The Thunder in My Heart

Explanations

Hermione was rather grateful that Blaise hadn't ask any questions, he'd just let her pull him along, carefully holding her hand, and listening silently as she barged into the infirmary shouting in a rather freaked out sort of way for Madame Pomfrey. Luckily there weren't any students in as Hermione panic-shouted in a rather garbled fashion that she thought Harry was having a nervous breakdown, or a panic attack, or an anxiety attack, and she wasn't sure, and Madame Pomfrey was needed immediately.

After they had left Harry to sleep with Draco looking after him, Blaise had waited patiently as she showered, and made herself generally more presentable. Then he told her to put on her warm coat, her hat and gloves and took her hand again and lead her down to the main doors of the school and out into the crisp November air. Their breath showed in the cold air and she was grateful for her gloves as they slowly ambled around the lake until they reached one of the pebble beaches.

They stood side-by-side, looking out over the water and watching the ripples made by the giant squid who appeared to be lazily gliding around among the gillyweed patch. She sighed in contentment as the great clock on the clock tower chimed mid-day, and the musical gongs of the clock bells echoed across the silvery-grey water in gentle waves.

Blaise was watching her, an eyebrow lightly raised in question.

'I always love this time of year in Scotland, just before the first snow falls. November seems to make the Scottish landscape a painting of pale blues and soft purples and grey and silver hues. It always feels so calm and hushed.'

'I never saw it before,' he answered quietly. 'It's funny how sometimes you need someone to point these things out. It's very soft and still. It's beautiful.'

'It's nice to see Hogwarts like this, after all that we've been through. This is how I always want to remember it.' She turned to him, 'Blaise, how come you're alright with me, I mean, you talk so easily with me and yet I'm a muggleborn and you're a pureblood...'

He reached out and took her hand, studying it as he spoke. 'Actually, I'm not a pureblood, not all Slytherins are, though we don't tend to shout about it because of the fanatics amongst us. I had to remain very aloof about my past to protect myself. My mother is a pureblood, she comes from a long line of Zabinis, a pure line of Irish wizards. My father was her second husband, one of the infamous seven. My mother and father fell in love long before her first marriage, it was a forbidden relationship and they ran away together after her first husband died. Her family interfered and my father is deceased too, probably under suspicious circumstances at the hand of my grandfather because of his blood status. It didn't seem to matter that he came from a highly respectable Italian bloodline and I have never been allowed to take his surname. I think my mother has always been searching for what she shared with him, at least, that's what I like to think. He was the only one of her husbands who wasn't a pureblood, he was also the only one with whom she had a child. She simply got richer and richer from the rest with their wealth. As my mother's only child, the family have just about accepted me but she brought me up to follow my heart not the legacy that was enforced on her. She taught me that love was more important that blood and has always said that she will embrace the person I choose to love with all her heart.' He paused, staring out over the water again. 'My grandfather is dead now and I'm rather glad Harry won the war. I can be free of all that, I can choose to be me.' He smiled at her and she thought all this pureblood nonsense was rather sad. It was so corrupting and divisive, it was unnecessary and unfounded.

They stood in silence for a while as small white clouds of their misty breath merged above them and dissipated into the air.

'Hermione,' Blaise said, and she was rather flushed to notice his voice had warm honey tones that made her think of winter log fires and fluffy blankets. Then she berated herself for being so soppy because how on earth could someone's voice be like warm fluffy blankets.