hackthis_archive | Twentysomething

Twentysomething
A Harry Potter story in five parts about getting older, getting over it, getting over yourself, and moving the fuck on.
Rated from General to Adult m/m, m/f

Chapter I

Chapter II

Blaise was not a morning person. Being woken up before seven o'clock by a leisurely blowjob was just about acceptable. Being woken up by the incessant pecking of a large, grey owl –- an owl that was cunning enough to follow Blaise under the duvet when Blaise tried to hide -– was not a good start to the day.

When Hammurabi began hooting in his ear, Blaise gave up. "Enough!" he said waving off Theodore's recalcitrant pet. "I surrender; if you had worked for the Dark Lord he never would've lost to Potter."

Hammurabi hooted again, and Blaise's memories of the previous evening began rushing back. Blaise pushed back the coverlet abruptly. "I see I'll never be rid of either one of you," he said sitting upright and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

Scratching at the Runes inked on his right shoulder blade, Blaise blinked and yawned as Hammurabi shook his left leg in what seemed to be irritation.

"I told Theodore that any breed of owl that knew how to feign its own death was a bad idea, but no, he wanted a Short-eared Owl," Blaise mocked, untying the parchment from the owl's leg, and getting a wing in the head for his trouble.

"There's bacon in the kitchen," Blaise said, as Hammurabi flapped his wings and took flight. "And no flirting with Archimedes."

Blaise held Theodore's letter in his hand, waiting for the hooting that would inevitably drive him to the bathroom for quiet. Leave it to Theodore to find the only other gay owl in Europe.

The cacophony started up almost immediately, and Blaise rubbed his head ruefully. There was an acidic taste in his mouth, which only came from drinking Muggle alcohol, and he took Theodore's letter with him to read while he completed his morning ablutions.

Blaise ignored his mirror, which seemed quite interested in discussing the various bruises blooming along the side of his neck, and snapped his fingers at Theodore's letter. The parchment unfurled itself from its resting place on the sink, rose to mid-air, and promptly began reciting its contents.

"Dearest Last Hope for All Slytherin Kind," the letter began, adopting Theodore's droll, crisp inflection. "I'm sure this missive finds you well and as celibate as ever –- if this is not the case, please contact me directly with the salacious details. I would be worried about this prolonged course of action –- or lack thereof, to be accurate -- if I didn't know that you prefer to play the martyr in this way, and are now saving yourself for Draco in the Garden of Wizarding Delights. Should you have changed your mind about this insipid manner of living, please let me know directly, and I will send you a list of the suitable men in my Advanced Muggle Litigation and How to Avoid It course. Before you ask, yes, all is well, and no, I have not met anyone that could possibly replace you in my affections. Regards, Theodore."

Theodore's voice echoed against in the walls of Blaise's bathroom for a moment, and Blaise crossed his arms over his chest. He would show Theodore. He opened his mouth to dictate his reply about having Harry Potter suck his cock, only to be cut off by his mirror speaking up. "Are you going to tell him where you got those bruises, because if you are, speak up so the rest of the furniture can hear you. It's been ages since you've had a shag at home, and we're all gagging for details."

Blaise narrowed his eyes at the mirror. "You can be replaced," he said scathingly. "All of you can be replaced –- and you," he said, snapping his fingers at the hovering parchment, "Here's a message for Theodore -– 'Sod off, you useless prick. If you're not going to make an honest man of me, you don't get to have an opinion about the men I shag. No matter where I find them, or who they happen to be.'"

September in London was full of straggler tourists, children going to and from school, and the everyday Muggle workers. The weather was cool and crisp without being oppressive, and the sun hung in the sky just long enough to remind Blaise that summer was ending. For the two whole minutes that it took Blaise to leave his flat, and cross the street to the other flat that he'd taken for research purposes, he revelled in the weather.

Of course, anything was better than enduring long months of green skies, black rain, and toads, bodies, and owls randomly falling from the sky.

