Roommates

Twenty One

Blaise walked down to the Slytherin common room carefully, as to not have his footsteps echo throughout the hallways. While he was allied with neither Hermione's "Order" nor the Death Eaters, he certainly didn't want to catch inebriated sixth- or seventh-year neophyte-Death Eater Slytherins unawares in the darkened corridors. He wanted no part in the conflict at the moment and held his impartiality at a great price.

He muttered the password--'Strategy, Ivan, Strategy', a quote from Salazar Slytherin's autobiography, required reading from Snape once you entered your fifth year--and entered the dungeon quietly, making his way over to Theodore, who was sitting in the corner with Daphne, contemplating his first move with the impending game against Blaise.

"You told her?" Daphne asked as he sat down in a large padded leather chair opposite Theodore, looking at him anxiously.

"Just my part of it. Not about Claire, Daph," Blaise replied tiredly. "I won't tell anyone that -- not without your permission." He nodded towards the portrait of their House's namesake that marked Snape's private entrance to his House's common room and continued, "Nor without his." He grinned. "Surely you don't think me that idiotic?"

"If only you wouldn't act like it," Theodore said absently, making his move, "we wouldn't think it. Your turn."

"Blow it, Theo, why are you so brilliant?" Blaise asked, moving his piece. "Oh wait, I know. So that I can eclipse you."

"In your dreams, Zabini."

"More like yours," Blaise countered a bit more cheerfully as Draco came over with his entourage.

"What are you doing?" Draco asked, his tone more aristocratic than normal. He nodded slightly towards Yancey Montague, the younger brother of the former Slytherin Beater, a son of an 'at large' Death Eater.

"Gobstones, Draco," Theodore responded, his voice still detached. "Surely you can't be so full of yourself that you've forgotten all of the Wizarding youth's culture and entertainment?" He turned his pale eyes on Draco, who backed away, annoyed. Draco had always been wary of Theodore, knowing he was very bright and cunning--much more so than he was.

"Just making a joke, Nott," Draco sneered. "Surely you can't be so far removed from the world that you don't understand humor?"

"Humor? Oh yes, the thing which people find amusing. Ha. Ha." Theodore turned back to the board, but Blaise would have sworn Theodore had winked at him as his head went down to focus on the pieces.

Draco retreated, the young Montague at his heels, no doubt lapping up his "knowledge of power over others." Blaise shook his head silently, causing his hair to fall onto his face. He tossed it back, he moved his next piece, thinking back on his discussion with Hermione.

Theodore, with who had been friends with Blaise for several years, dating back to before his relationship with Daphne, noticed the crease that appeared in Blaise's forehead and the way Blaise was tapping out an unheard rhythm on the table's edge. "Blaise?" he said. Blaise looked up. "You can stay in the dormitory tonight; the House Elves didn't move all of your clothes, in case you'd forgotten." He paused for a moment and then went on. "But only if you'd like to."

Blaise smiled for the first time that day. "Thanks mate. I had forgotten and I think I will. I like Hermione and all...but sometimes I can't stand her questions. It's nice to spend time with someone who knows the backstory, I think. Someone who doesn't ask about anything; just lets it lie."

"I understand," Theodore said. A small smile crept up on his face as he moved his piece and it spat a disgusting-smelling liquid into Blaise's face. "Your move."

"Next time," Blaise grumbled after he'd muttered a 'Scorgify' at his face, "we're playing chess." He made a face at Theodore. "If solely for the reason that I can kick your arse in chess."

~*~

The next morning Blaise got up and ready before everyone else and went to the Great Hall a bit slowly, feeling guilty for just walking off like that, leaving Hermione full of so many questions. Then he thought about what would happen if he had told her the connection between Snape, Daphne and him and he shuddered. The world did not need to know what had happened between them; didn't need to know that Blaise knew one of Snape's darkest secrets--one that led to the end of his relationship with Daphne.

He remembered the day so well. It was the end of sixth year, near finals, when tensions were running high. His charm necklace had broken in the shower three days before and the makeshift charm ring his father had sent his wasn't working as well. Thoughts that came from strong minds were penetrating the defense. He heard McGonagall thinking of the 'guard duty,' Hermione of her grades and Potter thinking of the criminal, Sirius Black. He was unlucky that day to bump into his professor-- it was May 28^th, he remembered. A day in which, for some reason, Snape was more volatile than normal, able to blow up at anyone for any sort of excuse. And Blaise ran right into him as he was walking down the hallway to lunch. The force of the memory that was running through Snape's mind knocked Blaise over and he blacked out of consciousness and became immersed in the memory.

It was dark. Midnight, most likely, or close to it. He was standing on a street that was lit by the pale, but still luminous, light of street lamps. In front of him were a much younger Snape and a young woman, face obscured by the darkness. They were obviously drunk and were making loud remarks about the inferiority of Muggles--how they should be exterminated and how Voldemort was going to help them do it--when a girl, no more than fifteen, walked past them, arms crossed and scared-looking.

Snape let go of the woman's hand and nodded to her, approaching the girl and asking, "Miss, d'you have the time?" When the girl turned around to answer him, he lifted him wand to her throat and hissed, "Crucio." The girl collapsed on the ground, screaming in pain. The woman with him laughed and waved her wand and a gold glow covered the houses lining the streets, keeping the residents from hearing the girl's pain-filled cries.

When he had tortured her enough, he moved his wand away from her and asked the girl her name. She sobbed out, "Claire Greengrass," before passing out. Snape and his companion laughed. The woman pointed her wand at the girl and said, "Ennervate."

