry jerked away suddenly and Blaise dropped his hand, allowing him to do so. Harry didn’t look at Blaise, instead his face was flushed and his gaze flicked around erratically.

“I have to…” Harry didn’t even finish his sentence before darting off, exiting right through the tapestry and leaving Blaise to stand there, bewildered.

What had just happened?

“What the hell just happened?!”

Blaise turned and saw Ronald standing beside him, his arms crossed, and his furious glower aimed at Blaise.

“What did you do?” Ronald asked again when Blaise didn’t reply. Granger stood beside Ron and chewed her lower lip while her worried eyes watched the tapestry that Harry disappeared through.

“I…” Blaise was not a person caught off-guard, it simply did not happen. Harry had abilities beyond his own comprehension. “I am unsure,” he admitted. “We were talking and then he- I- oh.”

And then Blaise played his hand, showing Harry his physical desire, and Harry, who believed that only very few people cared about him as a person, bolted.

“I should go speak with him, clear things up,” Blaise told Harry’s friends. “Excuse me.”

Granger caught Blaise’s wrist when he walked past her, smirking slightly when he looked at her.

“He’ll be in empty classroom down the corridor across from the painting of the hags on holiday. And,” Granger drew herself up to full height and Blaise suddenly recalled that Harry had harshly ended a war on his own, “if you hurt him, I will end your life.”

“And I’ll help, of course,” Ronald added, looking less threatening yet just as solemn. Then he grinned and offered Blaise his hand for a quick handshake. “If you don’t hurt him though, you can meet the rest of his family at graduation, eh?”

Harry’s attachment to his Granger and Weasley made sense. They were clearly quite protective of one another.

They didn’t scare Blaise in the slightest, but he was pleased to know that there were others that were prepared to kill for Harry.

Harry was precisely where Granger (Blaise reminded himself that he should begin calling her Hermione, as he planned on being her in-law one day) said he would be. His Harry was pacing so frantically that he didn’t immediately notice Blaise’s presence. When he did, he stopped moving and stood in front of a dust covered desk and blinked at Blaise for a moment.

“As intriguing an idea as making love to you is, that was not my game,” Blaise said once it became clear that Harry would not be starting the overdue conversation.

Harry ran a hand through his hair, tugging harshly on the hair in a way that made Blaise wince.

“I’m not an idiot, you know,” Harry scowled.

“Of course not,” Blaise agreed quickly. “You do have eight NEWTS.”

A quip that went unrecognized; Blaise would remember to use it to make Harry laugh at a different time. He personally found it rather amusing.

“You didn’t start talking to me until I said I had a one night stand,” Harry said, clearly drawing the worst conclusion. “And- and I know you—” Harry flapped his hand irritably, “get around, a bit, but I’m not like that.”

Blaise was too flattered to be offended as Harry clearly thought he should be. He had no idea that Harry even noticed him before they began their friendship.

“And—”

“And you don’t like toast.”

“What?” Harry’s brows furrowed at Blaise’s interruption.

Blaise took a few steps closer to Harry, leaving a couple of worn and filthy desks between them.

“You don’t like toast,” Blaise repeated. “You sleep better when it rains. You have terrible circulation, hence why you’re always freezing. You always look toward Ron after making a joke and Hermione after making an interesting addition to a conversation. You can catch a snitch with your eyes closed, yet you never seem to know how to tie your tie properly. You attend these constant parties out of obligation and only enjoy yourself when Lovegood pesters you in to participating in a ridiculous game.”

Blaise lifted a shoulder. “I didn’t merely want to fuck you, though,” Blaise flashed an amused smile, “I’d certainly never turn down the opportunity.”

Harry took a hesitant step toward Blaise until there was only one desk between them. There was a hopeful look in Harry’s eyes, hidden beneath a layer of vulnerable insecurity.

“What’s your game?” Harry asked quietly, no longer angrily ranting, merely soft and curious and hopeful. “Just tell me.”

Blaise kept his face blank, though he internally grimaced. ‘Just telling him’ put Blaise’s intentions, Blaise’s feelings, out on the line. It put Blaise on the line.

Harry could laugh. Harry could spit in his face.

Harry could reject him and Blaise would spend an eternity mourning the loss of what could have been.

“I’m not playing a game,” Blaise admitted slowly, the words unwilling wrenched from his soul by the beseeching gaze he was the current recipient of. “I’m rather hopelessly enamored by you and merely wanted to get to know you better, show that I want to know about Just Harry.”

