Mindgames - Chapter Five
by FenrisWolf
Turning the tables
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Disclaimer - see Chapter One
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"If she does," Draco answered, his tone full of gloating, "and they both drink, then Lavender Brown and Harry Potter will be joined together…for eternity."
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"'Joined together for eternity?' He actually said that?" Harry asked incredulously. "I mean, who talks like that?"
"Malfoy, apparently," Blaise replied with a smirk. She'd met Ginny as planned outside the Slytherin common room, and then accompanied her under the invisibility cloak to the Room of Requirement where the others were waiting. The Room had morphed into an arrangement like one of the House common rooms, but without any of the trappings that identified one House over another, making it feel more like neutral territory.
Blaise took another sip of her butterbeer and watched the ensuing conversation in fascination.
"Harry," Hermione said, her tone worried, "That potion. Do you think…?"
"Probably," he shrugged.
"Tomorrow is Sunday; no classes. When do you think? Breakfast?"
He glanced at the clock ticking away on the mantelpiece above the fire. "Too early. Supper?"
"Too many people," Hermione objected. "She'll need-"
"Privacy," he agreed. His face lit up. "What about-?"
"Quidditch practice! Before or after?"
"After; better chance that'll I'll-"
"Drink whatever she offers you, of course…"
"Will you two STOP DOING THAT!?!" Ron practically shrieked, while Ginny and Blaise dissolved in laughter. He scowled at his sister, grumbling. "It's creepy; they sound like they're channeling Fred and George."
Harry and Hermione smirked at each other and turned towards their friend. "We're sorry, Ron," he started.
"But you don't have to worry about it," Hermione continued.
"Unless we start calling you-" Harry followed.
"'Ickle Ronnikins!'" they finished together, laughing.
"Gaaaaahhh!" Ron shouted before grabbing up a pillow and hurling at his friends. In moments everyone, including Blaise, had joined into the much-needed release of tension, which did not end until the last pillow had succumbed to destruction.
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Before leaving the room, Hermione brought out a small stack of Sickles and applied the same charm she'd used on the Galleons for the DA in fifth year, and showed everyone how to activate them so that whoever observed activity could alert the others. One pulse meant that Parkinson had the potion; two would indicate that Lavender was now in possession, and three warned that the attempt on Harry was about to go down. All that was left after that was to wait.
At Ginny's request, Harry agreed to loan Blaise the invisibility cloak; she was after all the one most likely to need it at this point, both for getting to and from the Slytherin quarters and to spy on her housemates. "Thanks, Red," she'd said when Ginny handed it to her, giving her friend a quick hug before disappearing under its shelter for the trip back to the dungeons.
"I never thought I'd be able to say it, but I actually like a Slytherin," Ron marveled, earning and elbow from his girlfriend.
"You may put your eyes back in your head now, Ronald," she scolded. "The only secondary sexual characteristics I want you to admire are mine."
"Huh?"
Ginny punched her brother in the arm. "She's telling you to stop staring at other girl's breasts, Ron," she said when he gave her an affronted glare.
"I don't stare!" He looked around at his other friends. "Do I? Mate?" he asked Harry, looking for backup.
Harry glanced at his girlfriend who was clearly struggling not to laugh. "You do tend to get kind of…focused, Ron," he admitted.
"Hey, I'm a teenage boy with raging hormones; it's expected," Ron said defensively.
"You don't see Harry ogling every girl in school," Hermione huffed, and Ron snorted.
"That's because he's terrified his girlfriend will hex his eyes out of his head if she catches him," he snickered, earning a glare from Hermione
"That's not true, Ron," Harry interjected before the banter could escalate into a full-blown argument. "I don't stare at other girls because no one could compare to the girl I'm with."
Ron leaned over to his friend as Hermione preened and Ginny made gagging noises. "Mate, you are so whipped," he whispered.
"I know," Harry replied, grinning. "Isn't it great?"
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Blaise worked her way back to the Slytherin dungeons, still chuckling quietly over the antics in which she'd recently participated. Students in Slytherin joked and roughhoused as well, but there was always an underlying current of malice in their banter, the feeling that the friendly pat on the back just might have a dagger in it. From the family journals she'd read it hadn't always been that way; certainly Slytherins were institutionally proud of being clever and sneaky, but the vicious edge was relatively new. It had taken a bit of digging and asking questions at home, but she'd finally uncovered that her House's dark shift coincided, not surprisingly, with the arrival of Tom Riddle at Hogwarts. 'One more crime to lay at his doorstep,' she thought bitterly.
