Lover of the Light

Pleasing Blaise

[AN] A special thanks to ManoBilli_98 for making the first cover of my story.

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Lover of the Light

Chapter Three: Pleasing Blaise

Neither of them knew exactly how long they sat in opposite sides of the room, just looking at each other, enduring a silence pregnant with tension and uneasiness. She could say it felt like it'd been an hour, but her sense of time had stopped working when she was thrust through the doors of the Zabini mansion. Her ability to do much anything but cry had gone faulty, too, so anything coherent or logical just wasn't working for her in that moment. She was never one for an awkward silence, but hell, nothing about the past few hours was anything but.

The boy on the other side looked almost as uncomfortable as she did, or perhaps more considering his situation. Apparently the loud bang with which she opened and closed the door of the unknown room she marched through had awoken him, for he was placed in the middle of a grand bed. He was intertwined into the silk sheets, black like thick and creamy paint, but he was sitting up and was exposed. His chest was bare, and in the light of the room, his dark skin was more overwhelming. It was a definite factor that made everything worse.

Collecting herself, making sure that there were no more tears wetting her cheeks, Hermione brushed her palms almost aggressively on her face before she stood up weakly from the velvety carpet beneath her. And just as she was about to twist the golden handle of the door, she heard the sheets ruffle, the mattress creak, and several loud footsteps.

"Wait."

Hermione didn't turn when she heard the voice. She kept her hand on the handle and her eyes on the black door of the bedroom she accidentally stumbled into.

The boy behind her cleared his throat. "Wait, please." The polite word sounded foreign in the air, Hermione thought to herself. She wondered if she ever even heard a Slytherin or ignorant pureblood use that word if not to mock someone with their smarmy attitude. "I…Don't go, Hermione."

At that, the brunette girl couldn't help herself—she turned around from her route of escape to find all of Blaise Zabini staring at her. She never really ever gave Zabini much attention or even a thought during her past six years in Hogwarts. He was a prejudice bastard like the rest of those purebloods he associate with, yes, and she overheard his rants a few times during the Slug Club, but other than that the boy knew how to keep to his own. But now he was standing in front of her, a few easily crossed yards from her, and she somehow was seeing two versions of the same boy.

He was tall, a few inches shorter than Ronald she concluded, but still surpassing her and most others. He was broad-shouldered, lean, he bore muscles from the year in the Slytherin Quidditch team, and his skin was the same chocolate-milk color as always. His hair was short, black and faded smoothly; even though he had just woken up it was still all in place. His eyes were emerald green, wide, and rimmed with thick lashes. She was certain he looked exactly like Deon Zabini would've at seventeen.

But even as she could see the Zabini patriarch resemblance in him, she couldn't help but also see the version of the boy she was also familiar with. She saw the arrogant, judging, haughty Slytherin who always had a 'Blood Traitor' to spit out at Ron or Ginny. She even remembered him in flashes during the war—obviously not fighting for her side.

So that's the problem, wasn't it? She didn't know what version of Blaise Zabini she was supposed to be looking at. Was she supposed to be seeing him as a Zabini, a boy that was somehow intertwined in her life now? Or was she supposed to be looking at a member of that notorious group of wizards and witches that wanted nothing more than to kill her and all those they deemed unworthy?