familiar ; draco malfoy

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

A/N: Hi everyone! After a looooooong time away, I'm finally giving you another chapter. You won't have to wait so long for the next one, I promise.  I've just had so much to deal with in my personal life I could not concentrate on writing at all. But today, I set everything aside to get it done.

This is a rather short one. But I hope you like it anyway because I just couldn't make you wait any longer.  I've missed you all!

I want to thank you for being so patient with me. The story is a long way from over!

Blaise was pacing for the past half hour, a half-empty bottle of fire whiskey in hand. He wasn't even enjoying the drink. Numbness crept into his brain the way it did when he was a kid eating too much ice cream too fast. Ever since Draco became a resident in his home, without his mother's knowledge, Blaise Zabini was on the edge of losing it with every passing second; he thought the alcohol might help him relax, though he insisted it only made him more paranoid. And not just because of his mother.

Draco had laid out before him a plethora of information. Everything that he could afford to tell him. He confided in Blaise as much as he could for the sole reason of making sure Blaise would help him with his plan. After all, they more or less wanted the same things. However, the relief he'd feel by having someone listen to him and offer advice was rather unplanned. And the trust that would later bloom beside them had it's seed planted in those very few days of Draco's stay at Blaise's house.

Draco was no more relaxed than Blaise, but for reasons much different and, as he saw it, much more important. He didn't care about what Blaise's mother would do if she found him there. Thoughts of slaughter and war occupied his brain, his task heavy on his heart.

The boy was drowning in secrets, each more heavy than the rest. He attempted to shove them aside, much like he used to force himself to swallow his mother's bad cooking; but he'd be left with a horrid stomachache and a foul aftertaste.

Neither he nor Blaise were yet aware of the true horror that awaited them. Had they known, perhaps they would have done something differently. Perhaps Blaise would have thought twice before agreeing to Draco's plan. But the true horror lay in the fact that neither boy could have done anything. Anything at all.

„I reckon you understand that I can't tell you everything, right?"

„Oh I understand," said Blaise, „I just refuse to accept it."

„Blaise," Draco stressed, „You'll just have to trust me."

„Trust you," Blaise scoffed. „Right. You've used that word quite a few times tonight."

Draco tried his best to keep his composure. After all, he understood where Blaise's frustration came from. They were not exactly the best of friends- if friends could be a term used to describe them at all. And Draco was asking Blaise to trust him blindly when it came to the life of his cousin, a girl he considered an extension of his own soul. Draco, a Death Eater, was asking Blaise to trust him.

And for some reason quite unknown to him, Blaise did.

Perhaps it was the look in Draco's eyes whenever he thought of Ramona or mentioned her name. He knew Draco could never harm her. The tender possessiveness and care for her well-being was something not many evoked in the white haired wizard, something the episode with Nott very well confirmed, and something Blaise did not think Draco was capable of.

Or perhaps it was because Blaise believed, even though not yet with his entire heart, that Draco could change. That he could be good. Or, better yet, it wasn't entirely about change. Blaise wanted to believe that Draco he wasn't yet rotten nor lost. Each day they spent together bathed Malfoy in an entirely new light, and those few days were completely different from the days they spent together at Hogwarts. Blaise finally got to see that his fellow wizard had a soul. A heart.