Still, for someone who was quite pleased just to be alive, Blaise felt a bit of dissatisfaction with his life after Past Events. The stigma attached to being a Slytherin was very high on his list of things to be displeased about, along with Draco being dead, his mother marrying yet again, and the fact that he had actually had to exert effort to get funding for his Arithmancy research.

Blaise wasn't Draco; he didn't think he was entitled simply because he was a Zabini. But he was brilliant, everyone in his field knew this. Even before the war, Professor Vector had made noises to her colleagues about Blaise being the next Pythagoras. Thanks to Potter, his ilk, and Voldemort, however, Blaise had practically been reduced to asking for funding. At the very least, Blaise almost had to take actual employment or apprentice himself to someone to other.

Professor Vector had offered to assist him, but Professor Vector also had an assistant, Hypatia, who apparently didn't understand that Blaise sucking cock meant he wasn't particularly interested in shagging women. Blaise would sooner have listened to Gregory Goyle attempt to explain the Fibonacci Sequence as it pertained to Quidditch than he would endure being near Hypatia Soames.

If his Grandpere Hermes hadn't stepped in with several lifetimes' worth of Galleons, Blaise would've been in a shockingly plebeian state. Clearly there was something to be said for having a grandfather who was a dreadfully famous musician amongst the Muggles.

Blaise's hand was just on the doorknob when he heard a massive thud and a feeble squawk. He looked over in time to see yet another spam owl flapping away erratically from 181 Glebe Place, and smiled to himself contently. Theodore's first course of business once he was properly certified as a solicitor was to draw up contracts for Blaise's Spam-No-More Ward so they could sell it properly.

Spam owls were a recent craze, spawned no doubt by the end of Past Events, and the new Muggle/Wizard Co-op, commonly referred to as CRAP (Creating Rapport Among the People). Blaise thought the entire business was nonsense, but then Blaise tended to think that pretty much everything the Ministry did was nonsense. Wizarding kind mixing with Muggles in the open, and without any sort of contingency or recourse for Obliviating Muggle stupidity, was just another item on a list full of idiocy. Blaise would've had more faith had the Ministry been run by Hufflepuffs and three-toed Wingbats. Instead it was run by a mixture of old school politicians and thick-headed Gryffindors who thought they could make the world a better place.

Blaise couldn't actually remember if Potter worked for the Ministry or not, but it seemed just the sort of thing that he would have wanted when they were in school. Actually, Blaise hadn't had much interaction with Potter apart from the Slug Club and Draco's various machinations, but in viewing Potter through Draco's green-tinted specs, working for the Ministry seemed very Potter-esque.

The man that Blaise had met last night hadn't seemed very Potter-esque. The ramshackle living and the lack of sycophants, the duplicity, the one-night stands with known Slytherins and the warded home all spoke of someone less uptight than Blaise remembered Potter –- but that was neither here nor there anymore.

Inside the building, Blaise took the narrow staircase up to Flat 4, pausing outside the solid oak door to draw something on the doorframe that looked like a cross between a four-leaf clover and a music note.

Keys and wands were all well and good for the mundane, but Blaise took no chances when it came to his wards, and the door didn't open as much as it momentarily disappeared from the entranceway.

"So glad you could join me," Queenie called from another room as the teapot, well attuned to Blaise's arrival, began getting the sugar and cream together. "I wouldn't want you to think that you actually had to do any work today or anything. I'm more than willing to accept all the glory of the Paracelsus on my own."

"Down, you shrieking Harpy," Blaise answered. He wasn't particularly aware of the time as he didn’t wear a watch and didn't see the point in keeping one close to hand. The sun was out though, so he couldn't possibly have slept the whole day away. He would arrive when he arrived, that was the point in the lab being across the street. "You don't get to harp when you abandon me at appalling Muggle bars."

