Complete header information may be found in
Chapter One. You may find all parts of this story by clicking the
Harry Potter and the Slytherin's Hair tag.
Chapter Two: That Mouth of His
And so did Blaise in the following days. In fact, she did more
than ignore Harry: she made a point of
avoiding him, swooping out of the library if he entered it, stalking
back to her Potions' worktable if he
came anywhere near her while she was retrieving supplies from the
ingredient cabinet, and never once
looking from the Slytherin table to his own at meals to catch his eye
as she had been wont to do in the
past. It was maddening.
I just told her I liked her hair. Why'd she
have to get so chuffed about it? he asked himself, playing
with his food one night a few days later during dinner. Snape's
wrong. Blaise never did like me.
"Harry," Ginny said, throwing herself down
beside him. "What did you do to Zabini?"
"What do you mean?"
"She looks miserable. Millicent says that
she's stopped talking to everyone again."
"'Again'? When wasn't
she talking to people?"
"You didn't know? Her favorite uncle was
killed two years ago on a mission, and she stopped talking
for six months."
"What sort of mission?"
"Giancarlo Zabini was an Auror. He was in Ireland
supervising some curse-breakers who were trying
to stop the trade of cursed artifacts stolen from old burial mounds,
when one of the workers was
possessed by a spirit. He was run through with one of the swords in the
weapons cache."
"Oh, God. That's terrible."
"Yeah, awful. What have you done?"
"Who says I did anything?" Harry groused.
"Millicent. She says that you were all Blaise talked
about until a few days ago. What did you do?"
Ginny pressed.
They were sitting at the end of the Gryffindor table, and not
many people remained in the Great Hall,
but Harry looked around and decided that there were enough still
present to make him uncomfortable
talking about Blaise. "Look, could we move this
conversation?"
"Why? No one's listening."
"Ginny."
"Harry. Really, you can tell me. Perhaps I can
help."
"You mean, perhaps you can find something out to
tell Millicent."
Ginny's face changed from friendly concern to
horrified outrage almost too quickly to register.
"You're
a horrid prat, Potter! How dare you accuse me of-"
"Miss Weasley, kindly refrain from shrieking in the
Great Hall; this is not a Quidditch match," Snape
said, descending upon them from the High Table.
"Yes, Sir."
"If you've finished your meal, go about
your business."
With a huff, Ginny stormed off.
"Th-thanks, Sir."
"Potter, you are the most unfortunate mess with
witches it has ever been my misfortune to witness."
"I-" Harry began to say angrily,
but then thought the better of it. "I know, Sir."
"Miss Zabini appears to be distraught."
"I know, Sir."
"Well? What are you going to do about it,
boy?"
"What can I do?" he demanded angrily.
"I didn't mean to hurt her feelings, and she
won't even look at
me, now!"
"Make her look at you,
Potter," Snape ordered, striding off without another word.
"Thanks for the help."
In lieu of returning to the dormitory and running into Ginny,
Harry took himself to the Owlery where he
found Hedwig and Silvio hooting at each other. The female owl seemed
disgruntled when Harry
attempted to greet her, ruffling her feathers at him and turning her
back. Silvio turned his head around at
him.
"Show off," Harry muttered, settling
himself down in one of the wide windowsills and glaring out over
the moonlit grounds. How did I miss that Blaise's
uncle died? She must have been close to him for
her to have stopped talking for six months, he thought, a
pang of sadness ringing through him as his
musings put him in mind of Sirius' death. I wish . . . .
"No, best not think about it," he told himself, not
for the first time. "What am I going to do?"
Harry liked Blaise, liked her a lot, but it seemed odd to him
that the girl might like him so much that she
would stop speaking. He decided that it had to be something else, and
further, that he was going to find
out what it was and put an end to it.
"If I do that, she'll have to forgive
me," he told himself, pushing off of the sill to go to Hedwig
again.
As he approached her perch, his foot slid through the feathers
on the floor and nudged something,
something that glinted in the dim light as he examined it.
"What's this?" he asked, picking
up the object.
