Comfort

He didn't understand how a silence between two people could be so comfortable. All he had ever known were awkward silences. There were ones between him and his parents whenever they were around him. There were ones between him and his former house mated, because he wasn't like them.

With her, silences were more comforting than anything else. In her presence, the expectations he had grown up with were gone. There was nothing he needed to say, no way he had to act. He had never met anyone, before her, who didn't seem to think he should meet some kind of pre-set standards.

He asked her once, how it was possible for her to expect nothing of him. She had just stared past him, as if she hadn't heard his questions. Even then, the silence wasn't awkward. He began to ask again, thinking she hadn't been paying attention, when she answered his question.

"Because you need it that way. When you love someone, you're willing to sacrifice your own wants for their needs," she stated, her gray eyes never meeting his, just staring past him. Her voice had been softer then normal, and her tone had been sincere. It was as if she was admitting something she had never told anyone else before.

And now, these silences had become his safe haven. And they always acted the same exact was during those silences. She would stare past him, with sincerity etched into her face. And he would use the time to study her. When she was like this, he felt that she looked lost, like a child who had been left in some place that was completely foreign to them. It sounded silly to him, but he always wanted to brush his fingers across her face when she was like this, gently of course, to be sure she wouldn't break.

He was usually the one to break their silences. He would ask her some random question about herself, a question he would find pathetic immediately after he said it out loud. She never treated his questions as if they were stupid one, though. She answered him with delicate words, and her answers always sounded meaningful. The only time he spent in regret over asking, was that time between when the question left his lifts and the response left hers.

This time, however, she broke the silence.

"Blaise?" she asked. She sounded unsure, as if she didn't know the right way to say what she wanted to say. It was quite a change from her normal, well thought out, form of speaking.

"Yeah," he replied. His voice sounded off because it had been out of use for some time.

"What was Hogwarts like? Or rather, what were you like at Hogwarts?" she questioned and then corrected herself.

He slipped into his own thoughts, unsure of how to answer her questions. He could vaguely feel her rearranging herself, so that she was now seated in his lap, with her head against her chest.

"Before I tell you," he began, "you have to understand a few things. We were sorted into different houses, each with its own, official, defining characteristic. But in the end, everyone was usually alike in many more ways that that one trait. Slytherins officially ended up in that house because we were ambitious. But in the end, we were mostly dark wizards. Slytherins were, and probably are, horrible human beings. And horrible human beings will not tolerate those who are different from them.

"And were you different?" she asked, shifting so that she was leaning against him more.

"At the beginning, no. I was from a pureblood family with dark connections and the belief that we were above others, for the simple reason that we were pureblooded. All of the Slytherins were like that."

"And all Slytherins become even more evil with time. We get more and more proud of our bloodline. The problem with me, was that I didn't. I questioned our so-called superiority. But I was smart about it. I knew that if I openly questioned things, I would be cast out. They would see me as a traitor. So I kept my beliefs to myself. On the outside, I was like all the rest, but inside I was questioning everything."

"As the years passed, I stopped questioning and started changing. I decided that blood did not matter. And as my beliefs became more and more firm, I became more and more disgusted by the people around me."

"But I was a Slytherin, looked down upon by others. I wanted something resembling friendship, and no one in any of the other houses would give it to me. I knew that if I just kept my mouth shut about my beliefs, then I would be accepted by my housemates. But it was extremely hard to place nice with the people I couldn't stand. So I became the quiet child, the distant one. It was the only way to stay among them, without them learning my secrets."

"Did you spend all those years hiding your true self from everyone?" she asked him softly.

His only response was a nod.

"How did you do it?" she asked, completely shocked,

"I was very good at suffering in silence. I had to be," he replied, refusing to make eye contact with the girl who had asked the question.

She pushed herself off him and got up onto her knees. She tried to make eye contact with him, but he kept turning away from her. Slowly, she moved her right hand so that her fingers covered his cheek and her thumb was under his jaw. Then she pushed at him to turn his face towards hers. He held his jaw firmly in place, despite her attempts to move him. Finally, she gave up and removed her hand.

"Please, Blaise, look at me," she pleaded with him. "I just want to know that you're alright now. I want to make sure that you to know that I love you. If you're ever hurting like that, please come to me. Let me try to ease the pain, even if it's only a little bit."

He turned to meet her gaze. She looked scared for him. Afraid that he was still in pain. She truly wanted to help him heal.

"I love you," he whispered. "And I'm fine. Meeting you, being with you, helped to heal me."

She leaned in, slipping her arms around his necks. His own arms found their way around her waist. She lightly pressed her forehead against his and closed her eyes. It felt wonderful to be with her like that.

"They know, my parents," he murmured without moving from where he was. "I told them about the two of us and all of my beliefs, two years ago. The hate me for it. They think I'm a traitor, for wanting to be with a muggle-born."

"How do you stay so strong?" she asked, amazed. "Everyone you knew growing up hates you, even your own parents, and you seem so unaffected." She opened her eyes as she finished speaking.

"I have you," he stated. "When my parents kicked me out and I didn't even care, I knew that you were worth it. You're my strength, my courage."

"How could I be worth it? I'm not anything special," she said, trying to understand what he was saying.

"You were willing to love me, no matter what. You gave me the comfort I haven't felt since I was eleven-years-old. I love you, it's that simple," he whispered, pulling his face back from hers and smiling.

He leaned in and kissed her lightly on the lips. He did that a few more times before moving to kiss her on the forehead. He pulled her body in towards his until she was leaning against him, her face buried in his shoulder. The he lightly ran her hands up and down her back.

"You may not understand this, but I want to be with you forever. You make me so incredibly happy. I know that this is forever. I want to spend eternity with you," he murmured, lifting her chin so she could see him.

"Forever," she paused, "sounds wonderful."

Then she lightly pushed him until his head landed on one of the pillows littering the floor. Then she pulled a large comforter off the couch above them and threw it over the two of them.

Grabbing her wand off the table to her right, she whispered the spell to turn off the lights. Then she curled up against him and tried to fall asleep.