Only a Boy

Chapter 3

Blaise frowned over her Arithmancy text, tapping her quill against the page. The theories in the pages of Numerology and Grammatica were complicated, and the extra work was taking her longer than she had expected.

Dolornius' Theory states... with no two numbers being alike... leads to the third quadrant... Random fragments of text swam before her eyes, and she sat back and yawned, rotating her neck and tilting her head from one side to the other to relieve the tension in her shoulders.

Behind her, Andrew's voice said, "That looks unbelievably boring."

"It's homework," Blaise said without looking up. "Boring is normal."

Andrew began to rub her shoulders, kneading the muscles and the tendons at the nape of her neck. She was tempted to shrug him off, but a glance at her watch forestalled her; Draco would be here any moment.

Right on cue, the door in the stone wall of the Slytherin common room slid open and Draco entered, followed by Crabbe and Goyle. He strolled across to her chair by the fire, and without missing a beat, bent over and kissed the corner of her mouth lightly. Andrew backed off and dropped into an armchair, frowning slightly.

Blaise fought down a smirk. She and Draco had never dated, but it was occasionally useful to both of them to act as if they were, in order to discourage overzealous admirers. As a result, no-one in their year was entirely sure what their relationship was, and that suited Blaise just fine.

"Aren't you finished yet? The pitch is free, but it won't be light for much longer. We should get out there now."

"Not quite," Blaise told him. "But I'm not concentrating anymore, I've got numbers in my head and they won't go away. Just let me get my broom." She gathered her books up and went through the door to the girls' dormitories.

* * *

It wasn't cold outside yet, but there was an autumnal feeling about the air that suggested it soon would be. Blaise followed Draco down to the pitch, carrying her broom over her shoulder. Draco carried his Firebolt [a gift from his mother in reward for his excellent OWL results], and a Quaffle borrowed from Madam Hooch.

He and Blaise mounted their brooms and kicked off towards the goalposts at the far end of the pitch. They spent the next hour and a half practicing, with Draco playing as Keeper while Blaise tried to shoot goals past him. She found, to her surprise, that a feel for the game came to her remarkably quickly; she was almost as fast as Draco on her Nimbus 2002, and her eye for goal-scoring was remarkably accurate. They flew around the pitch, throwing the Quaffle to each other in the failing light, before Draco called a halt and they headed back to the ground.

"You're good," he told her. "You need some work, and of course things will be different with another team on the pitch, but you'll do for me."

"Oh thanks," she retorted, laughing.

"Can't have you getting conceited, can I?"

"No, of course not, you do enough of that for both of us," she teased. He pulled a face at her. Tucking the Quaffle under one arm, he started up to the castle, and she walked alongside him.

"We're going to be good this year," Draco said decisively as they pushed open the front doors and walked into the torch-lit hallway. "I want that Quidditch Cup. It's about time someone showed Harry Bloody Potter he's not the genius he thinks he is."

"And you think that's going to be you, do you, Malfoy?"

They both looked round. Harry, Ron and Hermione had entered the hallway from the West corridor. Blaise guessed they had been in the library studying; all three carried book bags even though lessons had finished hours ago. Harry and Ron were grinning broadly as they looked at Draco. Behind them, Hermione was looking over her shoulder anxiously, watching for a teacher.

"Harry, Ron - come on, let's go..."

"That's right, Mudblood," Draco snarled. "Wouldn't want to damage your perfect record, would we?"

Ron started forward, but Harry grabbed his shoulder, restraining him. "You know what I was wondering, Malfoy?" he asked. "I was wondering how you managed to become Quidditch Captain without your rich dad to pay your way. Funny that, isn't it? Or did Slytherin just have no-one else to put forward?"

Laughing, he led the others towards the stairs. Blaise looked sideways at Draco. His face was white with anger; when she reached for his arm he pulled away from her and spoke to Harry's retreating back.

"Could ask you the same thing, Potter." As Harry froze on the stairs, Draco continued, his voice loud and taunting. "After all, you did quite well out of your parents, didn't you? Or was it your canine godfather who left you all that gold - though thinking about it, he didn't exactly have much time to make a will, did he -"

Harry and Ron went for him simultaneously; Draco threw aside his broom and the Quaffle and met them with his fists. They tackled him to the floor, and the three of them descended into a brawling heap on the flagstones.

Blaise looked swiftly around. There were no teachers within sight, although the racket was certain to attract Filch any second. Hermione appeared to be thinking the same thing; she was rummaging through her bulging schoolbag, apparently looking for her wand. Blaise rolled her eyes - always keep it where you can find it quickly, moron - and pulled her own wand from her sleeve. She pointed it at the fighting boys and cried "Impedimenta!"

The force of her jinx was enough to blast the three of them apart. Harry fell backward against the newel post of the grand staircase, Ron went skidding across the floor towards the front doors, and Draco was thrown against the double doors leading into the Great Hall.

It was Ron who recovered first; he got to his feet, reaching into his robes for his wand, and Blaise pointed her own wand at him.

"Don't even think about it," she warned him. "If you've got any sense you'll get out of it now; I'm surprised Filch hasn't shown up already."