It was a heavy golden piece of jewelry with a hinge; the gold
twisted and ended in two golden, head-shaped terminals into which had
been set blue cabochons for eyes and a mouth for each serpent-like
head, and it was big enough that Harry gleaned it was meant to be worn
around the neck. He
remembered Blaise having been fiddling with something in her pocket the
other day, and realized that
the object must belong to her.
"Crap! No wonder she's been so upset. This
must have belonged to her uncle," Harry said, carefully
pocketing it and returning to the dormitory.
Hermione was sitting at one of the tables doing homework.
"Where's Ron?" he asked.
"Why should I know?" she shot back.
Harry repressed a grin. "Is he still being an ass
about Ginny?"
"Yes."
Harry sat down and pulled the neck-thing out of his pocket.
"What's thi-"
"A Celtic torc!" his friend exclaimed,
snatching it from him. "Where'd you get
this?"
"A Celtic what?"
"Torc. It's sort of like ancient barbarian
jewelry. Where'd you find it?"
"In the Owlery. I think it's
Blaise's. I think it was her uncle's."
"Oh, well, that would explain it,"
Hermione said, handing the torc back to Harry.
"Wasn't he a curse-breaker?"
"Um, an Auror, actually. He was supervising
curse-breakers when he died."
"Harry, you should probably take this to her right
away."
"I can't just go wandering into the
dungeons. Besides, I don't know the password to the Slytherin
dorms."
"Ginny does."
Harry looked around. "Ginny's not here, is
she?"
Hermione blushed.
"Right. She knows the password. Look,
don't say anything. I, um, I want to give it back to her
privately, all right?"
A skeptical look crossed Hermione's face.
"'Privately'? Why?"
"Hermione."
"Well, she must be-oh. Oh,"
she said, flushing more deeply.
Harry laughed. "You act as though you've
never-" Shit. My big, huge, gaping
mouth-I am an
idiot! he thought, as his friend's expression
turned to mortification.
"Good night, Harry," Hermione said,
hastily gathering her books and leaving him alone at the table.
At least Snape didn't see that,
he thought, taking himself to bed.
The next afternoon was the occasion of the pre-season meeting
of the Quidditch teams. Harry was the
Gryffindor Seeker, but Ron had been elected captain. They walked across
the pitch toward their
corner of the field, the other teams already having
assembled-Ron, very proud of his status had
wanted to make "an entrance"-and Harry
caught sight of Blaise, who was the Reserve Seeker for
Slytherin, making an effort to be noticed not noticing his progress. He
sighed.
"Cheer up, mate," Ron told him happily.
"It's a good sign."
"How is her ignoring her a good sign?"
"Well, if she didn't give a toss about
you, she really would ignore you, wouldn't she?"
The logic of that made sense to Harry, and he tried to pay
attention to his friend as Ron discussed the
coming season's strategy. It still bothered him, however,
that Blaise's hair was hanging down her back
in a long braid. It's too pretty to be trapped like
that.
"Oi! Harry! Pay attention, would you?"
"Sorry."
Ron snorted, and the others snickered, but the slight
commotion regarding Harry's lapse subsided
quickly. After the meeting, Harry took a deep breath and walked
decisively toward the group of
Slytherin Reserves.
"Uh, Zabini? Have a moment?"
"I have several, Potter, but none for
you," she said, turning away from him so quickly that her
braid
whipped across his face.
"Not even for this?" Harry asked, holding
up the torc, the little thrill of lust that had struck him with
Blaise's braid urging him on.
The Slytherin's eyes widened, and she snatched at
the object, but Harry pulled it away.
"Give that to me!"
"Not until you let me apologize," Harry
said, not noticing Draco Malfoy approach him from behind.
"Hey!" he exclaimed, as the torc was taken from him.
"Really, Potter-stealing from
girls-that's not going to do your reputation any
good, is it?"
"Give that back, Malfoy," Harry demanded.
"This?" Draco said, casually examining the
item. "I think not. I quite like it, in fact," he
said, placing it
around his neck.
"Take. That. Off," Blaise said in a low,
dangerous tone.