When the girl woke, moments later, she tried to crawl away. As she did, Snape and the woman allowed her, occasionally sending Crucio's at her and laughing until tears ran down their faces at her anguished cries of pain. Finally, when she was leaning up against a white picket fence, trying to undo the latch, knowing that what was between her and death was her stuck latch, they advanced on her and Snape woman drew his wand and pointed it at her, laughing and saying, "Good-bye, Claire. Avada Kedavra."

Once the last syllable had been uttered, there was a loud rushing sound and then nothing but green light as Claire screamed for a second. And then...nothing. Claire's body, a lifeless shell, lay there, propped up against the fence, latch clutched in her hand tightly, left there for her father and younger sister to find the next morning on their way to get milk for her mother. Snape and the woman considered none of this. They kicked Claire's body two or three times and then the woman grabbed Snape's collar roughly, kissing him deeply for a moment, and then letting him go.

She seemed to pout for a moment, saying, "It's your turn, Severus. I don't think I ever get to do both. It's not fair."

"Darling," Snape said, and Blaise cringed, "next time you can do both. I won't deny you the pleasure of purifying and placing our stamp once more. And, if you're lucky, we'll get two in one night."

"Cast the spell, Severus," the woman purred, clearly placated, "and we'll see who's lucky when we get home."

Snape smirked at her and then raised his wand skyward. "MORSMORDRE," he shouted. The Dark Mark hurled out of his wand and planted itself in the sky above the small white house that Claire Greengrass lay before. Snape and the woman laughed once more and Apparated away.

Blaise then woke up and sat straight up, his clothes drenched in a cold sweat, fear tingling down his spine as he saw who sat by his bed. Snape sat by his left side, a knowing and slightly angry look on his face.

"What did you see?" Snape had asked.

"You- Her-" Blaise had sputtered, unable to form sentences.

"What did you see?" Snape had demanded, placing his hands on the edge of the bed and clenching it.

"All of it," Blaise had whispered shakily.

"All of it?" Snape echoed hoarsely.

"Until you Apparated away." Blaise edged away from Snape's hands, which were whiter than normal, the blood draining away from them.

"I see." Snape stood and walked a few paces away, then turned abruptly back to Blaise. "Tell no one," he instructed Blaise before leaving him to Madame Pomfrey's care.

But now, as Blaise walked up the stairs that came out right next to the Great Hall, reflecting on this memory now implanted in his head, though it was not his own, he knew it was something that he could never tell Hermione, no matter how far their relationship ever advanced, even if they got married eventually. She could never know. Not without Snape's--and Daphne's--permission. He remembered how he had recognized Claire before Snape had asked her name. He'd seen pictures of her in the Greengrass' house when he'd gone over there the summer between fifth and sixth year. When he'd asked about her, Daphne had told him how her older sister--older than her by twelve years--a Squib, was killed by Death Eaters when she was six. She had then gone on to inform him that she'd been with her father when they found her by their front gate, stiff with rigor mortis and clutching the latch, as if she had been trying to open it when she died.

And then, the next summer, he couldn't hold it any longer. He told Daphne what had happened and she cried and screamed at him to leave, to never come back. Once school started again, he found she was dating Theodore Nott and they became friends again, not mentioning what he had told her until Hermione approached her about why they had broken up.

At the moment he entered the Great Hall he suddenly realized who Snape's female companion had been: his sister, Lilithe. He supposed he had secretly suppressed the thought of Lilithe being a Death Eater--after all, he did not want to think of his sister as someone so horribly bigoted and murderous towards people who had never done anything but exist. He also realized that he'd suppressed the urge to connect the memory-woman's partially-shown face and mocking voice to his sister's profile and normal lofty and superior tone. It struck him strangely. He had known for a few weeks that Lilithe was--and had been for sometime--a Death Eater. Still, the thought playing over and over again in his mind was an image of his Head of House and oldest sister murdering the elder sister of his ex-girlfriend, who was once his best friend.

He sat at the Slytherin table and leaned back in his seat lazily, seeing Hermione excuse herself from the Gryffindor table and come to sit next to him. He saw her open her mouth from the corner of his eye and headed her off, saying, "I know what you're going to ask, Hermione."

"How in the world could you know that?" she asked, somewhat crabbily.

He smiled, amused. "I know you too well. Besides, it's what anyone with three brain cells would ask after hearing what I said yesterday night." He turned to her. "I can't tell you."

"Blaise, it can't be-" Hermione started.

"I can't," he replied.

"Or won't?" Hermione said, frowning at him.

"Both," he said. "It's just something you're going to have to live with. I can't tell you unless two people give me their consent and one of them never will. One of them doesn't even know another--besides me--knows. I refuse to break their trust, Hermione. Not when it would hurt people I care about." He thought about what Snape's reaction--who didn't know anyone but Blaise knew of his memory--would be if he knew Blaise had told Daphne. He also wondered what would happen if he told Hermione and Snape found out. Of course, he wasn't being entirely truthful with Hermione. There was another person in the equation, but he wasn't inclined to go up to Lilithe and tell her he had a memory of her murdering his ex's older sister, simply for being a Squib.

Hermione sighed. "I understand," she told him. "I feel that way sometimes with Ron and Harry."

"Do you, now?" Blaise asked in a teasing manner. "Do tell."

"You first," she replied, smiling at him and standing.

He stood as well. "Hermione Granger, I do believe we've reached an impasse."

"Yes, I think so, too," Hermione said. "Now, if you'll excuse me, my toast is waiting."

She turned to go back to her table, but Blaise grabbed her arm and pulled her back to him, kissing her for several moments--giving Lavender and Parvati the chance to call at them--before letting her go and saying he'd see her in class.