Fools
0.
The perils of being a traitor are such that many would prefer to remain aligned with a cause they can no longer support rather than face them. Blaise, however, would be a traitor whether he stayed with the Death Eaters, or left them. To stay would betray Draco, to leave would betray his blood. It took Blaise less than three seconds to make his decision.
1.
They didn't believe him, at first. But Blaise kept returning -- he would not allow their ridiculous presuppositions about his life stop him from making the decisions he wanted to make. The fourth time he showed up at a Dumbledore's Army meeting, his sleeve rolled up to display his Dark Mark as prominently as possible, Weasley grabbed him by the collar and hustled him to the Headmistress's office.
"Heard I like it rough, eh, Weasley?" said Blaise, sliding his body against Weasley's. "Did your sister tell you that?"
Joining their side absolutely did not mean being nice to them. Even if Weasley did "accidentally" knock him into one of the stone walls after that crack. Worth it, though, to watch his face flush red.
2.
The first time the Dark Lord called and Blaise didn't answer, he was in the Potions laboratory, halfway through the creation of a perfect batch of Soporio. He resisted as long as he could, sweating most unattractively. His hands shook and his muscles went lax. When he crashed to the floor, he hit his head, and that's the last thing he remembers until waking up in a strange bed, Granger hovering anxiously over him.
The Dark Mark was covered in linen gauze, which didn't stem the flow of blood, dripping into a pail.
"I'll get Harry," she said. Blaise blinked a few times and began to observe his surroundings -- a Gryffindor bedroom.
His arm felt like it was falling off, or something equally irritating. And why the Gryffinidiots hadn't told the Headmistress or a professor, Blaise had no idea.
"Why haven't you gotten the Headmistress?" demanded Blaise when Potter appeared in the doorway.
"We didn't know if you wanted anyone to know." Potter lifted a shoulder and let it fall, tossed his head. His hair moved to expose his scar -- flushed bright red. It looked painful, although probably not as painful as Blaise's arm.
"It's a secret to no one that I took the Dark Mark just as it's a secret to no one that I've defied Voldemort twice in the past few months!" Blaise struggled to sit up. "Go and get McGonagall."
"No," said Potter. He leaned against the bedpost. Blaise glared at him.
"Do as I say!"
"No," repeated Potter. "Professor McGonagall has enough to worry about without you." He sneered at Blaise, and Blaise's heart twisted for Draco -- Potter's sneer was just not up to snuff. "You can stay here until you stop bleeding. But don't get any blood on my bed, or I'll kill you."
With that he turned and left the room, and Blaise would've dripped blood onto his bed but for thinking that Potter was mad enough that he might actually kill him. Death is never on the agenda.
3.
The second time the Dark Lord called and Blaise didn't answer, Blaise was told that he banged his head repeatedly against the stone floor of the Great Hall until Potter came flying over the tables and landed on him, holding him pressed against his body until he fell unconscious. He didn't remember -- still doesn't. The bruises he had afterwards -- circlets around his wrists, fingerprints on his arms that match shape with Potter's fingers, large ovals on his hipbones and knees -- make Blaise believe the witnesses are telling the truth.
He refused to let anyone magic the bruises away, and sometimes pressed on them until he winced.
Potter caught him doing it and said, "That won't help."
"How would you know?" replied Blaise as rudely as he could.
Potter pointed at his scar. Blaise just glared at him until he went away, then pressed on one of the fingerprint bruises. Everything about Potter made Blaise miss Draco, for Potter was much like Draco -- but without the breeding, pouting, beautiful machinations, and insight into Blaise.
On second thought, the lack of all that made Potter better than Draco.
The moment Blaise thought that, he felt like a true traitor, and picked the scabbing over the Dark Mark until it began to bleed again.
4.
They couldn't keep it secret from the Headmistress. Her mouth, usually drawn into a grim line anyway, was even more wrinkled.
"Why?" she wanted to know.
"My motivations are none of your concern. I'm not asking for entry into your cabal of do-gooders." Blaise tried to sneer and knew he fell far short of Lucius's. Or Draco's. Or even Potter's.