The silence that stretched between them was the precise reason that Blaise had developed a long-term plan, one that carried much less risk of rejection.

Damn Juliana Zabini to hell.

Harry trailed his hand on the desk, leaving behind a streak in the dirt, as he walked around it to stand beside Blaise. He looked up at him as if any of the humiliating things Blaise admitted were confusing to him.

“You sent me all those notes because you fancy me?” Harry asked him, less than an arms span away from Blaise.

“Fancy,” Blaise scoffed under his breath. “I believe I said hopelessly besotted, bello.”

“Bello,” Harry repeated. He slowly moved his dust covered fingers to Blaise’s arm, streaking his skin with dirt and goosebumps at his light touch. “What’s that mean?”

Blaise looked at Harry’s face and knew that if Harry wanted his every secret, every piece of his soul and his entire being, that Blaise would give it to him.

“Handsome,” Blaise whispered, staring directly in Harry’s eyes as he gave him everything.

Harry nodded and licked his lips before repeating Blaise once more.

“Handsome.”

Blaise felt Harry’s hand tighten on his forearm, his only warning before his brash and brave Gryffindor leaned forward and captured Blaise’s lips in his own. Later, Blaise would realize they were both sloppy, fueled by passion and utterly lacking finesse, in the moment though, Blaise knew it was the greatest kiss he had ever received.

Truthfully, Blaise believed it was the greatest kiss anyone had ever received ever.

When Blaise did return to his dorm, with swollen lips, stars in his eyes, and joy in his heart, Draco threw himself across his bed with his worst pout yet.

”I assume you shagged Potter?” he asked scathingly.

Blaise gave Draco his most incredulous look.

”Shagged? Hardly. If you don’t mind, disrespecting my boyfriend in such a way is distasteful and I’d rather not hear it.”

Theo sighed in relief when Blaise went to shower and Draco went to… cry himself to sleep, probably  

If he knew that Blaise finally getting with Potter would put an end to hearing about his endless sexual conquests, he would have pushed the issue years ago.

“Hey, Blaise?”

“Hm?”

“I got an interesting letter today.”

Blaise smiled and wrapped his body more tightly around Harry, comfortable in the bed they shared in Harry’s family home.

They had bickered, slightly, over if they would spend the summer at Blaise’s home in Italy or Harry’s home in London and compromised on switching out at fortnights.

Blaise could hardly complain, as Harry’s home came with an abundance of privacy and endless rooms to explore his lover’s body with.

“You receive letters every day, cuore mio, why was this one special?”

“This one was from your mother.”

Blaise’s arms tightened for a moment.

“Oh?” he worked to remain casual. “And what did she say?”

Harry wriggled in Blaise’s grip until he could roll over and smile so sweetly at him.

“It wasn’t what she said, it was what I think a very drunk you said,” Harry teased him. “Been carrying a torch very long, Zabini?”

Blaise hissed and swore vengeance on his mother.

“I hope you’re prepared to move to Italy, I will have to take my place on the board once my mother has a tragic accident,” Blaise told Harry in a half-jest.

Harry laughed and kissed Blaise; slowly, sweetly, and with a taste of promise in his lips.

“I thought it was cute,” Harry assured him in a whisper. “Your mother did too, or else she wouldn’t have saved it.”

Blaise allowed Harry his misconception as his lover’s mouth distracted him from his immediate plots for revenge.

Not for long though, Blaise swore he would one day get even with his mother. Whether her scheme worked or not, Blaise would hardly allow himself to be blackmailed by the interfering woman again.

“I love you,” Harry mumbled sleepily an hour later when they were well spent and weary.

Blaise kissed his head and breathed in the scent that was pure Harry.

“And I you, cuore mio.”

Perhaps Juliana Zabini would love to see another day after all.

Mother,
Scko- schoot- 3rd yea r is good. Fun. V ery fun. Dracoo got tall. So did Harry. I need a favor pls? Can yyou kill everyo ne else so Harry only sees me? Love him so m uch. His eyes M um! And hair so f fucking messy. I just want 2 bite him and marry h im and bring him to itally and live hap py ever after.
Luv always
B.
Ps: still love me i f i take his name? Blaise Potter. Harry Zabini.
Blaise + Harry 4ever