Blaise handed his jacket to the waiting coat stand, before making his way down the hall. He paused to grab an open packet of cigarettes from the bathroom sink -– where Queenie did most of her thinking –- before heading for the sitting room where he found Queenie, green eyes batting owlishly and curling white-gold hair spiralling out of control per usual.

Queenie Greengrass wasn't what anyone would've called beautiful, she was too short, too gangly, too poorly connected, and a little too oddly proportioned, but she had character. More importantly, in Blaise's estimation, she was brilliant.

A little too brilliant on occasion.

"I left you?" Queenie's eyes flashed behind the pink specs she wore when she was experimenting and didn't want to blind herself with the wrong answer. "Funny how Pansy told me you clearly weren't hurting for company as you left with someone."

"She must have been mistaken." Blaise sat down on the overstuffed green and silver sofa they had appropriated from Blaise's mother, and beckoned the ashtray from across the room. The ashtray zoomed over so fast that it ran directly into the sugar bowl, which had just sat down on the coffee table next to the cream and the lemon.

The teapot whistled shrilly when the sugar bowl whapped the ashtray with its spoon, and Blaise just shook his head as they went at it.

"Sending the ashtray to war isn't answering the question of your whereabouts last night." Queenie was suddenly on the other end of the sofa, and Blaise dropped his unlit cigarette on his grey trousers.

"There's nothing to tell," Blaise said, picking up the cigarette and twirling it between his fingers.

Queenie scoffed. "Tell me about him. Did he have black hair and green eyes?"

"He was blond." Blaise lied just to see what Queenie would say. He was also rather curious about how much Pansy had told her. Pansy and Queenie weren't the best of mates, but they got on in the same way that most Slytherins tended to, which was to say they tolerated each other by dint of being of the same stock but would happily strangle each other without a second thought if it served their purpose.

"No, they're never blond. There was only the one, but I'm waiting for the black-haired man. It will be fun." Queenie's smile was deadly; it happened so rarely that when Queenie did smile it seemed to finally pull all of her features into the true beauty they promised. Blaise suspected siren or mermaid in her background, something alluring and deadly.

Blaise rolled his eyes, raising his voice slightly over the din from the teapot. "Your dramatics are almost amusing."

"Almost as amusing as your lies," Queenie said matter of factly, her thin, pale fingers pointed at Blaise. "Did you really forget to cover up the bite mark on your neck or were you hoping I would ignore it?"

Blaise pulled the collar of his shirt a bit higher, an impressive feat considering that it was a jumper that had a scoop-neck.

"Enough!" Queenie scolded the tea service that had ganged up on the ashtray. "You're all acting like children; this behaviour is completely unbecoming. I thought you were going to serve the tea."

The teapot let out a feeble whistle, banging into a cup and saucer in its effort to put its best spout forward. Queenie picked up the ashtray and set it on the sofa between them. "What have you done now?" she asked, her tone somewhere between amused and inquisitive.

"Nothing of interest to you." Queenie's perceptiveness was grating, and it underlined the fact that she wasn't entirely human, but they didn't discuss that, just as they didn't discuss the dead. Blaise's own code of conduct was rather unyielding, but the things that Queenie did that made her more human -– her curiosity and inappropriate questions –- made her endearing, if only because he understood exactly why she did them.

"I'm sure that's debatable."

Blaise picked up the cup of tea now being offered to him by the tea service and set the still unlit cigarette in the ashtray. "You never told me where you got to when you left me with two drinks."

"The same as you probably," Queenie said mockingly, taking her own tea and sipping it casually.

Blaise narrowed his eyes. He had never wanted a wife, and a research partner was probably even worse than being married, because he couldn't divorce Queenie. He needed her. It also occurred to him, not for the first time, that perhaps he'd already been married -- married and widowed, because he used to need Draco. On days when the rain slanted sideways and Blaise couldn't keep the memories out with scotch or opium derivatives, he knew he still did.

"So are you going to see this boy again?" Queenie's voice cut through his thoughts, and Blaise almost choked on his tea at the idea of seeing Potter again -- naked, again, and on his back in Blaise's flat, writhing in sweat on Blaise's bed clothes and staring Blaise down.