"By disavowing You Know Who, you've aligned yourself with us in his eyes." McGonagall hesitated, and Blaise almost interrupted her to insist that he didn't want her protection -- but that would be stupid, suicidal, and to passively accept it at least meant he wasn't actively seeking it. "Is this the first time you've refused his call?"
"No."
"Who helped you before?"
Blaise didn't look at his arm, bound again with linen gauze. "No one," he said, hearing the stubbornness in his tone, as though she was torturing him for answers, pulling them out of him one by one. He didn't know why he was bothering to protect Potter and Granger from McGonagall -- to do so was just encouraging them to continue to break the rules -- but one must protect one's collaborators from authority at all cost. At almost any cost, anyway.
He could tell McGonagall didn't believe him, but he wouldn't change his story. Their eyes met, and she was first to look away. She drew a deep breath. "Blaise, about Draco Malfoy --"
"No," he said, and turned his face away from hers.
"All right," she finally said, after long moments passed. "So long as you revile the Death Eaters, whatever your reasons, Hogwarts will offer you its protection -- and my 'cabal of do-gooders' as you call them will continue to watch you for both your protection and ours."
"So say you," replied Blaise.
"So say I." She brushed a hand over his forehead before she left.
5.
"I am very disappointed in you." Lucius held his wand in one hand and his walking stick in the other. He was the only one to find Blaise, hidden in the Arithmancy lab, frantically trying to calculate a new layer of protection for Hogwarts.
Blaise held out his free hand, palm facing Lucius. "Uncle," he said, "please."
"Don't beg, for Mordred's sake," said Lucius. He spoke as though they had all the time in the world. "I should kill you slowly, for your betrayals."
"They killed Draco," protested Blaise. All he had to do was complete his calculations, that was all he had to do, just finish the line, connect the symbols, wait for them to flare gold, and the Death Eaters would all of them be expelled from the school. No one with a Dark Mark would be able to return, Blaise included -- but the school would be the one safe haven for anyone fighting against Voldemort.
"Sacrifices must be made," said Lucius coldly. "You of all should know that, Blaise."
Blaise usually woke himself up at this point, choking on his bedclothes and his own sweat. When he stayed asleep, things happened -- Lucius cut off his arm to prevent him from completing the spell. Lucius dragged him to Voldemort, who stood him up as a traitor. Lucius killed him outright. He finished the spell before Lucius killed him and was expelled from Hogwarts with all the others who bore the Dark Mark. He was kept alive in a dank cell, forced to write Arithmancy until his fingers bled, for the glory of the Dark Lord.
Sometimes the dream went in a different way, and Potter burst in right on time to keep anything truly horrible from happening to Blaise -- and then he killed Lucius, cut off his head or used an Unforgiveable. Blaise awoke from those dreams crying, though he'd never admit that to anyone, not even under Veritaserum.
6.
It never got easier to deny the call of the Dark Lord. Potter had to hold him down far more often than Blaise was comfortable with, and he was cast out of Slytherin House by those with far less vaunted bloodlines than his own. He left willingly, though -- and McGonagall gave him the rooms off the Arithmancy laboratory for his own, let him shut himself up there.
She offered to Owl his mother, but Blaise refused. She meant it in disgusting Gryffindorian kindness, which Blaise could not bear. And, worse, Blaise could not be sure that his mother would reply. He would rather live unknowing.
7.
"It's almost Christmas," said Potter, after knocking him down three times during a Dumbledore's Army meeting.
"Yes, obviously, since it's the 15th," replied Blaise irritably, rubbing his elbow. He'd quit showing off his Dark Mark after they finally, finally understood that he was using it as a bludgeon and generally preferred to be more subtle. He laid on the mat and stared at the ceiling; it never ever changed.
Potter flopped down next to him. He always smelled sweaty, even when he wasn't sweating. Fighting Blaise, Blaise knew and hated to admit, wasn't quite a workout for someone like Potter, but no one else would pair with him. Even with Potter's support, there were those -- Weasley, Granger, Longbottom, Bones, others whose names Blaise ignored -- who did not trust him.
Wise of them.
Blaise did not trust himself.
"I usually go to the Weasleys'," continued Potter.