"Why, Zabini? If it's so important to you,
you shouldn't have given it to Potter."
"I didn't give it to him!"
"I found it. Now give it to
Blai-Zabini-now."
"Or what?"
"This is what," Ron said from behind the
Slytherin team's captain, bringing one balled fist down on
Malfoy's head.
Draco's knees buckled, and he fell to the ground.
"Accio torc!" Harry
cast, holding out his hand to take the object and then
turning-to find the entirety
of Slytherin's Quidditch contingent holding their wands on
him.
He did not have to turn around to know that the Gryffindors
were doing the same.
"You bastard!" Draco yelled, trying to
stand.
"Here," Harry said quickly, handing Blaise
her torc. "Look, I'm sorry, I-"
"You will be,
Potter-Weasel-I'll make you
both-"
"Enough," Madam Hooch said, breaking the
circle of angry students and glaring down at Malfoy.
"Wands down, now!"
Everyone complied.
"Would someone please explain the reason for this
unacceptable display to me?"
"We were just demonstrating . . . technique, Coach
Hooch," Ron lied. "Weren't we,
Malfoy?" he
threatened.
Draco stood and opened his mouth to protest, but then thought
the better of it. "Right. What the
Weasel said."
"Right, you bunch of liars had better straighten out
whatever is going on and not repeat it, or I'll cancel
the season. This is Quidditch, not war," the professor said,
leaving them to it.
"Stay away from my team, Potter," Draco
said darkly, storming off.
The other Slytherin players followed his lead, except for
Blaise, who stood there looking uncertain.
"You probably shouldn't have done that,
Weasley."
"Felt all right to me," Ron said
diffidently, to the laughter of the Gryffindor players. "You
coming,
Harry?"
Harry shot his friend an annoyed look.
"Right then, see you at dinner?"
"Sure," Harry replied, never taking his
eyes off Blaise's.
It felt good to feel her looking at him again.
"What were you going to do?"
"When?"
"When Malfoy took it."
"Oh, I, I guess hit him. He shouldn't have
taken it."
"You took it."
"I found it."
"But you wouldn't give
it to me, would you?"
"Look, Zabini-Blaise-I just
wanted you to hear my apology for the other night. I was going to give
the torc back to you, after, I swear."
"Well?"
"Well, what?"
"You said something about an apology?"
"Oh, right. I didn't mean to, you know,
the other night. I just meant-"
"Potter, you're terrible at
apologies."
Harry ran a hand through his hair. "I guess I am. I
didn't mean it about your hair, I-"
"You mean you don't like it? Did you lie
about my breasts, too?" Blaise demanded, once again looking
upset.
"No! I do like your breasts!" Harry
exclaimed, groaning when his voice echoed across the field. Shit!
I
did not just say that!
"Oh, lovely, Potter. Now everyone thinks
you've seen them!" Blaise
hissed at him before turning and
striding off toward the changing rooms.
"Merlin, just please kill me now,"
Harry muttered.
"If you think that would help."
Oh, great. Just what I need-another
sneaking Slytherin! "Professor," he
ground out.
"Mr. Potter, I don't know quite what to
say. Your ability to charm the witches is becoming the stuff of
legend."
"What?"
"Miss Granger, Miss Weasley, and Miss Zabini all
seem very impressed by your linguistic
facility,"
Snape answered sarcastically, "if what I've heard
is true."
"People are talking about all of this?"
"People are always talking about you, Potter. Why is
it a surprise?"
"It's embarrassing, is what it is. Well, I
did what you said, and she noticed me, but now I've got
Malfoy
mad at Ron, and-"
"Mr. Malfoy needed no prompting on that score, and
it was not you who struck him, but Mr.
Weasley."
"Don't you mean, 'showed him
technique', Sir?" Harry asked, in spite of himself
feeling amused.
Snape snorted.
"Why didn't you take points, Professor? I
mean, if you saw?"
"I have better things to do than torture brats,
don't I?"
"No, really-why?"
"Mr. Potter, it may come as a surprise to you, but I
do have better things to do than ruin
Slytherin's
chances of winning the house cup by irritating Xiomera Hooch into
canceling the Quidditch season."