Blaise could just imagine the clamouring from his furniture, never mind the clamouring from his mates. "Mordred save us all if I do."

Queenie shrugged. "Ah, well, so much for that then -- now, do you suppose that Kinkaid's theory of relational motion actually holds, or do we have to rewrite yet another law of physics for the simpletons?"

One of the things that Blaise loved the most about Arithmancy was the way the magic of a perfect equation could work its way under his skin and into his blood until he was breathing golden numbers and factors, equations were swimming in his eyes, and Pythagoras' Lost Formula of Fourth Dimensional Space was the only language he could speak.

In his early twenties, Blaise had overdosed on Euclid after spending four days immersed in Elements without sleeping. Theodore had found him lying on the floor of his kitchen, writing equations on the ceiling with his wand. He'd forgotten how to eat, and he'd only spoken in spherical geometry for weeks afterwards.

It was about this time that Theodore drafted Queenie to be Blaise's research partner; he also forced Blaise to get a separate place to conduct his research. The flat across the street was their compromise. Theodore had inveigled Professor Vector to set up wards preventing Blaise from Apparating from flat to flat. He couldn't spend more than twenty hours in the lab at a time without his skin turning green and his hair going silver. Blaise wasn't horribly vain, but he had his pride, and so he was forced to go outside at least twice a day to go back and forth to his flat.

According to the itching under his skin, he hadn't even been at work for more than ten hours when there was a crack, a flash, and a poof of smoke from the fireplace. Blaise glanced up to see Pansy Parkinson stepping out of the grating. The fact that it was all well and good for everyone else to Apparate and Floo into the labs, just not Blaise, was somewhat of a sore spot with him. He could always get out, he just couldn't get in.

"If I ever see another member of the Ministry it will be too soon," Pansy said, removing her wand and twirling it over her head perfunctorily. "Repellus."

All the soot and smoke from her travels fell away from Pansy's perfectly blood red suit as though they'd only hopped on for the journey. "Finally ran Greengrass off, did you?" Pansy quipped.

Blaise cast another glance around. He couldn't even say when Queenie had left; they had long since dispensed with the pleasantries in their relationship. Maybe they really were married. "Pans, did you make a wrong turn out of Montague PR? This isn’t the Golden Scythe. There're no musicians or actors hanging about, you know."

Pansy's job acquainted her with all stripe of undesirables and unsuitable suitors, which Blaise allowed because working in Magical Public Relations couldn't be easy on anyone, least of all someone as high strung as Pansy. It did help that her sheer talent had moved her up the ranks even faster than if she'd just Avada Kedavra'd all of the competition.

Pansy flicked an invisible something or other off her suit. "You're cute, Zabini, but if you think you're getting out of telling me what you were doing with Harry Potter last night, you've got another think coming."

Blaise set down Discours de la méthode and stood up. "You knew I was consorting with Harry Potter, and you didn't say anything?"

Pansy just smirked. "I'm saying something now -– talk."

Blaise scowled. "Fuck off, Parkinson."

Pansy's smirk blossomed into a huge grin. "I can see Rita Skeeter's column tomorrow: Boy Who Lived Loves All Over Slytherin Scientist." Pansy paused. "Oh, I'll have to remember that one."

Blaise started across the room. "Pansy Elenora Parkinson if you -–"

Pansy stepped back into the grating. "Circe's Three Pigs," she enunciated perfectly, and with a poof and a flash she was gone.

Blaise sighed the sigh of the much put upon, even while grabbing a pinch of Floo powder from the pint glass on the mantelpiece and following behind.