"You cannot imagine this is of interest to me."
"Who's gonna hurl themselves on top of you while I'm gone?" Potter knocked him in the arm with an elbow, then tucked his arms under his head. Blaise glared at him. "I was thinking maybe you'd want to come. Stupid, right? You hate the Weasleys. But, you know, after all these weeks of protecting your arse, I figured maybe you could --"
"Please do not assume you know anything about me," said Blaise coldly. He rolled to his side and got to his feet. "Now, for the fourth time? I kick you like this?"
Potter sighed like Blaise was the one with the problem, the thorough ignorance of Wizarding culture, of what it would mean for Blaise to go to the Weasleys' for Christmas with Potter -- and got up, tossed Blaise down onto the mat again, and said, "Maybe you should fight Neville."
8.
Meetings with McGonagall where she probed Blaise's mind for information on the Death Eaters were exhausting. She was not a skilled Legilimens -- but she was the best they had, Blaise would guess, or someone more thorough would be assigned to him. Blaise himself was crap at Occlumency, which meant McGonagall could see anything. Blaise was uncomfortable with this, of course -- but it was allow his mind to be read, or be refused entry into protected areas.
The point was to be protected.
He demanded McGonagall's blood oath that she would keep his secrets, which she gave with a smile. "Don't trust me, Blaise?" she asked in her high, melodic voice.
"Never," said Blaise as though he were swearing to it. He pocketed the phial with the drop of her blood, the oath writ upon it, before he allowed her to begin.
The only secrets he was truly worried about protecting were not his own. They belonged to Draco and Lucius. Everything else she was welcome to.
This last time, she said, "Potter didn't know what he was asking, Blaise. You should allow for his ignorance."
He stood up and bowed stiffly to her and left the room before she excused him. It was not her place to comment -- and, for that matter, it was not Blaise's place to forgive Potter the ignorance that could one day get him, and Blaise with him, killed.
Potter was waiting on Blaise's bed, reading a Quidditch magazine.
"How did you get past my wards?" demanded Blaise, who had spent a good fortnight perfecting the Arithmancy that guarded his doors.
Potter held up a gnarled, twisted branch. "Dumbledore's key. Gets you into any room in the school, plus past any wards."
"Does McGonagall know you have that?" Blaise didn't stop at the bed, but went straight to his desk, where he kept his teapot. What he needed was a cup of strong, bracing tea, with a lot of milk and sugar.
"Of course she does. And if she didn't before, she knows now, eh?" Potter grinned at him; Blaise felt queer in his stomach and throat, to be thought such a casual betrayer. "Can I have some of that."
"No," said Blaise, but poured him a cup anyway. "Sugar?"
"Lots."
"I should have known," muttered Blaise under his breath.
"Ron told me why you got so hacked off when I invited you for Christmas," said Potter, blowing on his tea.
"After punching you in the face for inviting me?" Blaise desperately wanted to recline on his bed, but refused to climb onto it and sit next to Potter. He settled himself into his armchair instead, forcing his posture to stay straight. His tea was unsatisfying -- too hot or too cold. Or perhaps too sweet. Blaise frowned into his cup.
"Nearly."
"Yes, well, Potter, surely you can understand that while I no longer want to hex your face off every time I see you, I am not quite ready to announce our betrothal to the world at large." Blaise turned his frown from his cup onto Potter, who grinned at him. Blaise frowned harder. "After all, we've not even shagged yet."
"Is that what this relationship is missing?" Potter grinned wider, and Blaise allowed his posture to slip, just a bit.
"Get out," said Blaise. "Now."
"Say the magic word." Potter slurped his tea.
Blaise drew his wand from his sleeve and pointed it at Potter. "Expulsum!" Potter hovered in mid-air for a moment before the magic carried him out the door and into the corridor. Blaise used his wand to close and lock the door.
It was only moments before Potter was back inside his room, brandishing his ridiculous key.
"So you get cranky when you aren't having -- sex?" Potter only faltered for a moment, but it was long enough. Blaise stared up at him -- the tips of his ears were red, and so was his scar.
"Ah, you're a virgin. Well, that's neither my fault nor my responsibility."