She'd been so happy the day her Hogwarts letter had arrived. She would be in Slytherin, of course; all her family had been, for as long as their genealogy listed. Grandpere Zabini once jokingly told her that Hogwarts had been founded just so that families like theirs could have some decent competition, and the many stories of friendly rivalries had whetted her appetite to have her own contests with her schoolmates. What she hadn't noticed was the sad look her parents gave her when she talked about her hopes for school, or their vagueness when she asked them about their own experiences.
It had been a terrible shock to her when she finally arrived at school and discovered that the other three Houses almost universally despised her new House, and that to all intents and purposes the feeling was mutual. She'd kept a low profile her first year, confused and hurt by the huge disparity between her dreams and reality. The final nail in the coffin had been seeing all the other Houses' reactions when the House Cup was snatched out of Slytherin's grasp at the very last moment, and she hadn't been home for more than an hour when she'd demanded that her parents tell her the truth.
So Blaise finally learned the whole story behind Tom Riddle and his transformation into the latest Dark Lord. During his first rise to power the Zabini family had managed to maintain its neutrality, but it had been a near thing, and trembling on the edge of collapse when Voldemort misstepped by trying to kill the Boy Who Lived. Now that he was apparently stirring again, Blaise's parents urged her to follow their example and stay out of any intrigues or confrontations that might force her to choose sides.
She complied, but it had been neither pleasant nor easy. She kept from being forced to choose sides by being smarter and more dangerous than any of her housemates, and she kept from being pulled into any intrigues by refusing to join any cliques, or to form any of her own. It was an effective strategy, if a lonely one, and probably would have continued right through the end of her schooling if not for a certain egotistical Ferret and the redheaded firecracker who'd scrambled his eggs.
Blaise was still more than a little bemused as to how close a friend Ginny Weasley had become in such a short time. The Zabinis and the Weasleys were well known to each other, of course; no two old Pureblood families were ever complete strangers. True, the last couple of hundred years had seen little fraternization, but prior to that there had been several marriages and at least one wartime alliance. Having a Weasley for a friend wouldn't shock her family, but she knew it would outrage her housemates, so she'd kept it a secret. Ginny was less worried about her fellow Gryffindors' reactions, but she'd agreed that some of them couldn't keep a secret in a dragonhide sack, so she'd gone along.
And then that stupid cow and the ferret had to go all Borgias on everyone! Blaise sighed as she started down the last flight of stairs to the level holding her common room. There was a slim chance she might still get through this without having her shift in allegiances become general knowledge, but she doubted it. At the very least the Professors Snape and Dumbledore would know the truth, and if she had to testify against Parkinson and Malfoy their barristers would be sure to expose her.
Just as she was about to recite the password that would shift Salazar's statue out of her path, Blaise recalled the playful antics in which she had just participated in the Room of Requirement. She realized that those moments were the first time in seven years she'd experienced what she'd hoped to find at Hogwarts. Blaise thought guiltily of her sister Annette, due to start at Hogwarts in two years' time. Did she want to see her have the same sort of tense, dreary school life that had marked her stay here? Or did she want to see things change, get back to the way they were before Riddle's fanaticism infected Slytherin House? Maybe her parents were wrong, she thought. Maybe the do-gooders like the Weasleys and the Potters were right to stand up and be counted as opposing the Dark even if it put them at risk.
It was a very thoughtful and more than a little uncomfortable Blaise Zabini who made her way through the common room and up to her dorm. Maybe it was time for a change…
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Sunday proceeded so smoothly along expected paths that the parties involved started to get nervous, certain that something would have to happen to derail their projections.
Hermione joined Ron and Harry in the common room first thing in the morning, and informed them that Lavender had arisen at the first blush of dawn and slipped out of Gryffindor Tower. As she was relating this piece of news, the charmed Sickles in their pockets gave a single warning buzz, making all three of them jump a little.
"Well, that's step one," Harry muttered. They collected Ginny and headed off to breakfast, with Harry lagging behind a bit to maintain the illusion that he was on the outs with both Ron and Hermione. No one was there to see him turn aside as they passed the headmaster's office and quietly speak the password.