"She wouldn't really cancel the season,
Sir."
"You are mistaken in that. She has canceled it
before, and her mood is such, given the state of things,
that she might be inclined to cancel it again if she felt the
teams' interaction warranted it. 'This is
Quidditch, not war', she said."
"Yeah, so she did. She's worried,
then?"
"We are all 'worried', Potter.
Coach Hooch has more reasons than some to be worried. Her . . .
partner is a Muggle."
Crap. And I'm worried about getting a girl
to like me, Harry thought. "I didn't
know."
"Of course you didn't."
"I suppose I should probably just forget about
Quidditch altogether and focus on Occlumency and
other useful things."
"Whoever told you that Quidditch was not
useful?" Snape asked, furrowing his brow in irritation.
"You just did-the war, you keep reminding
me about it-I shouldn't be bothering with the . . .
with
girls."
"Mr. Potter, if you quit the Gryffindor Quidditch
team I will personally make your past six years, three
months, two weeks, and three days as a Hogwarts' student seem
like a vacation, no matter what kind
of deal we have struck. I have fifty galleons riding on the outcome of
the season, and I will not permit
Min-Professor McGonagall to win them because you decide to
alter the make-up of your team and
cancel the terms of our bet."
He's counting the days until I
leave-or die, thought Harry.
"Shouldn't you be happy that I want to
quit?"
"Your arrogance is reassuring, boy, but you vastly
underestimate this year's Slytherin team. We will
crush you," Snape said confidently, before striding off, as
usual, without another word.
Harry went to see Hagrid, wondering if Snape was being nice to
him because of their deal, or because
he really thought he might be dying soon.
"Yer no' goin' to die,
'Arry," the groundskeeper cum professor assured
him. "Ye'll defeat He Who
Must Not Be Named an' everything'll get back to
normal, ye'll see."
"Normal. What's that, then?"
Hagrid laughed and began making pointed comments about how one
ought to treat a difficult animal.
Harry was not sure whether his friend meant Snape or Blaise, but he got
the point about "coaxin'."
Three days later, he found himself in the Three Broomsticks
sitting alone at the back of the pub and
watching Professor Snape chat up Madame Rosmerta. Now that he knew they
were seeing each other,
it was perfectly obvious that the man was flirting with the her. How
does he do it? It's not like
he's the
most handsome wizard in the world. Of course, I'm not much to
look at, myself, but at least I'm
nice. Well, he's being nice to her, isn't he?
he thought, watching how Snape's fingers slid over the
publican's as he took a tankard from her. Given the Potions
master's usual reserve, it was almost an
indecent display. Touching. That seems to be important.
Touching-not shouting about a girl's
breasts. Harry groaned to remember his behavior. Idiot,
idiot, idiot!
As he was chastising himself while waiting on Ron and Hermione
to return from "browsing the shops',
Fred and George Weasley entered the pub, scanned it, and grinned in
tandem when they saw Harry.
"Oi!" called one of the Weasley twins.
"You need another?"
"Sure," Harry called back, and the boys
brought three bottles to the table.
But when Harry went to take the one that looked like his,
George, at least, he thought it was George,
pulled the bottle back and said, "I'll give it to
you, mate, if, you know, you like my breasts."
Both twins laughed as Harry lowered his head in mortification.
"Don't mind him. He's an
arse," Fred, at least, he thought it was Fred, said.
"How did you know?"
"Please, Potter, we may have left the school, but
we're not without our sources. Give him the bottle,
Fred."
Ah. Wrong as usual, thought Harry.
"Great," he muttered, taking the bottle.
"Look, Harry," George said in an
"I'm-being-reasonable" way,
"you really shouldn't be courting a
Slytherin by wandpoint. It's not subtle."
"I didn't pull my wand."
"That's the problem, then. Thought
so," Fred said.
"What?"
"Blaise Trillare Zabini," George broke in,
"is a Slytherin goddess. She could have anyone, but she
wants you. So why don't you just take her, then?"
"How do you know-oh, right.