"Get over yourself," Potter said to him, and fell to his knees in front of Blaise. "I know what I'm doing."
"You never know what you're doing," replied Blaise, but allowed Potter to clumsily unbutton his robes and trousers, and pull his cock out.
9.
Despite the nearly-excellent sex, Blaise still refused to go to the Weasleys' for Christmas, and as such was in Hogwarts when it was blown up.
10.
As he was unconscious at the time, having smashed his head as hard as he could into the floor of his bedroom to prevent himself from answering the Dark Lord's call, he neither noticed nor cared. When he woke up and was informed of the events, he scowled, for he was mightily tired of having to be rescued by the Gryffincrusaders.
11.
It turned out that one of the things the Order of the Morons did was have screaming arguments during which much was said and nothing was accomplished. Blaise sometimes skipped, and laid in bed reading, for they were all the same -- Potter was always of the opinion they should storm the gates of what he called Death Eater Headquarters, as though the Death Eaters were so moronic as to have central location easily discerned by the Order; Granger always pointed out the flaws in Potter's plans; the rotating cast of Aurors were never the voice of reason as Blaise would have thought they'd be -- their plans were usually as cracked as Potter's.
The voice of reason was almost always Molly Weasley; unexpected and rather delightful.
Blaise gave up revising for NEWTs after two days trapped in the safe house, and instead began devoting his efforts to constructing a shield for his Dark Mark. It grew, like one of Longbottom's wretched plants, tendrils all through his arm, in his fingers, even. Magic emanated from it, pulsing, softly hissing.
But surely there was something he could do to prevent the physical reaction to being called.
He was particularly worried because when Potter wasn't around to hold him down, no one else did it, and if he continued cracking his skull on stone floors and walls, eventually he'd die of it, he was fairly sure. And lying in pools of his own blood as it gushed out of the Dark Mark was not fun, and it stained his best trousers beyond even the House Elves' mysteries.
12.
Blaise and Potter often had their best sex after an Order meeting. Potter would storm up to Blaise's room, pouting in a way that reminded Blaise strongly of Draco, which he would never ever mention to Potter.
It gave their trysts a strange sense of familiarity.
Potter liked for Blaise to push his face into the pillows, to use all the moves Potter taught him during Dumbledore's Army meetings to take him down -- and Blaise knew Potter was letting Blaise knock him over, knew that there was no way he could truly beat Potter in hand-to-hand combat. Still, it was satisfying to hear the crunch of Potter's bone under Blaise's fist, watch blood well up in the half-moons left by Blaise's fingernails on Potter's back and -- very very distressingly fit -- arse.
Blaise always deliberately used just not-quite-enough lubricating potion, using blood from Potter's face or neck, or the bitemarks he'd leave on Blaise's body to slick the rest of the way -- plus, Blaise figured Potter liked the burn.
13.
Blaise's favorite part of shagging Potter was listening to the gossip about them, hearing Granger's lectures float through the walls, Weasley's awkward, "Er, blokes, then, Harry? Well, good on." Longbottom whining, "Harry, a Sytherin?" It made him feel even more superior than he already was, and gave him a nice glow of satisfaction for a job well done: dissention in the ranks. Forever shall he have the blessing of Eris.
14.
Voldemort grew impatient and angry with Blaise. Potter felt it as well; Blaise was often not sure if Potter's own impatience and anger with Blaise was residual, or his own. He wondered if Potter even knew. Those days it would be Potter pushing Blaise's face into the bed, Potter kneeling up with one knee in the middle of Blaise's back and not enough lubricating potion, burning, burning all through Blaise's body, gasping for breath against Blaise's neck while Blaise suffocated his face in a pillow to keep from whining high up in the back of his throat and growling low.
On those days, it was Blaise's blood staining sheets, as though he could afford to lose more of it than he had. Blood from cuts, from deep bruises that open and flower on his skin, from his Dark Mark.
Blaise awoke one morning suddenly, to Potter's tongue tracing the snake, hissing at it, and the snake hissing back.
Blaise wondered if perhaps Potter would be the traitor this time, betraying them all to Voldemort in Parseltongue, one of the only languages Blaise never understood.