Circe's Three Pigs was no different than any other pub in all of Greater London. The air was redolent of cigarettes and lager, the lighting was somewhere between passable and only for the hungover, the floor was slatted, sticky wood, and the chairs were meant to suck you in for at least five hours. The only thing it seemed to have in its favour was that it attracted an equal amount of Wizarding and non-wizarding clientele, presumably due to its owners: Hannah Abbott, Colin Creevey and Terry Boot. Blaise had picked up Justin Finch-Fletchley there -– which probably should have been a sign to Blaise that he didn't need to be hanging around that particular establishment. This time, he found himself sitting at a table in the corner, trying to keep Pansy's head from spinning around on her neck.

"You really slept with Harry Potter?" Pansy had been stuck on the same question for the last two rounds of drinks -– Fire Whiskey for Blaise and lager for Pansy.

"Lower your voice," Blaise hissed, resolutely not looking around.

"You're prevaricating." Pansy's sing-song tone made Blaise's teeth hurt.

"I am not prevaricating, and I did not sleep with Harry flipping Potter!"

Pansy cocked her head to the side. "Semantics. Excuse me. You didn't sleep, you shagged."

Blaise's left eye twitched. "I did not shag Harry Potter. I didn't even know it was Harry fucking Potter at the time!"

Pansy made a moue of distaste. "You let him top? Oh, Blaise. I know you miss Draco, but really, ignorance is no excuse."

It was nearly impossible to pick up quality men when Blaise had seen the majority of his peers with runny noses and spots everywhere. Even the boys not in Blaise's year had only tuned out so-so, and perhaps this was what distressed him even more about his own situation.

Blaise's Inner Circle, and Outer Circle, and Surrounding Social Areas that Weren't All Completely Arsebackwards had mixed and mingled and shared so many bodily fluids that it was a wonder they hadn't all set up a communal living space. At this point, they all would've all been better off conjuring their own mates from gnomes and Doxies -- and sometimes, at the very wee hours of the morning, Blaise was willing to include himself in this drastic measure. Instead, he clenched and unclenched his fists on the table-top. "Pansy, I am not your client. If you do not cease this line of questioning, I will go to the bar and tell Colin Creevey that you've fancied him from afar these last four years and that is why you cannot seem to stop patronising this horrible establishment."

"Even I have standards, Blaise. Having said that, I wouldn't kick Potter out of my bed you know." Pansy's laugh was loud and raucous, designed to draw attention, and Blaise could feel the eyes of the other patrons on the back of his neck.

He covered his eyes with his hand. "I need greatness; I don't need this."

Pansy just snickered. "Yes, well, -- you could do worse than your very own Quidditch champion -– except you already had one of those. They do have excellent thighs, wouldn't you say? Fabulous for endurance."

"Quidditch what?"

"Oh, Blaise, really. Your lack of interest in sport is depressing. You do know Potter led the Falmouth Falcons to the championship, don't you? Three times. He only retired because he said he wanted 'a new challenge' or some such Gryffindor nonsense."

Blaise wrinkled his nose in revulsion. "Why would I know something like that? Do you think I spend my days wondering what Harry Potter gets up to?" Blaise downed the rest of his Fire Whiskey and snapped his fingers for a refill. "What Harry Potter does with his life is of no interest to me," he said dismissively.

The fact that Potter used to be Draco's Number One Interest went unsaid between them, but Pansy's smirk seemed to imply that she thought Blaise might be somewhat delusional.

Blaise tapped his glass, which was magically refilling itself, to indicate that he wanted a double. Pansy was quiet for several moments, drinking her lager, her eyes darting over Blaise's left shoulder and then his right. Blaise assumed she was making notes of who was with whom for some client or another, and took a moment to sit back and relax his posture a bit. The whiskey was doing a remarkable job of warming his chest and his extremities, and he rubbed the back of his neck, thankful that he'd glamoured the bite marks after Queenie's interrogation. He could still feel them, when he rubbed his thumb along his pulse point, they just weren't visible to the naked eye.

Pansy set her glass down on the table. "Coming from anyone else, I would think they were lying through their eye teeth, but you're so involved with your precious research, I actually believe you when you say that you didn't know you were shagging Potter."