Hermione ran across to him and caught his sleeve in both hands, speaking frantically into his ear. Ron looked from Blaise to Draco, sitting up painfully and rubbing his head, an ugly look on his face. Eventually Ron nodded, and they hurried to pull Harry to his feet and lead him away up the staircase. Blaise watched them out of sight, her wand still raised; then she slipped it back into her sleeve and turned to look at Draco.

He was on his feet now, and scowling at her as he investigated the damage to his nose gingerly with the tips of his fingers.

"Why did you do that?" His tone was petulant.

Blaise glared at him. "Thanks, Draco. You know, I expected some show of gratitude, but this is just overwhelming." She didn't walk away from him, as she had done with Jonathan; she knew perfectly well that he wouldn't try to call her back.

"I didn't ask for your help, Blaise. I was doing fine."

She snorted. "Oh sure. Two against one, yeah, you were doing great."

His hands were balled into fists. "You shouldn't have hexed me."

"I hexed all three of you," Blaise snapped. "Or didn't you notice that?"

She did turn away then, and Draco spoke to her back. "It wasn't anything to do with you."

Blaise stopped but didn't turn around. "How many times have we won the House Cup since we started at this school, Draco?"

He was silent. She looked over her shoulder at him. "How are we ever supposed to have a shot at it if you insist on attacking Potter every time you pass him in the halls? You lose us house points every time you do that, and for once the rest of us might actually want a chance to beat Gryffindor at something other than Quidditch." She strode away, leaving him in the middle of the entrance hall, bleeding from the nose and looking, for once, slightly ashamed of himself.

* * *

"You really should go to Madam Pomfrey," Hermione said worriedly as Harry sat heavily in an armchair. "Your mouth is still bleeding."

Harry shook his head absently. "It's okay. It'll stop."

Ron sat down opposite him. "Malfoy's an evil git. Ignore him, Harry, he's not worth the oxygen it takes to keep him alive."

Hermione frowned at this, but Harry smiled faintly. "D'you think I broke his nose?"

Ron grinned back. "Anything's possible." He looked up at Hermione enquiringly. "Who was the girl with him?"

"Blaise Zabini," Hermione said at once. "She's in my Arithmancy class."

"Is she Malfoy's girlfriend?"

Hermione sat down on the arm of Harry's armchair and shrugged. "I don't know. You'd have to ask Lavender or someone. I don't think so, though, I think they're just friends."

"Malfoy has friends?" Ron asked in mock amazement.

"Good Impediment Jinx," Harry said absently. Ron glanced at him and raised his eyebrows.

"Probably she just meant to hex us and hit Malfoy by accident," he suggested. "I bet he's not too happy with her."

"No," Hermione said, and they both looked up at her. "Blaise is really smart. I heard her talking to Professor Snape after class one day last spring, and she wants to be a Healer. If she hit Malfoy as well as you two with her jinx, she probably meant to."

"Interesting," Ron said cheerfully. "Maybe Malfoy isn't as popular with the Slytherins as he thinks he is."

"More likely she wanted to break up the fight before we all got into trouble," Hermione corrected him. "That's what I was going to do, but I couldn't find my wand."

Ron looked hurt. "You mean you were going to hex us?"

"Of course, if it meant we wouldn't lose house points," Hermione told him loftily.

"Thanks so much, it's nice to know you care," Ron said sarcastically.

* * *

The tryouts for the Slytherin Quidditch team were held on the first Saturday of term. Draco had requested permission to book the pitch for the afternoon from Professor Snape, and unsurprisingly had had no trouble getting it. Since their argument, he had been extremely courteous towards Blaise, and she supposed this was as close as Draco could ever get to an apology.

Saturday afternoon was overcast, but very humid. The ceiling in the Great Hall was banked with heavy dirty-yellow clouds, and thunder rumbled in the distance as the team members and the hopefuls for the positions - two Chasers and the Keeper - made their way out to the pitch.

There were quite a few contenders for the team. Blaise looked around at them as Draco and Warrington conferred by the door to the changing rooms [Crabbe and Goyle merely stood holding their Beaters' bats and listening].

Andrew Rosier was trying out, as was his younger sister Caroline, a fourth-year. One of Warrington's friends, a girl called Joanna Mustachinn in the seventh year, stood slightly apart from the rest of them with an aloof expression on her face. Blaise had a strong suspicion that Warrington had promised her a place on the team.

There were four third-years, all of them boys, and two second-year girls who stood very close together, looking at Draco with the eyes of hero-worshippers.

Draco listened to whatever it was that Warrington was telling him, his grey eyes surveying the hopefuls, sizing them up. He nodded briefly at the older boy, before moving forward and addressing them.

"Okay, everyone, can I get some quiet here please?" They all fell silent, watching him avidly. "We're just going to run this as a normal team practice. We'll start with a quick warm-up; get your brooms and let's go." He mounted his own broom and kicked off.

The air was so heavy and warm it felt like flying in a sauna. Blaise brought her broom up level with Draco's, looking around the empty stadium.

