Lies By Omission

Chapter One: Aromatic Blaise?

This is dedicated to Treadmillofanxiety!  Your comments made me so happy on my last Bleville, and I literally could not stop smiling. I probably wouldn't have published this here without your comments.  So... here. *shoves this fic at you*

NEVILLE

Neville had heard a lot of things about Blaise Zabini over the years: when they were in First and Second Year, all the girls liked to say he was the "cutest" boy of their year. In third they started saying different words, like "handsome," and "hot." Neville thought a lot about it; occasionally he'd wish they'd look at him that way. Or he'd wonder if Zabini ever saw other people that way, or if it was a one-way street.

He stopped wondering in Fifth Year, when the descriptive words shifted dramatically. Some called him things like "striking," or "dead sexy," or "a catch, for sure." And others called him things like "faggot," and "slag." Neville didn't know if they called him these things because they were homophobic, or because Blaise allegedly lost his virginity near the end of Fourth Year came back Fifth Year utterly hungry. He didn't stop, and when Neville returned for Eighth Year and found out that Blaise had slept with Ginny, he wondered if there was anyone Blaise hadn't slept with within their age range.

Except for him.

Which made him very conflicted. He didn't want to sleep with anybody. And yet... he kind of wished Blaise would want him like that. And it wasn't about just being wanted, because he knew Hannah had liked him for a few years... It was just Blaise. But also, he didn't want to sleep with Blaise. He just wished Blaise would want to sleep with him?

One thing he'd never heard before, though, was "pining."

It was two years after Hogwarts, and after a tentative friendship with Blaise somehow stuck even after they left school, they'd become... friends. True friends. Neville might even say best mates, really. If he was alone in his room, blushing about it.

And even now, best mates and all, he'd still never, ever heard this about Blaise.

"Blaise is a mess, Merlin, Harry, I can't even be around him. I swear I've never seen someone pine so hard in my life." Draco liked to exaggerate everything, but actually sounded as if he meant it.

"Blaise?" Harry's lip quirked up a bit, and he raised an eyebrow at Neville, who tried not to look like his heartbeat had just sped up. "You know about this Neville?"

Neville stuffed a meatball in his mouth, and hid behind his glass of water. He wondered what shade of red he'd turned.

Draco looked like he might laugh. "No, I doubt he has."

Neville looked down, focusing on swirling spaghetti around his fork, and hoped the evening light would make it less obvious how much he desperately wanted to know who. Draco had to know, right? He swallowed. He had to stop caring so much about Blaise. He knew very well that sexual attraction and romantic attraction were two different things; he was a prime example. But where he lacked sexual attraction of any sort, he often wondered if Blaise just... didn't feel romantically attracted to anyone. Ever.

Blaise couldn't help that any more than Neville could help falling in love with Blaise.

But apparently, he did get romantically attracted, once in a blue moon. If Draco was to be trusted. And Draco could be trusted, at least around Harry. Draco always tried to be honest around Harry, and Neville thought that was the sweetest thing he'd seen since Ron presented Hermione with a promise ring.