15.
Blaise made the suggestion that rather than attempt to discover the Top Secret Death Eater Headquarters that the Order of the Tedious was convinced existed, they target the homes of well-known top-placed Death Eaters. No one thought it was a good idea, so Blaise went back to his Arithmancy. Without his books and resources, it was almost impossible for him to do research, so he melted down a few Knuts and Sickles and painted his room with Spells of Hiding and Spells of Finding. As a joke. To see if the room would explode, or the metals would spark.
Yet it worked, and he began to find things hidden -- a wad of Muggle money, brightly colored and funny-looking; tiny parchments, rolled in the cracks of the floor, with love letters written on them to Augustus Benchley-Forsythe du Primir, who Blaise had never heard of; books with thick bindings filled with ancient curses in the false bottoms of chairs; Granger and Weasley snogging in a tiny washroom off the kitchen at half-three in the morning.
He could have lived without the last, easily.
16.
Blaise painted sigils on Potter with their blood.
"What does this one mean?" asked Potter, pointing at the one over his heart.
"Idiot," snapped Blaise.
"And this here?" asked Potter, pointing at the one on his throat.
"Silence."
"This?" His wrists and the soft skin inside his elbows.
"Cut here."
Potter laughed and laughed. The one on his stomach: Fill me. The one on the inside of each thigh: Useless.
If Potter had ever paid attention in class instead of just copying off Granger, he would recognize I Am Not Here, You Cannot See Me, Nothing Can Harm My Skin.
Protection.
He does not need to know.
He does not need to know that Blaise wonders what he dreams of, wonders what the scar tells him, wonders what he sees through Voldemort's eyes.
He does not need to know that Blaise dreams of his death -- and of wanting to prevent it.
When Blaise ran out of blood, he used his mother's athame, the one handed down from her mother and her mother's mother, and her mother's mother's mother, and opened his palm.
"Are those eyes?" Potter squinted. Blaise drew them clumsily on Potter's hands and feet, and, finally, one on the scar, which burnt his finger slightly, and sucked the blood into it. Blaise blinked at it, not understanding, then added more blood, and more, until his finger was purple and the blood stayed where he put it. He was dizzy; Potter's face swam in front of his eyes.
"Look," sighed Potter, who'd gotten quieter and quieter. "While I'm on my face, make the most of me, yeah?"
"Mmmm," said Blaise absently, finishing the symbols for vision on Potter's calves, and then sinking his teeth into the firm muscle of his arse, making him gasp and writhe, blood all over them both, the whole room smelling of copper and death.
17.
"I don't want to do this," Potter said, and put the knife down.
"Do it," ordered Blaise. He was already sweating.
"I can't," said Potter shakily.
"Then go get Weasley. He'll do it, easily. Or Granger. They are not so weak as you," sneered Blaise.
"Shut it!" said Potter. He sounded fiercer than he looked. The scar on his forehead blazed, and he squinted as he lined up the knife with the lines Blaise had clumsily drawn around the Dark Mark. He took one deep breath, and then another, and made the first cut. It didn't hurt, and didn't hurt, and didn't hurt, until suddenly it did, and Blaise was overcome.
Sweat burned his eyes and every muscle ached from holding still, and blood pooled under his arm and flowed over Potter's fingers. The worst was yet to come, Blaise knew, but pain was part of the working, part of what made it an Unforgiveable. A hidden spell, secreted away, that Blaise had found in what appeared to be an old old teaching parchment. In a Gryffindor safehouse; he couldn't even imagine.
And Potter had not made one noise of protest about working an Unforgiveable.
"Now the quill," rasped Blaise when the pain ceased being sharp and burning and became dull and aching. The sigils around the Dark Mark quivered.
"Is it really necessary?" He sounded disapproving.
"You are a coward still?"
Potter glared at him, light reflecting off the lenses of his ridiculous Muggle spectacles, his scar scarlet, and lifted the quill, dipped it into the inkpot full of red-gold oreichalkos, and began to paint. It smoked as it touched Blaise's blood, and hissed -- no, the Mark was hissing, spitting at Potter, and Potter spit back, his saliva acid on Blaise's skin, fire in his blood.