He'd just reached the Great Hall, noticing in passing that both Malfoy and Zabini were seated at the Slytherin table, when the Sickle in his pocket buzzed again, this time with two pulses. He glanced around the Hall and noted that Luna was still absent from the Ravenclaw table. So, that explained whom Blaise had passed the surveillance off to, he thought. Meeting his friends' questioning looks he gave a small nod, and then settled down to the task of loading his plate with the rich, buttery waffles that were always part of Sunday breakfast.
Harry was just finishing mopping up the last bit of strawberry maple syrup when he was disturbed by Lavender sitting down next to him. Was she going to try it now after all? But no, aside from a brief smile she ignored him and concentrated on her own breakfast of rashers and eggs. Peripherally Harry was aware of two more late arrivals as Pansy and Luna settled at their respective House tables. So far, so good…
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Harry scanned the skies for the glint of gold that would indicate the elusive snitch and wondered if the practice was ever going to come to an end. The last game was less than a week away, and while it would take an upset of truly cataclysmic proportions for it to change the outcome of the Cup race, it was also the last game of their school years for a number of the players, himself included. No one wanted to slack off, and his teammates were practicing like the match was going to be against their archrivals the Slytherins instead of the last place Hufflepuffs.
A flash of bright yellow drew his eyes to the stands and he grimaced as Lavender waved to him yet again. She'd made a great show of coming to the practice to cheer him on, and extracted a promise from him to join her afterwards for a 'celebratory bottle of butterbeer'.
He'd found himself hoping that she would somehow realize just what she was doing before she went too far, but that hope was dashed when the Sickle in his pocket gave its final warning of three buzzes. A glance at the stands quickly identified the bushy brown hair of his girlfriend sitting in the stands near the goal Ron was tending, her Omnioculars clearly visible in her hands. Good, if she was using those, there was an excellent chance she'd been able to capture Lavender spiking the bottles for playback later.
A blur of red and gold robes and streaming red hair shot past him, headed towards the rings as Ginny attempted to score another goal against her brother. So far their little impromptu contest was running about neck and neck, with Ginny nudging ahead again as the Quaffle slipped past Ron's guard. "Any sign of the Snitch, Harry?" she called as she came along side.
"Not yet, Ginny. The little bugger's being damned difficult today," Harry admitted.
"Well someone seems to think you've spotted it," she replied, tapping the pocket where her Sickle rested.
"Guess she has more confidence in me than I-whoops!" He shot away from her as his target fluttered into view at the far side of the pitch. A few seconds of aerial acrobatics later the Snitch struggled in his grasp, bringing the practice to a close.
Harry joined his teammates on the ground, his mind only half on Ron's commentary as he critiqued the rest of the players' performance. He'd found his element as team captain, and not even the impending confrontation over Lavender's machinations could distract him from his passion for the game.
Finally he dismissed the team, giving his friend a meaningful glance before heading towards the changing rooms. Harry hopped back on his Firebolt and drifted towards the stands and the girl who waited there with the spiked bottles.
"That was a great practice, Harry!" she called as he settled beside her. "Those Hufflepuffs don't stand a chance!"
Harry shrugged, not really in the mood for much conversation. "It went all right," he replied, setting aside his broom and stripping off his gloves. He'd give her every chance to back out, there was still a chance she'd come to her senses.
Lavender prattled on, clearly nervous and struggling with something, and for a moment he thought she'd actually changed her mind, but then she reached down behind her. "Well, I promised you a cool drink when you finished, I guess I'd better keep my word," she said, lifting two glistening bottles out of a chiller. "They've been kept cold ever since I picked them up at the Three Broomsticks, so they should be really fresh. Here, Harry, this one's yours."
She held out one of the bottles, and Harry gave her a last look before reaching out to take it. The second his hand touched the bottle a familiar voice spoke. "That will be quite enough, Harry."
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AUTHOR'S NOTE: I want to thank everyone who has reviewed so far. This grew out of a plot bunny that attacked me a while ago. Originally the story wasn't going to be more than two chapters, but then Malfoy insisted on getting involved, and then Blaise decided she was tired of playing it safe. The next thing I knew I was learning all about her family and her friendship with Ginny. Who knew? Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it. Next - the conclusion and epilogue