ʜᴇᴀᴠᴇɴ ᴏʀ ʜᴇʟʟ ⟶ ɢinny ᴡeasley

ix

Blaise Zabini was not a boy who asked many questions, and he had learned that at only seven years of age.

The boy had come down to have breakfast like any other morning, the fatigue evident in his boyish features, and he had opened his eyes enough to see that his mother was wearing dark clothes and the chair his father used to occupy was now empty. So, like any curious child at that age, it occurred to him to ask: "Where is father?" Just to be told by his mother that he had died that very night of a human condition called cardiac arrest.

So he had learned to keep the questions to himself, in case he went too far and learned something he preferred to have ignored. After the death of his father, young Blaise saw at least five more suitors of his mother enter the manor, and he fell silent day after day, night after night, realizing how over the years, half of them they had died under strange circumstances. Blaise never asked what had happened, fearing his mother's response was as cold as the first time.

Therefore, when Jude Travers had asked him for a strange favor, Blaise had nodded and shut up, keeping the secret. The Slytherin was observant enough to realize that something was wrong with Jude —something worse than normal, he thought more than once— but, once again, he said nothing. The thought that he would invade Jude's personal privacy and take her further away from him danced in his head, and that was the main reason he kept the secret from people like Draco.

Another reason he had decided to do his friend a favor was because, even in times like those when she preferred to be alone, she still trusted Blaise, and the boy wanted to show her that, even as the years went by, he was still there, by her side, willing to do whatever it took for her, and he was proud that Jude still remembered that.

So that night, far from staying in his bed sheltered from the autumn cold, he got up when everyone was in a deep sleep to go into the library. He was especially careful, knowing that he was no longer one of the proteges like the year before, that he did not come across Filch and Mrs. Norris. He looked everywhere before entering the library, and found that Madam Pince was no longer there —which would not have been strange, that lady was obsessed with her books.

He remembered perfectly the message Jude had communicated to him, but still he took a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and read the content once more. After that, he uncovered the curtains that guarded the Forbidden Section of the library and began to search. He didn't even know if he would be successful, but he wasn't going to sit idly by while Jude begged for his help. He came to the corridor of the P —parseltongue, poisonous toadstool, prophecies — prophecies! Blaise wiped the spine of the old book, blowing and coughing slightly from the dust that got into his nose.

"Good night, Mr. Zabini," he heard a shrill voice behind him, and Blaise whirled around, knowing he was discovered. Minerva McGonagall was pointing a lantern at him, and he could see from her features that she was not very happy. "I will not ask you what you were doing here late at night, but I hope you know this is a month worth of detention."

However, that was not how he told Draco, who would be extremely angry if he told him that he had risked his presence in the first Slytherin game because of Jude's follies. The boy was upset, yes, but at least it wasn't for the reasons that Blaise and Jude truly knew. Jude sank into her seat as Blaise recounted how he had made several insolent comments to Filch —a complete and utter lie, as Jude well knew.

"Fuck, that's not fair. That old man still causes trouble, uh?" Draco brushed his hair back, visibly anxious and harassed. "What are we going to do now? McGonagall sure as hell will not let you play if you have detention, that will only increase Gryffindor's chances to win something. Fuck!" Draco screamed again and slammed the plate in front of him, the food now scattered across the table, causing a couple of students to stare at him. "What the hell are you looking at?"