[one-shot] Harry Potter - Closed books
Title: Closed books
Author: shono_hime
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters: Blaise Zabini, Theodore Nott
Rating: G
Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters. They belong to JK Rowling, Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc.
It starts as mere curiosity.
It's hard for Blaise not to know everything there is to know about Draco Malfoy. Only three days since they've started school, and he feels like he could write the blonde's biography already. Except it wouldn't sell.
Crabbe and Goyle are not exactly interesting, unless there's a sudden demand for a Troll/English dictionary, and even so, it wouldn't be accurate.
But Nott, quiet Nott, invisible Nott, the Ghost, as Draco calls him when he's feeling particularly nasty, Nott is an unread book. The cover is quite plain, the title not so attractive, but it's a book no one has read so far, and Blaise likes to be the first in everything he does.
It evolves into fascination with time.
Nott is elusive, slippery like the snakes they're often compared to. To Blaise, Nott's only voice is the scratching of his quill on the parchment and his smoky grey eyes are his own personal ink.
Nott's book will not let itself be read, it's not even there for the taking. It is lost somewhere among other volumes, and his plain cover remains unseen next to Draco's rich ornaments or Blaise's dark and mysterious title.
And whenever Blaise thinks he's finally going to open the book, it disappears, as if someone misplaced it, misplaced Nott.
Fascination feeds frustration and desperate measures.
Years pass and Nott is still very much a mystery, so Blaise is left to turn to other methods. He watches and he listens.
The swishing of Nott's robes whenever he moves becomes the sound of his pages being turned. Blaise waits for the slightest mention of Nott in every conversation.
Since he can't read the book, he'll learn from other who've opened it before, even if only to take a quick peek inside. And slowly, helped by Draco's dismissive tales or Millicent's blunt summaries, Blaise ends up writing his own version of Nott's book.
Admiration is born from his imagination and his observations.
Their time at Hogwarts is reaching his end, and Blaise is torn between his deep desire to read between Nott's lines and the urge to complete his own book by making his choice and choosing a side.
The clock ticks and Nott is still indifferent to the world around. He won't let his father's disgrace taint his own pages and the scornful whispers from both sides won't spoil the cover. Nott's book suddenly becomes more beautiful, still very much simple but untouched and pure compared to Draco's now worn-out cover.
Blaise admires Nott for his courage to resist his fate.
Last comes gratitude.
Blaise is back home after Dumbledore's funeral and he's putting his books away, trying to distract himself from thoughts on the upcoming night.
Among his Potions and Arithmancy books he finds a small, well used Transfiguration manual. Not his. Nott's. Inside the cover is indeed written Nott's name, in this precise, small but elegant scrawled of his, and under the name another sentence is scribbled. "I wish you'd asked," Blaise reads and a confusing mixture of happiness and despairs floods him.
Night is falling and the end of his own book is already written in bloody letters, but for a split second, Blaise lets himself hope that one day, somewhere in Nott's mysterious, still very much unfinished book, someone will read a short mention of Blaise Zabini.
END.