Only a Boy

Chapter 6

The scarab beetle shells crunched beneath the pestle with a dry, gritty sound that made Blaise think of sand beneath her shoes after a day at the beach. It set her teeth on edge.

The directions on the board were for the preparation of Veritaserum, part of an ongoing project that Snape had presented to them in the first lesson of term: the making of several potions used in crime prevention in the wizarding community. Blaise was enjoying herself; Potions was her favourite lesson. She loved the delicacy and precision of the work, so much more complex and scientific than other branches of magic; and Pansy made a remarkably adept lab partner.

Blaise tipped the beetle shells into the cauldron and lowered the flames beneath it with a quick motion of her wand. Beside her, Pansy uncorked three vials and, holding them between her fingers, added the contents simultaneously.

There was an ominous-sounding hiss and the potion turned deep blue-purple. Pansy's eyes widened.

"Was that supposed to happen?" she asked Blaise nervously.

"Reaction of the spider blood and the belladonna," Blaise told her quietly. Behind them, Snape paused.

"Quite correct, Miss Zabini. Take ten points for Slytherin." There was an unfocused murmur of disapproval from the Gryffindors. Snape silenced them with a glare and continued. "After the addition of the belladonna, your potions should be ready for their final maturing. Take a sample of your potion in a phial and present it to me for storage until they are ready for testing. Homework this evening: an essay on the legalities of the use of Veritaserum, complete with case histories, of at least four feet. Anyone attempting to cheat on length by using extra-large handwriting will be expected to re-write the entire essay three times over in detention - that means you, Mr. Weasley. Pack up."

Blaise filled hers and Pansy's sample phials as the other girl began gathering together their ingredients. She brought both to Snape's desk - observing with bitter amusement that Draco's potion was far too dark a blue as she did so.

Neither Draco nor Andrew had said a word to her since Monday, but both, she knew, had been watching her intently. If she so much as glanced in Potter's direction, it was observed and remembered. It felt like being under a Magnifying Charm.

Blaise placed the two phials in the rack on Snape's desk and turned around faster than she had intended, bumping into Ron Weasley, who was carrying his and Harry's sample phials. The little crystal flasks slipped from his hands and shattered on the floor. Ron stepped back with a curse.

"Oh no..." Blaise put a hand to her mouth as most of the class turned to stare. Snape stood up, a smirk crossing his face.

"Careless of you, Mr. Weasley. That will be zero marks for both you and Mr. Potter. It will teach you to be less clumsy in future."

Ron's expression was thunderous. Blaise turned to face the Potions master and spoke without thinking: "Professor, it was my fault. I wasn't looking where I was going."

The silence that fell was deafening. Snape looked down at her with his eyebrows raised, his expression about as close to surprise as it ever got. Blaise felt herself flushing but stared determinedly back.

"I don't remember asking you to comment, Miss Zabini," Snape said coldly. "Return to your desk. Zero marks, Mr. Weasley."

Blaise stood her ground. "But it wasn't his fault -"

The professor's voice was like a whipcrack. "Sit down, Miss Zabini, unless you want detention. You too, Mr. Weasley." As Blaise opened her mouth a third time, he glared at her. "Now."

Ron strode back to his and Harry's table, seething. Blaise went across to her own seat and picked up her books, aware that around her the rest of the class were staring and murmuring to each other. She kept her head down, letting the room clear; Snape's eyes burned into her back as she left.

Ahead of her, Blaise could hear Ron ranting about Snape to Harry and Hermione: "...got a huge great stick up his backside, the slimy bastard..."

She caught sight of them at the top of the dungeon steps, as she came around the last corner. She quickened her pace, half-hoping to catch up to them, and suddenly Peeves burst out of a nearby suit of armour and yelled in her face: "BOO!"

Blaise jumped violently, and the heavy books spilled out of her arms on to the floor, followed by her bag. Peeves swooped away, cackling madly.

"Damn!" Blaise knelt among her spilled possessions, trying to salvage her Arithmancy textbook from a spreading pool of ink. She pulled her bag towards her.

Light footsteps approached. She looked up as someone crouched beside her and found herself staring up at Harry.

"You okay?"

Blaise pushed her hair back nervously. Don't mess this up. "Yes, fine."

Harry nodded and began gathering up her books, his hands moving quickly and deftly. Blaise, shoving parchment and quills into her bag, observed that his hands were long-fingered and elegant. Seeker's hands... she gave herself a mental poke and reached for a bottle of black ink which had, miraculously, survived the fall. Harry reached for it at the same moment, and his hand came down on the back of her wrist.

Blaise glanced up at him under her eyelashes. Harry was looking sideways at her, smiling a little. Blaise smiled back. Harry took his hand away and picked up the ink bottle. He handed it to her, and she took a little longer than was strictly necessary taking it from him. Her eyes never left his.

"Thanks," she said.

"You're welcome," he replied.