18.
When Blaise awoke, McGonagall was glaring at him. "You are a stupid, foolish child."
He struggled to sit up. "At least you can say I might become wiser with age," he offered. His arm was cool where he and Potter had worked the spell, and it gleamed brightly in the sun-filled room.
"I cannot believe Harry let himself be talked in --"
"Do we know the same Potter?" asked Blaise dryly. "May I have some water?"
McGonagall filled a glass with water, and held it in one hand while reaching out the other to the still, red-gold Mark.
"Don't," said Blaise, but she touched it, ran her fingers over it. He couldn't feel them.
"Like a statue," she marveled. "And it works?"
"I supposed we'll know the next time I am called," he replied, reaching vainly for the glass.
She looked at him sadly. "Despite your methods, I am pleased you've discovered this. I only wish..."
Blaise wondered who she was thinking about as she traced the snake, frozen forever with its tongue spitting out. Blaise wondered who he was thinking about; he could not imagine Draco -- or Lucius -- with a bas-relief Mark in his arm.
19.
Blood, sleep, and sex could fix almost anything, of that Blaise was practically sure without a doubt. Not quite, but almost. He gets the first two, and determines to find Potter for the last. Potter practices with several members of the Order, concentrating fiercely. He does everything decisively, appearing to have all the answers and know positively that he has made the right decision.
Gryffindor stupidity and recklessnes -- yet watching them, Blaise felt almost envious. Resentful.
The corner stool is perfectly weighted for him, and there he knew he could sit for hours, watching whirling hands and feet. They move on to fighting with staves. Their wands all sit in the corner.
He wanted to tell them that while they fought minions in hand-to-hand combat, those they seek would take themselves off -- but he did not. He kept his thoughts to himself. They have never taken him seriously in the past, seeing his ideas as those formulated specifically to help them entrap themselves.
As though they would need his help to do that?
Blaise has never pointed out to them the stupidity inherent in allowing him to sit in on their strategy sessions without participating; if he were the enemy, he could have, this whole time, been whispering their plans to his Mark, or allowing Voldemort to spy through him.
It is extremely annoying to Blaise that he cannot call himself their enemy any longer.
The Mark is a weight on his arm, but a cool one, and the headache he'd had since taking it has gone away.
Potter patted his neck with a towel and drank water before he came over to Blaise. "Enjoying the view?" he asked, and smirked, and despite their audience, Blaise grabbed his neck and pulled him close, pressing their mouths together, sweeping Potter's mouth with his tongue. His hand slipped on Potter's sweat, tangy and sour-smelling, slipped off his shoulder, slipped down his arm.
And Potter kissed him back, crowding him into the wall, his spectacles pressing on Blaise's face, his fingers digging into Blaise's wrist, his mouth hot and dark and tasting faintly of the blood Blaise's teeth drew when he scraped them over Potter's lip.
He needed a shave, Blaise thought -- he and Potter both needed a shave. Their stubble rubbed, scraping; Blaise liked it.
The murmurs of the room faded away, until Blaise could hear nothing but his own breaths, and Potter's.
20.
"What did you say to it?" asked Blaise into Potter's neck.
"I told it to call me Harry sometimes," replied Potter after a moment.
"How did you know what I was talking about?" Blaise was tempted to run his foot up and down Potter's leg -- hairy, coarse. Not something Blaise at all liked, but it was a good look for Potter.
"I don't." Potter rolled over a little and Blaise was displaced. He dug his nails into Potter's arse, then harder, then scratched. "Quit it."
"Make me."
Potter tumbled him over, pinned him down to the bed by his wrists, and rolled his hips, pushing their cocks together. His skin against Blaise's nearly glowed in its whiteness, and his eyes were bright. "I will," he said in a low voice, and pushed their cocks together again.
21.
Blaise tried again the next day, this time during tea. He had adopted Potter's disgusting habit of too much sugar.
"What did you say to it?" He pitched his voice low, and hopefully no one was listening in. Casting a silencing charm during breakfast was too gauche for Blaise, even with his newfound desire to rub his foot on Potter's hairy legs.