"I'm touched by your rationale-—"

Pansy cut him off. "The question then becomes, you may not have known before, but if you were to know that he's been sitting behind you for the last twenty minutes, staring at the back of your head, does that change anything for you?"

Blaise felt the snap in his neck when he sat up straight. "He what?"

Pansy just smirked. "Oh, yes, I think that says it all."

Blaise closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He suffered headaches on occasion, a gift of Past Events. This wasn't like that. "I'll be right back." He stood up rather abruptly.

Pansy narrowed her eyes. "If you run out of here like a little girl, I will write the Blind Item myself, then I will contact Theodore and your grandmother, and then I will begin shopping for wedding presents."

Blaise made a scoffing noise. "Blackmail is so passé; I'm going to the toilet."

Pansy nodded approvingly. "That's the Blaise I know. Besides, everyone has those moments they regret."

Blaise leaned downward, so that he could see the fine lines starting to form at the corners of Pansy's eyes. "You mean like sleeping with Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnegan."

Pansy's nostrils flared. "That was a one time mistake."

Blaise just grinned and stood upright. "Right."

Turning sharply on his heel, Blaise took a quick glace around the room, pointedly not noticing Potter, the glasses he wasn't wearing yet again, his extraordinarily messy hair, or the sky blue tee shirt that was tight across his shoulders.

Blaise also didn't notice that Potter was sitting with two ginger-headed people; the Weasleys were fucking omnipresent where Potter was concerned.

Blaise cleared his throat; he was very much not noticing Potter noticing him either, except that when Blaise made it to the toilets, he had no idea why he was there. He didn't need to actually use the toilet; he needed to leave. He needed to go back to Descartes.

Plus, the toilet was already engaged, so Blaise leaned back against the wall and waited. And waited. He was not pleased when Potter materialised next to him. Not even slightly. "Zabini," Potter said by way of greeting, leaning against the wall on Blaise's right.

Potter was wearing another shirt that was just a little too small, which flashed a strip of golden skin along his hip. Blaise did nothing to suppress the growl in the back of his throat. "Potter."

Their silence was punctuated by the sound of flushing.

"Do you come here often?" Potter asked casually.

Blaise gave him his most incredulous look. "Does that line actually work for you?"

Potter shrugged. His rueful grin displayed white teeth. "I don’t know –- is it working for you?"

Blaise was dumb-founded. "Potter, you can't possibly be serious."

The door of the toilet clicked, opened, and Neville Longbottom stepped out. He looked at Blaise, looked at Harry, and then back at Blaise. Blaise could practically hear the gears turning in his brain. "All right, Harry?" was all Longbottom said, and Blaise made a scoffing noise, pushing past Longbottom and into the toilet.

He was just shutting the door behind him when Potter pushed in, and Blaise stepped back, running directly into the sink. The toilet in the Circe's Three Pigs was the size of a linen closet, so when Potter locked the door behind him, Blaise had nowhere to go. Or maybe he just didn't want anywhere to go.

"About last night," Potter began, rubbing the back of his neck.

Blaise cut him off. "There's nothing to say. It never happened."

"You have bite marks that say differently," Potter said. When he stepped forward, his knees bumped against Blaise's. Blaise immediately put his hand on his neck; the glamour couldn't possibly have worn off so soon. Potter smirked.

"Zabini, was it really that bad?"

"Yes," Blaise retorted, and Potter took a step back. Foolishly he carried on. "It was the worst blow job I've ever had; and it will never happen again."

Potter's laugh did strange thing to Blaise's stomach. "For a minute there I almost believed you," he said, glancing down and then up at Blaise.

The lighting in the bathroom should have been appalling, but wasn't. Instead Potter's skin glowed and his eyes bordered on something embarrassingly poetic, like luminous. Blaise growled again. "This is not happening, Potter," he said pointedly, crossing his arms to make his point.

Potter cocked his head to the side. "All right," he said easily. "I know when I'm not wanted."