She stood up; so did he. She was vaguely aware of Ron and Hermione watching from the dungeon entrance, but it didn't seem important.

They looked at each other in silence for what seemed to Blaise like an eternity. His eyes were all she could see; clear green like chips of jade.

From the top of the steps, Ron coughed pointedly. Harry glanced round with the air of a person waking from a doze. He looked back at Blaise, blushing a little. "Well... see you."

Blaise smiled at him, putting into it all the warmth she could manage, and it was enough to make his colour deepen even more. "Sure."

She watched as he ran lightly up the dungeon steps to join Ron and Hermione, and as the three of them disappeared from view, the sound of slow applause started behind her.

Blaise turned, already knowing who she would see. Draco stepped out of the shadows and came to stand beside her, smirking as he looked after Harry.

"That was beautiful," he said. "D'you know, for a moment there you almost had me convinced, let alone that poor sucker." He grinned at her, his eyes bright with malice. "But then, you always were a good actress."

Blaise glared at him. "Get lost, Draco." She started up the stairs.

He kept pace with her easily. "You know what puzzles me most?" he mused. "What do you stand to gain?"

She walked faster. Wherever he was going with this, she didn't want to know.

"You always had your own agenda, ever since we were kids. Always watching, always thinking, what has happened here, and how can I turn it to my advantage? That's you all over."

"Don't you have someone else to annoy? I have to go to Arithmancy."

He ignored this. "But the thing is, I really can't see the advantage for you here. Is it a bet or something you and Pansy have going? It's the kind of sick twisted thing she'd come up with."

"Pansy has nothing to do with it."

Draco stepped in front of her, barring her way. "Then why?"

She looked up at him. His expression was angry, but in his eyes she could see genuine confusion. He had always been able to read her so easily, and she hated that more than anything; that there was little or nothing she could hide from him, and yet he liked to be so damn enigmatic. Now the tables were turned, and Blaise found herself enjoying it.

"Because I want to," she told him. "I don't need any other reason, and neither do you."

* * *

Hermione took her seat in the Arithmancy classroom. Beside her, Ernie MacMillan was digging out his homework.

"What did you think of those formulae, Hermione? I found them really tough."

"They're not that hard, really," Hermione told him. "You have to use the chart on page seventy-one, I'll show you -"

She was interrupted by the classroom door banging open. Blaise Zabini stood in the doorway, with Draco Malfoy close beside her. They were too far away for Hermione to hear what was being said, but it didn't look friendly. Blaise was glaring defiantly at Draco, who had hold of her elbow, preventing her walking away from him.

"What's going on there?" Terry Boot asked, leaning over from the next table. Ernie shook his head, frowning slightly.

Blaise yanked her arm free from Draco's grip and strode up the row of desks to her seat at the back of the room. Draco followed her, apparently oblivious to the avid stares of the other students, and leaned over her desk, hands gripping the edge. He was still talking, his voice low and intense, but the silence in the classroom enabled Hermione to catch some of what he was saying.

"...your reasons, unfathomable as they might be to anyone else, do not excuse this kind of behaviour -"

Blaise avoided looking at him. "Can we please talk about this later? Somewhere where half the year isn't listening in?"

Draco looked over his shoulder and glared at the students around him. "Mind your own business. This is a private discussion."

"Then maybe you shouldn't hold it in our classroom," Hermione retorted sharply.

Draco flushed delicately. "Shut up, Mudblood."

"Draco," Blaise put her hand on his arm. "Just go, okay? We'll talk about this later."

Professor Vector came in and closed the classroom door behind her. "Quiet please, everyone. I apologize for -" She broke off, frowning. "Mr Malfoy? Not only are you not in this class, but I don't think you even take Arithmancy, do you? What are you doing here?"

Malfoy straightened up, removing the resentful look from his face with what looked like an effort. "I just had to ask Blaise about a homework assignment, Professor."

Professor Vector looked unimpressed. "I'm sure you must have a class of your own to go to, Mr. Malfoy. I suggest you go there and apologise to your professor for your lateness. Five points from Slytherin."

Draco left the room without further comment.

* * *

...Draco especially is causing problems; I think mainly because he doesn't understand why I would do something like this.

Blaise lay stretched out on her stomach, screened by the hangings of her four-poster bed. By the light of a candle suspended in mid-air, she was halfway through her latest missive to Lucius Malfoy.

She read through her last sentence and frowned slightly. Not strictly true, she thought; Draco probably had a very clear idea [theoretically, of course] of why she would go to this much trouble over Harry Potter. What was bothering him was the fact that it was Harry, rather than himself or Andrew or anyone else in Slytherin.

The dormitory door creaked open.

"Blaise?"

Pansy.

"Are you in here?"

"Yes," she replied.

Rapid footsteps as Pansy approached her bed. Blaise rolled up the unfinished letter hastily and grabbed her Transfiguration book as the other girl pulled the curtain aside. "Draco's in the common room. He wants to talk to you."

