Memory Lane

Chapter 6

Blaise and I arrange a meeting with Dolohov for the following Monday after work. I'd been joking with Blaise about having a date on Friday night for his Polyjuice test, but that's exactly what he does on Saturday.

He comes straight through my Floo Sunday morning looking like a teenage boy who just copped his first feel of a set of tits.

Flinging himself onto my bed, he looks around with a faint expression of distaste before moving to a chair.

"Oh, please. I didn't have anyone over last night," I roll my eyes. "And as if I wouldn't have cleaned up afterwards. You're lucky I didn't, though. What if I was still in bed with her?"

Now it's his turn to snort. "You'd never let them stay this late. It's almost nine."

Well, fair play. I try to look dignified.

"Either way, I didn't have anyone over. If I'm about to be spending almost everything I make, I'm going to have to cut back on the dating."

He nods seriously, and I think how we really are in the same boat.

In a little over a week, I've gone from hating the park and thinking about it as little as possible, spending my spare time enjoying after-work drinks and picking up women, and now for the foreseeable future the park is going to occupy my entire life - and vault.

Blaise might be on an even tighter budget. When he realised I couldn't pull from my inheritance, he said he could wrangle an extra 500 galleons to his share, so he'll be in for 2,500 a month to my 4,000. I was surprised he could swing it. I don't think I make much more than he does, but he has living expenditures I don't have.

I'm curious about his night, though. Mine was boring.

I see him looking at my dresser where there is a conspicuous stack of photos on the corner and I clear my throat.

Tossing a balled-up sock at his head, I say, "You're here to tell me about it, aren't you? So tell me."

He bats away the sock easily and ignores my question.

"Spent your night with those, did you?" He points at the photos where a girl in a spinning dress loops from the one on top.

"Don't be disgusting, Zabini. She's fifteen in those." I pull a grimace.

Yes, fine, she looks shockingly pretty - and I'm not the only one staring, I noticed - but it's not sexual. Mostly I spent my time looking at my own fourteen-year-old face, wondering how many times that expression was on it - and how publicly - before I began learning occlumency from Aunt Bellatrix in sixth year.

"Don't you mean fourteen?" Blaise asks, quick as a dart.

"No, fifteen, her birthday is Septemb -" Realising how perfectly he trapped me, I throw the other dirty sock at him. "Shut up and tell me about spending the night as Harry Potter. How did Snape's Polyjuice work?"

Ha. That wipes the smirk off Blaise. Maybe I should start calling him 'Potter.'

"Have you Polyjuiced before?" I shake my head, wondering why it matters.

"It's weird. I don't know if Snape's new version has modified anything but the time limit, but it's bizarre to change into somebody different. It took a long time to get used to. Ginny was confused at first. I guess I wasn't acting like him, even if I looked like him."

That makes sense, and it could be something to consider before Dolohov rolls it out to the public.

"How'd you get around it?"