'Sources'-what do you mean,
'take her'?"
The two redheads glanced at each other. "Perhaps
brother," said Fred, "our work here is more
involved than we thought."
"You do know about shagging, don't
you?" asked George of Harry, who's cheeks burned in
response.
"Of course I know about shagging!"
"Well, then, what's the
problem?" both boys asked as one.
"She doesn't-I can't
just-be reasonable!"
"She does, you can, and we're being
reasonable," George opined. "She wants you, mate.
It's really
rather simple."
"It's not," Harry protested.
"She's mad at me. I don't know why, and I
can't just-you know-we
haven't even ever been on a date!"
"Dating's a requirement of
shagging?" Fred asked George.
George snorted. "It's news to me,
brother."
"I guess I just take this sort of thing more
seriously than you two do. I like Blaise. I respect her. I'm
not
just going to . . . to use her for sex."
"But she wants you to use her
for sex, you pillock!"
"Fred, she does not!"
"Our sources say differently, Harry,"
George told him.
"What sources?"
"I'm afraid that's privileged
information," both Weasleys replied.
"Now, now, gentlemen, no secret-keeping in my
establishment," Madame Rosmerta teased them.
"Would you like another round?"
Round, Harry thought, looking at the
witch's middle, is exactly what she seemed to be. He tried
not to
stare. She's . . . she's pregnant!
he realized, eyes widening in shock. Snape got her pregnant!
No
wonder he's been in such a good mood.
"Uh, um, no. No, thanks."
"Well, I'd like another," Fred
said, "and so would George, please."
After the witch levitated two bottles to the table and left,
George laughed. "No wonder you can't get
anywhere with Zabini. Harry, mate, you have to talk to witches if you
want to shag them, you know.
That is a requirement."
Snape's gotten Rosmerta pregnant,
Harry thought again, feeling all of a sudden quite put out that his
greasy old git of a Potions master could get a witch pregnant, and he
could not even talk to one.
"Brother, I believe we've lost
him," Fred said, nudging Harry.
"Wha-oh. You know, I'm . . .
I'm going back to the school. Thanks for the um,
advice," he said
distractedly, wandering out of the pub and not looking where he was
going until he ended up near the
Shrieking Shack. "Great," Harry said, looking at
the old, ramshackle building. "Just sodding
wonderful."
"More of a shame than anything else, I'd
say," a deep, though feminine, voice said from behind him.
"I
don't know why they don't just tear it
down."
"Bulstrode," Harry acknowledged the
Slytherin without turning around. Fuck. Where do they keep
coming from?
"So Potter, what are the Weasleys like?"
the girl asked without preamble, moving to stand beside him
and glare at the shack.
"Um, they're nice. Why?" he
asked suspiciously.
"Because Ginny's invited me to meet them
over the hols."
That does sound serious. "She
has?"
"Yep," Millicent replied.
"And you're nervous."
"I'm just asking a question, Potter. That
doesn't mean I'm nervous."
Harry chuckled. "Bulstrode, you are
nervous-but don't be. They're nice
people."
"If you say so."
"Um," Harry said, turning to observe the
girl, "you're not going to, I mean, you
don't follow-"
"What? I'm in Slytherin, so that
automatically makes me a Death Eater?" Millicent demanded.
"It increases the odds, at any rate,"
Harry replied firmly. "And if you're seeing Ginny,
you should know
that if you are thinking about it, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley won't
be nice to you."
"They'll have plenty of other reasons not
to like me," the girl said gruffly, shifting her feet.
"You in the mood to make a deal,
Bulstrode?"
"What sort of deal?"
"I'll tell you how to get on with
Ginny's parents, if you'll help me get Blaise to
talk to me. Deal?"
Millicent laughed. "That's a stupid deal,
Potter. Blaise is-I mean, yeah-deal," she
said, holding out
her hand.
Harry shook it. "Deal, then. So, what do you know
about Muggle technology?"
"Not a damn thing, but I'm willing to
learn about it. What do you know about Fire Ficuses?" she
asked,
grinning.
"Nothing, but I know someone who does," he
told her, smiling back.