"Thank Mordred for that." Blaise uncrossed his arms and tamped down on a feeling that might've been related to regret in some other iteration. This was obviously why he was astonished when Potter grabbed his forearm and yanked him forward, their mouths mashing together in something that resembled a kiss.

Blaise didn't like being shocked. He was not a big proponent of surprises, and Harry Potter backing him against the sink and kissing him as though they were going to die tomorrow was a rather big surprise.

It didn't help matters that Potter was really good with his hands. Potter's palms were warm and his fingers were splayed out on Blaise's neck and the back of his skull, rubbing Blaise's stubbly hair.

Every time Potter's fingers dipped under the neck of Blaise's shirt and brushed against the runes tattooed on Blaise's back, Blaise felt frissons of raw magic shoot along his spine and directly to his dick. It was like Potter was some sort of sexual stimulant.

Potter was clearly powerful; everyone knew that, it was irrefutable -– but Blaise had never been the focal point of it. Now he realised that not only was Potter undeniable, but with that much power he was undeniably hot, too. With Potter's mouth and hands on him, it was like having sex in a magical vortex, and how Blaise hadn't realised it the other night was something of a mystery. Either Potter had been suppressing his capabilities or celibacy had affected Blaise's brain.

Potter bit and coerced, his tongue stroking Blaise's own and coaxing it into Potter's mouth. Potter's thumb stroked against Blaise's pulse until it found the bite marks he'd left last night, making Blaise gasp and twitch. Not that Potter was the only one who knew how to get his partner off.

Every time Blaise shifted, or made contact, Potter made these noises, hot, moans that went directly to Blaise's dick. Blaise didn't even realise he was touching Potter until the pads of his fingers found bare skin under the hem of Potter's tee shirt, and then he was squeezing and scratching and shoving. Blaise could feel the muscles of Potter's back shifting underneath him, and when his hand slipped down the back of Potter's jeans, Potter made this lascivious noise that almost had Blaise coming in his trousers.

Potter's hands moved from Blaise's neck to his shoulders to his chest, and he could feel Potter's knuckles rubbing against his stomach as he tried to open Blaise's trousers in the narrow space between them.

Blaise didn't even realise he'd hauled Potter into his lap until he slammed his own head against the mirror. The mirror made a racket in his ear, completely throwing Blaise off, and it was then that Blaise realised they were pretty much sitting in the sink.

He shoved Potter away, not wincing when Potter banged into the door. "We are not doing this," Blaise panted, trying to ignore Potter's wet mouth and the smooth plains of Potter's stomach that were exposed with his shirt almost rucked up to his armpits.

It was one thing to have sex with Harry Potter when Blaise didn’t know it was Potter -- knowing after the fact was a whole different matter. It was a posterior v. a priori –- but doing it with Potter when he knew exactly what he was getting into was madness.

Theodore's law courses were clearly rubbing off on him.

Potter just smirked. "All right."

Blaise scowled. "Stop saying that."

"I'm trying to be agreeable, Blaise."

"In all the years we admittedly didn't know each other, you were never agreeable. Why start now?" Blaise narrowed his eyes. "And don't call me that, either."

It was Potter's turn to scowl. "We're not sixteen anymore. This isn't war. You're not Malfoy, and you've never done anything to me apart from get me off and look really fit when you're being petulant."

Blaise stared. "When did you become eloquent? Or at the very least somewhat rational and horny. Aren't you supposed to be some inbred Quidditch player? If you persist with this ruse, and try to convince me you have a brain, I'll tell the world you've been Imperioed."

Potter shrugged and scratched his stomach. "People change, Blaise."

Blaise was not swayed. "No one changes that much."

"It's not as though you ever knew me before; did you ever think that perhaps your information was slightly biased?"

Blaise scoffed. "Should the pot be calling the kettle black?"

Potter shook his head, his eyes glittering when he looked back at Blaise. "You want to fight me, is that it? You want me to hate you? Is being attracted to me that horrible, or are you still carrying a torch for Malfoy after all this time?"