Not quite empty. Below them there were several spectators scattered around the stands; Blaise could recognize Roger Davies and Cho Chang, sitting with a mousy-haired girl who she assumed must be the new Hufflepuff captain. Several rows above them, Amy and Pansy sat sharing a bag of Every-Flavour Beans; they waved up at Blaise and she lifted a hand briefly in return.

At the other end, near the goalposts, a group of boys sat at the top of the stands. From this distance Blaise could pick out Ron Weasley's bright hair, and she was willing to bet Harry was beside him. The Gryffindor Quidditch groupies, evaluating the competition.

Draco had seen them too; it showed in the stiffness of his posture as he sat on his broom, and Blaise sent him a smile when he looked her way. For a moment he only looked at her, and then he smiled in return - a small one, but still a smile.

They started with a game of Scrap - this involved little more than two teams throwing the Quaffle to each other and attempting to 'tag' the opposition by throwing the ball at them. Anyone tagged had to go to ground for a count of thirty, before returning to the game. It was used to develop skills of interception and evasion, as well as throwing aim, and it was commonly used in tryouts as it was fun to play and so helped the new players to relax a little, and because it allowed the team players to watch the ones trying out, and pick out those who looked as if they played best.

Blaise, Andrew, Derek Warrington, and Goyle were placed together on a team with two of the third-year boys - a well-built boy with hair almost as blond as Draco's, whose name was Ashley Price, and Mark Eastwick, who was wiry and fast and looked more like a Seeker than a Chaser - as well as one of the second-year girls, who lisped that her name was Sandra DuChiens.

Draco started the game, flying in between the two teams and hurling the Quaffle straight up into the air. Andrew got in before Joanna and pulled up hard, flipping over and passing towards Goyle, who missed by a mile. Blaise swooped beneath him to catch it, and plunged into the middle of the other team, successfully putting the other second-year [Maria Something-or-other] on the ground. The Quaffle bounced off her shoulder and into Caroline's outstretched hands, and Blaise dived below her to avoid being tagged. Caroline instead went for Warrington, and would have tagged him if he hadn't pulled up, allowing Mark to grab the ball.

The game progressed in a similar manner for the next ten minutes, with the teams appearing evenly-matched for the most part - Blaise was tagged only once, but to be fair it was by Joanna dropping the Quaffle on her head from above, and Blaise got her own back soon after re-entering the game. Eventually Draco called a halt.

The new players were then placed in Chasing teams of three, facing a fourth player as the Keeper, who was supervised by Warrington circling above the goalposts. Their task, Draco explained, was to negotiate the length of the pitch, avoiding the Bludgers aimed at them by Crabbe and Goyle, passing to each other and attempting to shoot past the Keeper. They were not, however, allowed to hold on to the Quaffle for more than four seconds.

First up were Joanna, Ashley Price, and Caroline Rosier. Joanna was twice reprimanded by Draco for holding on to the Quaffle for longer than the specified four seconds, although she had a good eye for dodging the Bludgers. Caroline was faster than either of the others, diving all over the pitch and intercepting a pass from Joanna to score through the far left goalpost. Ashley played as if he was thinking too hard about what he was doing, and as a result was caught in the elbow by a Bludger, causing him to drop the Quaffle. The first Keeper was Barry Howard, who missed Caroline's shot at goal, but only by inches.

Blaise found herself on the next team, with Andrew and Mark Eastwick. Draco circled above the three of them, watching until Barry was repositioned before the goalposts; then he threw the Quaffle into the air.

Blaise and Andrew both went for the ball first [Mark never had a chance to get near it, and instead kept pace with them, waiting for a pass], and she beat him to it easily, angling away from him to reverse-pass to Mark. He caught it one-handed, banked left to avoid a Bludger from Crabbe, and passed on to Andrew, who swooped upwards and dropped it into Blaise's hands. She flattened herself on her broom as a Bludger shot over her head, and threw the ball straight back up to Andrew, who wasn't expecting it. He had to lean far over to the left to grab the ball in the tips of his fingers, and might still have held on to it, had the second Bludger not hit him between the shoulders, almost knocking him off the broom. Andrew ended up hanging on upside-down, and Mark, who had grabbed the Quaffle as it fell, decided against passing to him and instead threw the ball to Blaise.

The goalposts were looming closer; Blaise had only a second to decide - hold on to the Quaffle and shoot, or pass to Mark? Crabbe decided it for her, smacking a Bludger at her from behind the goalposts, and Blaise hurled the ball towards Mark and pulled hard right. The Bludger clipped her shoulder, but it wasn't serious, and she turned in time to see Mark shoot at the centre goal. Barry Howard was able to block this one easily, and the Quaffle plunged towards the stands.

Without stopping to think, Blaise arrowed straight down to catch it, pulling out of the dive with the Quaffle under her arm barely five feet above where Harry, Ron, and several of their friends were sitting.

Flushed with exhilaration, she looked down at their startled faces and grinned broadly. "Watch your heads there, gentlemen," she called merrily, and soared back up to where the other Slytherins were waiting.

Warrington applauded as she drew level with him. "Very nice. I don't think even Flint could have done that," he told her.

"Of course not," Blaise told him. "Flint would have let it hit them." She tossed the Quaffle to Draco.