"Tell him I'm busy," Blaise said without looking up.

"He won't like that."

"Too bad."

She could sense Pansy staring down at her. "Blaise, why are you acting like this? Have you and Draco had a fight?"

Blaise turned a page in her book. "It's not your business."

"It's about Harry Potter, isn't it?" Pansy's voice was tight. "Why are you chasing after him, Blaise?"

"Because I want to," Blaise told her. No sense in denying it, anyway.

"But he's a Gryffindor."

"So what if he is? At least he's a pure-blood."

"His mother was Muggle-Born."

Blaise rolled her eyes. Pansy stared at her, her pale eyes incredulous. "Don't tell me you actually like him?"

"Is there a point to this conversation?"

"You do, don't you?" Pansy sat on the edge of Blaise's bed and shook her head in disbelief, making her ponytail swing gently. "You are unbelievable!"

Blaise sat up and drew her knees up to her chest. "No I'm not. I'm just sick of dating Slytherins." She grabbed her textbook and the letter to Lucius, pushed them into her schoolbag, and got up. "I've really got to get this work finished, Pansy. Do me a favour and distract Draco for me?"

Pansy sighed and got up. "How am I supposed to do that?"

Blaise gave her a little push towards the door. "I'm sure you'll think of something."

Five minutes later Blaise pushed open the door to the common room and watched with amusement as Pansy ensconced herself in Draco's lap, her arms around his neck, and cooed to him. It was hard to know whether Draco was more surprised or nauseated. Blaise slipped through the crowded room and out into the dungeon corridor.

* * *

The library was always fairly busy during the evening, as students gathered to complete homework assignments with deadlines of varying degrees of urgency. Blaise made her way through knots of students, slipped through the queue at Madam Pince's desk, and headed for her favourite table in a corner at the very back of the library. It was concealed by two large bookcases standing at right-angles to each other, and lit by a narrow stained-glass window opening on to the courtyard. It depicted an eagle flying against the setting sun, and Blaise liked the way the colours of the sky bled into each other to create a rich tapestry of red and gold.

Usually this corner was overlooked by other students, with the large tables out in the centre of the room being favoured, since these could accommodate larger numbers. However, as she walked through the narrow gap between the ends of the bookshelves, Blaise saw a number of books laid out on one side of the table, along with rolls of parchment, a battered quill, and a bottle of blue ink.

Curious, Blaise went to stand behind the seat. She studied the incomplete Herbology essay, playing a game with herself, trying to analyse the handwriting. It was fairly large and untidy, and she could see one or two pale smudges where an Erasing Charm had been used. Almost certainly a boy's, then. The title [An Analysis of the Uses of the Pyracantha (Firethorn)] was one that she herself had been set earlier in the week, so presumably he was a sixth-year.

She was turning back the cover of the textbook, looking for a name on the flyleaf, when someone spoke sharply from behind her. "What are you doing?" Blaise managed not to jump at the sound of his voice, but it was a close thing. She looked over her shoulder.

Ron Weasley stood watching her, his expression hostile. As she stepped back from the table, he strode forward and snapped the book shut.

Blaise tried for flippancy. "Sorry, I didn't realize you kept the secrets of the universe in your Herbology book."

Ron began gathering his things together. Blaise sighed. "Ron, lighten up. I was just looking. What's up with you, anyway?"

"Nothing to do with you."

"You don't have to go," Blaise told him impatiently. "You were here first."

He shrugged. "I was finished anyway."

She raised her eyebrows, smiling a little. "In the middle of a sentence?"

Ron flushed.

Blaise went around to the other side of the table and began getting her own books out. She sat down and looked up at Ron, who stood looking indecisive. "You're allowed to sit down," she told him. "I'm a Slytherin; it's not contagious."

Ron watched her carefully. His close scrutiny made her uncomfortable, although she didn't show it; it wasn't like being ogled by the Slytherin boys. He looked at her in the same way she had seen Hermione look at a new equation or theory on a blackboard: like she was a problem he was trying to figure out.

"What's your game?" he asked eventually.

"My game?"

"Yeah." He shifted his bag from one shoulder to the other. "Hexing Malfoy in the entrance hall last week. Coming to DADA with Harry and acting like the two of you were friends. And in Potions today - what was going on there?"

"I hexed you and Harry, too," she pointed out helpfully. Ron looked unimpressed.

Blaise shrugged. "Snape was being out of order," she said. "It annoyed me."

Ron looked sceptical. "You've never done anything like that before."

"You don't know me well enough to start making judgements based on the way I behave."

"I'm not," he said. "I just don't get why a Slytherin would start acting nice."

"And you say we're biased," Blaise replied coolly. Ron's mouth tightened. He walked away without a word.

Blaise watched him go, resting her chin on one hand. I suppose that could have gone worse, she thought, and bent her head over her letter.