Blaise didn't even realise he'd struck Potter, until he saw the blood trickling down his split lip. "You leave him out of this," Blaise said coldly.

Potter wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, the blood a sharp contrast to his tan skin. "I used to be like you, you know," he said flatly. "Always thinking about what I used to have –- I used to have parents, Dumbledore used to be alive, I used to live in a cupboard under the fucking stairs."

Blaise clapped once. "What a moving speech. I'm sure the Prophet would love a copy, you should get on that." He moved to step around Potter and found himself being slammed against the wall.

Blaise's teeth rattled in his head, and his dick twitched as Potter boxed him in with his arms and legs. "Potter, you are beginning to try my patience."

"Do you think I'm doing this for fun?" Potter's voice held no traces of amusement. Blaise had heard tales of Potter being mental; he'd never actually seen it before.

"You must be bored after giving up your beloved Quidditch. Besides, everyone knows you're unhinged." Blaise's breath caught when Potter's palmed his erection through his trousers. Regardless of whatever Blaise's mind thought, his body was rather clear about its desires.

Potter's smile was stained with the blood on his teeth. "You don’t want it to be easy, do you, Zabini?" he asked curiously, his strokes growing rougher. "You feel like you have to pay because Malfoy died for you."

Blaise moved to pull his wand out of his back pocket, only to find Potter's other hand restraining his wrist. His attempt to cast silently was met with the crackle of a blocked spell.

Potter's raw ability made Blaise's fingers itch; it was almost as hot as Potter's stubble rubbing against Blaise's cheek when Potter whispered in his ear. "Malfoy's not coming back, Blaise." Blaise froze, even as Potter kept rubbing, and his lips brushed against the shell of Blaise's left ear when he said, "It's not your fault."

Blaise jerked his head to the side, but Potter's mouth followed. "It's not my fault either."

"I hate you," Blaise spat, biting his own tongue when Potter unzipped Blaise's trousers, slipped his hand inside Blaise's boxers, and stroked Blaise off with long, capable fingers.

Under Blaise's glare, Potter's expression softened. "No you don't; you just wish you did."

Blaise tasted his own blood when he came, and his brain was too addled to shove Potter away when he kissed Blaise roughly and then let him go.

"You're out of your fucking mind, Potter," Blaise said, trying to put himself back together again.

"Maybe," Potter said, smirking at Blaise in the mirror as he washed his hands and cleaned up his mouth, "But I'm not the worst thing that ever happened to you, either."

"What on earth do you want with me?" Blaise asked tartly. "Your ego can't accept that someone wouldn’t want the famous Harry Potter, is that it?"

"It's been a long time since I had someone who challenged me."

Blaise made a scoffing noise. "Get a pet."

Potter turned around, wiping his hands on the thighs of his jeans. "I'd rather have you," he said before reaching past Blaise for the door handle and leaving.

Once Potter was gone, Blaise turned around and banged his head on the wall. Why did he always attract the crazy ones?

--On to Chapter III--

+ Art provided by

dopplegl

+ Soundtrack available here

+ Betas provided by the team of

ethrosdemon,

oxoniensis and

serialkarma, Incorporated.

+ Someone somewhere linked to a posting about the true power in HP being in making the mundane into the magical. The spam owl idea was inspired from there, but my memory isn't so good. If you know what I'm referring to please send me the link so I can credit properly. Spam owls inspired by this post by

icarusancalion

Current Mood: happy
Current Music: LL Cool J 'I'm Bad'

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

wildestranger.livejournal.com

Gnah but this is deliciously hot. I love that Harry doesn't give in, and that Blaise hits him when he talks about Draco, and that he speaks Arithmancy. So many wonderful things in this. :)

From:

Educated Black Person, Esq., A.A., B.A., MBA, Ph.D., RN, NAACP, AAA

Twentysomething – Chapter II

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