"To what?" asked Potter around a bite of toast with far too much jam for Blaise's sensibilities.
"The Mark. When you were -- when we --" Blaise shut his mouth with a snap, frustrated, and took a long draught of tea.
"I told Voldemort that he could not have you," said Potter.
Blaise had nothing to say to that, although he did wonder if Potter was, perhaps, having him on.
Potter changed the subject: "I think we're going to run an attack today."
"We are," said Weasley, clapping his hand on Potter's shoulder and sitting down across from Blaise. Blaise glared at him, and Weasley pretended not to notice.
"Weasley, Potter and I were having a conversation," said Blaise, when Weasley showed no signs of going away.
"Yeah, and now Harry and I are having a conversation," said Weasley. Blaise thought about asking Weasley if he'd told Potter yet about his trysts with Granger, but decided to hold off -- a situation more pressing than this might arise.
"Actually," said Potter. "I thought we should show the plans to Blaise. Let him do one of those --"
"Oh no," said Weasley. "No Arithmancy. It's hoodoo."
"That's a big word for you," observed Blaise. "Is that what Granger told you? She made second-to-top marks in Arithmancy."
Weasley finally looked straight at him, and returned Blaise's glare.
"We know less about Arithmancy than we do any other magic. I know that much. And if Professor McGonagall and the Order thought your doodles could help, they'd've asked already," snapped Weasley.
Blaise raised his wand and traced Hover into the air. It hung, glowing, and Blaise blew it toward Weasley. It landed on his ugly orange sweater, and he began to rise. Blaise leaned back in his chair and grinned.
"Blaise, get him down," ordered Potter.
"Get me down!" shrieked Weasley. He pulled out his wand. "Finite Incantatem! Finite!"
"No, I like you there." Blaise tucked his wand into his sleeve and took another sip of his tea. It tasted even more delicious than it had previously, and before he'd even finished the cup, Weasley had sullenly invited him to the Order's final meeting before their mad suicide run. He traced Finite, blew it up to Weasley, who landed in his chair with a *thump*, and drank the last bit of his tea.
22.
Blaise didn't even want to go.
But he showed up, just to hack Weasley off.
23.
"This is the stupidest plan I have ever had the misfortune to see brought to fruition," scoffed Blaise to Molly Weasley as they watched the Order Apparate out. "And Draco came up with some ridiculously terrible ones."
"Yes, well, this wasn't my idea either," she snapped, and turned on her heel, and walked away as Arthur Weasley Apparated out with a *pop!* and a tiny plume of smoke.
Blaise had been able to find them a better way into the house where Voldemort was hiding -- or so they thought -- but nothing else. There were wards in place, blood wards, that even Lucius might not have been able to crack open, that even Blaise's mother would have a difficult time with.
The blood of thousands of Mudblood and Muggle deaths was strong magic indeed.
Blaise's Mark did not utter a peep.
24.
According to Weasley's account through his tears -- which he seemed to loathe as much as Blaise -- many died, but not Voldemort.
Blaise did not ask about Lucius. Or his mother.
Potter did not die, and Blaise found himself feeling absurdly grateful, going so far as to call him Harry once or twice while he was in the sitting room-cum-infirmary. The third and final time he did it, Potter squeezed his hand, and Blaise said, "Don't think this means I'll be calling you Harry all the time, you Gryffindor twit. At least you've broken your spectacles and we can do a proper vision-correction spell on you."
Carefully, because the bones had only finished regrowing a few hours before, he returned Potter's hand-squeeze.
25.
Potter sucked his cock like a maniac, like there was nothing else in the world, like there was no place else he wanted to be. Blaise pulled his hair and scratched at his face and groaned, and loved it.
"I am glad you're not dead," he told Potter breathtlessly, before kissing him, salty, sour, sweet, their tongues tangling, Potter shoving his cock behind Blaise's, slick against Blaise's skin.
"So say you," replied Potter into his mouth, and Blaise jerked back. Potter met his eyes evenly, his face flushed, his eyes burning bright into Blaise's.
"So say I," replied Blaise, and wrapped a leg around Potter's, slid his foot down over Potter's leg, and arched up into their embrace.