In the Light of Things

For a Very Long Time

It wasn't odd, the situation Blaise currently finds himself in.

With a broad chest pressing him against the wall, heavy breaths hotly coating the clammy skin on his neck, hands spreading and roaming and squeezing his body, leaving trails of fiery want across his skin.

No, these situations he came across quite often, actually.

Usually when Blaise would make show of his stupendous skill at firing hexes in quick succession, which always had a positive everlasting effect on Ron Weasley.

It had started during Magical Law Orientation, when every attendee was required to take a course in self-defense before being sorted into their corresponding department. It was the Partner Project, where Minister for Magic Shacklebolt Kingsley had decreed that all Aurors were to have an Unspeakable with them on their missions.

Made perfect sense, one the brawn, one the brain.

Blaise was registering as an Unspeakable, whereas Ron had obviously already become an Auror. Him attending Orientation was really just a courtesy.

The medical portion of the course had passed quickly, as first-aid is always something widely taught to the young around the Wizarding World. Ward detection and tactic charms was also something that Blaise handled quite well.

All up until the defense portion, in which he hadn't noticed the redhead was part of the course until they had coincidentally become paired, Blaise was fine.

The problem then was that although Blaise was excellent in every portion of the course, especially defense, he hadn't expected having to fire at blue eyes and a charming grin, specifically one he had become so negatively acquainted with in past experiences.

Blaise had been picked to do the firing, while Ron was on the receiving end. He'd frozen, his body locked in place with his wand pointed at Ron's chest when the instructor had shouted at them to begin.

Flashes of the War, of being shot at by people who he'd known all his life because he wasn't killing nor getting killed, of hiding under a boulder before Draco had come to pull him out to drag him to the Room, he'd kept on mumbling something about ending this where it began. Flashes of spectacles and a scar, of bushy hair and clenched fists, of blue eyes and freckles, and flashes of red and yellow and orange all swirling violently.

Climbing, climbing, climbing.

And no matter how high he'd managed to get, the heat insisted, crawling under his skin, pulling the water from his body, scorching any hopes of him getting out of this alive.

Until he could hope.

Because no matter how many wrongs he'd done, there was always going to be one right he could stand by.

Ron had whipped him up, the strength granted to him by adrenaline in that moment was surprising, slinging his body behind him and zoomed off before a flare of Fiendfyre attempted to snatch his robes.

He couldn't even look at Draco, his wide eyes permanently recollecting the possibility of his death mere moments ago, his hands clutched tightly around Ron's middle. Ron was steering with his right hand while his left hand was secured around Blaise's thigh as they sped towards the door, and he knew from then that this boy was his salvation.

Which is why he couldn't fire a simple lung-lock jinx, and he only spared Ron's worried blues a glance before he turned and fled.

The Slytherin had only been hidden in an empty briefing room for exactly five minutes and twenty-six seconds--he'd been counting, it was his only way to calm down--before Weasley had opened the door.